Lithuania was the first republic to become independent from the Soviet Union, the transition was radical, every Soviet symbol disappeared, the factories closed, the Russian language stopped being used. After little more than 25 years of independence, this small republic has taken a 180º turn, today a member of the European Union.
The Lithuanian reality, regarding Soviet events, is very sensitive, after suffering a genocide and currently living in constant tension for its neighbor Russia, everything that is linked to the Russian or Soviet is viewed with suspicion and fear in equal parts. Non-Lithuanian ethnic citizens, product of those times of great migrations between Soviet republics, have become an almost invisible collective, even as full citizens, they are really perceived as second class.
Archipelagos tell the story of the Naujoji Vilnia neighborhood, located east of Vilnius, it is an oasis of coexistence, there Russian, Lithuanian, Belarusian or Polish ethnic groups live in harmony, there is a Russian school, Orthodox churches, Cyrillic products and mixed couples. A priori it seems like an integration model but the deeper you go into it the more ghetto it seems.
Because if archipelagos are characterized as something, it is to be united at a distance. They are a whole bound by water, like these cells nursed and separated by a common factor: Russian.
