They fit into the "15-minute city" idea, where you have 90 % of daily/weekly need of basic goods and services within 15 minutes of walking distance, so you don't have to have a car to buy food if you can't afford the car or if you simply don't want to own one.
@@shemica16 Sure they might have not been the inventors, but they implemented it with great efficiency! And now we have wonderful examples of 15 minute cities like Fabijoniskes, Naujoji Vilnia, Pilaite, etc.
It has a strange advantage though, I have managed to learn those words: lažybos, lošimas, automatas. There is a tiny chance I would use any of those words, but in general, it is known that you easily learn a word by repeating it.
They pay the most and business people have no morals. It's cancer. If I had to choose I would rather ban gambling ads than alcohol. At least alcohol (even cigarette) ads where not as annoying as this shit.
the topsport betting places are extremely annoying, in my local center after they renovated the building they got rid of a small flower shop inside and made the betting place bigger
Great video, as usual. Lithuanian shopping model is somewhere between North American and European style shopping, perhaps still being closer to the European one. Many Lithuanian supermarkets/shopping centres are not very conveniently accessible for pedestrians. Very unfortunately, Lithuanian cities are still somewhat going for the car-centric approach in many cases. Not as bad as in North America where it is mostly to do with absurd zoning laws, but we're still not doing great in the wider European context with our love for cars. Even compared to Poland. Which is where we come to another annoying feature of Lithuanian shopping: lack of small supermarkets/corner shops/convenience stores. There are more of them than a few years ago, but if you've ever been to Poland, you've probably seen those tiny Žabka supermarkets, sometimes within metres from one another, and they're everywhere! I really really wish to have similar convenience store availability in Lithuania.
As someone who lives both in Šilutė and Klaipėda I kindly disagree. Lithuanian shopping model completely resembles typical European shopping experience and style. It's very convenient and where i live in Šilutė there are 3 Maxima, 1 Iki , 1Ldl , 2-3 Norfa , 1 TopoCentras , 1 Technorama , 1 Vynoteka , 1 Senukai, 2-3 Bookstores, and many other shops that serve your everyday needs, and all of them accessible from 2 - 10 minute walk. You can walk all around Šilute and even outside city limits on perfectly made pedestrian and bicycle paths. You absolutely don't need a car here, same in Klaipėda.
@@AsgogaThere's actually 2 Iki and 2 Norfa stores and 2 bookstores (dedicated bookstores of course) 🐸 Also the pedestrian/bicycle path to Rusnė has a missing section of over 1 km where there's no proper path between the hospital and the fairly recent Rusnė bridge/overpass (but the path to Žemaičių Naumiestis is interesting though)
'The Prekybos Centras' reminded me of something that you might be interested to learn about the Lithuanian language :) Lithuanian actually does have definite and indefinite articles (they're put at the end of the adjectives), and thus you can make nouns definite or indefinite (?) :) For it to work, you must make adjective definite first. For example: Graži mašina (Nice car) and Gražioji mašina (the Nice car) or Saulėta vasara (Sunny summer) and Saulėtoji vasara (the Sunny summer). And in the spirit of this video: Didelis prekybos centras and Didysis prekybos centras. Thanks for the video :)
Those are not definite or indefinite articles. Those are definite forms of adjectives. Articles stand on their own and Lithuanian for sure doesn't have them. Even those definitive forms of adjectives are mostly used in writen language, no one says "mano gražioji mašina" or "tavo baltoji katė". You can hear "mieloji mama" for sure, but that is a rare exception.
Well ofc it's good, since it fits some level of social activities and item specific shops for whom otherwise you'd have to go further away from your home. Since majority of them are in a way compact, it's an almost fool proof model that allows businesses to plop one down no matter the size of a settlement both in and outside the city limits. It's also serves as mini social gathering place both inside but more often outside - which is good either way.
Congrats on 10k subscribers! I really do love the neighborhood shopping centers, there is a MAXIMA on the other side of the road where I live. It isn't big, but you can find several supermarkets only walking 10-20 minutes.
