“For him there were no boundaries between nationalities. He readily made friends with the natives of any country…. He was no stranger to Latvians, Lithuanians, Jews, Tatars, Karaites, Russians. He was ready to help everyone if possible.”

At a time of great division in the Eastern European community a lesson in multiculturalism, unity and brotherhood can be learned from an unusual person, a Soviet Lithuanian artist Czeslaw Znamierowski (23 May 1890 – 9 August 1977). He was born in Imperial Russia on Latvian territory into a Polish family. At the age of 32 he became a citizen of the Soviet Union and soon after moved permanently to Lithuania, where he lived until his last day.