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‘You can do anything here!’ Why Lithuania is the best place in the world to be young | Happiness | The Guardian

theguardian.com · 2,197 words · saved by 1 readers

University is free for most students, the economy is thriving and the club scene is hot. Is it any wonder young people in Vilnius are smiling? I n the shade of a tree on a warm day in Vilnius, Lithuania, I’m having coffee with the happiest twentysomethings in the world. Given the weather (perfect) and the beverage (cheap), it is hard to feel anything but happy. It is harder still if, like 23-year-old Simona Jurkuvenaite, you have just been handed €21,000 from the Lithuanian government to direct your debut short film about the country’s teenagers. “This is a great place,” she says, gesturing around the manicured square where we’re sitting, on the edge of the city’s new town. “It’s pretty awesome that you can get these kinds of opportunities here.” So good are the opportunities and so high is the level of optimism that Lithuania topped this year’s World Happiness Report rankings for the under-30s. The country’s gen-Zers and millennials rated themselves 7.76 out of 10 on the happiness sca

‘We live good lives’ … (l-r) Simona Jurkuvenaite, Karolina Motiejūnaitė and Gantas Bendikas Photograph: Karolis Pilypas Liutkevičius/The Guardian View image in fullscreen ‘We live good lives’ … (l-r) Simona Jurkuvenaite, Karolina Motiejūnaitė and Gantas Bendikas Photograph: Karolis Pilypas Liutkevičius/The Guardian Euro visions Happiness This article is more than 2 years old ‘You can do anything here!’ Why Lithuania is the best place in the world to be young This article is more than 2 years old University is free for most students, the economy is thriving and the club scene is hot. Is it any

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