EuroBasket-related politics and curiosities

VILNIUS - EuroBasket fever is felt at every step in Lithuania: supermarkets offer basketball-shaped sweets and ice-cream with a portrait of the Lithuanian national basketball team’s hero Linas Kleiza (though this Toronto Raptors player isn’t playing for the Lithuanian national team at EuroBasket 2011 due to injury, he is taking part in commenting on Lithuania’s games on Lithuanian TV3), people decorate their cars with Lithuanian tricolors or paint their cars’ details, such as mirror supports in yellow-green-red (the latest widespread fashion), the Vilnius TV tower is decorated with the world’s biggest (35 meter diameter) hoop, shining at a 170 meter height at night, and dustbins in Vilnius’ center are also decorated as hoops for a good three-point throw. Foreign and local political leaders also use their arrival at the EuroBasket games for their own self-advertising in a country where, according to the Web site of Le Monde, “basketball is a religion.”

The influx of foreign fans caused quite a visible presence of police in Panevezys, Siauliai, Klaipeda, and Alytus, where EuroBasket started, to be continued at a later stage in Vilnius and Kaunas. Vilnius trolleys are decorated with information for foreign fans warning that prostitution, unlike in a majority of EU countries, is still illegal in Lithuania – the laws are stricter on this issue only in Romania, which is even more Soviet, in this sense. There are also some jollier EuroBasket-related transport news: garbage trucks of the private company VSA Vilnius are decorated with paintings supporting the Lithuanian national basketball team (during the last world football championship they were painted in orange and decorated with slogans supporting Holland’s national team). More good news: one the eve of EuroBasket 2011, Vilnius became the first city in Europe to unveil touch sensitive displays with digital maps in bus shelters. Interactive maps offer useful information on bus and trolley-bus routes and schedules in five languages: Lithuanian, English, German, Russian, and Polish. At the moment, such displays can be found at two bus shelters: Dailes Akademija (“The Art Academy”) and Zaliasis Tiltas (“Green Bridge”) – the number of such bus shelters with interactive maps will increase in the future.

“The biggest danger is terrorism. Another danger is fans. Police officers in civilian clothes will   observe the situation in crowds for safety,” Lithuanian Interior Minister Raimundas Palaitis said at a press conference on Aug. 29, on the eve of EuroBasket. Police officers from Latvia and Georgia also arrived in Lithuania to help their colleagues during the event.
“The biggest danger will be in pubs,” Lithuanian Police Commissioner General Saulius Skvernelis said at the same press conference.

Indeed, all the tickets to the Lithuanian national team’s matches were sold out within several minutes after they appeared on sale on the Internet (the Lithuanians had another several minute possibility to buy them, when foreign countries participating in EuroBasket returned unsold tickets from quotas for their fans) and many Lithuanians choose to watch basketball on big screens in pubs, though there are also other alternatives – many Vilnius residents went to watch live broadcasts from Panevezys, where Lithuania played its games at the first group stage, in the Siemens Arena in Vilnius or Rotuses Square in Vilnius’ Old Town. The fears of the interior minister and the police chief seemed to be exaggerated because basketball fans usually are loud and, at the same time, not aggressive, though the Balkan fans can be an exception (in 1995, the Serbs attacked the Greek embassy in Belgrade after the EuroBasket final of Lithuania vs. Yugoslavia in Athens, because the Greek crowds supported Lithuania).

Foreign and local politicians also use the championship for their own self-promotion – EuroBasket is broadcast in 150 countries to an expected TV audience of 180 million spectators on all continents. Latvian Parliament Chairwoman Solvita Aboltina arrived to watch Latvia vs. France in Siauliai. Although Latvia lost, 89-78, most of the match was tough and Tony Parker, a three-time NBA champion, was forced to work hard to achieve the victory for France. Latvia was supported not only by fans from nearby Latvia, but also by the Siauliai people who choose to cheer for Latvia and Germany at the group stage. The fans from Germany were also quite loud in Siauliai - Dirk Nowitzki, the German national team’s leader (thanks to his talent, his Dallas Mavericks are the current NBA champion), sponsored the arrival of some young Germans to Siauliai. German fans are happy that people in Siauliai, unlike people in Poland during the previous EuroBasket in 2009, can speak English and communicate with them.

