Travelling Blog

Travelling Blog · 19.08.2025

Although Daria doesn't have to flee from bombs, rocket attacks, and constant drone strikes to shelters, she is suffering from the Russian war of aggression against her homeland, Ukraine. Seven years ago, Daria moved from Odesa to Vilnius for love. She found a job, learned Lithuanian, got married, made friends, and became part of Lithuanian society. Several times a year, she traveled to Ukraine to visit her family and friends. On February 24, 2022, at 5 a.m., everything changed. A call from her...

Travelling Blog · 18.08.2025

Lina Dikšaitė remembers playing in the dunes around Nida as a child. "We could roam the dunes without limits, even into the Kaliningrad region," says the current director of the Curonian Spit National Park. The Curonian Spit is a narrow, crescent-shaped peninsula of sand dunes stretching almost 100 kilometers between the Baltic Sea and the Curonian Lagoon. This unique habitat, shaped by the interplay of sea, wind, and human influence, belongs partly to Lithuania and partly to Russia. The...

Travelling Blog · 15.08.2025

The history of the small town of Kybartai began with the railway. In the 19th century, a branch line of the St. Petersburg-Warsaw railway was built to the border between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire at Kybartai. This created a connection between the Prussian Eastern Railway and the Russian railway network. This is where the Russian broad gauge railway and the standard gauge met. This made the station, which opened in 1861, an important transshipment point where goods had to be...

Travelling Blog · 14.08.2025

Puńsk is a small town in Poland, about five kilometers from the Lithuanian-Polish border. Eighty percent of the 4,000 inhabitants are Lithuanians, whose families have lived here for centuries. Historically, Puńsk belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and was later part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After World War I, when Poland and Lithuania gained their independence, the borders between the two states were established. Puńsk has been part of Poland ever since. Witold Liszkowski...

Travelling Blog · 12.08.2025

The Belarusian Cultural Center, nestled in a Vilnius Old Town courtyard, is more than just a meeting place. The Lithuanian capital has long been a significant refuge for people from Belarus, and as such, the center is deeply intertwined with the history of the Belarusian independence movement and its diaspora. Paulina Vitušcanka, a 32-year-old historian who is one of the manager of the center, embodies this connection. Her parents came to Vilnius in the late 1980s to study. They were both...

Travelling Blog · 07.08.2025

Are the EU's sanctions and restrictive visa policies driving Belarusian society into dependence on Moscow? Andrei Vazyanau, an assistant professor at European Humanitarian University in Vilnius, has a clear opinion on the matter: Belarusian society is experiencing the effects of a resurgent Iron Curtain between the West and Russia most acutely. He advocates for a separate approach to sanctions for Russia and Belarus, and for supporting Belarusian civil society in its struggle for independence...

Travelling Blog · 06.08.2025

The number 50 on the flower bed seems a little small. Is there not much to celebrate? Or is 50 years a relatively young age for a city? Visaginas is, in fact, the youngest city in Lithuania. The sole reason it was founded in 1975 was the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, located about 10 kilometers away. The plant was intended to be the largest nuclear power station in the Soviet Union. When it was commissioned in 1983, it was already considered the most powerful plant in the world, designed to...

Travelling Blog · 03.08.2025

At the closed Silene border crossing, where once bustling traffic flowed between Latvia and Belarus, Raimonds Kublickis, head of the State Border Guard (Valsts Robežsardze) in the Daugavpils region, explains the situation. Today, massive concrete blocks and anti-tank barriers made of metal secure the crossing. His words leave no doubt about the gravity of the situation: "The State Border Guard of Latvia is confronted not only with an immigration crisis but with hybrid warfare waged by the...

Travelling Blog · 02.08.2025

Josifs Ročko was born in 1948 as a Jew in Daugavpils, eastern Latvia. His father was one of the few survivors of the Daugavpils Ghetto. His mother emigrated to Russia and returned to her hometown after the war. His father lost his entire family during the Holocaust; all were shot. Fifteen years ago, Josifs Ročko began to research the history of Jews in Daugavpils and Latgale. He has published several books and established a museum on the first floor of the synagogue. We arranged to meet on a...

Travelling Blog · 01.08.2025

Zeimuls is Latgalian and means ‘pencil’. Zeimuls is also the name of the creative centre for children and young people in Rēzekne, a town with around 27,000 inhabitants in eastern Latvia in Latgalia. Directly opposite the medieval remains of a castle belonging to the Livonian Order stands a futuristic building where children and young people aged four and above can discover their talents. Headmistress Līga Springa explains that around 1,600 children can discover their talents here in 80...