the light emerges around 5 in the morning and lasts until after 10pm.
time does not seem to exist.
Vilnius is antique and pristine. The curving cobblestone streets are full of culture — it is a city of museums, music, arts, theater, and cafes. The year of 2009, Vilnius is named the Culture Capital of Europe. Arts events are scattered thoughout the entire year.
My home is in the sleeping quarters of a convent in a wonderful room set in the Old Town. Each morning the bells chime, bong bong bong, signaling me to wake up, though the sun has been up for hours. At night the sounds of singing and laughing stream through the window from a next door wine bar. The morning is quiet — the first two days I felt like a hidden person in this forgotten city. Now I am better acquainted.
Sr. Igne runs the convent. Though born in Lithuania, she lived in Connecticut for years. Igne is quick, kind, and spunky — she pioneered the rehabilitation of the church a surrounding facilities.
On the first full day I visited the arts, music, and theater museum where an auburn haired woman with thin-rimmed glasses and a lanky long body talked to me in one long sentence for hours about both the museum and the classical concerts, hosted in nearby cathedrals. She lived in chicago for two years and was elated to learn that I traveled from the States. The tiny exhibit displayed old gramophones, harps, sequin purses, ballet slippers, film cameras, and a movie from the 30’s shot with a bolex camera depicting playful wooden marionettes set in a surrealist, ‘metropolis-like’ set. The wooden characters danced, played, smoked, and kissed.
I bought the dvd so everyone can experience the dreaminess.
On Saturday I rose early to visit Europus Parkas, a huge sculpture garden set in the magical woods just outside the city. I took two buses to get there. The first trip was confusing, but uneventful. Rain began to fall just as i arrived. I walked through the woods and looked at gorgeous pieces made of copper, stone, and television sets. Mosquitos started biting my legs and the rain fell harder. After two hours of wet itchiness, I was ready to go. The bus, however, was not ready to take me. It was not set to arrive for at least two hours. The young woman working at the tourist cafe suggested i wait, walk to the nearest kiosk, 3 km away, or hitch hike. I opted to walk three kilometers. Unfortunately, I clearly do not know the true length of a kilometer. Thinking it was much longer than a couple miles, i walked right on by the kiosk. I walked passed country homes, old and modern — passed empty streets and expansive vegetable gardens. Finally, i approached a mud road. This, i did not remember, but, i figured the rain had caused the mud and just continued walking. A car splashed mud on me and i looked at my watch… more than an hour has passed. I suddenly knew i had walked too far. A black car approached and I threw my thump up. The couple inside spoke no english, so they called their friend who informed me the kiosk I had passed miles back was in fact the bus stop. The young couple gave me a ride to the kiosk. For at least five minutes I sat in the back seat with their friendly brown dog. He licked my face until the woman swatted him down. My hope was to return to the city center at 4pm the latest. Alas, 8pm I finally stepped inside the church gates.
Currently, I am living next to a room occupied by nuns — two from brazil, one from ukraine. They wear blue table-cloth like fabric around their bodies. They’re in vilnius to study lithuanian language since they will be working as missionaries in the lithuanian counryside for the year. All are incredibly kind. The smallest of the three is saavy.. she opened a can of beans using a dull knife for me the first night we met.
During the days I meander through the streets of the city.
In the evenings I read the tales of my great grandmother Pearl. She emigrated from lithuania to Pittsburgh in the early 1900’s. Pearl wrote endearing stories about her childhood in the Lithuanian countryside.
Her accounts of life in the village create an intimate, enchanted image of the time.
I can picture little Jewish villages in every piece of the countryside. In the town beside Europas Parkas, spinster women with silver hair and faded dresses mirrored the characters in Pearl’s journals. They carried white flowers and baskets of berries.
Riga…
Riga is astounding. The city is rich with opera, theater, gardens, markets, and endless facades featuring nouveau style architecture. Vulumptuous females emerge from rows of buildings that line the center city and old town. Across from my favorite eclectic cafe, an ornate building features medusa heads and an elegant lion looking upward. Ceilings are covered in nouveau design - tiles of blue and violet circles.
On the fringes of a park spans a 24-hour open flower market that infuses the street with scents of perfume. Behind the train station, a vast Central Market consumes what was once a train station. I walked over early, around 7am, when vendors were just setting up. Inside numerous old station centers vendors sell grains, vegetables, trays of crackers and cookies, brown loaves of bread, coffee, deep fried donuts sizzling in oil, sesame cakes, spongy blocks of cheese, glossy fish stacked vertically in buckets, bloody slices of raw meat, dried fruits, and piles of pickled vegetables and sauerkraut More market surrounds the indoor terminals. Rows of wood stands offer cartons of peaches, cherries, berries, honey, flowers, and an endless array of shoes, dresses, cigarettes, and other grocery goods.
On the outskirts of the center city stands a simple, but effective monument to the Jews who died in the Holocaust. In it’s place was a synagogue that the Nazi’s burned , with the entire congregation inside. Two gates and fragments of the foundation remain.
In the Old Town I unexpectedly spent three hours at the Museum of Latvian Occupation. A large exhibit chronicles the history of three invasions– first of communist USSR in 1940, then Nazi Germany in 1941, and then again at the end of World War II. Latvia’s history is very similar to Lithuania’s and Estonia’s. The Baltic countries did not receive true independence from communist control until 1991. In a peaceful symbol of protest, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians linked hands in a chain that spanned all three countries. The number of Jews that survived Nazi occupation is dreadfully low - I believe the number of Lithuanian survivors falls in the range of about a thousand. I cannot recall the exact number before WWII, but it was far greater than the thousands.
Klaipeda…
I arrived to klaipeda early in the evening. The seaside city felt quite empty. Just before sunset I had a drink on the top floor bar of the Klaipeda Hotel, which looks out on to the harbor where green iron rigs and cruise ships docked. The edge of the clouds singed in pinks and purples. The sky grew dark at eleven. A business man from Norway bought me a glass of wine, according to the teenage waitress, but he left before I could acknowledge the gesture.
Incidentally, I finished Thomas Mann’s Tonio Kroger, only to then read in the travel guide that there is a Thomas Mann museum on the Curonian Split, the famed island I visited today. It sits just beside Klaipeda, accessible by ferry. Thomas Mann used to vacation on the island, which is known for stunning sand dunes. In the spring and autum amber washes up on shore. I walked along the sand dune at the tip of the island and looked out on to the peaceful harbor while eating peaches and fresh berries.
My search for two art spaces in Klaipeda led me to Sinagogu gatve, a cobblestone road where a little Jewish population appears to congregate. Men wearing white, carefully embroidered kipas were talking beside a group of children playing in the courtyard.
Lithuania is nothing like Ghana, but for the Celine Dion tracks I seem to hear everywhere I go.
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Tomorrow I head back to Vilnius, via the Hill of Crosses….
Julia Blaukopf
Artist & Photographer
Julia@JuliaBlaukopf.com
610.306.5553