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Capitals of Culture / Meltdownomics / Vilnius / Baltics / European Capital of Culture / → All Tags

Is Vilnius Too Broke To Be A Role Model?

Austrian city Linz is just one of the European capitals of culture for 2009--one's just not enough culture, apparently. The second is the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, a place we rather like, but we're not quite sure they've got the right approach to this whole "culture" thing.

Visit their official website and you'll see the Vilnius gang are already getting worried. Headlining the site is a ramble about re-doing the Capital of Culture budget so that they can save eight million Litas (over $3 million) because of the economic crisis.

So who knows what will remain. We're figuring the New Year's Eve sound and light show is too close to cancel, but will June's culture night and next November's light festival survive the budget cuts?

The good news is we're guessing the haiku project isn't too pricey in the first place, so you'll still be able to read a few Vilnius-inspired three-liners.

Related Stories:
· Vilnius Capital of Culture 2009 [Official Site]
· No Kangaroos But Tons of Culture in Austria in 2009 [Jaunted]
· Vilnius Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: Vilnius CultureLive]

Food / Vilnius / Pizza / → All Tags

Lithuanians Smell a Profit

We can understand trying to trademark a new-car scent for an air-freshener, but Lithuanian pizza parlor chain Cilija has applied for the intellectual property rights to the scent of freshly-baked pizza in the country. If they succeed, they'll be the only pizza parlor in Lithuania that can claim that their pizza smells "freshly-baked".

The stores are extremely popular there--far more than fast-food stalwarts McDonald's or KFC--but the merits of appealing to Lithuanian palates when it comes to pizza are a bit dubious. A tipster writes:

Locals eat pizza with large quantities of ketchup--often drowning a  pizza in so much sauce that you can no longer actually see the pizza. People all  over the world, I suspect, will now associate the Cili company not just  with the aroma of freshly baked pizza, but also with a whiff of rotten apples, and the common scent of nuts.

Amen. We like our slices with wifi, not with anything made by Heinz.

[Image via Rev. DL/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   Cili Review [In Your Pocket]
·   Company Wants to Trademark Pizza Scent [WP]