Nemanja Mitrovic
BBC journalist
"Užupis Republic" - it says on a metal sign, not far from the center of Vilnius, next to a bridge from whose metal railing hangs green, red and blue ribbons, as well as a swing decorated with cheerful motifs.
I'm at the border, slowly crossing to the other side of the Vilnius River, after which the capital of Lithuania is named, and stepping onto the soil of the so-called Užupis republic "founded" almost three decades ago.
I'm met by tourists, various locals, and artists with original styles, which can only mean one thing - I'm in the right place.
Right at the entrance to this self-proclaimed, makeshift state and art district, I am greeted by a facility housing the "border control".
I enter with my passport in hand and the intention of asking a simple, but important question.
"How do I get citizenship of the Republic of Užupis?" I ask a woman in her fifties who works in what turns out to be a souvenir shop.
"Well, you'll have to buy some real estate," he replies, half-seriously.
In front of her are two stamps - both stamped on the postcard I bought, but with a lack of enthusiasm she also does it in the passport, saying: "Many tourists do this."
"You must be used to it, that's what happens when you're a tourist attraction," I reply, putting my ID in my backpack.
One print shows today's date, the other the year the "republic" was founded.
"Now you have a visa for a year, and then you have to come back to extend it," the short-haired saleswoman adds with a smile, adjusting her glasses.
"And then I'll have to go back and buy real estate," I jokingly add.
A labyrinth of streets and chance encounters near the Old Town
After a four-hour bus ride through fog-covered plains and small towns, I arrive in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.
Upon exiting the bus, I am greeted by the monumental building of the main train station, several trolleybuses running with their power wires hanging down, and an interesting mural - physicist and Nobel laureate Albert Einstein with sunglasses and a gold chain around his neck.
"Are you from Belgrade?" I thought to myself, because, apart from a few details, like the electric scooters and rental bicycles parked everywhere, this part of Vilnius irresistibly reminded me of the area around the former main train station in the Serbian capital.
I reach the old part of the city through a maze of streets, with rows of dilapidated and renovated facades, as well as several parks without benches.
There are no traffic jams, and even where there is a temporary traffic jam, no one honks or gets annoyed.
"Journalist, is that you?", I hear a familiar voice, as I stand staring, now at a private building with a large Palestinian flag, now at the old building of the Lithuanian National Philharmonic, in front of which hangs the blue and yellow of Ukraine, often seen on state institutions.
I am greeted by Đorđe and Dragan, residents of Banja Luka whom I interviewed for the text and video on the day of the Serbia-Turkey match at the 2025 EuroBasket in Riga, Latvia.
We sit down in a neighboring café for a short break with miniature donuts and homemade kvass, a fermented, grain-based soft drink with raisins floating in it.
"The industrial one I drank in Riga is better," I tell Dragan, who is not at all enthusiastic about the drink he ordered.
The Cathedral and the Miraculous Pavement
In the very heart of the city, where he lives a little over 607.000 people, the historic center of Vilnius, part of the UNESCO World Heritage List since 350, spreads over more than 1994 hectares and is filled with numerous Christian places of worship.
Despite invasions and partial destruction, the Old Town managed to preserve its "natural environment and medieval layout," which, in a way, qualified it for protection.
The first written record of Vilnius dates back to 1323, when it became the capital of Lithuania under Grand Duke Gediminas, whose monument adorns the plateau near another city landmark within the Old Town - the Basilica of Saints Stanislav and Vladislav.
More commonly called Vilnius Cathedral, it was built on the site of a former pagan temple.
It consists of a 57-meter white bell tower and a huge elongated building resembling a Greek temple or at the very least a museum.
The interior of Vilnius' main Catholic place of worship, built and demolished several times, is far more modest - there are numerous paintings hanging on the white walls, huge candles and a gold-gray organ in the gallery.
Right at the entrance to the cathedral is another piece of city and national history - the pavement "A miracle", which means "miracle" in Lithuanian.
This is the place where the Baltic Way ended, a more than 600-kilometer-long human chain formed on August 23, 1989, from Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, through the Latvian capital of Riga, to Vilnius.
Nearly two million people joined hands in a peaceful political protest "demonstrating unity in the effort toward freedom" and independence from the Soviet Union of which these republics were a part - and according to them "under occupation."
The miraculous pavement is now a tourist attraction where wishes are made, but given my bitter experience with the beetle in Riga, I gave up on the ritual.
Watch the video: Like in a movie - a portal connecting cities in Lithuania and Poland
A fairy-tale church and a medieval tower
A few dozen meters away is a hill, on which another symbol of the city stands majestically - Gediminas' Tower, part of the Vilnius castle complex, or rather its remains.
At the foot of the castle are several buildings of the so-called Lower Castle, which partly rests on the Neris (otherwise known as the Vilija) and Vilnius rivers, while the red tower, from which the Lithuanian flag flies, belongs to the Upper Castle.