Big interest was provoked by the arrival of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to games in Klaipeda. He arrived with his Dutch wife, the Georgian PM, Georgian economy minister, mayor of Tbilisi, the Georgian state ballet (the latter took the opportunity to perform in Klaipeda – Georgia is as obsessed with its PR as Estonia) and 1,500 Georgian fans. The Lithuanian embassy in Tbilisi refused to give visas to 130 Georgians, who were suspected of having intentions of staying forever in the Schengen area, using the EuroBasket-related entry only as a pretext to get a visa, but a majority of the Georgians who applied for visas were not rejected.

The Georgians’ main goal was to watch the game of Georgia vs. Russia in Klaipeda. It was a real replay of the recent Russian-Georgian war. Georgian young, cute female fans wore T-shirts not only with their national symbols, but also with a portrait of Saakashvili, who is regarded by the Kremlin as Russia’s official enemy No. 1. Like in the war, Russia won, 65-58, but the battle was fierce. A Lithuanian commentator at Viasat Baltic Sport did not hide his pro-Georgian sympathies and criticized referees for their alleged pro-Russian judgments.

President Dalia Grybauskaite did not use the opportunity to meet Saakashvili (Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis did meet him) and chose to watch how Lithuania crushed Great Britain’s team in Panevezys, because her foreign policy is in line with other Nordic countries and Germany. This policy is slightly different from her predecessor Valdas Adamkus, who was the European voice of the romantic George W. Bush policy and a big friend of Saakashvili. Anyway, this is a case where the opinion of the political elite and the nation slightly differs – simple Lithuanians love Georgia and supported the Georgian team in Klaipeda, though the fans from Russia do not feel animosity in Lithuania.

On Sept. 1, another game with some political associations took place - Lithuania vs. Poland - though its outcome was predictable: the Lithuanians, cheered by a green T-shirt wearing crowd, crushed the Poles 97-77. During the game, Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius and Janusz Skolimowski, the Polish ambassador to Lithuania, both wearing strict official costumes (Kubilius put a scarf of the Lithuanian fans on his shoulders), sat in the first row near the center line of the court. “Ksystof Lavrinovic,” shouted the arena’s announcer, calling out the name of the only Lithuanian Pole, admired by Lithuanian fans, who plays among 11 ‘pure’ Lithuanians on the Lithuanian national team, but Skolimowksi was not happy – Lavrinovic, who mocks the Polish-ness of Vilnius region’s Poles (“I’m not a Pole, I’m not a Russian – I’m Valyerka Byelorussian” – that could be the self-description of a Lithuanian Pole, according to Lavrinovic), is probably not an ideal Pole for him.

Not a single word and not a single instance of eye contact was noticeable between Kubilius and Skolimowski  - they sat during the game making no gestures or sounds, with facial expressions suitable for a funeral, while the crowd with painted faces and funny wigs cheered behind them. Both men knew: on Sept. 2, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski (“the man of difficult and aggressive character”, according to MEP Vytautas Landsbergis) will launch his Polish propaganda warfare against Lithuania on the pretext of the symbolic introduction of some lessons taught in Lithuanian in schools of the Slavic minorities.
Regardless, all this chauvinist mood fever in Poland makes no impression on Lithuanian basketball fans – they supported the Polish team during its game against Spain because the latter is considered to be Lithuania’s main rival for the gold medal. During EuroBasket, all the political events seem to be rather unimportant for Lithuanians for whom, according to Poland’s Web site sport.pl, “basketball is sport No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3.”

In the evening of Sept. 4, a jolly-looking Kubilius, dressed in a green T-shirt, was screaming and shouting during the Lithuania vs. Spain game in the arena in Panevezys. However, on that day, the current European champion, Spain, with scandalous help from the referees, defeated Lithuania. Lithuanians hope to play against Spain again in the tournament final. According to betting offices, Spain will win the gold, Lithuania will get the silver and Serbia will get the bronze, leaving France in fourth place and Turkey in fifth. Lithuania, a three-time champion at EuroBasket, hopes that betting offices are slightly wrong in their prediction.

Superstitious Spanish fans should watch out – the winning of a second EuroBasket championship title in a row is a bad sign. There were only three countries which won the title twice in a row: Lithuania, Yugoslavia and the USSR. Lithuania, after winning in 1937 and 1939, soon disappeared from the world’s map for 50 years. Yugolsavia and the USSR disappeared as well (hopefully, forever).