Lithuania Stop

Lithuania is one of the most corrupted countries in European Union. Government is corrupted, judges are corrupted, police is corrupted, bureaucracy is corrupted, preschools are corrupted, and medics are corrupted.

I am fed up with this. Sometimes I think I want to getaway out of my country because of these all idiots.

Why government is corrupted? Prime minister’s wife some years ago bought a big hotel in Vilnius for 1 Litas ( about 0,30 Euro cents). Is this not a corruption? Next prime minister gave the rights to one company to build nuclear power-station without contest. The funny thing is that this company does not intend to build anything. Obvious corruption. Salaries are not big I think and government people can’t resist tantalizing offer. That’s why many important strategic objects are bought by such companies.

Why judges are corrupted? Oh yes, they are believe me. I remember one phrase: ‘money make the World go round”. Especially in Lithuania. If you have money you can buy the justice. It is happening everywhere. You can kill a man and you will not go to jail because you have money. These are not just empty talks. I know one guy who killed one man with his band. All of them were beating poor guy. All of them are guilty but he is in jail alone because his mates were rich father’s children. I have heard about similar accidents in other cities. Oh yes, once I talked with one guy who good connections and he said that everything can be done if you have money, even if you kill a man. Amazing, isn’t it?

Why police is corrupted? They take grafts and even ask for them and the road police mostly. That’s not all - they take grafts in offices also. I remember I have had one accident: a man was running through the street where there were no crosswalk; he hit my car and felt and suddenly got up, said sorry and ran away. I didn’t know what to do and went to the police. In the police station I was called stupid because I had to ring them and wait in the middle of the street. Yeah, stupid me, right? The policeman said that there might be troubles if a person who ran away will go to the police. So, he offered me to bring couple bottles of vodka for him in order to fix this ‘big problem’.
Another funny accident. I was standing 6th in the queue of cars in front of traffic-lights. Some traffic-lights in Lithuania do not show the yellow signal! Well, when the green started to blink I have started my maneuver, got into crossroad and then suddenly the red colour! Police was behind me. Of course, they have stopped me. I tried to explain the situation but…the mission of Lithuanian police is to punish but not warn nor protect. Oh yes, they have offered me to pay in the place. There were 3 of them. ‘Damn, I have only 30 Litas(9 EUR’os)’ - I said. ‘It is ok, we are going to have lunch for this’ - the policeman answered. Hilarious, isn’t it? The Lithuanian police not only takes grafts but also rackets people.

Why bureaucracy is corrupted? If you don’t pay to bureaucrats your problems might disappear or lengthened for a big time. These bureaucrats don’t care about people. Contrariwise, if you pay them they can make any mess which you desire.

Why preschools are a corrupted place? Some say that there are not enough preschools in Lithuania. Especially in big cities and preschools managers take the opportunity to earn some extra cash. If you will not pay your children will stay at home. The graft to get one child into preschool is about 2000 Litas which is about 600 EUR’os. That’s pathetic. The number of people in Lithuania is going down and these bastards make the situation even worse. Of course, there are some ways to get into preschool without paying anything but you have to choose worse variant or record your child into preschool immediately after his/her birth.

Why medics are corrupted? Every time I have to visit them I hate them more and more. Medical treatment in Lithuania is free (it is written in Constitution). It is ok when you go to private clinics but it is completely different situation when you go to public clinics. Nothing much to say - they just don’t care about the patient. If you will not pay to the doctor you will not get any information about your disease or medicine usage. So, people used to give the money to doctors in advance in order to open their mouths. This is illegal but very common in nowadays Lithuania.

All this stuff makes me sick. This is a heritage of Soviet Union or maybe this is the way of life of all Lithuanians to give and take. The EU institutions should take care about it and control it more because Lithuanians themselves are too weak to change anything.

Lithuania is a country of relatives. It is like a small village - everybody knows each other and it is very possible to agree with everybody about the grafts. I believe EU institutions don’t get enough information about Lithuania and don’t know the real situation.

I hope this post will make a little clue to everybody on what is going on in my country.

I wanted to write about it long time ago. Why? Because it is an interesting and funny thing.

