Mark ordered a plate of herring, and then had a potato kugel--sort of a potato pudding, a national dish. Both sound a bit odd for our palates perhaps, but they were just wonderful. Evelyn started with a rice salad with bit of ham, and had pancakes (more like blintzes really) with jelly and sour cream. Curiously, the place has a Lowenbrau sticker on the door, perhaps as a joke, but it is clean and brightly lit with flowers on each table. We had to order off a board in Lithuanian, but the server was happy to translate and it was probably the best meal we have had yet this trip. Mark thinks we may be back for lunch in a couple of days. The one disappointment was that it did not have cepelinai; Mark doesn't really want to leave without a taste of this national dish.
After that we went back to the room and listened to some of the cassettes we got. One was Lithuanian pop. Mark comments, 'When I said before that you have mostly American music, I am not sure whether that was, strictly speaking, true. I was including in music done in an American style, though it might be Lithuanian. One of the cassettes we got is 'LIETUVISKAS C*O*U*N*T*R*Y' by a group called Suris. This is music done in the style of American country and western, but it is done for Lithuanians by Lithuanian performers. This is not all that uncommon. If you saw the Irish film THE COMMITMENTS, it was about an Irish musical group wanting to do soul music. A good deal of the music you hear here really is American music sung in English, but there is some of the local music. But there is also music just of the American style. At what point do you have to say that this style belongs to the world? I really am not sure. Certain black jazz has been co-opted by the rest of the population. Benny Goodman certainly was not black.'
After listening to music, we decided to take a leisurely walk up Gedimino prospektas to see the government buildings. Gedimino prospektas is sort of the Fifth Avenue of Lithuania. It is the prime street of the most celebrated city of the country.
We had been down the street several times already to various distances. This was where the pizza place was; also the KGB Museum is on the street. As we passed it, Mark noticed graffiti in the streets saying, 'KGB=SS.' Mark muses, 'Now this is a bit confusing, since you would tend to assume that graffiti is supposed to be a medium for counter-culture sentiments. One would assume that the current government would hardly be pro-KGB. Now what Evelyn thinks is that there are people who think that the government is not being harsh enough on the Russians and former KGB forces that are still in the country. I suppose there is more I would probably like to know, but the best way to find this stuff out *in the country* is by pub intelligence. You go into a nitery and with a beer in your hand you talk to some local and find out what is what. Since I don't drink, I have the next best thing open to me. I can ask on the Internet. Of course, I cannot access the Internet right here. I will have to wait until I get back home, but my guess is that is what is going on.'
We crossed the street to Lukishkiu Aikshte, which used to have a statue of Lenin in the center. Now all it has are tulip beds. Tulips are ubiquitous--the country must be more enamored of the tulip than the Netherlands is. And with the good reason that tulips once wreaked a terrible toll on the Netherlands. They were the center of a great financial madness where the value of tulip bulbs went to incredible heights before the market fell apart. Mark says, 'It makes little sense to me because the Dutch seem such a level-headed and intelligent people. I would say that in all of my travels the people I have come away respecting the most are the Dutch. Yes, yes, I know that there are negative aspects of Dutch history. I still think that in the 20th Century they come the closest to being a good example to the other countries of the world.' Boy, was this a digression!
We walked around the square, stopping to read (translate from the Russian, actually) the inscription on a cross at the back of the square. It was a memorial to two people who were instrumental in leading a movement against the Russians in the Rebellion of 1863.
It was also interesting to note (as Evelyn pointed out) that the lights had symbols removed from their bases. They were undoubtedly pro-Soviet symbols such as hammers and sickles. After all, the local lodge of the KGB was right across the street, complete with the lovely prison we saw Saturday.
We continued up the street, stopping at the Vaga bookstore (which the 'Lonely Planet' guide has conflated with the Vilnius Bookstore--Vaga is at Gedimino 50, but Vilnius is at the corner of Vilniaus gatve and would have an odd number). Evelyn couldn't resist spending a single litas for a Jules Verne book we'd never heard of--in Lithuanian, of course. The title is something like FIFTEEN YEARS A CAPTAIN, and it seems to be some sort of adventure in the South Seas. Mark says he will carry the KING KONG and the DRACULA, but Evelyn gets the Verne, or we can contribute it to our hosts' Verne collection. We continued on to Parliament Square.
