Essay About Lithuania

I wanted to share my essay about Lithuania.Erasmus Internship Report 2010.I hope it will be useful for you.


My Opinion About Lithuania, Working Conditions, Traditions, Differences from My Home Country
The present situation on the job market of Lithuania is quite complicated. Despite huge migration of working force to other EU countries (Ireland, Norway, Denmark) there are still high rates of unemployment in Lithuania. According to the 2010 statistics unemployment percentage is 10% for females and 17% for males in Lithuania. Some of these unemployed people get financial support from government, which is quite low to afford living. The minimum salary in Lithuania is around 700 litas without taxes. There is a contract system in Lithuania which can be criticized but after all it stays the most reliable system in Europe and provides employees with all social guarantees.
The positive tendency is that about 2/3 of employees work in private sector of economics, which means that there is a good climate for small and middle business in Lithuania. At the same time it means that the effect of the world economic crisis was greater because of existence of so many small and middle businesses.
After the Soviet system collapsed Lithuania got political and economic support from EU countries which helped Lithuania to become one of EU members in 2004. Lithuania was planning to introduce Euro currency in the same year but the inflation rate was a little high for it. The planned date to introduce Euro is postponed to 2014. The currency which is used in Lithuania is Litas, 1 Euro is equal to 3,45 litas this rate was nearly same for years but the rate between Litas and Turkish Lira is always changeable last year 1 Lira was equal to 1,45 Litas but right now 1 Lira is equal to 1,76 Litas the reason why it’s so changeable should be because of the high inflation rate in Turkey.
Lithuania is a country which is situated in the middle of geographical Europe what creates a complicated geopolitical position. After 1939 it got under the Soviet influence for 6 decades what produced negative economic, political and social effect on the Baltic States. Lithuania was the 1st country to leave USSR and start literally from zero: reform political and economic sector from the very foundations. These politics were successful enough and now we can see positive transition from industry to human service.
Lithuania has about 3.7 million population and about 81% of population is Lithuanians, 9% Russians and 6.7% Polish however more than 1 million Lithuanians live outside of Lithuania .
Lithuania is a small country with its unique traditions: language, crafts, cuisine. Lithuanian language is one of the two languages of the Baltic language group that are still alive. Local people are very proud of it due to the conservative political ideology. Still liberal streams are very strong. In all other cultural spheres Lithuania resembles all other countries in Eastern Europe region (Belarus, Latvia, Eastern Poland). Lithuanians are mostly Catholics with a great number of neo-pagans (which is still not official religion) or free-minders. National cuisine is represented by potato and meat dishes. National holidays stress the history of Lithuania (King Mindaugas Coronation), pagan religious traditions (Uzgavenes) and late political events (2 Independence Days). Lithuanians are fond of sports, especially basketball and they show very high results in it.
1 http://www.stat.gov.lt/lt/pages/view/?id=1302
2 http://www.worldwide-tax.com/lithuania/litpopulation.asp

Thanks a lot to Katerina Kovalkova who helped and inspired me to write this internship report.
Hasan Ceylan
hasan_ceylan89@hotmail.com