7 tips not to die during winter

Winter has come! Everybody was waiting for it, no snow for Christmas, just rain here and there, well, now the Lithuanian winter is here. -22 ° C this morning in Vilnius and snow since one week.

So here are some tips to survive the cold, from my short experience (physical and mental) in these extreme weather conditions.

1. Hibernation

This is one of the most effective solutions. Close all doors and windows, turn the heat to the maximum and burrow deeply under a thick duvet, putting outside sometimes only one hand, just to grab a cup of tea.

Small problem, this technique, although it is working very well, it also prevents any type of social life and ecological awareness (for heating) …

2. The multilayer technique

I sometimes made fun of my Italian flatmate going outside with a pair of pantyhose under her pants, three pairs of socks, two pairs of gloves, hat, scarf, etc, etc. But actually later, I learned that it is maybe a good idea, when I went in the streets of Vilnius with -18 ° C, with my legs and feet anesthetized and I wondered if it was possible that they stop working suddenly and that I fall down on the floor. Yes, finally, stacking layers is useful for cold.

3.Eating high-fat foods (or the penguin technique)

Eating high-fat foods and a lot of them, because the fat makes insulation. This is a great solution for this Baltic cold. I understand better now why the Lithuanian specialties are made from potatoes and meat. We need fat! Being a bit fat, is like having a piece of clothing more, so imagine, being obese: a fat-coat! The penguins on their ice know what I mean (even if the mystery persists: why their feet are not cold?)

4. Analyze your environment

Fighting with the cold is like jumping into a swimming pool when you can not swim. First, you analyze the safety points that you can grab if needed. It’s the same thing with the cold: when you are surrounded by snow and ice in the streets of Vilnius, your legs and your muscles are paralyzed, your ears change their color and ice stalactites appear on your scarf, it means it’s time to find a survival shelter. When a door opens, no matter which one, you must jump and rush inside.

A supermarket, a bank, a library or a church, the important thing is to pretend to be here for a reason. You can warm up for few minutes and then continue your trip.

5. Learning to slide

When pavements and roads are nothing more than ice, you have to adapt yourself. Getting off the bus, crossing a road or just walking on a pavement becomes an acrobatic show. Ok, maybe only for me, because apparently for Lithuanian people of all ages, there is nothing simpler. I have even seen one of them running on the ice with high heels and shopping bags in the hands!

6. Move, dance, shiver

Whether you’re waiting for a bus or waiting for your friends (always the same ones who are late to get out of the bar …) just do not stand more than ten minutes. Walk, run, jump, dance, even if people think you are crazy, it’s for your health!

7. Vodka is not a good idea!

Drinking alcohol to warm up is not a good idea. Just come back to the tip No. 5 to understand it …

Beautiful Lithuania

The website welovelithuania gathers some beautiful pictures took by different photographers in Lithuania. Here are some of them:

Crazy about fireworks!

Even in normal times, when night falls (at around 4:30 pm during winter), we can heard everywhere in Vilnius some sounds of firecrackers and fireworks, for any occasion. A birthday, a wedding, a good mark in math, anything is possible.

But to celebrate the new year, fireworks are everywhere, in every street corners and endless. Lithuanians LOOOOOOVE fireworks!

Video: 

There is a tradition for most Lithuanians to spend money (sometimes vast amounts of it) on fireworks. From midnight on January 1st, the whole town resounds of the explosions from every neighborhood, every yard, every street. And for most of the night.

A little bit of History :
New Year was especially promoted under the Soviet occupation (1940-1990) when the atheist regime unsuccessfully attempted to move Christmas traditions to New Year (by introducing “New Year trees”, “New Year presents”). Only the state-controlled institutions (such as schools) followed this.

First day of snow

Finally the snow has arrived in Vilnius!

and the next days may be quite cold …

Promotional video for Social Taxi

Here is the video I made to promote the project Social Taxi for which I am volunteering in Lithuania.

