The Howling Wolf

Marius Ivaskevicius's grandmother's brother's family was working in a Nazi-occupied match factory. Its German boss had relocated to Vilnius in 1944 and his family moved in along with the matches. That is how Marius came to be in Vilnius. He is aged 30, but he was not a Vilniuser until he was aged 18. He grew up in Moletai, a small town 30 miles north of Vilnius. He came to Vilnius when he started university. Vilnius is changing fast in the 2000s, with building sites everywhere. It has always been thought of as a cosmopolitan city. Perhaps that is why it is getting so European-spirited, even as the rest of the country retreats into provincialism.