Friday, August 30, 2002

 

Hello from Vilnius, Lithuania!


Since my last e-mail, I completed my visit to Riga, Latvia by visiting the Museum of the Occupation which details life in Latvia under the Russians in 1940, the Nazis in 1941-43 and the Soviets from 1944 to 1991. The museum provides a detailed history lesson in an easy to understand format. Needless to say, the description of the early years covered some very unpleasant events. The section on the later years of Soviet rule contained examples of the substandard goods that were available (or not necessarily always available) to Latvian consumers. Latvians suffered through shortages as recently as the early 1990’s as a result of central planning of the economy. Things have certainly changed: Latvians now have access to the latest of everything in thoroughly modern stores.

That afternoon, I ventured out to the suburbs of Riga by public bus (an old rickety thing that proudly proclaimed «Made in Hungary» at the front). There, amid the ugly grey Soviet housing projects was the Riga Motor Museum, an automobile museum containing mainly Soviet and old German cars. They had limousines that belonged to Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, along with other cars that we normally wouldn’t see or wouldn’t have seen in the West.

That night, I took in a Latvian open-air rock concert. It was not much different than would be a similar event in Canada, except that I couldn’t understand the lyrics.

The next day, I took a 5-hour bus ride to Vilnius, where I am now. On the bus, I met fellow travellers from Edmonton, Knoxville (Tennessee), Japan and Sydney (Australia).

Vilnius, like all the other places I’ve visited, has many old buildings, but they are generally in better shape. It seems that the renovation projects are more advanced here. The economy is relatively strong and there are some extremely modern boutiques in the town. My hotel is a small guesthouse that is extremely modern even by North American standards (plus I get MTV in German, as well as Polish TV!).

There are numerous churches (often more than one per block). Most are Roman Catholic (unlike the other places I’ve visited, which were either Russian Orthodox or Lutheran (Latvia)). This morning, I visited at least 10 churches. It is interesting to note that, unlike many churches in Europe, which are filled mainly with tourists, the churches here are filled with actual worshippers.

Lithuania is at the geographical centre of Europe. Partly as a result, the city of Vilnius changed hands a dozen times over the course of the 20th century. It has been part of Poland, Russia, Germany and the Soviet Union and has also been (and is currently) an independent country.

The people here tend to be more open to foreigners. Even if they don’t speak much English, they make an honest effort and my interactions with the locals have therefore been very pleasant.

They also seem to have a good sense of humour: There is a memorial statue of Frank Zappa, complete with appropriate graffiti art. Also, an artsy section of town (the «Montmartre of Vilnius») has declared itself an independent republic. Every year, on April Fool’s Day, they set up a passport control. Clearly, these examples do not fit the serious «Soviet» tradition.

There are very few ethnic Russians here and there seems to be less of a link to Russia than in the other Baltic States. The second the Soviet Union collapsed, all the statues of Lenin and so forth disappeared (they are still in place in Russia in many spots) and the people here made links with the West. Many Lithuanians have emigrated to the USA (many in Chicago) and Canada (I have been told by at least 3 people about their cousin or brother in Toronto).

Yesterday, I visited the only remaining synagogue in Vilnius. Before the Second World War, there were 240,000 Jews in Lithuania and Jews made up over 30 percent of the population of Vilnius. There were 160 synagogues in Vilnius and Vilnius was known as the «Jerusalem of Lithuania» due to its being a great centre of Jewish learning and Yiddish culture. Ninety-five percent of Lithuania’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

A caretaker let me into the synagogue. He was originally from Belarus and we could only communicate in Yiddish (Yiddish was the language of Eastern European Jews before the Holocaust; it resembles German, with words borrowed from Hebrew, English and French, and is written using Hebrew letters). Unfortunately, I don’t know much Yiddish, yet we managed to converse for 20 minutes (I got the gist of what he was saying and I smiled a lot!).

It seems that the common language of the current Jewish residents of Vilnius is Yiddish, which would make this place quite unique in that it is one of the few places where Yiddish is used by non-religious Jews for everyday conversation. I noticed that there has recently been a Yiddish film festival and a Yiddish drama festival here.

I then visited two Jewish museums. They mainly dealt with the Holocaust in Lithuania and described in gruesome detail how the Jews here had their basic rights revoked and then were murdered both in pogroms (attacks by violent mobs) and in organized shootings in the forests. It was not a pleasant museum-going experience, but it is important to see. I was encouraged by the fact that all exhibits were in the Lithuanian language for the locals to understand. I am informed that Lithuanian schoolchildren learn about their country’s awful past. Hopefully, such atrocities will be prevented from ever reoccurring.

On a personal note, seeing the pictures and reading the descriptions of the awful inhumane treatment of Jews and the atrocities committed by the Germans and the Lithuanians emphasized in my mind the importance of the continued existence of the State of Israel (founded in 1948, after the Holocaust): Never again should Jews find themselves in the role of powerless victims.

After lunch, I decided to continue my «day of atrocities» by visiting the former headquarters of the KGB. There I visited the holding cells, torture chambers and execution chambers used on «enemies» of the Soviets. The last prisoners were held here as late as 1987 (although, it seems that the executions took place mainly in the time of Stalin). In the Soviet era, citizens could denounce one another as traitors or anti-Communists, which would lead to the accused being arrested and interned (or worse) without a fair trial. People were clearly afraid to stir up trouble or even to speak their mind.

After such a «pleasant» day, I had a wonderful supper of Russian food (After all, I am on vacation!).

Tomorrow morning, I have to catch a 6:30 a.m. (!) flight to Amsterdam. I have a 7-hour layover in the Dutch city and then I catch a flight to Montreal.

I hope that you have enjoyed my e-mails and have learned something as you have shared my adventures. These e-mails will serve me as a journal of my trip.

I leave here with a positive outlook: Most people in the former Soviet Union have never lived as well as they are living now, nor have they enjoyed this level of political freedom. With time, their standard of living will approach ours.

You should visit them if you get the opportunity!

See you soon.

--Larry

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