[Mediterraneo10]

This is quite inaccurate. Lithuania's minority of Russian speakers is not "sizable" at all. Much fewer ethnic Russians lived there historically compared to the other two Baltic states, and loads of the Soviet-era Russian transplants left after '91. Russian is pretty useless for doing business as a foreigner, people expect English.

In Latvia, especially Riga, Russian is spoken, but younger generations of ethnic Latvians are less and less welcoming of using it. Again, English is expected. There has been a distinct rise in shops in Riga where it's basically "Speak Latvian or English to me or GTFO".

Source: I'm a Russian speaker who visits all three Baltic countries at least 2-3 times a year, most recently last week.

[jen20]

Lithuania is an interesting case (I don't know much about the other Baltic states). I've been there at least twice a year for the last decade, and have helped organise one of the largest software conferences there for several of those. Several of my best friends (British and American expats) live in Vilnius and are married to Lithuanians.

My experience is anyone 30 or over speaks fluent Russian, but many of those will not admit to it - those in the 30-40 range are highly distrustful of anything Russian - and reasonably so given the history of the country. Anyone under 30 barely speaks Russian unless they themselves are immigrants from Russia.

I'd agree that in Lithuania a software engineering candidate that spoke Russian and not at least a "very good" standard of English or fluent Lithuanian would struggle to find work.