I am very glad that those shopping centers are at a walkable distance, of course. I go where everyday, so I don’t have to store plenty of stuff at home.
even Kaisiadorys has one! Pasazas! Nice little place, exactly as you described: walking distance from everywhere with just enough shops/services to meet your needs!
0:18 i was visiting my grand mother in lithuania recently, that footage is from the area she lives in. Boltopei or something like that. Now im back in my home town Frankfurt, and i must say i liked it there more. Everything is much more clean there.
It was so crazy to me that this type of planning isn't just everywhere, I though this was sort o a basic need, but turns out even the most "prosperous" and "happiest" countries doesn't really have the basic conviniene "poor" and "backward" Baltic countires have. I never felt happier in Lithuania after going abroad.
I did not expect Lithuania Explained to declare himself an Urbanist, but I like it. I have always disliked Car-dependency and have found the concept of cars as granting freedom rather estranging. From my "Western European" perspective, Lithuania sometimes still seems rather focused on cars, especially outside Vilnius and Kaunas (which are not great in terms of public transport, but decent at least). Unfortunately Soviet planners wanted to show that they could build as "great, car-dependent societies" as America and thus many cities and new city districts have been built in a horribly car-centric way. But, even if not the ideal solution, the Prekybos Centrai are definitely a good way of making car-free everyday life more plausible.
I am from Kaunas, I live in the heart of the Old town, and you said Kaunas somewhat lacks connectivity, but… I have almost all possible Kaunas small grocery shops and shopping centers within a walkable distance. And I also have Akropolis, and an Ikea point near my home, even if Ikea uses to choose their locations on the outskirts of cities and towns.
When I will visit Kaunas, I would love to buy typical Lithuanian products from Lithuanian companies to boost your economy and to have a taste of Lithuania. What shop in Kaunas would you recommend, so I can add it to my list? Is IKI shop enough for my goal?
My comments about Kaunas and connectivity were mainly for outside the city center. The old town definitely has everything. Mostly to me, everything just felt very spaced out when travelling through the outer neighborhoods of Kaunas.
@@LithuaniaExplained , yes, it is. Partly it’s because of the two big rivers and many small rivulets that have their valleys and hills everywhere, so the city is not all in one piece. It looks kinda empty in many places. It had been pretty small in its history untill the Soviet times. Many neighbouthoods didn’t count as parts of the city until the 20th century. And Soviets used to build sparcely, where-ever they would find a field or place to make something easily: easily-built broad roads on each bank of the big rivers, easily built “sleeping neighbourhoods” in the fields on the outskirts, factories on the outskirts or where the old factories had been, etc. The usual tight European city is only the very center of Kaunas, but also that one had wooden houses here and there that had been destroyed, but nothing normal was built into their places.
they operate like strip malls in US. they are owned by an investor landlord who buys the land and constructs the building and then collects rent from each shop every month. you have one anchor tenant usually its a big food retail shop like you pointed out, and the corporate mother company of that shop often IS the landlord of the whole thing or at least co-owner, and mainly they build a location for themselves but they add some small spaces and then offer them on the open market for anyone who wants to rent, so that besides their main business they can also generate predictable passive income flow to pay for fixed costs of the building like mortgage, electricity, water etc. It wouldn't be too dissimilar to a person buying a house a bit bigger than you need and then renting out a couple of rooms so the tenants pay all your monthly bills and you just live in your house for free
I was not appreciating the accessibility of mini shopping centers in Lithuania before I experienced the life and shopping setup in USA and Canada. It is quite different. There in many cities large supermarkets are not allowed on central streets or in downtown areas in general. In city like Seattle you must go to Timbuck 2 miles and miles away with changing trabsportation just to get to a store like Maxima or Norfa size in Lithuania.
