Lithuania
My
family rarely talks about why my
great-grandfather, Matthew Pulokas, left his village in Lithuania to emigrate
to the United States. In fact, we rarely ever talk about him at all anymore.
Although he had nearly a dozen children, he had only two grandchildren, both of
whom married non-Lithuanians. A century of living in the American melting pot
has dimmed almost all memories of our Lithuanian past, and the why question is
hardly relevant when few of us can even remember who or where.
One
family legend has it that Matthew left in order to evade the draft. The
Russians needed soldiers, and young Lithuanian men were often called upon to
serve as cannon fodder by the communists, the story goes. The best records we
have show that he left in the 1890’s or earlier, at least 25 years before the
Russian revolution, so he certainly wasn’t worried about communists. I don’t
know how often Lithuanian boys were forced to join the Czar’s army, but
Lithuania was under Russian control in those days, so I suppose it’s possible.
Historically it is clear that
Matthew wasn’t escaping political persecution, and he probably wasn’t much of
an economic refugee either. Lithuania in those days was poor, but there was
plenty of food and land to go around, so emigration wasn’t so much an escape
from a bad situation as it was a gamble that in the Land of Opportunity he
might have a shot at becoming even more successful than if he had stayed in the
Old Country.
After Matthew left, it was virtually
impossible for his descendants to return to Lithuania, and it wasn’t until 100
years later that political circumstances in Eastern Europe combined with
economic circumstances in the lives of his descendants made it possible for me,
his great-grandson, to return for a visit. It’s sad that only one of Matthew’s
children, my grandfather, is still alive and able to appreciate my visit to the
country. Two of his other children, my great-uncles who never married, died
during the past five years. Nobody speaks Lithuanian anymore, nobody remembers
much about Lithuanian culture, food, holidays, or customs. Statistically, a
total of three million Americans are of Lithuanian descent, but only a few of
Matthew’s descendants are probably counted in that statistic. Our Lithuanian
heritage has slipped far into the past.
I was there for a total of ten days:
from July 10th through July 19th in 1992. I spent only one night in Panevezys,
which family legend remembers as Matthew’s home town. This story would be more
interesting if it included a touching scene with the old sages of Panevezys
meeting me at the town hall in order to greet a native son who finally returned
home. But real life is more, well, realistic.. Lithuania is a small, poor country, ravaged
by two world wars and a 50-year enemy
occupation since the days Matthew left.
The people in Lithuania today have forgotten his departure, and
practically no memories remain of their lifestyles so long ago. They were happy
to see me, but not because of my great-grandfather, but because as an American
I represent the potential to rebuild a nation ravaged by a century of so much
evil.
It may have made them even happier
that I come as an American not from the United States, but from Japan, a
country symbolic of the ability of hardworking people to rise from ashes and
become the envy of the world. I traveled with a Japanese friend whose own
ancestors in Matthew’s day were far poorer and far more underdeveloped than
anything Lithuania has seen in thousands of years.
We arrived late in the evening—past
11pm. The city is wonderfully quaint,
especially from the air; lots of
cottage-style brick houses and narrow, winding roadways. You almost expect to
see thatched roofs and blue-bonneted maidens on their way home from milking the
cows.
Vilnius airport is tiny, definitely
not a place you’d expect to see any signs including the word “International”.
We were slightly worried about arriving without a visa; the Lithuanian embassy
in the United States told me that visas are mandatory. Our worries were
foundless. There were two “border guards”, teenagers dressed in uniforms,
looking at each passport as if to say “Wow, man, this guy’s from Japan!
I’ve heard of that country!”
The travel agent, Violetta, met us at the airport with Lietuva lapel
pins and flowers which had already wilted because of our late plane. She took us to a place called
Rumshiskis, in the Turniskis section of Vilnius where we would stay while in
Vilnius. The travel agency, GT International, owns some property that had
formerly been used by the communist party for weekend training seminars, and
therefore was kept in pretty nice condition. Our “hotel” was really one of the apartments on this
property. It’s a long way from town (a 20 minute drive), but there was a “bus”,
Violetta assured us, and it would leave at any time we like. I said how about 9:00am, and she said it
would be waiting.
On
our first morning, Saturday July 11th, we were two or three minutes late going
to the appointed departure spot for our “bus” that would take us to town. Not sure what to do, since any private
transport service should have known that we were there and certainly wouldn’t
have left if we were 3 minutes late, we waited until about 9:30. I called
Violetta at home and she apparently already knew that we were late. I guess
their transportation system is not well developed yet, and they are still in
the process of explaining simple details of professional courtesy to their
drivers.
While waiting for the new car to
come, I called the phone number for Oleg’s house. Oleg is the doctor friend I
met at the University of Pennsylvania in 1990 when a group of Lithuanian
medical students made an exchange visit to the United States. He wasn’t home,
but his father (who speaks some English) explained that Oleg was now in Kaunas. But he, Victor, would be happy to meet us
and show us around town.
Our driver finally arrived. He was a
pleasant, big-fisted man with an unpronouncably long name and virtually
non-existent English. Yet he proudly brandished his bilingual name card giving
his name and title “Director of Transportation”, which he repeated in
Lithuanian-accented English. He liked to drive very quickly, eagerly looking at
our facial expressions as he narrowly escaped accidents. Don’t worry, he said in Russian/Lithuanian: he’s
been driving for years and knows cars like a pro. He’s the “Director of Transportation”, he repeated.
