Every politician serves as a very convenient target for the press, which is ready to delve into either the dark past or the dirty laundry of a representative of the “powers that be,” hoping for a big scandal or at least a modest news story.

The beginning of the way

The current President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite, who is currently running for re-election, whose biography is quite typical for all politicians in the post-Soviet space, has recently become the subject of lively and sometimes completely rollicking journalistic investigations.

She was born on March 1, 1956 into an unremarkable Vilnius family. The future politician graduated from high school unimportantly: her certificate was full of Cs. Perhaps that is why she had to wait with universities and work as an ordinary employee in the personnel department of the local philharmonic society, but she did not last long: a year later, the young ambitious girl left for the northern capital.

At this time, the Soviet Union began to “crackle.” The public life of the Baltic states sharply intensified, calls for independence began to be heard, but until 1991 there was no information about a fiery struggle against the regime of Dalia Grybauskaite. Her biography says that at the beginning of 1990 she worked diligently at her previous place of work, then got a job as a scientific secretary at the Institute of Economics and it seemed that nothing foreshadowed the rapid development of events.

Beginning of a political career

How she managed to disown her former comrades is unknown (and the immediate leader of the future president was forced to flee abroad from lustration), but already in 1991 Dalia Grybauskaite found herself in politics, in which she feels like a fish in water to this day.

A kind of impetus was her studies in the USA: the future president completed a course in. From that moment on, Dalia Grybauskaite’s truly breathtaking career began: her biography was replete with prestigious and responsible positions - from director of the department of the Ministry of International Economic Relations in 1991 to Minister of Finance in 2001. She managed to work both as an authorized minister at the embassy in the States and as an extraordinary ambassador to the EU.

After Lithuania joined the EU, Grybauskaite was delegated to the European Commission, where she briefly dealt with issues of education and culture, but by November 2004 her position was again related to the economy: she was Commissioner for Financial Planning and Budget.

Madam President

During this period, its popularity grew rapidly. Promising politician Dalia Grybauskaite, whose photos are increasingly appearing on the pages of various publications, receives very good press: she is compared to Margaret Thatcher, and in 2005 she was even awarded the title “European Commissioner of the Year.” Activities in the field of reforming the European budget are receiving good reviews.

Meanwhile, serious problems are beginning in the Lithuanian economy, and Dalia Grybauskaite, whose political career is in its prime, sharply criticizes the country’s authorities, sometimes earning very harsh accusations of politicking.

In 2008, she became “woman of the year” in her homeland, which is very opportune: the very next year, Grybauskaite runs for president and triumphantly wins in the first round, receiving almost three-quarters (69.2%) of the votes. While this is a record, no one has received such trust before.

Relations with Russia

The political course of the current leader of the largest Baltic republic can be described as aggressive, anti-Soviet and anti-Russian. Considering the information about the unheard-of ideology for which Dalia Grybauskaite was famous in her youth, as well as her membership in the Komsomol and the CPSU, this position sometimes causes grins.

No one criticizes the Kremlin and the President of the Russian Federation personally as fiercely as the Lithuanian first lady. Grybauskaite’s statements about the Putin regime, open speeches about a “terrorist state,” and ardent support for Ukraine in the conflict make her a very unpleasant character for the Russian authorities. Perhaps this is what she owes to her participation in several scandals, because the biography of Dalia Grybauskaite really gives considerable scope for the imagination.

Dirty politics

After a series of interviews with international media, she received a sharp rebuke from the Russian Federation: a Foreign Ministry representative advised her to “moderate her Komsomol fervor and leave behind complexes of the Soviet past.”

The problems at customs, organized by the Russian side, should also have hinted to the President that he needed to take it easy, but this had no effect on Grybauskaite: in an interview given this time to the BBC, she said that she would not talk to the President of Russia until he will abandon its aggressive policy.

Immediately after this, a formal scandal broke out. On December 9, 2014, members of the European Parliament found in their mailboxes a book by Lithuanian journalist Ruta Janutienė, in which the biography of Dalia Grybauskaite was presented from a very unpleasant side. Excellent English translation, ominous black and red cover, without a doubt, a lot of money was invested in provocation.

To say that the book is scandalous is to say nothing: Dalia Grybauskaite, whose photographs immediately filled the Internet, is accused of collaborating with the KGB, heartlessness, and careerism. The current patriotism is declared to be simply “another layer of paint” on the unscrupulous “Red Dalya”.

