How was Lithuania before the Soviet Union?

Answer 1

Honestly? Lithuania was great! We were a nice country with no corrupted (well, in these days...) politicians, our Basketball team was probably the best in the world, many noble and smart people got back in Lithuania from US or Canada (they came back when the WWII begun, and the Soviets ocupated Lithuania), and also, Lithuania had really great economy, and we were able to travel much more.

Answer 2

They were, enough said, "rebels" of the Soviet Union. As the first country that got out from them, Lithuanians used to fight the bigger bear brother in other places, such as basketball.

Many people used to work in kolkhozes (collective farms), where they used to grow food to the people that live in cities. These farms had many plusses - it was easier to harvest, and vegetables, crops and meat were easy to transport but it had many problems, such as problem with human rights.Many workers had no chance to "escape" from there. SU, of course, did nothing about that. And so, after Lithuania became independent, kolkhozes got out.

...also, this was a time of some seriously poor architecture. Many other, non-sovietic European cities still have LOADS of old architecture goodness. Lithuania also have got a lot, but because SU were atheistic, many churches got down, and many box-shaped blocks of flats and factories made our architecture boring and grey. Yes, grey is a boring colour.

Oh well, after that, Lithuania got many new living places, population got up, but there was many fighting (lithuanians were rebels not only in basketball, they were also fighting "underground" to reclaim independence) and destroying of cultural objects, so, many people in Lithuania say: WWII for Lithuania finished only in the 1990.