About me

Ruslanas IržikevičiusI represent a perestroika generation whose inspiration and dream of an independent Lithuanian came true in 1990.  Few years later I left my homeland to spend almost a decade in the UK, starting in London and finishing in Edinburgh with a Master in History from the University of Edinburgh.  I returned to Lithuania five years ago to discover a ‘different country’ and witnessed another dream coming true.  Lithuania was admitted to the Euroatlantic community.  The historical justice was restored.

Hence, I feel privileged having spent my childhood and teens in the Soviet Union, which evolved from Brezhnev’s stagnation to Gorbachev’s perestroika resulting in the total collapse of the USSR.  I feel privileged living through the moments when the history was in ‘making’ and to some extent taking my part in making this happening. Then witnessing the first steps of the democracy-building later leaving the country to form as a person in the oldest democracy in the world, getting educated there and return to a totally different motherland.

Since 2002 I live and work in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. 

19 Comments Add your own

  • 1. Vilhelm Konnander  |  July 16, 2007 at 9:48 am

    Dear Ruslanas,

    I am so glad to have found my way to your blog, and will follow it with great interest. You are actually one of the first Lithuanian bloggers to write in English, so you are really breaking new ground. Best of luck with your further blogging!

    Yours,

    Vilhelm

  • 2. juan manuel  |  July 28, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    Hi!

    Perhaps you should contact Justin Petrone, who runs a blog about Estonia. He tries to include in his blogroll all the blogs he finds about the Baltics and northern countries.

    http://palun.blogspot.com/2007/07/phjamaade-blogid.html

  • 3. Andris  |  August 3, 2007 at 2:53 am

    I’m blogging about Latvia and I was looking for a good English language blog about Lithuania. Looks like I just found one! I’ll add you to my blogroll.

    My weblog is here:
    http://latvianabroad.blogspot.com

  • 4. Tony Mazeika  |  August 3, 2007 at 9:46 pm

    Dear Ruslanas,
    By all means link to my blog as well. Your news, comments in English are a critical need for Lithuania. The Cold War is back again. Putin’s Russia is utilizing all Russian state resources in an unrelenting English language propaganda campaign againt the Baltic Nations and the West. Who speaks for Lithuania? Lithuanians need to be heard worldwide in the English language. Let us keep the bridge between Lietuva and the United States alive.
    Tony Mazeika
    Founding President,
    Baltic American Freedom league
    Los Angeles, California

  • 5. Zsommand  |  August 15, 2007 at 11:01 pm

    Hi
    We like your blog and we added it to our list.
    http://political-blogs.blogspot.com/

  • 6. Edward Hugh  |  August 21, 2007 at 7:39 pm

    Hi,

    Thanks for the link to my Latvia blog. I heartily enjoy reading your posts and the perspective they offer on Lithuania today, and your complex relations with Russia.

    Living in Catalonia, which has long had tricky relations with its larger Spanish neighbour I can appriate many of the things I read about Lithuania, Estonia etc.

    There are some similarities, and of course some important differences. Spain is now a democracy, and a member of the EU, and has left much of its authoritarian past behind it.

    But still identity issues remain, and don’t easily go away.

    On other matters, I am following the emerging Baltic economic crisis quite closely, and Claus Vistesen and I have now set up a Baltic economy blog where we pool our posts. Claus is mainly following Lithuania, so any insights you can offer on this front would be most welcome.

    Best wishes and good luck,

    Edward

  • 7. Gilles  |  October 21, 2007 at 9:49 am

    Hi Ruslanas,

    I am a French retired in Vilnius since 2 yeras and I have a Blog about Lithuania since one year and a half, probably one of the rare in french about Lithuania from Lithuania. I am happy to discover your Blog, but which has a better quality than mine.

    I am first of all interested by Lithuanian history, and I am currently writing a book about “French people in Lithuania through history”.

    Anyhow, I think I will quickly become a fan of your Blog and. I will add your adress in my favorites.

    Best regards
    Gilles

  • 8. vitalijus  |  October 22, 2007 at 7:25 am

    Sveikas,

    Aciu uz puikius straipsnius ir pastangas kuriant viena pirmuju lietuvisku blog saitu anglu kalba.

    Sekmes Tau

    Best,

    vitalijus lukas

  • 9. Mate Kovacs  |  December 7, 2007 at 6:12 pm

    Hi,

    We are a multicultural advertising agency dealing with campaigns targeting minority ethnic groups in the UK, amongst them Lithuanian communities as well. Can you please inform me about any related events (cultural, art, music, films, formal or informal) for January/February 2008 you are aware of at the moment.

    Thank you very much for your kind support.

    Mate

  • 10. Jennifer  |  January 4, 2008 at 9:32 pm

    Ruslanas,

    Thanks for including so many topics on your blog and keeping your blog updated! I just got a link to your blog with a Google alert and have enjoyed reading through everything.

