5 Things About Lithuania

Hello friends,
It has been more than 4 months since I came here to Lithuania and there is one more month to spend here before I get back to my home country. While I am here, I decided to give you who either are away from here or do not know this small country some information to make you know Lithuania more.

• For the first time in history, the name of Lithuania was encountered in a book called Annals of Quedlinburg which is a German manuscript copyrighted on 14 February 1009.

"[In 1009] St. Bruno, an archbishop and monk, who was called Boniface, was slain by Pagans during the 11th year of this conversion at the Rus and Lithuanian border, and along with 18 of his followers, entered heaven on March 9th."

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• During 14th century, the Great Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe.

Consolidation of the Lithuanian lands began in the late 12th century. Mindaugas, the first ruler of the Grand Duchy, was crowned as Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253. The pagan state was targeted in the religious crusade by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. The multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state emerged only at the late reign of Gediminas and continued to expand under his son Algirdas. Algirdas's successor Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo in 1386, bringing two major changes in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: conversion to Catholicism and establishment of a dynastic union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.

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• Vilnius is not only the capital, but it is the economical, cultural, educational and political centre of Lithuania.

Vilnius has been rapidly transformed, and the town has emerged as a modern European city. Many of its older buildings have been renovated, and a business and commercial area is being developed into the New City Centre, expected to become the city's main administrative and business district on the north side of the Neris river. This area includes modern residential and retail space, with the municipality building and the 129-metre (423') Europa Tower as its most prominent buildings.

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• The flag of Lithuania consists of a horizontal tricolor of yellow, green and red. It was re-adopted on March 20, 1989, almost a year before the re-establishment of Lithuania's independence and almost three years before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

t was first used in Lithuania's first period of independence (in the 20th century) from 1918 to 1940, which ceased with the occupation first by Soviet Russia and Lithuania's illegal annexation into the Soviet Union, and then by Nazi Germany (1941–44). During the post-World War II Soviet occupation, from 1945 until 1989, the Soviet Lithuanian flag consisted first of a generic red Soviet flag with the name of the republic, then changed to the red flag with white and green bars at the bottom. The last alteration to the current flag occurred in 2004, when the aspect ratio changed from 1:2 to 3:5.

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• Basketball is the most popular and national sport of Lithuania. Lithuanians consider it as the second religion.

Lithuania has won a total of 25 medals at the Olympic Games, including 6 gold medals in athletics, modern pentathlon, shooting, and swimming. Numerous other Lithuanians won Olympic medals representing Soviet Union. Discus thrower Virgilijus Alekna is the most successful Olympic athlete of independent Lithuania, having won gold medals in the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens games, as well as a bronze in 2008 Beijing Olympics and numerous World Championship medals. More recently, the gold medal won by a then 15-year-old swimmer Rūta Meilutytė at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London sparked a rise in popularity for the sport in Lithuania.

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• Lithuania is the last country that accepted Christianity as their religions in Europe.

-Cathedral in Vilnius.

According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll in 2010, 47% of Lithuanian citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", 37% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force", and 12% said that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force".

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