We ate breakfast at the Hotel
Neringa, a dreary old building in the center of the city. Breakfast cost 140
rubles (about $1) for two people and included fried eggs, tomatoes, and rye
bread flavored with chives. It was very good.
My first impressions of Lithuanian
food were good: what I now know was unsweetened kool-aid, I referred in my
notes to “strawberry or raspberry juice with pulp removed. Excellent”. Later
that day for lunch we ate “chive-flavored potatoes and a wiener-snitzel (fried
pork) with mango juice”. The memory now of eating potatoes and meat (no
vegetables or fresh fruit) for every meal is revolting to me now, but I
apparently liked my first impressions.
Victor did lots of walking with us
that first day. He took us first to Gediminas castle, with its gorgeous view of
the city and surrounding area. I took a few pictures, but now I regret that I
didn’t take more, especially panorama shots which would have been a great way
to show on film the size and beauty of the city.
We also saw Vilnius University
(established in the 1300’s, the oldest in Northern Europe), several theaters,
and other sites in the Vilnius Old Town.
Later in the afternoon we walked
past the parliament building, scene of so many protests during the independence
drives two years ago. Now everything is peaceful, with lots of placards and
small handmade monuments to commemorate the events that led to independence.
The building is still cordoned off with huge cement barricades and barbed wire,
on command of President Landsbergis, who says they will not be removed until
all Russian troops have left Lithuanian soil.
It was a hot day, with temperatures
in the 80’s (F), too hot for the jeans and shoes with socks I brought with
me. I had been warned that Lithuania is
a chilly country, even in the summer, and I was unprepared for the heat; so I
asked Victor to take us to a place where we can buy sandals. I assumed that, this being the land of my
ancestors, I should be able to find plenty of shoes that fit my size 29cm
feet. No such luck. Victor took us on a
bus to a department store near Hotel Lietuva.
It was a large department store, by Lithuanian standards—probably the
largest in the country. No shoes my size, though. Victor says that Oleg,
himself close to 30cm, finds it practically impossible to buy shoes. I guess
Lithuanians’ diet or something has prevented them from having as big of feet as
those of us who descended from American immigrants. I found one pair that I
liked, something that looked like real leather or rubber for about 600 rubles
($4), but Victor was shocked at the price and insisted that I look elsewhere
for something more reasonable. I never did buy anything.
The stores are much more barren than
I expected. A bookstore, for example, is just a shop with a table on which are
laid a few dozen books, one of each, like a garage sale. Restaurants are very
clean and spacious, but no frills, no detailed menu. A receipt is printed on
extremely cheap paper—one step above toilet paper, one step below tissue paper.
A drink shop, the Lithuanian answer to A&W, is a warehouse full of bottles of warm drinks, some apple cider
maybe and beer. Nothing chilled, no ice, no refrigeration. The price is cheap,
maybe ten cents or so for a bottle, and you have to return the container when
you are finished.
The big department store has only a
few items in each category, but I did see some TV games, watches, jewelry, lots
of the things you’d see in any western department store. Salesgirls stood
behind each counter in pretty green uniforms calculating each sale with an
abacus. Calculators are too expensive, I guess.
We talked a lot to Victor, and he
told us about himself. He’s Russian, born in Southern Russia, married to a
woman he met in college in Russia. His wife, though, was transferred to Vilnius
after graduation, and he followed her then, 25 years ago, when he got a job at a radio electronics factory. He served in the Russian army, mandatory
military service, in Azerbaijan between 1958 and 1959. He says he was lucky not
to have been sent to Hungary during the uprising then. Lithuania, he says, was
blessed to be ruled by stupid communists, people who could easily be outsmarted
by the citizens and therefore kept from being too oppressive.
He never learned to speak
Lithuanian, like most Russians living in the Soviet Republics. There never was
a need for it, since Russian was the official language, and all shopkeepers,
government officials, and public communications were done in Russian. Now,
however, there is a major backlash against Russians, both the people and the
language, so he lives in a state of semi-fear. I don’t think he goes out much,
and it was clear that he was glad to be seen in public with us foreigners
rather than have to do shopping and errands by himself as a Russian. Now there
are symbols of the backlash everywhere: in spite of Lithuania’s poverty and the
tremendous expense involved in removing every Russian-language street sign, for
example, you could find no signs in Russian anywhere. Even on the tops of tall
buildings, places where it must have been difficult and expensive to access,
you seen small Lithuanian signs with traces beneath of scratched out or removed
Russian signs.
He invited us to take the bus to his
house, and along the way a man in Italian sunglasses noticed us on the bus and
gave us souvenir 1-ruble coins issued in honor of Lenin’s 100th birthday in
1970. These must have been quite valuable, and I feel embarrassed now that the
best I could give him in return was a US 25-cent piece and a Japanese 10-yen
coin. He invited us to his house
(although we were never able to come). His name was Milesheyic and his phone number
was 47-64-00. I hope someday I’ll be
able to talk to him again.
Everything is poor, even relative to
a place like Mexico. So few things to buy, but at least Lithuania is very clean
and spacious and orderly.
