Lithuania’s pavilion in Shanghai, which is currently hosting the international Expo 2010 exhibition has attracted 2 million visitors. At the expo that has been going on for two months already, the Lithuanian pavilion is among the most visited, even surpassing the stands of countries like Great Britain and Turkey in terms of the amount of people that have come to see it.

 

The two-millionth visitor at Lithuania’s pavilion was Wang Qi, 40, of China. She and her 11-year-old son came specifically to the Expo from the province of Hubei, which is more than 900 kilometres away. An economist by profession, the woman only managed to see the pavilions of four other countries before coming to that of Lithuania. She was enticed to drop by the Lithuanian pavilion by the huge figures of people made of basketballs that decorate the outside of the pavilion. She said she remembered straight away that Lithuania was a basketball country that has the coach Jonas Kazlauskas, who is known all over China.

 

The special guest at the Lithuanian pavilion was given a special guided tour around the pavilion and presented with a necklace of amber beads available from the Lithuanian pavilion as well as other token mementos. The woman was also entitled to visit the international Expo on October 25, the national day of Lithuania, on which our country’s President Dalia Grybauskaitė is scheduled to visit the Expo as well.

 

This week, the Russian and the Polish pavilions attracted their two-millionth visitor at the Expo 2010 as well. Latvia, Lithuania’s other neighbour, which opened its pavilion merely a month ago has announced to have only received 330,000 guests.

 

Lithuania’s pavilion has been getting 37,000 visitors per day. So far the largest number of visitors in a single day was 55,000. Earlier estimates put the total number of anticipated visitors at 3-4 million for the six months that the pavilion will be open, but this figure has been revised upwards almost twofold to 5-6 million.