If you didn't watch the Latvia episode, it basically goes like this:

Come play with us, Estonia!

Welcome to the creepier Baltic sister, Lithuania.

Everybody, I'm your host Barbs.

Okay, once again I know some of you guys are kinda like:

"Come on, Barbs, stop calling the two countries creepy!"

But my response to that would be, "It's kinda true and it's not necessarily a bad thing if used in a charming way!"

Some people like creepy!

I mean, just capitalize off of it!

I mean Latvia made that Prison Hotel, Turkmenistan did that thing with the burning hole,

Belize made bank of off whale vomit!

Haha! Who knew that stuff would be so expensive off the market, anyway, huh!

Cha-ching!

Okay, we need to get back to Lithuania!

Let's find out where it is, now, shall we?

Now, Lithuania may be the largest Baltic country in size,

but it kinda got the short end of the stick when it comes to coastline.

First of all, the country is located in the area of Europe known as "The Baltic",

which, no shocker, borders the Baltic Sea to the north.

The nation is divided into 10 counties, with the capital Vilnius, located in the south.

They're also surrounded by four countries,

(remember this chopped-off exclave Kaliningrad belongs to Russia),

in which they this long famous, stretch of land known as the Curonian Spit,

the 98 kilometer long sandy barricade with dunes,

about 54 kilometers of which belong to Lithuania,

and it all effectively cuts off the entire Curonian Lagoon,

except for this small opening at the port of Klaipeda.

This is literally where almost all seabound shipping comes into Lithuania.

I mean, come on,

nobody's gonna deliver cargo at that dinky little dock at Palanga.

So, essentially,

Russia has the bigger portion of the (Curonian) Lagoon,

but Lithuania has the only way out.

(Russian accent) Eh, we don't need,

we have opening at Vistula Lagoon on Straight of Baltysk.

It has funny looking star fortress thing to welcome you!

(Default accent) Oh, Russia! I can't wait to do your episode.

The largest cities after Vilnius are:

Kaunas (wrong pronounciation?),

and the city we just talked about, Klaipeda.

And surprisingly, for such a small country,

they actually have FOUR international airports.

They busiest in order being:

Vilnius,

Vilnius, Kaunas,

Vilnius, Kaunas, Palanga,

and Šiauliai Internationals.

Now here's a thing:

Lithuania is proud to claim that they

''debatably''

have the geographical center of Europe.

Like they literally even built a monument and sculpture park next to showcase it.

Belarus: Nope.

Estonia: Uh-uh.

Slovakia: WRONG!

Ukraine: NO!

Hungary: Hah! No.

Really? Hungary? Even you?

Hungary: Yup.

Estonia, Slovakia, Belarus and Ukraine: No!

Lithuania: I mean, the Guiness Book of World Records recognizes my village of --

Estonia, Slovakia, Belarus and Ukraine: No!

Make of it what you will.

The country doesn't have any territorial anomialies or disputes,

except for kind of a maritime dispute with Latvia up north,

something about oil reserves.

And there's that weird salient (panhandle) that juts into Belarus.

I think we already talked about that in the Belarus episode, did we?

(And let's not even get started on Lithuania was like:

"Eh, I'm just gonna take this Dieveniškių istorinis national park from you guys,

even if it does give me like a 1 mile wide corridor to reach it.")

Hmph. Yeah. We did. Huh.

Well, cool, I guess I don't wanna discuss it.

Minimal Effort!

Funny enough, there is a micronation in Lithuania,

the republic of Užupis

which is actually just one those Bohemic hippie-ish neighborhoods

in the capital of Vilnius.

They kinda want to be edgy and cool,

much like Freetown Christiania that we studied in the Denmark episode.

-He he,

self-proclaimed but

unrecognized autonomy is like...

...so dope.

-Lithuania does kinda have a dark past;

I mean, they did played a huge role in holocaust during World War Two,

they *have* one of the most significant

Jewish populations in Europe,

once nicknamed: ''The Jerusalem of the north''.

Nearly the entire population of about a quarter million was killed by Nazis

with a huge massacre at Ponary.

Many were sent to the HKP 562 forced labor camp in Vilnius.

Today various memorials and museums and exibitions can be found

to commemorate the incident.

Also, due to high emmigration rate after joining the EU,

many towns started to see houses and buildings and properties

left unintended and decaying,

like the Ignalina nuclear power plant,

the Palace of sports and concerts,

the Trade unions building,

the Plokštine nuclear launch site,

yeah, nuclear launch site.

So yeah, that kinda sets the mood, right?

Oh, they also have a Devil's museum...

...and a KGB experience in a former Soviet bunker

where you can pay to pretend to be a prisoner getting yelled at

and interrogated, complete with guard dogs and everything.

Charming!

Speaking of which,

some places of interest might include:

and keep in mind,

I would not really pronounce these Baltic words,

'cause they're so hard...

THESE castles,

THIS monastery,

the Liberty Boulevard,

the Hill of 3 crosses,

the Monument of victims of Facism,

the funicular railway of THIS place,

the Museum of the blind,

the Cat museum,

the Museum of illusions,

the Frank Zappa Memorial,

the pan house,

the Orvidas garden,

and finally, the two most iconic culture landmarks that might really

give you a feel of what Lithuania is all about:

the Hill of Crosses, which has over 100.000 crosses,

and nobody really knows why it got started that way,

and even though the Vatican says it's a holy place full of power,

the locals think that it's kind of creepy,

and the Hill of Witches, a sculpture park

with sinister-looking carved wood images depicting characters from

ancient Lithuanian folklore from back in the Pagan days.