While walking through a beautiful
church, an old woman approached me, begging for money. She kissed my hand and
seemed to plead with her voice for any kind of favor. I, who am used to a
strict policy of never giving handouts to street bums in New York, feel sad now
that I had no small bills to give her, even though 50 cents would have made her
life a lot easier.
On Sunday, July 12, our driver was
waiting for us promptly at 9:00am. He took us back into town, to the Hotel
Neringa again for breakfast. Two young men, both kindda shady looking, with
tattoos and muscular builds, asked us in a combination of Lithuanian and
Russian if we have Deutsch Marks. They
wanted to sell us something—anything—uniforms from the Red Army, 1 Ruble coins,
anything to make some money.
Vittorio was afraid that they may be
up to no good. Even the waitress started talking to them in a voice that
sounded as though she wanted them to leave us alone. But I asked them to find
us some bicycles, the foldable portable kind. We exchanged phone numbers; one
guy wrote “Igor” in Russian and 47-15-34. We thought we reached an
understanding that they would meet us again tomorrow at this hotel, with
bicycles, and we would give them $50.
I thought they might be interested
in selling rubles at a black market exchange rate; I offered a dollar for 200
rubles. No, they insisted, the exchange rate is 135 and nothing else would do.
Again, I wonder why the ruble is not a hard currency if you can change it back
and forth as much as you want at a commonly-accepted exchange rate.
Our driver on Sunday is a very nice,
balding man with a very Russian-looking mustache. He is Lithuanian, he says,
married to a Russian woman who is a schoolteacher. They have one 18-year-old
and a 6-year-old.
Communication is very difficult all
day, although Vittorio’s Russian abilities make basic conversation somewhat
possible. The driver and most of the other people speak absolutely no English
(not even basic greetings or numbers). Misunderstandings regularly occur,
making it clear that although Vittorio’s Russian is a lot better than nothing,
we have a long way to go. Still, the driver doesn’t talk to me at all, knowing
that I understand nothing. We have nothing at all to say, and Vittorio and I
speak Japanese together the whole day.
The weather turned warm again, with
no rain. High temperatures were 25-28o C, a
little on the warm side, but certainly not unpleasant.
Trakai was wonderful. After a 20
minute drive out of Vilnius we arrived at a beautiful lake with the cleanest
water I’ve seen anywhere, maybe even better than the places I’ve seen in remote
parts of Canada. At least here there
are few people or even stores to get in the way of nature. Tourist information
signs (and there are few of them) are written in Lithuanian and Russian,
sometimes in German, but never in English. This is something that will
certainly change within a year or two, I’m sure, as will the lack of
restaurants, souvenir shops, and other symbols of the tourism that accompanies
any place as beautiful anywhere else in the West.
There is an island in the middle of
the lake, and an ancient ruler built a huge and beautiful castle there. A small
walking bridge connects the island to the shore of the lake, turning the lake
into a natural moat. There is a museum inside the castle now, and the inside is
much more impressive than the relatively humble exterior of the castle makes it
seem. There are lots of fabulous
carvings and paintings, some imported from China at what 500 years ago must
have been fantastically expensive cost. These Lithuanian monarchs certainly had
incredible wealth, easily on par with the biggest Daimyos of Japan during the
same period.
After visiting the museum, we found
a yachtsman who normally changes $1 per person for a ride on his sailboat, but
since we don’t look or act like normal tourists, he says he’ll let all three of
us sail for a dollar. This is another
example of something that won’t happen five years from now.
We explored the city of Trakai for
an hour or two, stumbling into many Russian soldiers on leave from their base
for the afternoon. The soldiers seemed
harmless, always very young—maybe 20 years old—and unarmed.
Even in a small town, everything is
well-kept, simple, and always very clean. No beggars outside the church this
time.
We were very lucky to be here now,
at the beginning of Lithuanian’s modernization, while the remnants of the
socialist period are still in place, yet enough of the future is here to make
travel safe and flexible.
Our driver took us back into
Vilnius, then suggested we go swimming in another beautiful green lake that he
knew. He took us to a place that could have been Hatfield Wisconsin, though of
course there were no hot dog stands or Coke machines. Just lots of young people
enjoying the cool water on a hot Sunday afternoon. Lots of Russians here too.
Both Vittorio and I were stunned by
how beautiful the girls are. They all seem to have perfect skin, perfect
figures, and always the beautiful gray Lithuanian eyes.
Our driver took us to the Vilnius TV
station, whose tower is the third highest in Europe (sixth in the world, after
Canada, Moscow, and a couple other places). There is a memorial for the 13
victims of the Soviet crackdown that took place on January 13, 1991—the same
day that the U.S. and its allies began the Gulf War.
By chance we ran into a ceremony
outside the tower, apparently commemorating the 1 1/2 year anniversary of the
crackdown. People sang patriotic and religious songs,and a young girl dressed
in full traditional costume helped plant a new cross on the hill.
Out of Vilnius
On Monday morning, we stoppped by
our travel agent to finalize the plans for the rest of the visit. Now that we
had made contact with Oleg, we had lots of new travel options available to
us. We decided to visit Oleg in Kaunasu
on Monday and Tuesday, then travel to the port city of Kleipeda on Wednesday,
staying overnight in the resort town of Palangu.
