In 1999, Lithuania awarded its citizenship to a former KGB agent. Now, you don't need to understand much about Lithuania to know how much they hate anything to do with the Soviet Union, especially the KGB! (In the center of Vilnius there is a museum dedicated to KGB atrocities. But we digress.)

So who was this KGB agent? Shabtai Kalmanovich was actually born in Kaunas, Lithuania, under the Soviet rule, but his family emigrated to Israel in 1971. There, he became... yep, a KGB agent, spying on the Israelis. (He was possibly a double-agent? If that makes it better...)

In any case, the KGB had other problems to deal with, so Shabtai stopped spying, spent some time in an Israeli jail, and returned to the now non-Soviet Russia. Already a successful (mafia-backed?) businessman in Israel, he turned to pharmaceuticals and concert promotions and quickly became one of Russia's richest men.

Like many of Russia's richest men, it didn't end well for Shabtai, as he was gunned down in his car in 2009. But this was not before he went back to his Lithuanian roots and sponsored his hometown basketball team, Zalgiris Kaunas, all the way to the European championship. For that, Lithuania gave him its citizenship.

As much as Lithuania hates the KGB, it loves basketball that much more...