It will be difficult for the president to cleanse himself of these accusations. Europe often lives by the principle of the famous joke about a tarnished reputation: “Either he stole something, or something was stolen from him... there was some kind of dark story there.”

Personal life of the head of state

Accusations of callousness and heartlessness also achieved their goal in a certain way: the president’s personal life is a secret behind seven seals: she is not married and has never even been in a civil marriage. This 59-year-old woman has no children. The tabloid press even tried to “stitch” her non-traditional sexual orientation, which the politician diligently denies, causing a storm of unkind jokes.

In the Russian segment of the Internet, Dalia Grybauskaite (personal life, photo of politics) also over and over again becomes the object of investigations and trivial speculation. Here, no one is interested in accusations of lesbian inclinations: on the contrary, they claim that she had an affair with a high-ranking Soviet official who broke her heart.

Memoirs of former employees attribute Grybauskaite to an affair with a member of the district committee of the Komsomol: she allegedly “kissed on benches” with him under the cover of darkness. This mysterious character is also associated with his work as a teacher at the Vilnius High School, where it seemed difficult to get into without an academic degree, and the “sudden” defense of his dissertation in 1988, and “strange” behavior in 1990, when the Baltic states sought independence.

Inconvenient questions

It is not for nothing that the media call it the “fourth estate”: Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, whose biography indeed has several dark spots, is forced to regularly answer very uncomfortable questions: for example, whether her father, Polykarpas Grybauskas, was an NKVD employee. The politician claims that no, he worked as a fireman (the prudent daughter even took a certificate about this from the Lithuanian Center for the Study of Genocide and Resistance).

They also ask whether Dalia Grybauskaite’s biography contains shameful information about her collaboration with the KGB. Attacked by the press, Madam President claims that no - during her studies and work in Leningrad she was an ordinary student and factory worker.

Strictly speaking, today's ruling elite of the former LSSR has a dubious reputation in terms of resistance to the criminal regime. Former President Brazauskas is a communist. The current head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Linas Linkevicius, is a Komsomol activist. The head of the election commission, who held his position for 20 long years, Zenonas Vaigauskas, is generally the author of a laudatory dissertation about the “father of all nations” Joseph Vissarionovich.

In principle, it is unlikely that ideology has much importance in the life of a politician: people strive for power not “in order to,” but “because.” And if for this you need to become a Komsomol member at 14 years old, or a communist at 27, the game is worth the candle. This is what Dalia Grybauskaite did in her youth, and these are the accusations that have been made against her in recent years.

Many rightly associate this with her anti-Russian position, but this fact does not mean at all that her former commitment to communist ideas is a lie. However, such accusations are typical for any post-Soviet politician, which is Dalia Grybauskaite. Biography, family - whether the President herself was such a zealous Komsomol member, whether her father collaborated with the NKVD - all this, from the point of view of being unclouded by the dark communist past, is very doubtful, but unprovable. The archives of the all-powerful KGB carefully guard their secrets, and the monstrous amount of lies produced by the free press can drown any truth.

Biography

Dalia Grybauskaite is a Lithuanian statesman and politician. President of the Republic of Lithuania since July 12, 2009 (re-elected in 2014). Minister of Finance of Lithuania (2001-2004), Commissioner of the European Commission for Budget and Financial Planning (2004-2009), Commissioner of the European Commission for Education and Culture (2004).

Father - Polikarpas Vladovich (or Polikarp Vladislavovich) Grybauskas (1928-2008). Participant of the Great Patriotic War. According to published personal documents, P. Grybauskas served in the NKVD. However, according to Dalia Grybauskaite herself, her father worked as a firefighter and had no relation to the Soviet state security agencies.

He has a half-brother, Albertas Grybauskas (born 1946), a son from P. Grybauskas’s first marriage with his wife Valeria (without divorcing, he married Dali’s mother, Vitalia, for the second time; the deception was later revealed, Polykarpas was punished). We studied at the same school. The last time I saw my sister was after serving in the army.

Mother - Vitalia Grybauskienė (nee Korsakaite) (1922-1989).

Youth. Studies

Graduated from high school. Salome Neris in Vilnius.
After school, for about a year, from 1975 to 1976, she worked at the State Philharmonic of the Lithuanian SSR as an inspector in the personnel department.

