Lithuania in the news
23rd March, 2004
Vilnius - Among Leaders for Quality of Life
Vilnius panorama from Gediminas Hill
The facade of the State Drama Theatre in Vilnius
The capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, has taken fourth best place for quality of life among the cities in Central and Eastern Europe. This is the result of a survey conducted by the consultants "Mercer Human Resources Consulting", which surveyed 215 cities in the world for quality of life. The criteria included medical, environmental, political, cultural, educational, crime rate and other issues.
Vilnius was declared to have a better quality of life than its neighbours - Warsaw (Poland), Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia). Among all the cities of Central and Eastern Europe only Prague (Czech Republic), Budapest (Hungary) and Ljubljana (Slovenia) were deemed to be ahead of Vilnius.
Eglė Špokaitė and Edvardas Smalakys
in Lithuanian Ballet's production of "Giselle".
Photo: Michail Raškovski
The factors in favour of Vilnius included its relatively low crime rate and its high level of cultural activities. In Vilnius there is a lot of theatre, many musical activities, and the very latest films are shown there.
The low crime rate in Vilnius was also noted in a survey last year by Mercer Human Resources Consulting, when Vilnius was declared to be the third safest city in Eastern Europe, sharing that position with Prague and behind only Bratislava and Ljubljana. In fact, Vilnius was seen as safer than some cities in Western Europe, such as Milan, Athens and Rome.

Sources: BNS March 23, 2004, ELTA March 4, 2003