The “Director of Transportation”
brought us to the train station and helped us buy a ticket to Kaunas. The cost
was trivial, maybe a few hundred rubles, for probably the most well-travelled
and important train line in Lithuania.
The train passed through some
beautiful country, scenic grain fields and small ponds with boys fishing. Unfortunately, you couldn’t see
much of the scenery from the train. I don’t know if it was deliberate or not,
but it seemed as though the pine trees were planted close to the tracks, or
deliberately left uncut near the tracks to make it harder for train passengers
to see the countryside.
Europe is fascinating to me because,
knowing my ancestors have been living here for thousands of years, even the
most remote area of the countryside has a “lived in” look. A ditch at the side
of the road looks as though it was planned.
Almost no rocks or boulders remain anywhere in the countryside, and when you
see one, you know that it must have been placed there on purpose.
Our train was comfortably full, not
packed like trains in Japan, and certainly not empty like Amtrack in the U.S.
We must have seemed strange to the other passengers, with our huge Austrian
backpacks and video camera. It was especially exciting to be on this train
knowing that only two years ago, it would have been strictly forbidden for
foreigners to travel on such a public form of transportation, especially since we were unaccompanied.
Kaunas
Oleg met us at the station, where he
was waiting with Elena, who looks as friendly as when I saw her in
Philadelphia.
I like Kaunas much more than
Vilnius. They say Kaunas is more “Lithuanian” than Vilnius, which was much more
influenced throughout the centures by Jewish settlers and Russian invaders.
The main street of Kaunas is full of
many more shops, each stocking a more plentiful array of goods than the main
street of Vilnius. There may not be as many museums or other cultural spots,
but I think I might prefer to live here.
Elena brought us to stay at Ina’s parents house, who are now
vacationing at their Dacha outside of town.
We had some of our best
conversations of the trip during the evening when Ceslovas (Ina’s father)
talked to us around the dinner table. His grandfather emmigrated to Argentina,
he says, sending lots of money to his wife in order to get her and their kids
to move there with him. She refused, though, and spent the money on a house and
some property in Lithuania instead. Then the Russians invaded, stealing her
house and land, forcing the family into poverty. The last time he heard from
his grandfather was a letter sent to his cousins in 1976, written in English.
Ceslovas wanted to talk politics, and
he told us how terrible the KGB was, and how all-knowing. Once, by chance, he
happened to talk with some Czechoslovak tourists about nothing in particular,
but afterwards he was questioned three days by the KGB. He says that Gorbachev
was a genius because of his ability to dismantle the KGB, something he expected
nobody would ever be able to do. He also insists that John F Kennedy was
assasinated by the KGB in retaliation for JFK’s strong stand during the Cuban
missile crisis.
The family had been visited last
summer by Philip Fine, one of my friends from Wharton. He stayed here for 2
weeks during his travels through Russia after graduation.
Ina knows somebody who is willing to
rent us a car for the day. I’m reluctant to rent from somebody I don’t know, especially
since there is no insurance or other system in place in case of an accident or
car breakdown. So I negotiated that we pay $15 for one day (about 12 hours),
including a driver.
Our driver turned out to be a guy
named Naglis Zuklys, a young man who looks exactly like my Uncle Paul Pulokas.
Even the way he talks, slowly and deliberately, and the way his eyelashes beat
unconsciously, reminds me exactly of Paul.
Naglis is an entrepreneur, and a
friend and business partner of Thomas Kuhn, who works for Apple Germany. They
run a company called Media Kontakt, a very entrepreneurial business in Kaunas.
Renting cars is not their main business, but they’ll be glad to call it their
main business if that’s what you’d like. Right now they’re trying to borrow money.
They’ll be getting about $25,000 from an investor in Germany, plus more from a
bank in Lithuania, which will charge them 90% interest. Naglis complains that
since they pay 18% tax on revenues plus 30% tax on profits, there is virtually no way they can make the
loan pay off.
He tells me that their main business
is “foot products”, and I listened to his explanation thinking that he meant
shoes and other leather goods until suddenly I realized that, like my
grandfather, Lithuanians have a hard time distinguishing the “t” , “d” and “th”
sounds, and when he mentioned that they are trying to export margarine and
cooking oil I realized that he meant “food products”.
Since his partner is a big Macintosh
fan, they would also like to get into the computer business, and they are
already investigating the possibility of becoming an Apple dealer, or writing
software using some of the many engineers that they can hire for very low
wages.
Although he agreed to drive us for
the day for only $15, we felt guilty at the low price he had negotiated himself
into, and we gave him a $20 bill, saying he can keep the change. We also gave
him a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, which he declined, saying he already has
plenty that he brings back with him on his regular trips to Germany.
His brother is a chemical engineer
(PhD?) working in New York states for a large chemical company (Dow?).
Rumshishikes
Just outside Kaunas, there is a
large historic national park that has
dozens of houses and farm buildings built in the style that was common in
Lithuania for centuries. The buildings
are all accurately-preserved, and plenty of cows and horses dot the landscape
to give it a more real feeling.
We walked through the area for two
and a half hours. Unfortunately, it was closed today (Monday and Tuesday), so
we couldn’t see the interiors of the houses, or see the people living there in
their native costumes.
