Just in recent years, Lithuania has received over 100,000 migrants from its closest neighbourhood – Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia – that are forming vibrant new communities. Now, Lithuania needs a plan how to prevent them from closing off into cultural ghettoes. 

More than 75,000 refugees came to Lithuania from Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. While some may have already left, the Migration Department’s data suggest that 41,933 Ukrainian refugees held valid residence permits in Lithuania as of March.

In addition to that, almost 49,000 Belarusian citizens were residing in the country at the beginning of the year, according to the Migration Department, many of them having arrived since the mass protests and subsequent repressions of summer 2020.

There are also now more than 15,000 Russian citizens living in Lithuania, many of whom have recently arrived to escape the regime of Vladimir Putin.

In all, therefore, the population foreign citizens from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia amounts to over 100,000, a noticeable presence in a country of 2.8 million. Discussions on how to integrate them are already underway, with many proposals focusing on how to teach them Lithuanian.

‘Tectonic shift’

Even before the recent events in Lithuania’s neighbourhood, the country was home to sizable native Russian- and Polish-speaking communities. Vida Montvydaitė, head of the National Minorities Department, says that the situation of ethnic minorities has changed dramatically in the last decade.

“I remember when the department was set up [by the government], the most pressing issue was the education of Polish community. Who can remember those problems now?” she said during a discussion organised by the National Minorities Department last week.

Although the issue of Polish-language education remains relevant, she added, “ethnic communities in Lithuania are going through a completely new stage, […] a moment of tectonic shift”.

New issues arose following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, when disinformation and propaganda directed at Lithuania’s Russian-speaking communities were thrown into sharp relief.

Lack of integration

Artem Tkachev, from Moscow, fled Russia about two years ago, fearing for his freedom. He settled in Lithuania and has tried not to isolate himself in the narrow circle of his compatriots.

“I have integrated a little into the Belarusian community of refugees and relocants. I have Lithuanian friends and wonderful Lithuanian colleagues. I studied Lithuanian in courses given by the activist Lina Blažytė and in group classes with a wonderful Lithuanian portraitist,” he told LRT.lt.

However, he added, he rarely attends Lithuanian events. Artem regrets that Lithuanian cultural life is passing him by. In general, his interests focus on biology, wildlife conservation, recycling and pollution.

“I don’t feel like a full member of the Lithuanian society yet, I’m not integrated, unfortunately,” he said. “Although I would like to be integrated.”

While he knows some Lithuanian, his social circles are mostly Russian-speaking. “I hardly hang out in the Lithuanian environment. And this is how integration happens,” he added.

United and divided by the Russian language

Gintautas Mažeikis, a philosopher at the Kaunas-based Vytautas Magnus University, notes that Russian-speakers in Lithuania are no longer a homogenous community, having split into multitude of mutually exclusive groups.

“What does it mean to be ‘Russian-speakers in the Baltic states’?” he told LRT RADIO “The Russian-speakers started to split into many groups. They disappeared as a single group and re-emerged as a multitude of sometimes mutually exclusive groups: there are Russian-speaking Belarusians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, Russian-speaking Russians, other Russian speakers.”

Montvydaitė agrees that recent arrivals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are very different from Russian-speaking Lithuanians. The only thing they have in common is the Russian language.

“We [the National Communities Department] and the communities themselves face a question: what should we do with the newcomers, should we organise events in our old cosy circles or try to attract them as well?” she shared.

In her opinion, the newcomers must not be left in the “grey zone”, since that will bring problems in the future.

“It’s necessary to talk about integration […]. And the Russian language must be used for that,” she said.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ethnic Lithuanians have become more hostile to hearing the Russian language in their country, Montvydaitė admits. However, local Russian speakers – as well as ethnic Ukrainians and Poles – played a role in Lithuania’s independence movement and in building up the country since then, she said.

“Today, they have not only a cultural role to play, but also a civic one, and perhaps try to integrate the newcomers,” she believes.

New cultural ghettos?

The Lithuanian society as a whole needs to find ways to integrate creative and cultural potential of the new immigrants, says Olga Polevikova, head of the Old Theatre of Vilnius (called until recently the Russian Drama Theatre).

“There is a huge transformation taking place in the cultural environment, which is not so visible, but it is there,” she said at the National Minorities Department’s discussion, noting that newcomers are adding an entire new cultural layer.

For example, the Belarusian community is actively organising lectures, literary evenings, concerts and educational events for children.

Unfortunately, according to Polevikova, all this vibrant cultural life carries on largely under the radar of the majority of Lithuanians, since the events are not advertised on national media or outside the immediate social circles of those communities that organise them.

“Therefore we get new ghettos,” she said. “And now the question for us, Lithuanian citizens, is this: how do we ourselves imagine this transformation and how can we create conditions so that it can start circulating through the entire Lithuanian society? Yes, there is a language barrier, but this is an issue that can be solved.”

According to Polevikova, it will be very difficult for young Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians who have settled in Lithuania to break out of their linguistic communities and assert themselves in the country’s wider social life without some help from the state.

“I keep asking myself this question: What can we do so that the people who come here can enrich us and take something from us for themselves?” she says.