Lithuania: Vilnius, Trakai and a picnic at Stalin World
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Vilnius is harder to characterise than the two other Baltic capitals. It doesn’t have a medieval core – it’s instead a baroque city with the occasional medieval building or, more frequently, newer buildings with a few medieval bricks from the original foundation displayed – and it’s certainly not as beautiful as either Tallinn or Riga. It’s rougher around the edges than both of them as well; graffiti and beggars are commonplace in the old town (the latter so much so that the tourist office hands out pamphlets to tourists that the tourists then give to the beggars; the pamphlets give information on how homeless people can get help). But Vilnius is also a more pious city, with Catholic pilgrims streaming in from nearby Poland to visit the Mary shrine inside the Gates of Dawn and other sites frequented by the late Pope John Paul II, and the resulting rise in the number of stores selling religious paraphernalia. And when you walk down Gedimino prospektas, a classy tree-lined avenue with designer stores inside baroque palaces, you can squint a little and you’re almost in Paris. Yet in contrast to this baroque vibe is that Vilnius has Eastern Europe’s oldest university, historic and beautiful enough that its 13 courtyards are now a tourist attraction. So in the end, you look out over the city from the medieval brick tower on the Gedimino Hill and are left viewing a mixture of different eras, styles and futures.
While in Vilnius we made two day-trips to nearby attractions. The first was to Trakai, with its gorgeously located medieval castle on a tiny island reached by two footbridges from the mainland. As a defensive castle it’s not much good, since attackers by land would not even pass it and attackers by sea could easily bypass it, but as a fortified palace it’s quite charming.
The more interesting trip, however, was to the controversial neo-Soviet ‘theme park’ known officially as Grutas Park and unofficially as Stalin World. In the fiercely anti-Soviet Baltic states (where there are ‘occupation’ museums in all three capitals), the opening of a park for the display of Soviet sculptures so soon (within 10 years) after the fall of the Soviet Union was met with some resistance. But in fact the purpose of the park is not to glorify the Soviet era and it is actually very anti-Soviet, detailing the terror the regime inspired in Lithuania, and is very well presented. Walking in the cold around the forest past the sculptures – which included about a dozen Lenins and two prized and (I imagine) rare Stalins (one bust and one full-body sculpture) – with Soviet music playing from nearby speakers was an eerie feeling, and the reflection that it inspires makes it, I think, a place that Lithuanians should visit to help them contemplate their recent history.
From Vilnius we headed back north to Riga, and celebrated seven years of being together last night at Rozengrals, a fabulous medieval restaurant in the old town, which I highly recommend for the ambience and experience of dining underground in a building first mentioned in 1293. As I write now, we are at Riga airport awaiting our flight to Rome, and while I’m excited as usual to be going to the Eternal City, Wendy is only staying long enough to dump her bag before turning around, switching airports, and flying to Geneva for a meeting tomorrow. To compensate for her absence, I have promised friends that I will drink twice as much at Campo de Fiori tonight…
Nick