G3-247 Report LITHUANIAN MARKET REPORT
An ever changing landscape
With the final instalment of our coverage of the Baltic States we focus on Lithuania, which although was late joining the gambling party in this region, today has a steady and established industry. However this could all change very soon...
Lithuania is situated to the east of Sweden and Denmark and is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian enclave, to the southwest.
The country has a population of around three million and the capital Vilnius is also the largest city.
The first people settled in Lithuania just after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. For centuries the south eastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by various Baltic tribes and in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, who was crowed as King of Lithuania and the first unified Lithuanian state, the kingdom of Lithuania, was created in 1253.
The King was assassinated in 1263 and pagan Lithuanian became a target of Christian crusades. During the 14th century the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe. At that time Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and parts of Poland and Russia were the territories of the Grand Duchy but with the Lublin Union of 1569 Lithuania and Poland formed a
voluntary two union state – the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.
From the mid 16th century to the mid 17th century cul- ture, arts and education flourished in the country. However the Northern Wars meant the territory was devastated by the Swedish army and later ravaged by the Great Northern War. The war, a plague and a famine wiped out around 40 per cent of the population.
This commonwealth lasted more than two centuries until it eventually collapsed between 1772 and 1795 with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania’s terri- tory.
After World War I Lithuania’s Act of Independence was signed in February 1918 which established the Sovereign State of Lithuania. Then in 1940 the country was occupied first by the Soviet Union and then later by Nazi Germany although as World War II ended the Germans retreated and the Soviet Union stepped in once again.
During Nazi German control they murdered some 190,000 Jews, some 91 per cent of the pre-war Jewish community. The Soviets meanwhile organised massive deportations of Lithuanians to Siberia and complete nationalisations. Between 1944 and 1952 around 100,000 partisans fought a guerrilla war against the soviet system After a landslide victory in the election in March 1990, a year before the formal break up of the Soviet Union, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare the restoration of independent state of Lithuania.
The Soviet Union attempted to suppress the succession by imposing an economic blockade and attacked the Vilnius TV Tower killing civilians.
Today Lithuania has maintained strong democratic tradi- tions. The current head of state, Dalia Grybauskaite was the first female President in the country’s history and this marked a dramatic shift in the Baltic politics after Latvia also elected their first political leader the previous decade
Lithuania lies on the edge of the Northern Plain and has a
9 2
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124