Lithuania

[sheppsea]

This may well be a long shot but does anyone have any recommendation for Lithuania? I'm heading there next week and have only managed to find one shop in Vilnius from searching the web!

[Puff Scotty]

I think it's called "EE Women Online", I bought a cracking little Estonian the other week....

[Deano]

I have a Lithuanian friend, I'm waiting for him to get in contact...

[sheppsea]

Thanks Deano, my wife is actually Lithuanian and we have been searching Google Lithuania and still only found this one shop, so I'm not holding out much hope, unless we've completely lost the ability to google stuff!!

[Deano]

Oh sorry mate! He got back to me anyway, but without much!

"There are tabaco shops called "Skonis ir Kvapas" in most of malls. I googled this http://cigarai.lt/en/ probably this is closer what you are looking for"

So he's resorted to google too!

[Sligub]

RASA is the importer

this is a list of their retailers http://rasatrading.ee/index.php?opti...mid=21&lang=en

[sheppsea]

Thanks for your responses!

RASA is the importer

this is a list of their retailers http://rasatrading.ee/index.php?opti...mid=21&lang=en

They only have shops in Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania seems to be a bit of a cigar black hole! 😊

Oh sorry mate! He got back to me anyway, but without much!

"There are tabaco shops called "Skonis ir Kvapas" in most of malls. I googled this http://cigarai.lt/en/ probably this is closer what you are looking for"

So he's resorted to google too!

That's the place we found, I'll try to visit it while we're in Vilnius - it looks quite nice

[Sligub]

Might be worthwhile giving RASA an email because anyone selling cubans should be dealing with them.

[tippexx]

You might want to raise your sights a bit. Scandinavian BOTL tend to regard the Baltic not as a sea, but as a lake, and use ferry trips between the various Capitals for their cigar excursions. The downside is that cigars in the region are expensive, production vitola are pretty much on a price par with EMS.

[sheppsea]

Might be worthwhile giving RASA an email because anyone selling cubans should be dealing with them.

Thanks Siglub - I have just sent them an email

You might want to raise your sights a bit. Scandinavian BOTL tend to regard the Baltic not as a sea, but as a lake, and use ferry trips between the various Capitals for their cigar excursions. The downside is that cigars in the region are expensive, production vitola are pretty much on a price par with EMS.

In that case it does sound more promising, although the fact the prices aren't any cheaper is slightly disappointing, maybe it'll just be the one box then! 😉

[butternutsquashpie]

although the fact the prices aren't any cheaper is slightly disappointing, maybe it'll just be the one box then! 😉

Ya know, since the prices are the same, I'd get them at home anyways (unless you want some nice regionals. However much you save (sounds like little to none anyways) can be used instead for the assurance of quality and whatever "warrenty" you have with the UK's sticks.

Or just duty free it. But I'm not sure how Cubans work in the duty free. I've only seen NCs in em personally.

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[tippexx]

Thanks Siglub - I have just sent them an email



In that case it does sound more promising, although the fact the prices aren't any cheaper is slightly disappointing, maybe it'll just be the one box then! 

That, or bring yourself home via Kiel or Hamburg!

[sheppsea]

Just thought I'd quickly report back on what there is to find in Lithuania regarding cigars. We took my parents over for the first time so didn't have as much time as I would have liked to properly seek out cigar shops, but I still found a little time.

As expected there isn't that big a choice out there and the only shop I found with a reasonably sized selection is the Cigar House in Vilnius; there aren't that many Cubans in there (only the major brands you would expect anywhere) but there is quite a good selection of New World cigars. Although I didn't get the chance to test it, the smoking lounge in there does look great and the perfect place for a relaxing smoke, I look forward to testing it properly when I am next in Vilnius! The person serving couldn't speak any English, but I do not think you should expect locals to speak English anyway so that isn't particularly a bad point and my wife was with me so it really didn't cause a problem!

In other towns (I was also in Kaunas and Klaipeda) I only found small tobacconists that didn't have a very big selection at all, but are fine if you want to pick up a couple of singles to enjoy in the evening. I also checked with RASA and they confirmed that, apart from these tobacconists (which are called Skonis ir Kvapas) and the Cigar House, there isn't anywhere else to go.

The prices are cheaper than in Britain, roughly ?14 for a Montecristo No. 2, but obviously you can get them cheaper than that in other countries. At first I got very excited as it looked like it was ?14 for a box of three but my wife soon put me straight!

Overall although it can't be classed as a 'cigar destination', there is a bit of a selection out there if you ever go - I would recommend a trip to Vilnius generally anyway, its a beautiful city, especially the old town, Kaunas is also has a lovely old town, but is clearly poorer and more run down, although it is much better than when I first visited about 4 years ago. Personally I didn't find Klaipeda as interesting, but it does have a long and interesting history; we were only there for a morning so probably didn't do it justice. There is also a nice beach resort on the Curonian Split, so if you're ever in Klaipeda it would be worth popping over there for a day by the sea. It also eventually leads into Kaliningrad, if you were also to fancy a trip over to Russia!