latvia/lithuania: from the black to the baltic sea

7/27/2019 Latvia/Lithuania: From the Black to the Baltic Sea

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From the Black sea to the Baltic sea -- to Latvia & Lithuania. We discoveredEuroExpress Buses complete

with WIFI, coffee service, and picture windows. For a princely sum of $12 you can tour the 2000 lakes, thick

forests, and national parks within Baltic states in style. If I were an expat I would choose Riga or Vilnius. EU

members since 2004 - these stunning cities date back to the 15th century. Both are affordable with european

flavor and the uncrowded, orderly, pristine, english-speaking, transport, streets, and lakes make it a plus.


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The week of summer solstice is a holiday,the country closes down, dresses in traditional garb, jumps over bonfires, and dances up a storm. Sun is bright at 3:30 am.

Music abounds. We sat spellbound with spine-chilling organ :27 feet high, 6,718 pipes; accompanied by full blown choir, in stunning cathedral (below):


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A walk up Palace street (below) is greeted at the end with Virgin Mary wishing you safe travel - Lithuania is 80% Catholic. The road splits here and leads to Russia or Poland.

Russia erased both Poland and Lithuania from the map for over 100 years. Yet, Lithuanians are resilient and bargained with Lenin in the early 1900s to aid the Bolshevik

Revolution in exchange for renewed independence. As a result Lithuania celebrates 2 independence days : one June 1918 and the other in July, 1990 (post-perestroika). They are a

proud young republic known for their electrical engineers, multi-lingual population, and religious tolerance. Their newly-elected President, Dalia Grybauskait, is named the Iron

Lady of Lithuania, she previously headed the EU finance committee and views Margaret Thatcher as her role model. Openly criticizing,government corruption in her inaugural

address she cited the 700 pretrial corruption investigations initiated last year alone, with only 1 person sentenced for abuse of power - none were convicted for bribes, and half are

still awaiting trial. With 2.6MM people, they have 40 parties in parliament and an economy that contracted -18.7% last year, but impressive outreach to EU and U.S.


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Vilnius once housed 400 monasteries - reduced to 4 in 1940 after Nazi occupation. The Cathedral below became a propaganda atheist museum from 1945 -1990 during

Soviet Occupation.


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Walked among numerous lakes and castles. This one dates to the 15th century during Latvias Golden years when they ruled from the Baltic to the Black sea. As a result there are

many Crimeans and Poles, in Lithuania. A Jewish population of 40% until Nazi Occupation - now 2%.

Shakespeare Bar:

A place to ponder after miles of lake/castle walking


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Latvia also has its bridges to nowhere . This one cost the city of Riga $5BILLION, financed by Deutschebank at 46% interest. It is openly discussed in newspapers as a

model for corruption and mismanagement. The corruption story continues in these countries with minigarchs - a smaller version of the Russian Oligarchs. They are government

ministers that happen to own much of the enterprise - for example the Ag minister owns everything from fishcanning, to milk, to confections. The great thing is they are e lecting new

young politicians who appear incorruptible. Their current Prime Minister, Valdis Dombrovskis, is a 40 year old physics whiz and a founding member of the New Era anti-

corruption party. Their Finance minister, Einars Repse, is former head of the Latvian central bank (elected chairman at age 30) and is a fierce corruption-basher who wears leather

pinstripe suits. A good sign, but they face a well entrenched uphill battle. We talked with real estate developer Jerry Wirth, CEO of RBM, above. A native of Wisconsin, he came

here in 1989 with the Peace Corps along with his partner, Roger Pulkrabek, a sugar beet farmer from Minnesota; they were sent to modernize agriculture and later started their own

real estate development company. The building above is located in central Riga and was purchased by RBM in the 1990s but built by Catherine II as a military prison in 1750. In

1990 it had 50 families living in it. Under Latvian Law -- all buildings were de-nationalized in 1990 and given back to original pre-1940 owners. The catch was the original

owners could have their family building back, but current occupants could stay for their current rent for up to 7 years ($2 a month). At the same time owners of the Latvian building

could relocate families if they purchased a newer soviet style apartment for them, further outside town, at a cost of about $10,000 per apt. The renter would then OWN their

apartment and are free to live in it or sell it! As a result, as a previous building owner (or purchaser at a low cost - like RBM) you get your (very run-down) building back,

relocate 50 families at a cost of $500,000, put $1MM dollars into renovation and rent it as office space to newly landed multi-nationals paying western style rents. That

works. ... if you have access to credit. In Lithuania, it was different. They could figure out how to denationalize and return the land, but buildings were owned by a

different owners. So, they simply gave everyone in Lithuania a piece of land in the forest. Therefore, many Lithuanians own dachas or cabins in the forest and soviet

apartments where most live remain un-renovated-- its not pretty, and difficult in winter as Vilnius winters are as cold as North Dakota. All in all, NATO and EU have

been a great influence on the development of these countries. Outreach efforts are impressive to both EU and U.S. to develop IT given their high rankings for electrical

engineers. They need entrepreneurial training and talent: ND Opportunity for partnership!


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St. Annes Cathedral, oldest gothic church in Europe, and the sight of the independence movement led by monks. Ok, no more churches.

On to Oxford - International Business Conference!

latvia/lithuania: from the black to the baltic sea

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