“Mustard Lithuanian Guest”: What the NY Times wrote about R. Kurtinaitis in the NBA three-point competition | Did you know?

The appearance of a guest behind the Iron Curtain (then Lithuania still belonged to the USSR) was an important event not only in Lithuania, but also in the world of American basketball.

Although R. Kurtinaitis’s performance was not very successful, the Lithuanian scored only 9 points and retired in the first stage, taking last place, he received a lot of American attention.

The next day, 1989. On September 12, The New York Times published an article by journalist Ira Berkow titled “Lithuania from afar” (“The long-distance Lithuanian”), directed specifically to R. Kurtinaitis.

Portals 15 minutes invites MAX subscribers to read the translation of this article as it appeared in the newspaper.

From it, you will find out which NBA star was outraged by R. Kurtinaitis’s participation in the competition, what R. Kurtinaitis answered to the question whether Americans should be afraid of Russians, whose Lithuanian pop star video It was bought by Lithuanians and how The name of Lithuania.

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LITHUANIA FROM AFAR

On Friday, the eve of the first three-point competition in a distant country, Rimas Kurtinaitis, a Lithuanian guest invited to the NBA by a mustache and who did not cause controversy because of his own fault, received a question: “Are you nervous?”

“There is no today,” he replied without the help of an interpreter. “I don’t know tomorrow,” he added, shrugging eloquently.