Tech Talk

December 7, 2008

From Lithuanian Heritage July/August 2006

One thing that never ceases to amuse, annoy, sometimes sadden, and often frustrate me is the availability and implementation (or lack there of) of technology in Lithuania. Day to day life bounces back and forth between the two extremes of fully automated, and writing everything down by hand.

One terrific example of the gap in technology lies with the buses and trolleybuses in Vilnius. As some may already know, there are two types of buses in Vilnius, city owned and private, and they circulate on complementary routes. In the last two years since EU integration, several of the city buses have been replaced with sleek new gray ones. They are clean, they go fast and you validate your little paper ticket with a time-stamp machine. On the other hand, the private buses, many of which came second-hand from Germany or Austria (you can tell because of the writing on the side advertising a distant city or ski area), continue to drone through the city streets. If you for some reason choose to ride one of these buses, you must purchase a special ticket. Not, however from one of the kiosks, but upon boarding you will notice that the driver has a companion. This companion, usually a grumpy, middle-aged woman, will come to your seat, take your money and give you a ticket that you must then punch in one of the hole punchers conveniently placed throughout the bus. The same ticket-selling woman also has a little notebook in which one can imagine she dutifully notes the numbers of passengers getting on and off the bus at each stop. If that sounds like fun, then try taking a trolleybus. Avoid the pretty new red ones, they only go a little faster and most of them already smell of sweat. Choose the oldest, most rusty one you can find. Punch your ticket in the hole-punch, and try to grab a seat in the front so you can enjoy the advertisements on the recently installed flat-screen monitor.

My office is on the sixth floor of Spaudos Rumai, a huge chunk of concrete sitting on the edge of Vilnius. It is hot in the summer and cold the rest of the year. Rarely are all three of the elevators working at the same time, and for the last week, the hundreds of people working in the building have had to be satisfied with only one. The ground floor stinks of smoking grease from the kavinė (cafe), but recently they decided to paint several floors of the stairwell fluorescent yellow. In our office, the electricity is often going out due to the huge number of computers pulling more power than the old Soviet building was designed to provide. Adding to the strain on our office’s electrical system, is the oversized plasma TV we got to watch every game of the World Cup of soccer in June and the basketball World Championships in August.

The SEB Vilniaus Bankas branch on Vokiecių gatvė. was recently renovated, and since Europeans—Lithuanians included—are inherently unable to stand in line, there is one of those little number machines provided near the door. It is extremely organized with options for business clients and private clients, and all operations from exchanging money to applying for a home loan. Sadly, it is almost always out of paper. Another common trait among Europeans is their mutual love/obsession for paperwork. When purchasing some good or service, you have the option to request a saskaitą faktūrą. This document is important if you hope to be reimbursed by your company for instance, or if you are a foreigner who plans to request a refund on the VAT (sales tax). Beware when shopping in Maxima (a large grocery store with a little bit of everything similar to Wal-Mart) near the center of Vilnius: there are many foreigners living in that area and they always request a saskaitą faktūrą, which in Maxima* is prepared at the cash register much to the disdain of the other customers standing in line behind.

Last week, I had to exchange a shower curtain at Ermitažas, the “Home Depot” of Eastern Europe. As I stood at the counter waiting for the customer service representative to return my money, I watched as she wrote by hand every detail of the transaction in a large book. Before I could get my money back, I had to go to the cashier and pay for the new curtain, and bring the receipt back to customer service so it could be copied and filed. I really had to wonder what they used the dozen or so computers for that they had behind the counter. Sometime in the late spring, I noticed that the ladies at the post office got computers. Mailing a letter has never taken longer.

*This policy has thankfully changed

Filed under: Daily Life,Lithuania

Tags: clips, Lithuania, Lithuanian Heritage, one way ticket, one way tkt, onewayticket, onewaytkt, tips, Vilnius