No embassy

This piece was originally published on January 12, 2023 for subscribers. Today we are unlocking it from the Dirt archives.

Daisy Alioto on micronations and network states.

In September 2019, Playboy magazine sent me to Vilnius, Lithuania to write a story about The Republic of Užupis—a 7,000-resident micronation inside the country’s capital. Užupis is located adjacent to Vilnius’s Old Town, just across the Vilnia river, and is overlooked by a bronze mermaid statue that once floated away in a flood. Since its founding on April 1st, 1997, the 148-acre micronation has captured the imagination of the world. Most of this fascination stems from the republic’s unusual constitution, which includes articles like “11. Everyone has the right to look after the dog until one of them dies.” and “24. Everyone has the right to understand nothing.”

Užupis was born from tragedy. The micronation was founded by Tomas Čepaitis (now foreign minister of Užupis) and Romas Lileikis (now president of Užupis) in an attempt to reclaim the derelict area which was then known primarily for its high crime rate. What was once a thriving Jewish neighborhood had fallen into ruin after the murder of 95% of Lithuania’s Jewish population during the Holocaust. 

“Depending on whom you ask, Užupis is either a revolutionary political project or a fairy tale; it’s a figment of the Baltic imagination or another rapidly gentrifying former Bohemia. In truth, Užupis is all these things,” I wrote for Playboy. The neighborhood had a Bitcoin ATM, and some of the government ministers I spoke to for the magazine were experimenting with AI. However, web3 and the metaverse were not making headlines—nor had the idea of decentralized governance been repackaged for music festivals and buying memorabilia. I mean, it was 2019. We were innocent.

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