10 ways to recognize a Lithuanian Christmas

1. Three days of festivities

Lithuanian Christmas lasts three days. The 24th, 25th and 26th of December. So many days spent around a table wish seems very small compared to the number of dishes prepared for the occasion.

2. Kūčios
Kūčios means Christmas Eve. During this dinner, we do not eat meat, eggs or milk. The tradition also says that we can’t eat anything during this day before dinner.

3. The table plan
The table plan does not mean that you will be sitting next to the new girlfriend of your father’s cousin and you’ll be bored all night long, this plan arranges the dishes on the table, around a central chandelier. A kind of Tetris that only Lithuanians know.

4. Drawing the short straw

On a corner of the table is a straw bouquet rolled-up in newspapers. Each member of the family and guests draws a straw and compare it to those of the others. Those who has the longest one is ensured to be lucky throughout the year.

5. Like a marathon

For the Christmas Eve dinner, there must be at least 12 different dishes on the table. Every guest has to taste at least a little of each dish. They say that if someone skips one dish, he or she will not survive until the day before the next Christmas …

6. “We give thanks to you our Lord Jesus Christ”

Praying before the Christmas Eve dinner is also part of the traditions. Okay, I do not think this is only a Lithuanian tradition, but it was unusual enough for me to talk about it here.

7. A plate for the deceased

We share the ostie with all the guests around the table and also with the spirits of the dead family members thanks to a plate put in the middle of the table. This plate stays here for them during all the night.

8. The Šakotis

This is a typical cake that is eaten on 25th of December. And also for many other occasions (because it’s delicious!)

9. Married in the year!

Before eating a cold soup made from poppy seeds, we put a handful of croutons in our plate. An even number of croutons indicates that you will be a couple before the end of the year, an odd number indicates that you will remain (or become) single.

10. Some strange dishes …

Juice of currants, poppy seeds “milk”, mixed fish with bones reconstructed in the original skin of the fish, black bread with apricots, or “false” rabbit (mysterious pâté in which I still do not know if there is actually some rabbit meat …). Many original and delicious dishes you need to taste at least once in your life!

And a lot of presents!

My Christmas presents: chocolate, sweets, soaps, cheese, eggs, apples, …

Linksmų Kalėdų! (Merry Christmas)

“Les Lituaniens” a book by Marielle Vitureau

This small book written by Marielle Vitureau, journalist for Radio France Internationale and Courrier International in the Baltic states since a decade, tells the story of these people from Northern Europe. It describes the Lithuanian as dynamic, open and stubborn, committed by a rich and tragic history, from the age of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the Nazi and Soviet occupations. Members of the European Union since 2004, they came to the globalization, without abandoning their originality, an attachment to their roots and the pride of being still present on the world map despite their difficult history.

Some extracts:

“Lithuania is also deeply marked by migration, starting in the seventeenth century. Migrants, mainly for economic reasons, however, we observe since 2011, a dynamic of returns intensifies. These returns contradicts the skeptics who see these trips more like a drain than a migration. But thanks to these Lithuanians who made links during years between their country of origin and their new country, a picture of a new global society is built, where the patriotism remains a strong value. “

(Introduction)

“The Soviet Union was destroyed by rock music and jeans,” said the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel with his immense sense of catchphrases. In Lithuania, the country of the Singing Revolution, it was more than relevant. Rock music crossed Lithuania firstly with Antis, year after year, and have sapped the Communist regime in this republic, incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1944. With corrosive lyrics, the band parodied with panache the Soviet world and its vices, like the obsession for decorations applied during that time. Veterans and heroes of all kinds were weighed down under the badges stitched on their jacket. […] The name of the band was also an affront to the Soviet power. Antis has a double meaning in Lithuanian. It means “duck”, but also “disinformation”. A word chosen to protest against the brainwashing of Lithuanians for fifty years by the Soviet propaganda.”

