Yet another Baltic article in the usual negative mode. When there is something negative to report about the Baltics, by all means report it. But if negative articles are the only ones to ever appear on RT about those countries, then this undermines RT's credibility.

The fact that you come to a Russian news site even though you hate Russia and only post on political messages and never for anything else undermines your own credibility. Its called an Agenda. You have one, grow up and move on.

Marzipan6 you can see how the neo-liberalizer elite brought nothing but hardship to ordinary people. So why are you blaming Russia on this?

Someone will find a way to blame Russia for the plight of the vulnerable in the wake of the neo-liberal economic disaster. This story is the same throughout Eastern Europe, but the Baltic states are by far the biggest victims. For small countries that are not economically diversified due to many objective limitations, the application of the banking model of development was insane. Now, the banks are going to bleed these countries, but the bankers may learn some lessons as well. You cannot squeeze blood from a turnip. There is only so much squeezing to be done, before a real limit of societal endurance is reached. The working population will be forced to absorb the losses to their parents and grandparents. But their own children's future will be dim. Contrary to the banking model of development, there are other models in this world. There is no one model that is the best, as too many factors are at play. The problem that Baltic states are going to encounter is not so much the lack of their own resources and resoursefullness. Their chief problem will remain political reliance on the very model that is destroying them. They will try, stubbornly, to cling to the hopes of "green shoots", or other false hope for a turnaround. They may not want to hear this now, but their only hope for a solid, sustainable economy lies in their own assets and potential, and in their own neighborhood for markets. Everything else is and will remain a fantasy.

What is happening in Lithuania has already happened in Greece and Latvia and, in the USA: California and Michigan and about a dozen other states. When there is no more money, the little people get squashed first. I think it is going to get worse in the next year. I hope those retired and disabled folks can find some remnant of a safety net with friends and family, because the state will not be any help. Here in California, we are getting increased amounts of homeless people, while at the same time the homeless shelters are running out of money and shutting down. The state has cut salaries and some programs in order to erase a $40 billion deficit, but now the bean-counters are predicting another $25 billion deficit here in 2010. I think people should keep in mind: whatever state support is cut this year, will not be coming back next year for most of us. May God watch over those who do not have friends or family they can ask for help.

The report is both true and sad. True when saying that people had to travel hundreds of miles to protest (Lithuania is not big enough - foreigners come). And these foreign friends are always active in supporting violent protests- like the ones a year ago- organised by "Frontas", a party created just before the events with the help of Russian embassy. But the report is also sad- both because no violence this year, and that our friends have to resort to such organisers like Gražulis- known as stupid, clown and corrupt:)

@ Artyom, You are very, very….funny…. Look who is talking about having an agenda….. Just because somebody dares to speak the truth on a Russian site, all of sudden makes or identifies that person as having no credit and with an agenda…. From all of your anti-world posts, I wouldn’t expect you to understand….but it had to be said…. And YES……not every Russian thinks like you…. You are a HATER…….don’t hate so much…..lol

To Sarah: I would leave labels like “neo-liberalizer elite” on packing cases where they belong. In the context of a discussion labels do worse than clarify nothing; they obscure and confuse what they purport to clarify. They are a way of trying to explain without an explanation – things suddenly need no explanation, no clarification, no further analysis and are apparently unworthy worthy of defense once an anonymous someone or something called “the neo-liberalizer elite” (or “neocons” or “Nazis” or “Jews”, etc. etc.) has done it. Labelling closes the mind, it does not open it. As for the Baltics, yes, they have suffered in the global financial crisis, partly due to circumstances over which they have no control and partly due to their own policies. But you are quite wrong when you say their governments have “brought nothing but hardship to ordinary people.” They have brought freedom from foreign occupation and terror, freedom for their people to embrace their own culture and speak their own language in their own land, freedom of travel, association, and speech, freedom to run their own affairs, to join or not join their own alliances, freedom to be who they are, freedom to make their own mistakes if need be. Those freedoms are absolutely priceless, as everyone who has ever suffered their loss will tell you. Even in the “best” Soviet years, the Baltics weren’t as well off as they are today in a world economic crisis, nor as secure. Back then people would have traded almost anything for the privilege of suffering today’s problems. There they had the “freedom” of national prison. Today they have the problems of free men and women. As for “blaming Russia on this,” I didn’t think that I had. However, in 1939 Estonia’s standard of living was similar to Finland’s. If not for the intervening Soviet occupation, Estonia’s economy would still be on a par with Scandinavia, and its experience of the global financial crisis would probably be no greater than theirs.

To Artyom: Everyone has an agenda. The only part of town where you won’t find one is in the cemetery. For reasons of their own, some of which they are actively aware and some of which they are not, Russians have a proclivity to demonize the Baltics. I have a proclivity to take their written material and analyse it on the basis of fact.