Basketball is more than just a sport in Lithuania
Fans staged a big-time public celebration of the team’s bronze medal at EuroBasket. This and more direct from Vilnius.
A long stretch of hot days with temperatures approaching 90 wrapped up this year's summer vacation, which many Lithuanians spent on the Baltic coast at the popular resort of Palanga. And this heat spell was followed by EuroBasket, which meant two hot September weeks for basketball fans—which means just about everybody in Lithuania. In the largest of the three Baltic republics, basketball is more than just a sport; it’s practically a religion! The 12 Lithuanian hoopsters led by charismatic guard Šarūnas “Šaras” Jasikevičius lost only one game, their semifinal showdown with Russia, the eventual tournament winner. Lithuania finished 3rd in the 35th European Basketball Championship held in Spain this year with a 78-69 win over defending champ and world #2-ranked Greece in the consolation round. Bronza mūsų – the bronze is ours – is how Lithuanian TV titled its special broadcast. The nation went into a collective frenzy—following the final buzzer, thousands of jubilant fans packed the streets and squares of Vilnius’ old city on Sunday evening. Monday night, the mayor and deputy mayor were on hand at the airport to welcome the returning heroes. An estimated 15,000 fans attended the rousing midnight homecoming celebration that followed, a big event organized on short notice by the city administration and the Lithuanian Department of Sports, and held downtown on and around the White Bridge over the Neris. There was flag-waving and cries of Lietuva (Lithuania) and Ačiū (thank you) until the wee hours of the morning. And many, many renditions of the basketball hymn “Trys milijonai” (We are only three million, but we never give up…). In accordance with tradition, players and team staff were crowned with oak-leaf chaplets. The next afternoon, President Valdas Adamkus honored them with medals and certificates, and Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas presented captain Ramūnas Šiškauskas with a bonus check in the amount of one million litas (290,000 euros). Lithuania, European champion in 1937, 1939 and 2003, thus automatically qualifies for the Olympic Games next year in Beijing. In 2011, Lithuania will host the European basketball championship tournament.Here’s some news hot off the press from the Vilnius Capital of Culture headquarters: a 128-page “Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009. Culture Live. Handbook” has just been released in English. Divided into 12 monthly sections and lavishly illustrated with stylish B&W photos, this compendium presents a selection of 2009 Capital of Culture and Lithuanian Millennium celebration events, as well as very useful info about Vilnius and its cultural life, personalities and unique features of all sorts. Monthly idea postcards invite interested parties to submit their Capital of Culture project proposals.
One of the projects that will kick off the Vilnius 2009 lineup is “4A” – art and culture from the four “A” continents: America, Asia, Africa and Australia (January). Next up in February is “Icy Baroque,” ice-hewn versions of Vilnius’ highest-profile architectural style. And then there’s “Electronic Baroque” featuring leading-edge technology in October. In March, Vilnius will do justice to its reputation as a great town for jazz—alongside Klaipėda, Kaunas and Birštonas — with a “European Jazz” concert series. In April, about 1,500 boy scouts from all over Europe will convene for a jamboree in Vilnius’ Vingis Park. The Day of Street Music in May will bring hundreds of performers to town. The 1st International Opera Festival in Vilnius in June will showcase St. Petersburg’s legendary Mariinsky (Kirov) Theater and the New Israel Opera; the program will feature musical genres ranging from Baroque to experimental. For the first time, works by Lithuania’s most famous artist, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911), will be shown in the context of well-known contemporaries. In July 2009, Oskaras Koršunovas, currently the most internationally prominent member of Lithuania’s young generation of theatrical directors (born in 1969), will stage a light & water spectacle that visualizes the history of the city of Vilnius from its founding to the present. Among his other current projects, Oskaras Koršunovas will be represented at Stavanger, the 2008 European Capital of Culture, with an open-air production of “Fairytales in Landscape.” One of the truly emblematic events of the 2009 Capital of Culture year will be the 3rd World Congress of Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks) in August. The highlight of the Vilnius-Linz cooperative film festival, “Scanorama” and “Crossing Europe,” will be a showing of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 silent film “La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc” in collaboration with contemporary Lithuanian artists (November). In conjunction with “European Christmas 2009,” the Capital of Culture title will be ceremonially “presented” to Essen, Pécs and Istanbul, the 2010 capitals of culture. Beginning on October 1st of this year, the first Vilnius Capital of Culture guide book (available in Lithuanian, German, English, French, Polish and Russian) can be ordered free of charge online at www.vilnius2009.lt.
By the way: festivalgoers who attended “Be2gether – Music Opens Borders” gave an enthusiastic reception to 30 bands from the rock and alternative scene including international stars of the magnitude of Bloodhound Gang and Morcheeba. This late-August get-together in Norviliškės, a Lithuanian town located directly on the border to Belarus, attracted about 8,000 guests, including many White Russians with their historical white-red-white flag (now banned). Lithuanian authorities made it easy and affordable for White Russians to get a visa to attend this three-day rock festival, the first of its kind in the Baltic region. Support from Vilnius 2009 is designed to make this an annual affair. The aim is to put on a Capital of Culture year rock festival featuring a border-transcending, two-country stage.
Links:
Vilnius 2009Gallery