I want to say it looked like Grampa
Pulokas’ farm in Thorp, Wisconsin, as if to imply that his house was built
using tried-and-true Lithuanian building techniques. But when I think less nostalgically, his farm was probably pretty
typical of most places in Northern Wisconsin. The houses were all unpainted, or
painted with a black-colored pitch exterior. Wooden fences surrounded the
fields, made from sticks carefully cross-hatched to make a stand to prevent
animals from escaping.
Rumshishiskes is one of the most
Lithuanian places in Lithuania, so close to the natural environment of the
country and full of historical references of Lithuania's long past.
Nostalgically it's nice to pretend that, in spite of the changes that happen so
quickly in the United States, the Old Country stays the same for thousands of
years. Of course, the Old Country is trying hard to catch up to the rest of the
world in changes, and the homey natural environment of Lithuania won't last
much longer when the tour buses, phone booths and vending machines arrive.
The next morning, our ever faithful
driver Igor showed up right on time at 9am, after already driving the two hours
from Vilnius this morning. We stopped at an old Intourist hotel in Kaunas for
breakfast, and I changed some money.
There’s a shortage of everything in
Lithuania, including money—I mean, the paper currency that people buy and sell
with. Lithuania is still using the Russian ruble, but Russia is having its own
paper shortage and refuses to export currency to Lithuania. A single ruble note is not worth much any
more, but there is such a shortage of the things, that banks collect hundreds
of them at a time and bind them into bundles, assigning a higher denomination
to them. When I changed my $20 bill to get 1,800 rubles, they gave it to me in
six packs of 300 single ruble notes that had been bound together. I felt like a bank robber, walking out with
so many wads of paper money.
On the ride toward Palanga, we saw a
young, beautiful girl hitchhiking, so naturally Igor offered to give her a
lift. Her name was Danute, and she’s a medical student in Kaunas. Although she
couldn’t have been more than 20 years old, she was married, she said, and now
traveling to Polunge to visit her husband. He’s been practicing medicine in
Polunge for a month this summer. She speaks some English (her grandmother’s
sister lives in Rochester, New York), and we had a wonderful time talking in
the car on the way. She taught me many things about Lithuanian, especially the
differences in pronounciation. It’s so hard for me to figure out the phonetics
of the language, and without that, I can’t tell what people are saying, much
less find any words easy to remember.
Lithuanian pronounciation: Danute
says I need to keep in mind the difference between “hard” and “soft” sounds.
She pulled out a Russian/English dictionary that she happened to have with her,
and we spent an enjoyable two-hour long car ride trying to talk to each other,
although about the only thing I got out of her was that she has a brother.
Even though Polunge was out of our
way, we drove her the entire way there. The countryside along the way was
beautiful, though, so the extra drive was worth it. I thought it might be rude
to ask for her address, so I wrote my own address on a slip of paper, handing
it to her and asking her to write me.
By 1:30pm, we arrived in
Palanga. We have to pay for our
driver’s hotel, but since he’s a Lithuanian citizen, he gets to pay in rubles,
and therefore stay at much cheaper places. We ate lunch at our hotel, a resort
place about 10 minutes walk from the beach. The hotel people assigned us seats
for lunch, and we sat next to a couple from Chicago. He’s Lithuanian, left the
country in the 1940’s or 1950’s. She’s something else (maybe Latvian?),
speaking to him with a north european accent I can’t place. She doesn’t speak
Lithuanian. He writes a note using a pen from some car dealership, so I wonder
if that’s what he did for a living. He seems retired now.
We
walked around Palanga, stopping first at the Gintaro (amber) Museum, which
features the biggest display of amber-made art in the world. The museum
includes a historical and scientific corner, explaining that there are many
types of amber in this world, but the kind found naturally in Lithuania is the
most unique and pure. Judging from the tons of stuff they’re selling to
tourists, I wonder how much longer the supply is going to last before they run
out.
Kleipeda
Later
in the afternoon, we drove to the Baltic sea port city of Kleipeda, a place
that only two years ago would have been strictly off limits to foreigners,
because of its strategic importance to the Soviet navy.
It
was at this point in my trip that I noticed how jaded I was at all the new
experiences. Lithuania is unlike any other place I’ve ever been: if anything
it’s like the heavily wooded areas of northern Wisconsin or Canada, but with
far fewer services (like gas stations and restaurants) and many more people.
There are enough ancient churches, monuments, and other historical sites to
keep you constantly aware that you are in a very old country. Somehow, in spite
of the wonderful surroundings, I suddenly found myself homesick, wishing I
could be back in Japan. Part of this was a panic at having stupidly forgotten
some soap/shampoo at Alesksas’ house last night. Although this turned out to be a false alarm, it was a real panic
because it reminded me that I was in a place where I couldn’t buy any more soap or other supplies if I left something
behind. This is a bring-it-yourself country, and it reminded me why I hate the
inconveniences of traveling.
We
ate dinner in the late afternoon at a very good sea restaurant on the dock.
[see picture of the chicken dinner]. I’m not positive it was chicken, although
the taste was similar enough that I assume it was. Anyway, it was tasty.
After
dinner, as it was growing dark, we drove to the port, toward the spot where the
ferry carries cars over the water to the penninsula. We had hoped to be able to
cross over to the penninsula, famous for its sand dunes and natural wildlife
preserve. This is one of those extremely rare spots on earth that, once word
gets out, will be flooded with toursits and development. I’m glad that the
admission charge is 1,000 rubles, an obscenely high amount to all but the most
die-hard tourists.
