Lithuania
Lithuania |
|
Portion of a U.S. government map of eastern Europe
I have been to Lithuania several times, always on my way to or from Russia. I worked on a project in Sankt-Peterburg, doing repair work in a hospital. Click here to see lots of pictures and travel stories from Russia.
I would fly to and from Helsinki, Finland. There are frequent ferries across the Gulf of Finland between there and Tallinn, Estonia. I would stay in Tallinn for a couple of nights, then take an overnight train to Sankt-Peterburg.
I would return in the opposite direction, generally staying longer and visiting Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
US Government map of Lithuania
Something you must see in Vilnius is the Museum to the Genocide of the Lithuanian People, commonly called the KGB Museum and housed in the former KGB prison and torture chambers. It's in the basement of this building.
The Soviets brutally occupied Lithuania between 1940 and 1991. There were 242 slave labor and extermination camps in which Lithuanians were held (and many more where non-Lithuanians were held).
135,000 Baltic citizens were killed or shipped to the death camps in 1940-1941, plus another 435,000 in 1945-1949. 300,000 Lithuanians were sent to the slave labor and extermination camps, where most died.
In comparison, the Nazis exterminated "only" 200,000 Lithuanian Jews during their brief occupation.
You also have to keep reminding yourself that the torture chambers you see were in full operation through 1991. Some of the few surviving ex-inmates give the tours.
|
|
Above are views of one of the hallways, and one of the cells.
At right is a picture of one of the torture cells.
Notice the metal disk on a post toward the rear wall. The floor of the cell is about a foot below the floor of the hallway.
The cell, basically a very shallow tank, would be filled with icy-cold water to the level shown by the light grey paint — so that the top of the metal disk was just barely above (or maybe slightly below) the water level. The prisoner would be stripped naked and locked in the cell. The cell could be refrigerated, or in winter, simply ventelated to the outside (and if the air temperature in the cell were far enough below freezing for the water to freeze, salt could be added to the water to lower its freezing point).
As long as the prisoner could stay awake and balance on the small disk, they probably wouldn't freeze to death. Time in the cell combined sleep deprivation with extreme cold.
The guy who took me through on a tour had spent time in one of these cells....
Also at right is a straitjacket, used not only for transport but for long-term immobilization.
It was too dark to get a decent picture, but there was also the padded cell with the blood stains on the padding...
One of the creepiest places I have ever been, along with the death camps run by Germany in World War II. But definitely a place to visit, to understand history.
At right is a random picture from Lithuania — one of the electric buses.
Transport is good, if you know where you are going and where the bus lines go (and how to get tickets for the bus)! But I covered a lot of territory on foot in Vilnius.
At least when I was there, Ritos Sleptuves was a nice place for dinner. It's down along the river just east of the center of town.
You could then hang out after dinner at the NATO Bar in the center of the old town, complete with both LAAWS and RPG-7 launchers hanging on the wall.
Logistics — At least learn these words:
| Labas | Hello |
| Viso gero | Good-bye |
| Atsiprašau | Pardon me |
| Prašau | Please |
| Ačiu Labai ačiu |
Thank you Thank you very much |
There are trains between Vilnius, Lithuania, and Tallin, Estonia, stopping in Riga, Latvia. From Vilnius there are buses and trains to other Lithuanian destinations. The main bus station is just a block from the train station.
There has been train service between Sankt-Peterburg and Vilnius, but I don't know if it's still running. It was a hassle, because it was an overnight train with two border crossings — Russia to Latvia, then Latvia to Lithuania. Don't plan on restful sleep.
Kaunas is a nice place, either as a destination for a few days, or a day trip out of Vilnius.
There are also connections between Vilnius and Poland. Bus travel is pretty easy. The train used to cross either Belarus or Russia (the disconnected Kaliningrad Oblast), requiring a transit visa. I think they got that straightened out, either by using a new rail line that crossed the Polish-Lithuanian border, or by negotiating a sealed train that crossed those other territories without stopping.
There weren't any hostels when I was going to Russia for the hospital project. There weren't many foreigner tourists in Lithuania then!
One option then was an unrenovated (meaning "Soviet") room at the Hotel Nauja Vilnius, which was about US$ 30 a night. Here is one of the rooms, it was pretty nice. It's across the river from the city center, next to the art museum.
Much more interesting was a single room in the dorm at the Pedagogical Institute, just about US$ 7 a night. It's a hike from the train station:
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
