In the spring and summer the Baltics have a brightness to them, a crystaline quality much like the sharp, cold air one can see out an airplane window at 30,000 ft. This leads to a feeling of being at the end of something, at a boundary or portal. It is also in contradiction to the common conception (in so far as there is any common conception) of the region as dank and gray. To be sure, the low skies of winter are never lower around the world than they are in Vilnius, or Riga, or Tallinn when the great, dense masses of Baltic clouds shoulder in. However, it is precisely this contrast between electric clarity and misty gloom that gives the place its unmistakable if subtle air of drama: there is potential there, and opportunity for outstanding growth, richness, dynamism, but there is also a maddening provincial inertia. During my time there as a (quasi-) diplomat, I witnessed both the heady progress toward real European integration, even leadership, as well as the exasperating intransigence of an often dull and hunkered-down mindset - of course, healthy skepticism is important, but glum disinterest is just unworkable.
On balance, though, what I will remember about the place are its more exquisite characteristics. The Nordic lines and planes of the people's faces; the bright, defiant streak in the national culture and politics; the white light remaining in the air at dusk in summer. As our departing flight left Vilnius for the last time earlier this week, we ascended through a layer of thin spring fog and rain. After a moment we broke through into a brilliant, hard, clear and open sky. I looked back, but the clouds had closed beneath us, and the city was gone.