Well, how to feel about these little shopping centers...? Why to feel about? Distance and density of "shopping centers" (i.e. purposefully selected areas of land, hence "center") are stipulated in territorial planning projects. Everything is done according to the regulation. There are formulas how to calculate distances and density, when and why. Usually those shopping centers appear slightly too late, but before they appear there usually are some kiosks or some local mini-market or something. The land is allotted for such purposes long before. So, after watching your video, i can conclude that all these regulations work properly :) .
Congrats on 10k subbies❤️❤️ !! I love the proximity of groceries store. Means fresh veges for me and microdosing movement. Sometimes i intentionality "forget" to buy Something so that i get in my steps😅😅😅
Thanks! And yes, often I will be needing to complete a few more daily steps and a walk to the supermarket fits perfectly for some additional evening exercise.
that's a really good one. whilst living in the uk i didn't realise that usually shopping centres are made to be a stand-alone type of thing or have a poor selection or you have american style shopping areas where you realistically need a car but then again, in the uk you could sort most things out on a high-street which is a very big cultural thing there. then again. i just raised myself a question, which style is better? english or lithuanian? hmm.
Many of the centres i can think of also have restaurants. Two have dominos pizzas, one was a čili pizza, another has a Chinese place and a sushi place. I guess it just depends on location
I would prefer small shops in all of the place. And I personally hate Akropolis in Klaipeda due to it’s location in the city. In my strong belief it’s the main issue why old town it’s not so alive.
I don't like some of their names - those "akropolis", "eifelis" and similar. They look silly for me. The idea of Prekybos centras may look convenient, but they also have their downsides. For instance, the largest prekybos centras in Klaipėda is slightly away from the old town. The "Akropolis" attracts businesses and clients and therefore the town center, the old town of Klaipėda gets impoverished - businesses and customers leave the old town and move to Akropolis. That really happened in 2000-ies. Currently, the situation seems to be improved, at least there is some ballance between Akropolis and town center.
@@blueeyedbaer thanks for explaining! It doesn’t look like google translate has any direct translation for this, but from the description in Lithuanian Vikipedija it sounds like a moraine.
They fit into the walkable city idea quite well. It will take some time, but I hope one day Lithuania will be on the same level as Netherlands or other Western European nations in this regard.
I salute you my friend. Friend I am interested to go to Lithuania country and I can work please and help me. Give me a work visa link. My country is Bangladesh
I had similar opinions to that channel long before I discovered it, but his content is enjoyable! Interesting to see a fellow Canadian living abroad, discussing European urban design
They fit into the "15-minute city" idea, where you have 90 % of daily/weekly need of basic goods and services within 15 minutes of walking distance, so you don't have to have a car to buy food if you can't afford the car or if you simply don't want to own one.
15 minute city is just a new name for mikrorajonas. Soviets really thought of everything!
@@gairionysten3188 It's not like the soviets invented it. Just another idea in the long list of what they stole and claimed as theirs.
@@shemica16 Sure they might have not been the inventors, but they implemented it with great efficiency! And now we have wonderful examples of 15 minute cities like Fabijoniskes, Naujoji Vilnia, Pilaite, etc.
I've lived in a town of
I don't know what's happening with gambling, but last 2 years, the amount of gambling advertisement is ridiculous.
It has a strange advantage though, I have managed to learn those words: lažybos, lošimas, automatas.
There is a tiny chance I would use any of those words, but in general, it is known that you easily learn a word by repeating it.
it's a freaking mafia..
They pay the most and business people have no morals. It's cancer. If I had to choose I would rather ban gambling ads than alcohol. At least alcohol (even cigarette) ads where not as annoying as this shit.
the topsport betting places are extremely annoying, in my local center after they renovated the building they got rid of a small flower shop inside and made the betting place bigger
NOO NOT THE FLOWER SHOPP
Great video, as usual.