It
was too late in the day to cross over, though. With only an hour or two of
daylight left, we wouldn’t get much out of the drive, and we thought it would
be better to drive some more around Kleipeda. We ran into a Russian fishing
boat captain and his first mate, two very friendly people, who heard that we
were visiting Lithuania for the first time. They spoke no English, but through
Igor, they offered to let us ride on their trawler. They said they had no work
lately, and they only rarely got out of the port, so they were happy to see an
excuse to shove off, if only for an hour or so.
This was another part of the trip
that would have been completely unthinking, even one year ago. There were many
ships in the harbor that had crude Lithuanian flags flying above hulls where
the hammer and sickle had been scraped off or painted over. Some of the ships
were military ships, although they didn’t look like they were going anywhere.
We saw dozens, maybe hundreds of ships, but most of them seemed dirty, rusty,
and unused.
Palanga
After
getting back to the hotel, Vittorio and I decided to go for a walk around town
to see where the night life was. We saw a group of young girls playing “London Bridge”, and when they noticed we
were watching them, they invited us to play along. I felt awkward, out of
place, but Vittorio was eager to join them, so we did. It turned out to be one
of the highlights of our trip.
The girls were Byellorussians,
members of a city-operated excursion from the city of Gomel. They explained
that they had been evacuated from their homes near Chernobyl, and although the
government insisted that their current homes were safe and clean, they were
distrustful enough to want to leave the country as often as possible during the
summer in order to get some fresh air and drink clean water. We talked to them
for several hours, late into the evening. Some had studied English, especially
one girl named Natashya, who said she was 14 years old. It was very difficult
to get many more details out of her, though, because her English was very
primitive, and I certainly understand no Russian.
It was late, and the girls,
especially the younger ones, had to go to sleep. But they were eager to see us
again, and asked us to join them tomorrow morning at 8am, before breakfast. I’m
sure that Natashya didn’t sleep much that night, out of excitement at being
able to see us again the next day.
July 16
I
woke up in the morning with slight diarrhea, but I met the Byellorussians
anyway—although I was 30 minutes late.
Natasya was waiting right from
8:00am sharp, says Vittorio, who arrived on time. Their teacher/chaperone is a
woman named “Love”, who arrived at
8:15. Apparently some of the girls had
become sick during the night and the chaperones were up late taking care of
them.
“Love” explained that she has done
some traveling to Western europe as part of a piano or some other type of
concert group. Her husband, in particular, is a musician and often travels,
although his main job is driving a truck to and from Moscow.
We couldn’t talk to them for long,
since we had to be at separate places for breakfast, so we exchanged addresses,
took some pictures, and said goodbye.
We
drove to a famous place called Sventoji, where there is a very
Lithuanian-looking statue of three women. The huge statue is built in the
wind-swept style of Lithuanian folk art, and overlooks the Baltic sea.
From there we drove to Shiauliai and
the Kryzhiu Kali, a mound full of
literally millions of crosses,
crucifixes, and other Catholic Christian emblems. The crosses are spread
throughout the mound, and are traditionally planted there by Lithuanians in prayer
as they mark important life transitions: birth of a child, a marriage, a death.
We
on toward a place called Seduva for lunch on the road to Panevezys. The food
was like the home-cooked food restaurant where we ate in Trakai: troshikinis
soup and sausages with fried potatoes. The restaurant was in the shape of a
round barn or silo, with a tiny haymow-type place upstairs where musical
equipment and amplifiers were set up.
Panevezys
By mid-afternoon, we arrived at the
city of Panevezys, which my great-grandfather left in the late 1800’s. As the
first of his descendents to return in almost 100 years, I felt obligated to
take lots of pictures, but I couldn’t find much to take pictures of. It’s just not a very descript town.
Back in Kaunas, Elena had promised
to meet us in Panevezys, show us around, and introduce us to some Pulokas
people, but unfortunately she wasn’t home by the time we arrived.
Not knowing what to do, we walked
around the central part of town briefly: it looks like a mostly-agricultural
town, with a farmer’s bank, plenty of non-descript government buildings, mile
after mile of ugly concrete apartment buildings, and precious few shops of any
size. Everything seems old: not centuries-old like Vilnius or Kaunas, but
decades-old, as if it had all been hastily-built in the fifties, but not
cleaned or kept up since. It’s all very depressing.
There’s a pretty man-made lake with
a fountain near the center of town, and a large, tall red church stands in the
background, so we walked to the church, hoping to find records about long-lost
Pulokas relatives who may have been married, buried, or christened there. After
arriving, we discovered that, aside from being the oldest church in Panevezys
(it was built in the 1860s or 70’s), this was the only church in town until the
1920’s. Clearly, if our relatives went
to church at all, they would have gone to this place.
By luck, the priest of the church
was here, and he was very happy to show us around the place. He brought us into
a small office in back where he produced a stack of very old record books
containing baptismal and marriage certificates going back for decades. He
looked through the whole stack, but the oldest one started during the 1920’s,
long after our family left. He says that most of the record books were carried
away by the communists to an archive in Vilnius, probably at the Vilnius
library. He doesn’t think they would have been destroyed, although he has no
way of knowing where they might be today.