    Best of luck to you,
    Jennifer

    Chicago, USA

    p.s. — Numbers 6:24-26

  • 11. Pēteris Cedriņš  |  February 16, 2008 at 9:22 am

    Tegyvuoja Lietuva!

    Congratulations on the ninetieth anniversary of your proclamation of independence!

    I mentioned your blog in an interview on LRT yesterday — you can hear it here.

  • 12. Michael Mursko  |  March 11, 2008 at 7:50 pm

    I view your entries with intense interest. Your personal insight is much appreciated. One can familiarize himself with countless volumes of historical accounts and still not grasp the impact such
    events have had on a personal level. And with respect towards national consiousness and identity. Your accounts effectively
    place the all important element of genuine human experience at
    the forefront.

  • 13. Nerijus  |  March 28, 2008 at 1:09 pm

    Very accidentally I came accross this blog. It is really very good. I must admit that I have not seen anything like this being made by Lithuanian(s) before, but with all do respect it looks a little bit disordered and matured if we can call any blog that. Structure it up a little. Make topics. Make us as a readers expect somethink new, compelling interesting apart from what you know Lithuanian and English and read their press.
    I mean could you go for sharper topics, that Lithuania’s media do not bother to cover etc. Make us know where do you stand. Cause for a time being it looks like you saw it once and it looked nice but do we really get more in the future? You know what I mean do you?

  • 14. Ruslanas Iržikevičius  |  April 3, 2008 at 9:47 pm

    Dear Nerijus,

    I greatly appreciate your comment and the feedback. I admit that there are more topics to be covered, with deeper analysis. Never the less, I had to admit that even though there are many events I would love to cover and do it thoroughly but I find it difficult to do so. The reason is a very common amongst the most of the blogers – the severe lack of time. Hence, the least one can do in this case is to post a factual information about an event.

    The main mission of this blog was, as I see it, is to begin introducing Lithuania into the English language blogosphere. As you might have notice there are only very few blogs about Lithuanian current affairs in English. Not to say that there is a scandalous lack of information on the Lithuanian current affairs in English as whole.

    Hence, this blog is directed to those who don’t read Lithuanian and would like to know more about some aspects on the Lithuanian current affairs. However, I am extremely glad that there are many Lithuanian visitors also.

    Therefore, I would call more Lithuanians to start blogs about Lithuania and share some of the burden with me. I extremely happy that some of such blogs are there already. Your can find such on the Links channel. But we need more!

    Nerijus, I will try to post some more analytical articles also, and I would like to thank you for your visits here.

    Ačiū!

  • 15. bieksia  |  April 8, 2008 at 4:50 am

    Greetings Ruslanas,
    I recently received an email with a link which presents a petition to the Lithuanian Republic Seimas in support of DUAL CITIZENSHIP for
    Lithuanians who are living abroad. Perhaps you would consider
    posting the same link to your Blogroll.

    If you have any personal opinions on the subject I of course would
    encourage you to share them with us in a future Blog post.

    http://www.biciulyste.com/dviguba

    Mykolas (a.k.a. bieksia)

  • 16. marianne  |  April 17, 2008 at 1:00 am

    Very interesting blog. We would be interested to post some of your news in our magazine.
    In any case, good continuation
    Marianne Ranke-Cormier

  • 17. Ms Rachy  |  April 19, 2008 at 5:23 am

    Hey, still the politico-historical junkie I see!!

    But well done, this blog definitely fills a need for English-language analysis of Lithuanian society and politics. Keep up the good work :-)

  • 18. Betty Morgan  |  April 19, 2008 at 4:15 pm

    Thank You for this wonderful site!

    As a student of Lithuania I am always delighted to find contemporary Lithuanian political, social, cultural, information IN ENGLISH. Finding your site has made my day, checking in frequently will help keep my research moving forward.

    Thank you, very much

  • 19. Lina  |  April 28, 2008 at 5:05 am

    Labas!

    As like others, it is great pleasure to become aware of your blog.

    Recently, few of us are interested to get to know more about how life is like in Lithuania after EU & also what it may be like in say next 3-5 years or so…especially from the viewpoints of Lithuanians…inside & outside of Lithuania.

    Strangely, I have received negative comments from a well educated Lithuanian who lives outside of Lithuania, for near future of Lithuanians in Lithuania….meaning life will be tough. Moreover, he said that no Lithuanians who have good knowledge will ever return to Lithuania (ps no offence to any one..simply quoting). No explanations was given to why despite query into it…..

    What do you think?

    I am really keen in understanding more…..be it in the respects of economic, social, technology or even political….whichever directions you & perhaps your blog friends here will be willing to comment/discuss.

    Any one interested to discuss through chats/emails?

    Labai aciu.

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