Vilnius. Many years later.

I wasn’t In Vilnius for years. Am I exaggerating? Absolutely. The last in this text.

Many years ago, in my basketball youth the Lithuanian capital didn’t amaze me. The city seemed to me grey and gloomy, though it might be because of the fact that in the junior tournament in the first match the team of Kaunas defeated us with 63 points difference. For them, by the way, played Sarunas Yasikyavichus.

This time, despite of my quick visit there I liked it a lot. Colors became brighter, houses nicer; girls seemed to be more smiling. Besides, now I drink beer and its diversity besotting me in a figurative sense of course. But we came to Vilnius not because of that.
The taxi driver, who brought up us from the airport perfectly knows the tournament position of «Lietuvos Rytas» in the regular season of VTB United League and supposed that his team cannot win back the difference in 19 points. Also he perfectly knows the situation in Russian basketball and the nearest European championship.
He shared with us the basic problem that bothers him for a long time.

- A lot of tourists will come to Evrobasket. We will have a lot of work and it is great. But to watch basketball on TV?! I'm not crazy! Looks like I should take a vacation.

So if we will have to go on foot don’t say we haven’t notified you about it.
We were afraid of traffic jams, so to the match we went out in advance. Well, most of us move in Moscow by public transport - the capital's motorists would be very amused of such warnings. And they certainly would not get to the match in time. We went out an hour and a half before the match and really got in a traffic jam.

- People are going to look at Siskauskas - said our driver.

There were five thousand people willing to look at Ramunas. The upper tier of contemporary arena was closed - and the problem of dull empty seats was solved brilliantly. They were simply draped with black cloth.

The cheerleaders looked amazing; the mascot of «Lietuvos Rytas» was great - armored wolf in red and black colors, fan-made drum rumbled. Not very skilful plot of the game was very exciting...
Vilnius, yawning, was starting to dream. I came back to the hotel passing narrow small streets of an old city, wondering the modest charm of the Lithuanian capital more and more. I will be pleased to come back here next season of VTB United League.

Roman Skvortsov,
Commentator of «Russia-2» television