Then he invited us into a brand new
parsonage in the back yard, where he brought us into a room where an old woman
brought tea and cookies. He told us that he has been a priest here for 45
years, all of it during the communist era, and that he had been sentenced to 25
years in Siberia for his faith. His English was surprisingly good, much better
than many of the other people we ran into at hotels and restaurants for
example. He was proud of the fact that he attended a famous Eucharystic
conference in Chicago during the 1970’s, and he knew the name of the Bishop who
runs the district that includes the Sisters of St. Casimir church (the place
with the Lithuanian museum).
About 40,000 people are in his
parish, and on a given Sunday several thousand of them attend services here.
Obviously, interest in the Catholic religion has soared in the days since
re-independence; there are many restoration projects they would like to
do, but they are low on money, and
there is a shortage of people who understand Christianity as in the old
days.
Panevezys had a population of 30,000
or so at the time our family left—a pretty good-sized town at the time, but
nowhere near the 300,000 that it is today. It’s famous for its industry (the
television factory in town used to be one of the largest in the Soviet Union),
but we didn’t see many factories or other signs of life in town.
Friday, July 17
As
we got ready to return to Vilnius, my stomach was giving me problems, a
discomfort that unfortunately left a dark spot over the remainder of my visit.
I started taking the awful Japanese medicine “Seirogan”, that supposedly helps
get your stomach back to normal within three days. Yeah, uh huh, I think. You
get over it naturally in that much time. Who knows if the medicine works or
not. But the Japanese think that it’s better to take these so-called “natural”
medicines when your stomach is upset, and although it takes some time, it’s
better than using the Western stuff that gives you a quick cure, but forces you
to pay for it in unknown side effects.
We
ate a wonderful breakfast at a deli-style place in downtown Panevezys, where
again the old woman running the place seemed positively delighted to have us
foreigners there.
We
drove out of town on the road to Vilnius, stopping along the way in Ukburge for
lunch at a privately-owned restaurant. Igor knows this place because, as a
privately-owned restaurant, it’s got special service and a much better
atmosphere than the other places where we ate. It’s very good food, with the
best service we’ve had yet—prompt, courteous waitresses, who even volunteer
ahead of time about what food is available and what is not.
Unfortunately, because of my
stomach, I wasn’t in much mood for eating, which was just as well, since this
was the same no-vegetables-just-lots-of-meat-and-potatoes that we got every
where else.
Back in Vilnius
We
have two more days in Lithuania, and we decide to spend it downtown in all the
museums, churches, and other cultural centers that we didn’t have time to see
the last time around.
The Lithuanian Art Musuem was much
more impressive than I expected. The paintings were in a style I haven’t seen
before. My untrained eye can’t say whether the art is original, but it sure
looked that way to me. It was a pseudo-impressionist style, with fuzzy brush
strokes and contrapositioning of images, but without much color and usually
portraying pretty dreary subjects.
We also saw the World Photo Exhibit,
sponsored by Kodak and Canon. There were lots of great photo-journalism shots
from the Gulf War, Chernobyl, etc.
We ate dinner at a place called
“Liska?” (meaning “bear”, in Lithuanian). There was very tasty beef mixed with
onions to be more flavorful than most of the food we had. Unfortunately, my
stomach was still not interested.
Lithuanian women are apparently
under a lot of pressure to get married before age 25, and it’s surprising how
many girls are married at ages that would be unthinkable in the United States
or Japan.
Saturday, July 18
I’m
still having stomach problems, although now my real problem is weakness caused
by too little digestion during the past two days. We ate bynilinias again for
breakfast—excellent.
Elena
met us again in Vilnius in the afternoon, having generously offered to take us
around town and help us buy souvenirs for people. Before she arrived, we spent
some time walking through the department stores and small shops down town.
In the meat store, apparently
customers have to buy a ticket for the amount of meat they intend to purchase.
After completing the ticket transaction, you go to the counter, choose the meat
you want, and leave the store. Seems to
me like the process is backwards.
All TV shows, even on Lithuanian TV,
broadcast Russian language speakers untranslated. We saw a documentary on
Lithuanian TV discussing something in
Lithuanian, but including a brief interview with a Russian-speaking woman.
Although Lithuanian and Russian are totally different languages, with different
histories, vocabularies, and writing systems, her comments were not translated,
as if it could safely be assumed that any Lithuanian speaker would understand
her.
One
thing that struck me after visiting Lithuania was how completely communism has
been defeated. Everyone is universally disgusted with what the Soviets did to
their country, and after the defeat of last year's coup attempt, people are
positive that the changes are permanent.
Eastern Europe has a lot of problems remaining, but communism is no
longer one of them.
This is a major change, yet it’s
difficult for me to analyze it yet. All of my education about Eastern Europe is
based on the assumption of communism and its consequences, as well as the
belief that these people are my country’s enemy. I still digest each scene with the fascination that I am seeing
something that months ago would have been impossible.
To understand the magnitude of the
change, I think you need to think 15 or 20 years ahead. Only then will the
society be stable enough to develop its own post-communist character. Right now
there are still too many remnants of totalitarianism, things like requirements
that you register your passport number before you can check into a hotel. But
this will change, and Lithuania will settle into an advanced industrial
society, or post-industrial society, like Sweden or Denmark or any of the dozen
EC countries.
