Lithuania

Depending on how you score it, my relationship with the Baltics goes back more than a decade now. I have special feelings for this part of the world, which I call — and encourage others to call — northeastern Europe.

But it is Lithuania that I have come to know and love the best. I came here first, just for a day, in 2003 while working on the Latvia project with Wally Olins whilst still a student at Oxford, and I am typing this now (June ‘09) in a flat on Vilnius’ Pilies Street which I have rented for the summer. In between — specifically, from September 2008 through March 2009 — I led a project on developing the so-called ‘economic image of Lithuania’ for the nation’s inward investment department, the LDA.

I blogged about the end of that project here, and included a link to the published report. I also blogged about one of my favourite faux countries, the Uzupis Republic, a bohemian neighbourhood here in Vilnius which I hang out in as often as possible. I also posted the short tale of the time I accidentally got lost on my way to Lithuania and spent a wonderful night out in Tallinn, Estonia.