Lithuanian shopping model is somewhere between North American and European style shopping, perhaps still being closer to the European one. Many Lithuanian supermarkets/shopping centres are not very conveniently accessible for pedestrians. Very unfortunately, Lithuanian cities are still somewhat going for the car-centric approach in many cases. Not as bad as in North America where it is mostly to do with absurd zoning laws, but we're still not doing great in the wider European context with our love for cars. Even compared to Poland. Which is where we come to another annoying feature of Lithuanian shopping: lack of small supermarkets/corner shops/convenience stores. There are more of them than a few years ago, but if you've ever been to Poland, you've probably seen those tiny Žabka supermarkets, sometimes within metres from one another, and they're everywhere! I really really wish to have similar convenience store availability in Lithuania.
I was in Poland last year and I definitely saw quite a few Żabka (frog) stores (I only really explored Warszawa though) 🐸
As someone who lives both in Šilutė and Klaipėda I kindly disagree. Lithuanian shopping model completely resembles typical European shopping experience and style.
It's very convenient and where i live in Šilutė there are 3 Maxima, 1 Iki , 1Ldl , 2-3 Norfa , 1 TopoCentras , 1 Technorama , 1 Vynoteka , 1 Senukai, 2-3 Bookstores, and many other shops that serve your everyday needs, and all of them accessible from 2 - 10 minute walk. You can walk all around Šilute and even outside city limits on perfectly made pedestrian and bicycle paths. You absolutely don't need a car here, same in Klaipėda.
@@AsgogaThere's actually 2 Iki and 2 Norfa stores and 2 bookstores (dedicated bookstores of course) 🐸
Also the pedestrian/bicycle path to Rusnė has a missing section of over 1 km where there's no proper path between the hospital and the fairly recent Rusnė bridge/overpass (but the path to Žemaičių Naumiestis is interesting though)
'The Prekybos Centras' reminded me of something that you might be interested to learn about the Lithuanian language :)
Lithuanian actually does have definite and indefinite articles (they're put at the end of the adjectives), and thus you can make nouns definite or indefinite (?) :)
For it to work, you must make adjective definite first.
For example: Graži mašina (Nice car) and Gražioji mašina (the Nice car) or Saulėta vasara (Sunny summer) and Saulėtoji vasara (the Sunny summer). And in the spirit of this video: Didelis prekybos centras and Didysis prekybos centras.
Thanks for the video :)
Those are not definite or indefinite articles. Those are definite forms of adjectives. Articles stand on their own and Lithuanian for sure doesn't have them. Even those definitive forms of adjectives are mostly used in writen language, no one says "mano gražioji mašina" or "tavo baltoji katė". You can hear "mieloji mama" for sure, but that is a rare exception.
Well ofc it's good, since it fits some level of social activities and item specific shops for whom otherwise you'd have to go further away from your home. Since majority of them are in a way compact, it's an almost fool proof model that allows businesses to plop one down no matter the size of a settlement both in and outside the city limits. It's also serves as mini social gathering place both inside but more often outside - which is good either way.
Congrats on 10k subscribers! I really do love the neighborhood shopping centers, there is a MAXIMA on the other side of the road where I live. It isn't big, but you can find several supermarkets only walking 10-20 minutes.
I am very glad that those shopping centers are at a walkable distance, of course. I go where everyday, so I don’t have to store plenty of stuff at home.
even Kaisiadorys has one! Pasazas! Nice little place, exactly as you described: walking distance from everywhere with just enough shops/services to meet your needs!
i only noticed the paštomatai around 2019
0:18 i was visiting my grand mother in lithuania recently, that footage is from the area she lives in. Boltopei or something like that. Now im back in my home town Frankfurt, and i must say i liked it there more. Everything is much more clean there.
Some supermarkets are good for both entertainment and shopping, I sometimes go to my local one to just spend time and relax
It is also the delivery of food and groceries that are growing in Vilnius. When I am there, I order most of my food to be delivered.
In our small town we have both Norfa and Maxima but they are nowhere big as the ones in Vilnius.
prekybcentriai are definitely convenient part of Lithuanian daily life
It was so crazy to me that this type of planning isn't just everywhere, I though this was sort o a basic need, but turns out even the most "prosperous" and "happiest" countries doesn't really have the basic conviniene "poor" and "backward" Baltic countires have. I never felt happier in Lithuania after going abroad.