She studied at the evening department of the Faculty of Economics of the Leningrad State University named after A. A. Zhdanov and at the same time worked as a laboratory assistant at the Leningrad fur factory No. 1 (now Rot-Front-on-Smolenka LLC).

She graduated from the university with a degree in political economy in 1983, and in the same year she joined the CPSU.

Work in politics

Returning to Vilnius in 1983, Grybauskaite worked at the Vilnius Higher Party School, where she taught a course on political economy until 1990.

In 1988, in graduate school at the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU (Moscow), she defended her dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Sciences (later in post-Soviet Lithuania, the degree was nostrified as a doctorate), and also worked at the AON as a teacher.

In December 1989, the Communist Party of Lithuania split into the KPL (the Communist Party of Lithuania, independent from the CPSU, leader Algirdas Brazauskas) and the so-called platformists - KPL/CPSU, leader Mykolas Burokevičius. The Vilnius Higher Party School (VHPS) was liquidated.

In 1990-1991 she worked as a scientific secretary at the Institute of Economics of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

In 1991, as a fluent English speaker, Grybauskaite was sent to study in the United States at the Institute of International Economic Relations at Georgetown University (Washington).

In 1991-1993, she was Director of the European Department of the Ministry of International Economic Relations of Lithuania, and then moved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 1996-1999 - Minister Plenipotentiary of the Lithuanian Embassy in the USA.
In 1999-2000 - Vice Minister of Finance (1999-2000), led Lithuania’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund,
In 2000-2001 - Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 2001-2004, she served as Minister of Finance of Lithuania in the government of Algirdas Brazauskas.

European Commission

After Lithuania joined the European Union in 2004, she was delegated to the European Commission. Commissioner of the European Commission for Budget and Financial Planning since 2004, candidate for the post of President of Lithuania (and therefore, since April 2009, she has not temporarily performed duties in the European Commission).

Presidential elections 2009

In the first round of the 2009 presidential elections, she won with 69.05% of the vote (the maximum figure in Lithuania for all elections after the collapse of the USSR). On July 12, 2009, she took office as president.

Presidential elections 2014

In May 2014, the next presidential elections in Lithuania took place. In the first round, held on May 11, among 7 candidates, D. Grybauskaitė took 1st place, receiving 45.92% of the votes, and together with the candidate who took 2nd place, Zygmantas Balcytis, took part in the second round.

The second round took place on May 25. According to the final results of the second round, D. Grybauskaite received 57.90% of the votes against 40.10% of her opponent and was re-elected for a second term.

Personal life

Dalia Grybauskaite has never been married and has no children.
He has a black belt in karate.
Speaks English, Polish, Russian and understands French.

Awards

Commander of the Order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas (25 June 2003)
Order of Vytautas the Great with chain (10 July 2009, in accordance with the law, upon taking office of the President of Lithuania)
Grand Cross of the Order of Three Stars with chain (Latvia, 2011)
Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav (Norway, 2011)
Grand Officer of the Order of St. Charles (Monaco, 15 October 2012)
Order of the Republic (Moldova, 2015)
Award “Person of the Year” in the category “International Award in the Field of Social and Political Activities” (Ukraine, 2015).

Dalia Grybauskaite is a Russophobe, a famous politician and statesman. He does not hide his support for the Bandera regime in Kyiv. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite has been the European Commission's Commissioner for Financial Planning and Budget since 2004. Her determination and skillful leadership earned her the nickname “Iron Lady.”

Childhood

Dalia Grybauskaite was born on March 1, 1956 in the Lithuanian SSR, in the city of Vilnius, into a simple family. Her father, Polikarpas Vladovich, participated in the Second World War. In civilian life he worked as a firefighter and served in the NKVD. Dali's mother, Vitalia Korsakaite, was a saleswoman in a department store.

Education

They lived in the city center, next to the prestigious Lithuanian school named after. Salome Neris. In this educational institution, Dalia received her primary education. At school she became a Komsomol member. She graduated from primary school in 1975, receiving secondary education.

