by dkv | Sep 29, 2018 | Lithuania
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama made his fourth visit to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during the summer of 2018. The Baltic nations have long held a special meaning to the Tibetan leader, which you can see exemplified in the picture below when the Dalai Lama met with...
by dkv | Aug 22, 2018 | Lithuania
In 1991 the TV Tower in Vilnius had become the symbol of the Lithuanian struggle for freedom. After nearly five decades of the Soviet occupation, Lithuania re-established its independence from the USSR on March 11, 1990. But the Kremlin refused to accept the will of...
by dkv | Aug 19, 2018 | Lithuania
By late evening of August 21, 1991, the Neo-Stalinist Putsch in Moscow was falling apart. I was a 25 year-old American-Lithuanian, and I’d been living in Lithuania since January 1991. I arrived on January 15, 1991, two days after Soviet tanks and soldiers occupied the...
by dkv | Jul 31, 2018 | Lithuania
On the morning of July 31, 1991, I received a phone call that shakes my soul to this very day each time I remember it. “Something horrible has happened. Come to the InfoBureau at once,” Arvydas said. “I was just in the office, working the nightshift,” I said, glancing...
by dkv | Jan 15, 2018 | Lithuania
In Lithuania, on January 13, 1991, the massacre at the Vilnius TV Tower proved a turning point in Lithuania’s struggle for freedom. Once blood was shed, the rules had changed, and the stakes raised. On January 16, 1991 I witnessed the funeral for a martyr of the great...
by dkv | Nov 21, 2017 | Lithuania
The first official Thanksgiving celebrated in Lithuania was back in November 1991. After the collapse of the 1991 August Coup led by Soviet hardliners, Lithuania had finally achieved its independence from the USSR after 50 years of Soviet occupation and had begun the...