I did not expect Lithuania Explained to declare himself an Urbanist, but I like it.
I have always disliked Car-dependency and have found the concept of cars as granting freedom rather estranging.
From my "Western European" perspective, Lithuania sometimes still seems rather focused on cars, especially outside Vilnius and Kaunas (which are not great in terms of public transport, but decent at least). Unfortunately Soviet planners wanted to show that they could build as "great, car-dependent societies" as America and thus many cities and new city districts have been built in a horribly car-centric way.
But, even if not the ideal solution, the Prekybos Centrai are definitely a good way of making car-free everyday life more plausible.
I am from Kaunas, I live in the heart of the Old town, and you said Kaunas somewhat lacks connectivity, but… I have almost all possible Kaunas small grocery shops and shopping centers within a walkable distance. And I also have Akropolis, and an Ikea point near my home, even if Ikea uses to choose their locations on the outskirts of cities and towns.
When I will visit Kaunas, I would love to buy typical Lithuanian products from Lithuanian companies to boost your economy and to have a taste of Lithuania.
What shop in Kaunas would you recommend, so I can add it to my list? Is IKI shop enough for my goal?
My comments about Kaunas and connectivity were mainly for outside the city center. The old town definitely has everything. Mostly to me, everything just felt very spaced out when travelling through the outer neighborhoods of Kaunas.
@@LithuaniaExplained , yes, it is. Partly it’s because of the two big rivers and many small rivulets that have their valleys and hills everywhere, so the city is not all in one piece. It looks kinda empty in many places.
It had been pretty small in its history untill the Soviet times. Many neighbouthoods didn’t count as parts of the city until the 20th century.
And Soviets used to build sparcely, where-ever they would find a field or place to make something easily: easily-built broad roads on each bank of the big rivers, easily built “sleeping neighbourhoods” in the fields on the outskirts, factories on the outskirts or where the old factories had been, etc.
The usual tight European city is only the very center of Kaunas, but also that one had wooden houses here and there that had been destroyed, but nothing normal was built into their places.
@@RichieLarpa , “Akropolis” (Maxima) are the ones with best possibilities of choices.
they operate like strip malls in US. they are owned by an investor landlord who buys the land and constructs the building and then collects rent from each shop every month. you have one anchor tenant usually its a big food retail shop like you pointed out, and the corporate mother company of that shop often IS the landlord of the whole thing or at least co-owner, and mainly they build a location for themselves but they add some small spaces and then offer them on the open market for anyone who wants to rent, so that besides their main business they can also generate predictable passive income flow to pay for fixed costs of the building like mortgage, electricity, water etc. It wouldn't be too dissimilar to a person buying a house a bit bigger than you need and then renting out a couple of rooms so the tenants pay all your monthly bills and you just live in your house for free
I was not appreciating the accessibility of mini shopping centers in Lithuania before I experienced the life and shopping setup in USA and Canada. It is quite different. There in many cities large supermarkets are not allowed on central streets or in downtown areas in general. In city like Seattle you must go to Timbuck 2 miles and miles away with changing trabsportation just to get to a store like Maxima or Norfa size in Lithuania.
Well, how to feel about these little shopping centers...? Why to feel about? Distance and density of "shopping centers" (i.e. purposefully selected areas of land, hence "center") are stipulated in territorial planning projects. Everything is done according to the regulation. There are formulas how to calculate distances and density, when and why. Usually those shopping centers appear slightly too late, but before they appear there usually are some kiosks or some local mini-market or something. The land is allotted for such purposes long before. So, after watching your video, i can conclude that all these regulations work properly :) .
Congrats on 10k subbies❤️❤️ !! I love the proximity of groceries store. Means fresh veges for me and microdosing movement.
