The 2001 Lithuanian general census found the population of Stašėnai, a dot-on-the-map village whose existence is barely perceptible amid flat and verdant farmland northwest of Vilnius, to be 66 souls. By the next census, a decade later, the figure had fallen to 45. Earlier this week the population of Stašėnai and the fields around it swelled, suddenly and temporarily, to hundreds of soldiers from 11 NATO countries.
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday staff cars rolled up to a tent and disgorged a dozen dignitaries, including the President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė, and the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg. A few …read more
Source: Macleans