At the age of 17, Dalia entered the prestigious Vilnius University, but without graduating, two years later she unexpectedly got a job at the State Philharmonic. In 1976, she left for Leningrad and entered the evening department at the Zhdanov University. In 1983 she defended her diploma with a specialty in “political economics”. Joined the CPSU. In 1988 she wrote her dissertation and became a candidate of science. In 1991 she studied at Washington's Georgetown University.

Labor activity

Dalia did not work at the Vilnius State Philharmonic for long. Then she left for Leningrad, where she got a job as a laboratory assistant at a fur factory. In 1983, Dalia returned to Vilnius and began working as a secretary at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. In 1983-1990 taught political economics at the Vilnius Party Higher School. She was the head of the agriculture office. From 1990 to 1991 worked as a secretary at the Vilnius Institute of Economics. Then she began to head the European Department of Economic International Relations of Lithuania at the Ministry. Participated in trade negotiations with the European Union.

Political activity

Lithuanian President Grybauskaitė began her political career in 1994. Until 1995, she served as Minister Plenipotentiary and Ambassador Extraordinary at the Lithuanian Mission to the European Union. In 1996-1999 worked in the USA, at the Lithuanian embassy.

From 1999 to 2000 was vice minister of finance. Coordinated negotiations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Then she joined the board of directors of Gossberbank for a short time. In 2000, the future president of Lithuania received the post of vice minister of foreign affairs.

A year later she became head of the Ministry of Finance in the government of A. Brazauskas. Dalia remained in this position until 2004. At this time, the budget deficit decreased significantly. After Lithuania joined the EU, Dalia Grybauskaite became a member of the European Commission.

Her responsibilities included coordinating education and culture. In the fall of 2004, Grybauskaite was appointed Commissioner for Financial Planning and Budget. In this position, she gained great popularity not only in her own country, but also abroad.

For her tough work, Dalia Grybauskaite received the nickname “Iron Lady” from the media. In the fall of 2005, she was named “Commissioner of the Year” for reforming the EU budget. In 2008, she received the title of “woman of the year” in Lithuania.

Presidential chair

In 2009, Dalia registered as a candidate for the position of “President of Lithuania.” She ran as an independent candidate. In this regard, Dalia Grybauskaite resigned from the post of European Commissioner for EU rules. In May, presidential elections took place in Lithuania. Dalia Grybauskaite won. Voters gave her 70 percent of the votes.

On July 12, 2009, Dalia Grybauskaite took the oath and took the chair of the head of state. She is the first female president of Lithuania. And the very first ruler of the Republic of Lithuania (even before the formation of the USSR) was Antanas Smetona. The first president after the collapse of the Soviet Union was Algirdas Brazauskas.

During the election campaign, Dalia promised to rid the country of corruption and the power of oligarchs. At first, she really began to make decisive personnel changes and implement the planned program.

But soon Dalia Grybauskaite changed a lot as a politician. She began to support the United States, although, being a Komsomol member, she fiercely condemned NATO militarism and American imperialism. But after taking office as the “President of Lithuania,” she sharply changed her policy in this regard. At the same time, it also started a cold war with its eastern neighbors. In 2014, the next presidential elections took place. Dalia Grybauskaite advanced to the second round along with Zygmantas Balcytis.

According to the results, she received almost 60 percent of the votes against 40 for her opponent. As a result, Dalia Grybauskaite became the President of Lithuania again. She is quite aggressive and does not hold back her tongue. Dalia Grybauskaite has repeatedly publicly condemned Russia for annexing Crimea to it. Linked the Russian Federation to the unrest in eastern Ukraine. The President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite, called Russia a terrorist state.

As a politician, the Lithuanian president has big disadvantages. A woman does not know how to communicate impromptu. It is necessary to agree on topics and questions with her in advance. She refuses to answer without “cheat sheets.” The President of Lithuania became famous for her extravagant statements and actions.

Personal life

The politician’s personal life has developed in such a way that she does not even have children. The President of Lithuania, whose photo is in this article, is currently single. The yellow press published data that Dalia Grybauskaite has a non-traditional sexual orientation.

But the President of Lithuania denies such information. The political lady simply did not have enough time to arrange her own family. But she is fluent in several foreign languages ​​and has a black belt in karate.

This material is about the President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskait.