Sometimes i intentionality "forget" to buy Something so that i get in my steps😅😅😅
Thanks! And yes, often I will be needing to complete a few more daily steps and a walk to the supermarket fits perfectly for some additional evening exercise.
I find it funny how almost any neighborhood grocery store can be called a "shopping center", even if inside is just the store itself and a pharmacy.
Nobody actually calls them "shopping centres" outside of legal documents, of course. We just say we're going to a shop.
@@povilzem Yes, I know that only documents and stuff actually call them that
that's a really good one. whilst living in the uk i didn't realise that usually shopping centres are made to be a stand-alone type of thing or have a poor selection or you have american style shopping areas where you realistically need a car but then again, in the uk you could sort most things out on a high-street which is a very big cultural thing there. then again. i just raised myself a question, which style is better? english or lithuanian? hmm.
I haven't seen a bakery or a key duplication service in my local shopping center 🐸
After exploring a few more, it seems like a pharmacy is the next most-common thing after supermarket
Thank you for the video. How are your language studies, if I can ask?
Not bad- mostly keeping up with the material. Of course a video summary of the experience will come out in a few weeks 😄
@@LithuaniaExplained Nice, looking forward to that. Do not give up either way, you have already make an astonishing progress!
Check out 'Eifelis' shop's street view in 'Mažeikiai' city. It has a real eiffel tower in a parking lot just like it's name suggests
Interesting!
I think they are missing on-premise dining areas and in-store restaurants. At least is what I expect now from a modern supermarket.
Many of the centres i can think of also have restaurants. Two have dominos pizzas, one was a čili pizza, another has a Chinese place and a sushi place. I guess it just depends on location
I would prefer small shops in all of the place. And I personally hate Akropolis in Klaipeda due to it’s location in the city. In my strong belief it’s the main issue why old town it’s not so alive.
NAW PEOPLE KNOW ANYKSCIAI?? I THOUGHT I WAS TRIPPING WHEN SEEING THAT NORFA AAA
I don't like some of their names - those "akropolis", "eifelis" and similar. They look silly for me. The idea of Prekybos centras may look convenient, but they also have their downsides. For instance, the largest prekybos centras in Klaipėda is slightly away from the old town. The "Akropolis" attracts businesses and clients and therefore the town center, the old town of Klaipėda gets impoverished - businesses and customers leave the old town and move to Akropolis. That really happened in 2000-ies. Currently, the situation seems to be improved, at least there is some ballance between Akropolis and town center.
After living in Vilnius for some time I only realized that Ozas what actually just a Lithuanianization of Oz. Funny how they decide these names :)
@@LithuaniaExplained It's because it's built next to a geological formation oz and has nothing to do with the popular series.
@@blueeyedbaer thanks for explaining! It doesn’t look like google translate has any direct translation for this, but from the description in Lithuanian Vikipedija it sounds like a moraine.
They fit into the walkable city idea quite well. It will take some time, but I hope one day Lithuania will be on the same level as Netherlands or other Western European nations in this regard.
HOW? DO YOU MEAN NETHERLANDS IS A VERY GOOD COUNTRY?
These kind of convenient shopping centers can be found throughout most European countries. I think Germany, Poland, UK, Denmark has them too.
I salute you my friend. Friend I am interested to go to Lithuania country and I can work please kindly and help me. Give me a working visa link
🇵🇹👍🏻🇱🇹
that's why Americans need those big refrigerators at home, there is no need to have them in Lithuania
I salute you my friend. Friend I am interested to go to Lithuania country and I can work please and help me. Give me a work visa link. My country is Bangladesh
The Mall culture in the United States is dying. It is hard to find shopping malls nowadays. Everything is controlled by Wal-Mart or Amazon.
But what about strip malls where there are several shops side by side and surrounding a large parking lot? I feel like those are still quite common
I see that someone has been watching @notjustbikes
I had similar opinions to that channel long before I discovered it, but his content is enjoyable! Interesting to see a fellow Canadian living abroad, discussing European urban design