Thursday, August 26, 2010

Laughter in Lithuania



When I was in Warsaw, I met a very unpleasant French man who simply said that he disliked the Baltic states. He did not specify why when I asked him, but he just did. He made some rude remarks about me as well and his wife was embarrassed. But I think he was wrong on both counts.

My first stop in Lithuania was its capital, Vilnius. It has a nice personable old town, with several churches. It amused me that the Soviets used one of the churches to be a church of atheism. The Lithuanians were definitely not convinced.

I must admit, after traveling for several months, old castles, museums and churches were not high on my lists of to dos. The nicest church was one that was changing hands and was almost empty. There was still a few pictures of the Virgin and Christ. This seems the most honest to me. But I did visit some of the churches like the Gates of Dawn, where they have the Black Madonna. And the Choral Synangogue too.

What did leave a mark on me was the Museum for the victims of Genocide. Here was the history of how the Soviets signed a secret pact with Hitler to divide up the region. How the Soviets annexed Lithuania together with the other two Baltic states. The Germans broke the pact and took over Lithuania for about four years and then were driven out by the Russians again. The Lithuanians and countries like the United States always considered this an unlawful occupation. But Stalin wanted the Baltic states. Many Lithuanians were sent to hard labour in distant places in Russia. A lot of people were kept, tortured and killed in the Soviet run prisons in Lithuania. The west did nothing. I am not sure why, maybe after fighting Germany, the west had no stomach to take on the Soviet Union. Life just ain't fair.

But you have to like the Lithuanians, because they are the most humorous bunch of people I have met. In Vilnius, a group of artists have declared their own independence in a district called Uzupio. They have a hilarious constitution which says things like 'You can die, but you are not obliged to'.

Vilnius is not as grand as the old cities of Poland, but it is very charming in it's own right. There is a road on Literatu street where there is an open air gallery celebrating the literature of Lithuania. Beautiful work.



I went to the port town of Klaipeda, which is the connection to the Curonian Spit. The spit is a 140km sand dune with the Baltic sea on one side and a large lagoon on the other side. Half of the spit is owned by Lithuania and the other half is owned by the Soviets. The old town of Klaipeda is small, charming in its own right. Its old buildings have interesting wooden beams as support. The buildings used to be warehouses for the shipping trade. Can you believe it, out of the 11 tourist sights in the old town, one is a sculpture of a mouse and another is a sculpture of a cat.

The Curonian Spit though is simply breathtaking. It does not seem like much to look at the sea. But when you see the Baltic sea coming ashore, you really get to see the majesty of the sea, of nature. And along the long long beach, Lithuanians and tourists have fun sunning themselves. Quite a few people go nude! Talk about a sense of freedom.

I ended my travels in Lithuania with a short visit to Siauliai. I did not really sight see in Siauliai as it seems more like an industrial town. But what is amazing is the Hill of Crosses which is about 15km out of town. Just thousands and thousands of crosses. The Soviets tried to destroy this religious site, but the Lithuanians kept putting up new crosses. Most of my friends know that I am not a believer, but the sight of so much spontaneous religious expression is impressive.

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