It can be reached via steep cobblestones and numerous wooden stairs, as well as by a funicular railway that is currently not operating.
"How do you feel about climbing uphill every day since the funicular isn't working?" I ask the tower worker who collects the entrance fee, wiping beads of sweat from her face.
"Closed (it's closed)," he answers me briefly and confusedly in English, referring to the elevator that takes tourists from the foot of the castle to the top and one of the highest points in Vilnius, almost 50 meters above sea level.
From the hill, there is an unreal view of all parts of the city, so on one side, you can see the narrow, intersecting streets of the Old Town and the red roofs of old buildings, and on the other, the glass skyscrapers in the newer part of Vilnius, built after Lithuania gained independence in March 1990.
A phenomenal landscape, a dance of various colors.
The bell towers of dozens of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant places of worship in the Old Town are also visible, and one in particular catches my attention - the Church of St. Anne, built at the end of the 15th century.
If it were built on a nearby hill, as authentic and picturesque as this, as a rare representative of Gothic architecture in the city, I believe it would be a good choice for filming in the adaptation of legendary fairy tales, or at least serve as inspiration for them.
Stepping aside the Bulgarian tourists, I enter this Catholic church, where a colorful interior awaits me, made up of colorful stained glass windows, yellow-and-white ribbons hanging from the ceiling, a 15-bulb chandelier, and a multitude of figures and statues.
Kobayagi Republic
When a colleague asked me in a message, "What is Vilnius like?", I replied, "A nice little town."
It was before I set foot on the territory of the Užupis Republic, the last destination on this short tour of Vilnius.
It made the overall impression better.
An hour earlier, the impression was, one might say, spiced up by a kind of regional delicacy, about which there are numerous disputes - pink kefir and beetroot soup, which in Lithuania is called cold borscht, which literally means "cold borscht (Eastern European soup)".
On the other side of the river (Viljna), which Užupis literally means, less than one square kilometer, lies the settlement of the same name and probably the "smallest, unrecognized republic" in the world.
It has its own currency, symbolically called the horror euro, a president, a council of ministers and a constitution.
Their flag, blue with a "holy hand" with a hole in the middle, flutters from a nearby building, reflecting "impossibility of accepting bribes".
The Užupis Republic was founded by local artists, and the fact that the date of its founding is sometimes given as April 1, 1998, and sometimes as 1997, shows how serious the matter is.
Moving along a small alley right at the beginning of the "state", I meet people with dreadlocks, men in women's clothing, a local dressed in a steampunk style inspired by industrial steam-powered machines, and several members of the hipster subculture.
Occasionally, tourists come across in exotic football jerseys, like the Barbados national team, while incense sticks can be smelled everywhere.
At the end of the alley is the Užupis Art Incubator, one of the oldest buildings in the "republic" and a former squat from the 1990s.
"People still live here, on these upper floors," a local shows me.
Next to it, in the bed of the Vilna River, there are two high chairs for lifeguards, while in a nearby park a group of people are conducting some kind of alternative medicine or quackery therapy - with large stones, wooden forks, and stretching.
There are comparisons of Župis with Christiania in Copenhagen.
However, unlike the "free city" and autonomous zone in the Danish capital founded by hippies more than half a century ago, after squatting it beforehand, there are not too many clear political messages and content here, as is expected in such places.
It seems to me that efforts, ideas, and activities are focused primarily on that part of art that concerns stimulating the human mind, spirit, and senses.
Walking up the main street, uphill, I reach the center of the republic, where in 2002 a statue of the archangel Gabriel was erected, called the "Angel of Užupis", as a symbol of growth and rebirth, while its trumpet heralds a new age of free thought.
Ten meters away is Constitution Avenue, where signs with the text of this "state-forming document" have been placed, in dozens of world languages - without a Serbian version.
Incidentally, the constitution contains 41 articles and was drafted in three hours during the summer of 1998.
The Constitution, among other things, guarantees that "a dog can be a dog" and that "a cat is not obligated to love its owner, but must help when in trouble."
In addition, "everyone has the right to die, but it is not mandatory."
As the sun slowly sets behind the horizon, I rush to the bus to Riga, gathering my impressions along the way.
I pass through the historic center of the city again, where the music of street musicians echoes.
What a send-off, I thought.
The visit to Vilnius is over, and I have not become a citizen of the Užupis Republic.
I later found out that "there is no institution that grants or revokes citizenship", and that "passport or ID card", citizens draw themselves.
All I had to do to get my papers was shout out loud: "I am a citizen of the Republic of Užupis," which, in essence, I could do even now.
However, I will leave the "acquiring citizenship" of the fictional, artistic republic for another time.
When life brings me back to the "nice little town" of Vilnius.
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