I left Lithuania for 27 years. The country I came back to was not the one I left.
Leaving changes a country twice: first the country changes while you are gone, then your memory refuses to update at the same speed. This is the Lithuania Unscripted origin story — part return, part culture shock, part apology to several excellent bakeries I never expected to find.
You can return home and still arrive as a foreigner. That is inconvenient. It is also a very useful way to write a guide.
I left Lithuania for Britain and spent 27 years away. That sentence is the real beginning of Lithuania Unscripted.
The Lithuania I remembered and the Lithuania I returned to could not be overlaid neatly. Places had improved, habits had changed, food had changed, expectations had changed — and I had changed too. Returning home did not cancel the outsider’s eye. It sharpened it.
That double vision is useful. A local can stop seeing what is unusual. A visitor can see what is unusual but not know what it means. The returnee gets to be confused in both directions.
There is a wider story behind this personal one. Official 2024 preliminary migration data showed 18,934 Lithuanian citizens returning and 9,486 leaving; return exceeded departure for a fifth consecutive year. So “coming back” is no longer merely nostalgia. It is part of present-day Lithuania.
Research note. Lithuanian MFA — 2024 return migration figures ↗