I didn’t think twice when my friend, who now lives in Tuscany, offered me to visit her there. I only started to explore the Mediterranean region in 2009, when I went to live in Israel, so it was head-on and initially different experience. Later, when I visited , Egypt, , South France and Portugal on shorter trips, I decided that …
Impressions from the May Day gig in Vilnius
Many Lithuanians will tell you that it is not customary to celebrate the International Workers’ Day here, because it brings back bad memories to many. Several important holidays that celebrate emancipation were twisted in the USSR. Women were officially liberated, so the authorities decided that there is no point to demonstrate for women’s rights on the International Women’s Day, it …
Unique early 20th century fashion collection in Vilnius for a year
The Museum of Applied Art in Vilnius hosts Alexandre Vassiliev’s private collection of art nouveau fashion (1890-1914), plus a little bit from 1840s to 1920s. The guide said that due to Vassiliev’s love for Vilnius the museum didn’t even have to pay to host it. Tourists are probably not that interested in international fashion, so the museum is busy welcoming …
Trying to scratch the surface in London
London has become such a usual travel destination for Central and Eastern European people that it would be difficult to surprise them with anything. Cheap flights to most European countries allow going there for business or for pleasure separatly, without the urge to explore everything possible in one go, and some people already go there only for shopping, or academic …
Let it be night 2011
Let It Be Night is an annual festival in Vilnius (see post two years ago). It brings together professional and amateur artists to perform at night. Most of the events are free of charge, and many happen outside. The idea is to make Vilnius more of a night city, which it is not. The festival takes place in June, just …
RIP great Yiddish poet A.Sutzkever + some remarks from his funeral
The world lost a great poet whose lifespan embraced almost an entire century. Lithuanian-born (we’d like to consider so – he was born in Czarist Russia and lived in Poland, but nonetheless was sort of a part of the culture that thrived in Lithuania at the time) Avrom (Abraham) Sutzkever died on 20 January in Tel Aviv.
Tartu: small but dynamic
It’s a bit more than an hour since I returned from a lovely trip to Estonia, and I want to start from the freshest impressions. Those come from Tartu, the second largest city in Estonia. Tartu is known as a student city with a laid-back character. Everything is more or less within a walking distance, so Tartu people consider everything …
Post-conflict, multicultural and other landscapes in Novi Sad and Belgrade
I’m back from Serbia, where I went for my summer school (it was a part of the programme). We went there to study how various aid from international donors impacts (or not) media development. What we saw was, however, different than expected. Most of donor support went to Belgrade. Many people we interviewed in the public radio never had any …
Public and private mixture in Roppongi
Yesterday I spent a few hours in a park near Tokyo Midtown – a shopping and office complex in Roppongi. Me and my friend noticed that there are guards who sometimes walk around. Otherwise it was like every other park. I had been there before, during the Roppongi Art Night events, when the park was filled with balloons with light. …
Outdoor activities in Tokyo
Yesterday we had a chance to experience some outdoor life, because it was a sunny Sunday. We started our trip from Meiji shrine in Harajuku. The area surrounding the shrine had probably the highest concentration of foreigners that I’ve seen in Tokyo this time (I’ve in Japan before, in 2004). Many people, alone, in couples or with their children, went …