European leader with eastern secrets

Dalia Grybauskaite heads the European state. Almost as much is known about the biography and personal life of the president of one EU country as about some leaders of Asian countries, who keep details about themselves and their loved ones in the strictest confidence. Even the presence of a relatively free press in Lithuania does not allow us to reliably know at least the main milestones in the life of Grybauskaite, who has held the presidential post for nine years, and previously worked in responsible positions and was always in the public eye. According to some reports, she changed her biography on her official website five times.

There is no reliable information even about the name of the president’s father. It is known that Dalia Grybauskaite was born in 1956 in Vilnius. Her mother's name was Vitaly Grybauskienė (nee Korsakaite). His father, who died at the age of 80 in 2008, bore the last name Grybauskas, and his name, according to official data, was Polikarpas Vladovich, according to other sources - Polikarp Vladislavovich.

From her first marriage, the mother of the future president of Lithuania has a son born in 1946. The politician does not maintain any relationship with Albertas Grybauskas. Her father married Dali’s mother without divorcing his first wife Valeria, but the deception was once revealed.

Wiktor Dabkowski/Global Look Press

My father took part in the Great Patriotic War, but in which troops no one knows for sure. According to some reports, he was an NKVD officer, but Dalia Grybauskaite herself strongly denies this.

Career rise

The future president graduated from the Salome Neris secondary school in Vilnius. She couldn’t decide what she wanted to become and didn’t dare to go to college. For a year she worked as an inspector of the personnel department at the State Philharmonic of the Lithuanian SSR, and only after that she went to the evening department of the Faculty of Economics of the Leningrad Zhdanov University. In parallel with her studies, she worked as a laboratory assistant at a fur factory. At the enterprise, workers and engineers knew Grybauskaite as a very active Komsomol member, selflessly devoted to the ideals of Marxism-Leninism.

Grybauskaite spent seven years at the university, graduating only at the age of 27. Having received the long-awaited diploma, the future leader of Lithuania immediately joined the ranks of the CPSU and went home to teach a course in political economy at the Vilnius Higher Party School.

In 1988, at the Moscow Higher Party School under the CPSU Central Committee, Grybauskaite completed his postgraduate studies and defended his PhD in economics. Later, in an already independent country, her scientific degree is recognized as a Doctor of Science. In 1989, the Vilnius Party School was closed due to the outbreak of social unrest in Lithuania, and Grybauskaite went to work at the Lithuanian Institute of Economics under the Ministry of the Republic.

Dominika Zarzycka/ZUMAPRESS.com/Global Look Press

On The website of the head of state says that in 1992 she went to improve her qualifications at Georgetown University in the US capital, where she took a special six-month course for managers. However, some data indicate that she went there not in 1992, but in 1991. As former Prime Minister of Lithuania Zigmas Vaišvila said, at that time there was no US embassy or consulate in Lithuania, and the fledgling state did not have the money to send people to study abroad. According to him, Grybauskaite went to the USA as a citizen of the USSR and on the instructions of the KGB. According to Vaishvila, the Soviet leadership understood that the country would soon no longer exist, but they tried to introduce their agents into the new states. There were also publications in the press that Grybauskaite worked as a prostitute in Leningrad and passed on valuable information received from foreign clients to Soviet intelligence services. There is also an opinion that publications about such activities of the president were made deliberately in order to hide even more shocking information about working for the KGB.

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Whether this is true or not, in 2016 Grybauskaite officially appealed to Russia with a request not to publish documents concerning her that are stored in Russian archives. At the same time, the administration of the President of Lithuania stated that there would never be any comments about the reasons for such a step.

In all subsequent years, Grybauskaite quickly climbed the career ladder. She was Minister of the Lithuanian Embassy in the United States, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Finance. In 2004, when Lithuania became a member of the EU, the future head of state was delegated to work in the European Commission as a commissioner responsible for the EU budget. In 2009, she was elected president of Lithuania, and in 2014, the politician was able to be re-elected.

Personal life

Grybauskaite does not like to talk about his personal life. Largely due to the lack of one, at least officially. The President of Lithuania has never been married and has no children. As she herself said, she had never been in a civil marriage either. We can say that she devoted her whole life to politics and her career.

Alexander Widding/ZUMAPRESS.com/Global Look Press

During the 2009 election campaign, many Lithuanian newspapers wrote that Grybauskaite had a non-traditional sexual orientation and loved women. The press even published obscene cartoons on this topic. The head of state herself denied belonging to the LGBT community.