27/07/2010

Vilnius, Lithuania

I keep forgetting what day of the week it is - days are just becoming the number of days away. I struggled to remember that it is in fact Tuesday, without looking at my phone first. This time last week I was playing rounders at the Staff Inset day in Basingstoke, I have traversed the borders of 4 countries since then (if you include the UK) and am soon to cross my next border (at 6.20am on Thursday morning no less!!). When I started writing today's blog I was taking refuge in a bar called California: tapas and wine, there were a couple of Americans on facebook outside, and inside it was empty until the rainfall worsened. I tell you- I am not leaving without kagol and umbrella ever again, I don't care how hot it seems!! The last two days I've worn shorts and flip flops and it has rained.

This morning I went to the Holocaust museum and Centre of Tolerance, they are both tucked away out of site (though both have blue tourist sign posts in the near vicinity). The first is up a little residential driveway sandwiched between a park and some shops, the other is attached to the back of the EU commissionaire office on the border of Old Town/ New Town. For both you have to ring a doorbell and wait for the door to be unlocked for you. At both, they asked me where I was from- I explained London, but they didn't seem to like this and in both instances engaged in a guided tour in English with some elderly women from Germany or the USA. Perhaps this is why I was the only person under 60 in either venue?

Anyway...the collections are very personal, the Holocaust museum is a desperate attempt by volunteers, survivors and their families to keep the memory alive- newspaper cuttings, photos and some internet print outs fill up the space between models of the ghettos and hiding places alongside discovered or rescued items. The first half is in Lithuanian, Hebrew, Russian and English and explains the process of Einzengruppe A and the the particulars of the Holocaust in Lithuania compared to other countries, which is interesting. As the displays become more personal affects, the commentaries lose their English translation, but a detailed guide is handed to me at the beginning- but must be returned. The order of the exhibition is rather jumbled- I am under the impression that this will/ or did belong to a much greater exhibition and has had to fit into this space.

The centre of Tolerance is basically an art gallery with a small informative exhibition regarding the history of the Litvaks and the Jerusalem of the North.

I had lunch near the Town Hall on the pizza, but got rained on- no, stormed on, and had to abandon "Operation crepes" as the chairs and condiments were literally trying to take off! The sun was out for most of the afternoon though, but with patterings of rain occasionally. Vilnius is not quite like Riga, more like Paris. You can see it was once beautiful, but except the places of worship everything now looks pretty rundown or just busy, the cars seem to pump out half a litre of petrol every inch they move.

I fluttered between numerous coffee shops (to shelter from the rain)- the cafes and restronas here must hate me- sipping one coffee forever- until the rain stops. There seems to be a Baltic culture for coffee sipping though- they will not ask you if you want the bill, but rather let you waste away the hours until you are ready to leave, very different from the allocated time slots in big London restaurants. There is definately a more relaxed pace of life here.

I eventually continued on my quest to find Jewish memorials dotted around the city and the sites of the Ghettos- I found the best way to do this was to actually get lost (as the first guide I had was a little vague- the icons were quite big and it was never clear which road they were on)- applying this tactic I discovered most of the place of interest on my small map and discovered the Jewish cultural and information centre- went in and had a chat with the lady, who also explained clearly how I should get to Paneriai tomorrow, had a chat with her about my research, bought a pictorial guide to the Jewish sites and she check the opening times of a museum for me too. This new guide detailed 100 of these sites!!

I think I did pretty well on my mission, the Choral synagogue is absolutely beautiful, just on the outskirts of Old Town, the old ghetto streets at times feel deserted- a haunting silence creeps over them, it is amazing to think, as you walk up and down this small streets that this area housed over 20,000 people and that only 5% survived. However on Zydu grave (Jewish street) and Antokolskio grave (the roads of the small ghetto) there is now a cafe on each, the one on Zydu grave is a particularly nice patisserie- life as Peterais said the other day, moves on, the memories of places is forgotten, people sit eating their cheesecakes- completely ignorant of what occurred here. It makes you think- how little we know about the history of our own abodes-

There are a lot of army cadets marching around, chanting, being loud and generally looking seriously apathetic about being out in the rain, there leaders also have that expression of "When I joined the army, I didn't know I was signing up to run a youth camp". Back at the hotel now, after finding out some interest stuff about this site during the War (see photos).

Things to note in the Baltic:

DnB Bank: seems to be the major bank

Cash machines are everywhere, exchange points are not so much

Maxima and Rima: both major 24hr Supermarkets: its so nice not to see bloody Tescos and Sainsburys everywhere

There are still McDonalds- arghhh!

Double Coffee is the Starbucks of the region.

If you talk English in the Baltics you learn soon to speak Eastern European English: I have struggle with grammar in next Uni assignment, I will!!