So yeah, Lithuania is kind of like a weird pagan-y, Catholic-y

forest-loving technology advancing but kind of reserved an overcast country.

So much to cover, let's start with those forests.

Well, here we are again for the third time explaining basically, the same thing

that we discussed in the Latvia and Estonia episodes.

I know you're gonna be tempting to skip through this section

so to keep you watching, here's Keith on bass:

Is that all you want?

Lithuania or "Lietuva" gets its name from "Lietus va",

which means "rain here", symbolizing the abundance of rain and fertile land.

First of all, the country is made up of four general parts:

The Flat Coast,

the slightly Higher Uplands,

the Middle Lowlands

and the Baltic Highlands.

Here you can find the tallest point: Aukštojas,

at only about 293 meters in elevation,

making Lithuania the flattest of the Blatic States.

Admist everthing, at over third of the country you will find (just like the other Baltic States)

a plethora of boggy marshlands and swamps as well as forests.

The longest river being the Neman which starts in Belarus flowing through Kaunas.

blocking into the Kaunas reservoir.

However the largest lake would be lake Drūkšiai, shared partially with Belarus...

Wait, did I mention that in the Belarus episode??

(Also you have an island split between Belarus and Lithuania in lake Riču,

and 2 islands and 2 peninsulas in lake Drūkšiai or Drisviaty.)

Dang! I did a good job on the Belarus episode.

I'm making my job so much easier for me.

Oh, The national animal is the stork.

Lithuania also has the highest nesting density for storks in the world.

They believe it's good luck for storks nesting near your house.

They even have a holiday dedicated to them on March 25th.

So anyway!

Resources. One thing that Lithuania is famous for is amber.

The Baltic coast has the largest known natural amber deposits in the world

and Lithuania was pretty much the place where it all started in the town of

"Juodkrantė" (tries to pronounce)

I'm not even gonna try that again...

Otherwise, much of the land is arable, over 1/3 is cultivated.

Some national dishes of Lithuania might include things like:

Cold beet soup,

Stuffed cabbage rolls,

That "Kastinys" dairy product thing,

Ant hill cake,

Tree cake,

Poppy seed rolls,

Blood soup

and Liliputas cheese.

Para todos los hispanohablantes, sí sí, también lo escuché. Calma a todos.

And probably the most iconic dish: Potato dumplings.

Phew! Got through that section.

Now, let's meet the Lithuanians, shall we?

WAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Nah, Lithuanians are fine and dandy like cotton candy.

Remember that Lithuanian geograpeep, Geidrė that I met in Tokyo?

She was cool. And Geidrė, I literally tried to hit you up for this episode.

Did I get some information? But I couldn't find your email. I don't know.

If you are watching this right now, let me know what you think. Was it accurate

So anyway...

The country has about 2.8 million people and is the largest economy in the Baltics

with the highest GDP as well. The majority of the country identify as ethnically Lithuanian,

about 6% are Poles, 5% Russian

and the rest are other groups, mostly Slavs like Ukrainians and Belarusians

with a few other minority groups mixed in as well.

They use the Euro as their currency, the type C-plug outlet

and they drive on the right side of the road.

Now if you really want to get a feel of everything "Baltic",

Lithuania is kind of like the epicenter.

The Baltics were the last places in Europe to convert to Christianity and to this day

(like Latvia and Estonia),

ancient Pagan traditions and folklore still live on through festivals, artwork and traditions.

In a nutshell though, Lithuania was more Catholic influence

and Latvia was more Protestant influence.

Lithuania joined Poland in the Commonwealth and became at one point, the largest country in Europe

while Latvia was taken over by the Germans and Prussians and whatnot.

First of all, the language.

As mentioned before, Latvian and Lithuanian are the only two surviving Baltic languages left in the world.

Their older brother, Old Prussian died out in the 18th century.

And these two languages are ancient like, older than Greek.

Half the words and names end in 's'

and like half of everthing ends in like "inus?" or "?".

Lithuanian is disputably the oldest Indo-European language still in use.

Some say it even still retains words that were related to ancient Sanskrit

originated in India.

Yeah, India!

For example:

Sanskrit: agnis vs Lithuanian: ugnis

Sanskrit: vajus vs Lithuanian: vejas

Sanskrit: devas Lithuanian: dievas

And the list goes on an on.

It's pretty strange how close the coincidences when you look into it.

Oh and to say "Thank you" in Lithuanian,

All you have to do is 'Sneeze'. Like literally, the word for "Thank you" is "Ačiū!"

Now if you don't know anything about the Baltics,

this region has the highest ration of two things:

Blond-haired blue-eyed people and women to men.

Numbers usually switch off every so often but Lithuania usually ranks second or third between Latvia and Estonia

when it comes to male and female ratios

ranging between 0.88 males for every female.

This is partially due to a number of factors such as large portions of the male population being kill off during war times.

Mortality rates caused by things like smoking or alcoholism

and...

Suicide.

Here at Geography Now, we don't gloss over the controversy but try to report it as objectively as possible.