Lithuania
is a very poor country, much poorer than I imagined. Unlike other poor countries, like Mexico or the Philiphines,
though, there is no upper class or group of people out of poverty’s reach. That
means that there are few goods on store shelves, whether it’s a big store for
rich people or a corner grocery store.
There is toilet paper in the expensive hotels, but it’s a
sandpaper-rough type that doesn’t dissolve in water. A wastebasket full of other people’s finished toilet paper
is kept by the toilet for your
convenience.
The food is awful. I was there for
almost a week before I got sick, so I don’t blame my bad culinary experience on
the results it had on my body, but it just wasn’t much variety. We ate at the whole range of home-cooked
meals and five-star restaurants, but only a few meals were worthy of
remembering.
Some things were very tasty, like
the Bynylenas (Lithuanian pancakes) for breakfast.
They like to flavor food with
chives, and you get it sprinkled on lots of things, from eggs in the morning to
beefsteak at dinner. Another favorite is sour cream, which you can find lopped
on many dishes. Apparently they like bland foods, though, because we never saw
anything spicy or seasoned with much more than
salt and pepper.
My main complaint I guess is the
total lack of fruits and vegetables. A Lithuanian meal is usually some kind of
meat with potatoes or bread. No sauce or special flavoring, and no vegetables
or fruit other than an occasional cole-slaw decoration on the side of a plate
of beef stew. Milk was rare too, even for breakfast.
The weather was hot, and in those
conditions you want something good to drink, but there was little to offer. You
could buy warm coke or pepsi at most places, but it was relatively expensive
(30 rubles or more—about a quarter for a small bottle). They also served
various flavors of what they called “juice”, but which tasted like a tiny bit
of concentrate adding flavor to a pitcher of water. The flavors were things like rasberry and apricot, sometimes more
rare, like beet. You could also drink
Lithuanian beer (”alus”), which I don’t recommend at all.
For lunch at Trakai, we ate at a
small home-cooking style restaurant where they served Kibinas (Kibinine), a
type of meat-filled bread (almost like a Russian Puroshiki) served after
Troshikinas, a delicious potato and meat soup, flavored of course with chives.
[See photo] For dinner, we went to an excellent restaurant called SENAISHIS
RUSYS, where for 450 rubles ($3), the three of us had Tautenos Vintotinis, a
delicious combination of cole salad (garniras), bulvis fri (a type of fried
potato). Drinks were a watered-down berry juice.
At the TV tower, we drank beet juice
(yuk!) with bread and a potato-based spread.
In the morning, a typical breakfast seemed to be eggs, usually three
apiece, with blynai pancakes, and like every meal, Lithuanian black bread.
Restaurants are dark, dreary places,
usually with few windows and often hidden in a basement. Always there’s bread
on the table, usually black only, with
small trays of salt and pepper which you pinch with your fingers to
splash on your food.
Lithuania,
like any poor country, is dirt cheap. Dinner at the most expensive restaurant
might cost 200 rubles per person (1$ = 135 Rubles while I was there).
Anyone could exchange as many rubles
or dollars as you want, which in my book means that the Lithuanian ruble is a
hard currency. They are in the process
of minting their own new currency, the Lieut, which will be even more hard, and
will finally eliminate the shortage of cash.
While we were there, banks regularly changed our money by giving rolls
of 100 ten-ruble notes because of the shortage of thousand-ruble notes.
Shopkeepers often asked us to find exact change whenever possible.
I don’t know what it cost to stay at
a “normal” hotel, since we foreigners were required to pay the “foreigner”
rate, in hard currency.
People are very poor. Oleg, a
doctor, earns 4,000 rubles per month ($30 or so). Elena, who ranks less than he
does as a doctor, earns 3,000 rubles. Elena’s apartment rent is 1,500
rubles/month, requiring as Oleg says, some form of outside income.
Elena says she is angry that people
like Neglis can make quick money through something as simple (and zurui) as
importing goods from Germany. Meanwhile, Elena works very hard, getting up
early and working late as a doctor, saving people’s lives every day, but earns
little.
She’s half Russian. Her father
worked near the chinese border and married a Russian there. She lived in
both Vilnius and Kleipeda before moving
back to Panevezys when she was a girl.
She (and Raymond, her husband and
Oleg ) are so incredibly kind. She bought us souvenir Gintaro necklaces from Kaunas
and made a special trip all the way here to show us around.
She’s a surgeous and carries sutures
with her in her purse in case she’ll need to perform an emergency operation.
Under the soviets, she had to carry a passport at all times (after age 16) and
couldn’t check into a hotel without it. There are no exceptions, and unmarried
people can be spotted because their passports will say they are still single.
She notes that there is an oversupply of policemen, and with nothing better to
do, they enjoy checking the registers of hotels to make sure that all the
guests are properly married and have registered with their correct identify
papers. Supposedly the hotels are subject to exorbitant fines if they are
caught with “improper” guests.
Lithuanian
women’s names change after they are married. For example, a Pulokas (which is a
man’s name) may have a daugheter named Pulokaite, which changes to Pulokiene
when she is married. Of course there
are movements by women who don’t like to be identified so easily by their
marital status, but the tradition and the language are too strong in Lithuania
to hold out much hope that things will change.