THE LITHUANIAN LANDING OPERATION

Pogled Newspaper, January 28, 1991, Vilnius. The special envoy for Duma newspaper, Maxim Behar, reports from Vilnius, Lithuania.

VILNIUS, January 28- He told me on his Warsaw phone that he was awaiting confirmation to go to Vilnius, and the editorial office gave him the okay, because it was in dire need of information. And so, Maxim turned out to be the first Bulgarian correspondent at the site of the most tragic events in small Lithuania, hungry for independence. And the only eye and heart of Bulgarian journalism - there, on the spot - to report on complex relationships and critical situations. Fortunately, an intelligent and resourceful rooster, eagerly immersed in world affairs and with cosmopolitan taste. We start with the details - from the backpack from which his rubles were taken, to the day when a 9-year-old Eagle, the daughter of Gintara and Vaimondas, who took them into their home, goes to school: a sign of a little calm. The instructions of POGLED newspaper place him in the dark with a notebook and a radio in the corridors of the Parliament. I write on flyers, he said, when I look out the window, I see tanks, you'll excuse me if something in my correspondence is wrong. What is there to do, Bulgarian journalists, must find the just direction, even in the dark…

On the phone in Warsaw is his wife Mila Vekova, also a journalist (currently, as she says, a babysitter of two):

- He came back very tired and excited; he still can't resuscitate. This is the biggest test of his entire journalistic career. And the biggest professional opportunity, of course. Polish television showed in great detail the events in Lithuania, so my children and I have worried about him more than he has. On his way out, little Egle painted him a picture as a souvenir, here it is in front of me. The contours of the USSR and the scissors that cut Lithuania.

It is sad times when children draw politics…