(Le Rockeur de l’indépendance poursuit la lutte)

“Without Vilnius, city far reaches of Europe, Lithuania does not exist. Occupied by the Polishes during the interwar period, capital of a Soviet republic during the fifty years of communist occupation from 1944 to 1990, Vilnius has regained its status of capital only in 1990, when the Parliament declared its independence on March 11th. Multicultural, multiethnic, tolerant, that is how Vilnius looks like for the foreigners. A true palimpsest, narrow streets, courtyards, houses, monuments lead on the way of Lithuanians, but also and mostly Jews, Polishes and Belarusians who gave to Vilnius that reputation. Each community used to call Vilnius in his own language. In Tsarist times, from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, the Russians called the city Vilna. During the interwar period, it became Polish: Wilno. Until their extermination by the Nazis, the majority of the city residents were Jews. This great literary and intellectual center was also known as the Yiddish name, Vilne.”

(Une capitale en cache une autre)

“Is globalization a danger to Lithuania?

This process is very ambivalent and every coin has another side. The positive side of globalization is the fact that a small country like Lithuania became visible and accessible, precisely because of globalization and social networks. We are visible, known, and we can travel. The most negative side is caused by the global social mobility. A stronger economy still attracts talents from one country to a weaker economy. It attracts business people, the middle class and intellectuals. These open doors have created some problem. By the way, Tomas Venclova said, that from this point of view, European Union could represent a bigger danger to Lithuania than was the Soviet Union, because the first one is free and without borders. So there is no other solution than creating a prosperous and attractive country. “

(interview of Leonidas Donskis, philosopher and teacher)

Sounds of Vilnius

“Kita stotelė: Stotis” means  “next stop: station” and that’s what I hear almost every day in the buses and trolleybuses of Vilnius. The sounds of the city are very familiar to me now, so I do not hear them anymore. The journalist Marielle Vitureau had the idea to record these sounds that reflect the atmosphere of Vilnius. Then she gathered them on this virtual map: www.kitastotelestotis.lt

Vocation found for little Lithuanians

Christmas market front of the president palace in Vilnius, 12.06.15

The military service has been abolished in Lithuania in 2008, but after the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the country has strengthened his army, afraid that Russia, also affects the Baltic states. Lithuania has reinstated his military service since last January (2015).
Lithuania will call every year, 3500 young people from 19-26, to serve his country for 9 months. This decision was taken by the current President Dalia Grybauskaite after a meeting with the Lithuanian defense counsel.
During much of the 20th century, the Baltic countries were part of the Soviet Union. After independence in 1991, they quickly submitted applications for accession to NATO and the European Union. In Latvia, the defense minister proposed to add between 2000 and 7000 soldiers, but right now there is no question of reintroducing military service. In Estonia, the question does not arise, since it is still set.

Video: the Sandra’s experience in a wheelchair

We started this project one month ago with Sandra, my Spanish colleague, now the video is online on youtube and facebook.

The idea was that a valid person moves around in Lithuania in a wheelchair, to report in a video the difficulties that disabled people can find on their way. We took one wheelchair, gloves (very important!), 2 cameras and a microphone, and we went to discover Lithuania, by trains, buses, sidewalks and pedestrian streets.

A 26-minute video documentary shows how is the accessibility in the three largest Lithuanian cities: Kaunas, Klaipeda and Vilnius.

                                                            Subtitles here  

Through this adventure, we saw some problems in the public area, the problems that we do not see usually with our eyes of able-bodied people. We needed to see it from a wheelchair to understand how the cities are full of obstacles: broken elevators, special elevators that nobody knows how to use, pavements with stairs, cobbled pedestrian roads, lack of ramp to enter in a restaurant or a coffee place, or non-adapted toilets. Fortunately, all the time, we could see the generosity of people around us. In this way, we saw as well how disabled people are vulnerable and dependent on others.

A rich learning experience for us, wich had showed us how the infrastructure could be improved in the public areas, to make cities accessible to all.