their competences. Still, another 16 referrals (in addition to the five mentioned above) were received anonymously. Sometimes, the researcher was only provided with the phone number or the address of the person. The FRC provided access to the three stateless persons detained or accommodated there during the time of the research. Also other methods were employed to reach out to the target population. These included contacting individual activists, posting advertisements in municipal newspapers, participating in online forums, extracting contact information from existing case law and visiting the soup kitchens in Vilnius. This combination of methods produced a further nine referrals. Of the total of 33 referrals received, 21 resulted in semi-structured interviews because some people could not be contacted based on the information received. The interviews lasted on average 40 minutes and took place in interviewees’ homes, cafés, a prison facility, the FRC, community centers and soup kitchens in eight towns from 16 August to 12 September 2012. Almost all of them were conducted individually; hence, UNHCR’s participatory assessment methodology, which is normally implemented through focus group discussions could not be strictly used. If the interviewee agreed and if the circumstances permitted, they were recorded. Interviewees were asked if possible to share documents to support the information they shared. Participation was entirely voluntary, although vulnerable interviewees were provided with food items or small amounts of money after the interview. Two thirds of the interviews were conducted in Russian and the rest in Lithuanian. Of the 21 interviews, one was brought to a halt because the interviewee was not feeling well and did not want to continue. One individual turned out to be a national of the Russian Federation. Thus, 19 cases in total were used for the purposes of this research. Despite additional efforts to ensure the diversity of participants, only four of them were women and only a single case concerned a stateless child. Just over half of the participants were born in Lithuania, while the others had come to the country from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Latvia. Asked to describe their national identity, participants quoted Russian (5), Belarusian (3), Lithuanian (2), Roma (2), Ukrainian (2), Armenian (1), Chuvash (1) and Tatar (1). Two participants found it difficult to describe their national identity. The vast majority of the participants were between 35 and 64 years old. As said, one interviewee was a minor and three participants were over 65 years old. The group most represented by far consisted of permanent residents who had not obtained any country’s citizenship during the “zero option” period or who later renounced their Lithuanian citizenship, and who subsequently obtained permanent residence permits. Such persons represented 65% of the interviewed persons. Three persons with “unresolved” legal status were interviewed; another two persons had acquired residence permits very recently and could thus provide valuable information regarding the situation of this group. These two groups of stateless persons for whom Lithuania is their “own country” together constituted 80% of the sample. One “unreturnable” person was interviewed at the FRC. Three of the interviewed persons had arrived after 1991 and were subject to Lithuanian immigration laws from the outset of their stay. One stateless asylum-seeker was referred but in the end did not participate in the interview. Given the relatively small sample of stateless persons interviewed, UNHCR does not consider these interviews to constitute a proper quantitative and qualitative analysis of the actual situation and experiences of stateless persons in Lithuania. However, the experiences and views expressed do help shed some light on “the face of statelessness” in Lithuania, and how the fact of being stateless impacts on these people’s daily lives and hopes for the future. U N H C R S TO C K H O L M , M AY 2 0 1 6 31