Roads in Lithuania are getting better and especially in a countryside because EU donates countryside’s regions more. I live in city Kaunas. It is a second largest city in Lithuania and it has, probably, the worst roads in the whole country. Once I was driving home relaxed from my mom’s house, listened to the music and suddenly bang! That bang was felt pretty badly from the inside of my Seat Leon. I step down my car and carefully looked around. There was a 50 centimetres deep hole! Can you imagine that? It was about one meter from a pavement. I know this must be not a surprise when you drive in Lithuania but damn(!), that was painful. People, because of that, have gathered some experience and now they usually drive in the middle of the road. This is unusual for the Western European but it helps to escape undesirable repair costs.

Another funny thing. People here don’t like to give the way on road. They don’t look at your turning signals at all. They think only about themselves.

For example. There is a traffic jam in the forepart and you have to cross that forepart from non traffic jam line. In a normal country you will get passed but not here. People don’t even want to think about that - they increase the speed and don’t intend to leave the gap. This actually makes me frustrating.

Parking. Parking in Lithuania is another unusual thing. If you have a nice car (or you might think that you have one) and want to show off you usually park in the disable parking place. It is funny to watch brand-new cars in the park place of the disables. Why to walk 50 metres to the shopping mall when you can walk 10 meters? No point - you see. One parking place is not usually enough for those chickens and they take two f them saying - ‘to avoid scratches’. Luckily our government started to punish such road riders but of course not enough because it is still happening.

Speeding. If you have the money - speed as much as you want because you can buy the immunity by simply giving a graft to the policeman. If you are inexperienced in this don’t worry - Lithuanian policeman will ask you about this himself. Probably, it is different with the foreigners but it is always the same with us - Lithuanians. Policemen like to narrate the morals about speeding and inappropriate driving after they catch you but at the end they always suggestively ask ‘What shall we do now?’. In their language it means : ‘Come on dude, just give us some money and get out of our car’. Well, they even negotiate.

Once, I saw a brand-new Mercedes CLS stopped by the police over my window. I saw an unlucky(or maybe not) driver going into the policemen car. After a few seconds one policeman step down from the car  speaking on the phone (it is prohibited in Lithuania for policemen during the work use the personal phones). After 20 seconds he came back and the Mercedes driver came out and drove away. Yeah, I thought he has a good uncle or friend in the authority. Believe it or not but I saw same situation with the same guy once again.

Government people cry about accidents in the roads (Lithuania is the most unsafe country for drivers) but they invest not enough in the facility. Just look what are the roads in Sweden. There is no chance to overtake in some of them and in Lithuania you can overtake everywhere and you can even make donuts on the bridge :))). That’s crazy. I am very pessimistic about all this stuff but I would like to hope that after 20 years the situation will be better.

Should I greet new USA president? I don’t know…

I agree with opinion of mass that Obama will be a better president for the United States and he is going to sort out the US economy. Yes, probably he will and George Bush had to do it long time ago.  The US economy is the main economy in the World.

All right, let’s take a look at all this from political point of view.

When G.W. Bush was a US president Lithuania was accepted into NATO and received a non-visa entry for its citizens to USA.  Bush is a ‘Last action Hero’ and he wanted to help weaker countries. Let’s remember Georgia and Russia conflict: USA was among the first countries which condemn Russia’s military actions. Putin’s Russia used to threaten the Baltic states and other countries always even when the arguments were not really important. Putin’s Russia always likes to demonstrate its power over ex-occupied countries. I guess Putin wants to turn off the attention from domestic problems. OK and where was Bush? He was right behind the weaker countries and always supported them. Thanks to him.

What will Obama do? I think all these weak countries have lost the intercessor. Obama is more liberal then Bush and I don’t think he is going to be as tough as Bush regarding foreign affairs. Everything comes to an end sooner or later and I think the USA dominion in the World will weaken with Obama’s arrival and this is not good at all. Several dominions in the World are not good because it leads to the conflicts and instability. If there were no Putin and Russia were democratic, probably, there were no such predictions from my point of view but sadly it is. I still do not understand why Putin wants to mess up everything? Come on dude, we wanna live in peace.

Before the second World war Lithuania was a member of something similar what is NATO or UN now. Russia has invaded Lithuania in 1940. Guess, if that organization helped us? No, it didn’t because our country is too small and meaningless. Will the World let it happen again? I hope not.