As we stood looking at the majestic columns of the Parliament Building, we read an account of how the Soviet tanks stood outside this building in 1991 and how the members of Parliament said they had cast their fate with the Lithuanian people. The tanks never fired, though one person inside died of heart failure. Eventually the tanks withdrew.
The description also said the more classically designed building in the square was the government library. To us the other building looked more modern than the one we were facing. It was then we realized that we were standing in front of the wrong building and picturing Soviet tanks threatening a library.
Sure enough, there was a stone block in the ground showing where the tanks were. You know history has a lot of rough edges. The tanks looks a lot more dramatic in front of the library. It was something about the barrels and the cannons. I hope the movie-of-the-week version uses the library.
Dragging these heavy books from one building to another in our imaginations and the hot sun left us with a serious thirst. We stopped at a grocery and got some Coca-Colas, bottled in Latvia, and drank them right there on the street on the way back. (Evelyn always carries a bottle opener with her on trips.) There was no place to recycle the bottles and we just threw them out.
On the way back we saw two men in their thirties who were doing something with their money, but they dropped a small coin and were looking for it. Mark pointed out to them where the coin fell. At this point it became clear the two had been drinking and decided to treat us like heroes for our good deed. They thanked us profusely. It was clear they could tell by looking at us that we were Americans, though it is not clear to me how they could tell. Maybe someone reading this can tell me how people know Americans when they see them. One tip-off, Mark thinks, is a striped shirt. At least a Hyde Park speaker once said that while Mark was writing.
As we tried to cross a street with one car coming, our grateful drunks jumped in front of the car and motioned us to cross the street. We ducked into a store to be rid of our all-too-friendly friends. (Incidentally, they did speak good English, which was nice. Not expected, but as Evelyn pointed out, this is the country we have visited in which the fewest people seem to speak English. We have no right to expect differently and don't, but it is nice to find people who are fluent in English.) In any case, we were rewarded for our deed and embarrassment. The store we ducked into sold cassettes. For 15 Lt we got the entire opera NABUCCO (with Placido Domingo) by Giuseppe Verdi. That is an entire opera for US$3.75. Mark is a little sorry we did not get LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR by Donizetti, also for the same price.
Mark asked Evelyn a complicated question. A litas here is equivalent to how much money at home--not the exchange rate, but the cost-of-living equivalent. Mark says he can't be sure, but he thinks that roughly 1.2 Lt will buy what we think a dollar will buy at home. If a dish costs 5 Lt, it might cost you US$6 at home. The threecassette set at home, with no libretto, would be worth US$18.
Evelyn pointed out that one of the joyful signs of the new economy is the rusted gray vending machines. We remember seeing them in action in Leningrad. You put in a coin and you get a stream of water to clean off the glass sitting there. Then it fills with soda. We never actually saw anyone using these vending machines and we suspect they were never very popular. Now there are lines in front of kiosks for products that the sellers have been forced to think about in terms of what the buyer wants. And in this headlong race to please the customer, products have gotten more pleasing. We got some cookies at one such kiosk yesterday and they are Swedish-made and very good. The soda we buy there is also very good. Today we bought what appears to be the second most popular snack in Lithuania. (Quick: what is the most popular?) The second-most popular is the stand-up ice cream cone. You buy a flat-bottomed cone of the type we sometimes see in the United States pre-packed at the factory with chocolate ice cream. The price is about 45-60 centai, or between 11 and 15 cents. By having the ice cream already in the cone and the whole thing frozen, the cone is the consistency of wet cardboard. The ice cream is hard and does not have as much flavor as one might want, but you get a fair-sized refreshing nugget of ice cream. And I can tell you that you get solid ice cream. There are no air pockets to speak of in that cone. And if it fails to be great chocolate ice cream, it isn't bad either. By the way, there is no cash register. There are no cash registers that we have seen. We just lied. The grocery had a cash register, now that we think of it. But that is a rarity. What they have is a cash box and an abacus. It may be a hold-over from the days of the Soviets, but while you do see some electronic calculators, the most common by far is the abacus. And your change is dumped into a little plate.
Back to the room to log-write and listen to a little NABUCCO. At about 20:00 we went to dinner at the Menininkai kavine, a little kavine just opposite where we dropped off the Yiddish books. We ordered some variety but all they had were karbonadas, the popular little fried meat cutlets. They came with fries and marinated cucumber.
A random note here on languages: A Russian-English dictionary is handy for deciphering signs in museums and such. There isn't much visible Russian elsewhere (no Cyrillic street signs, etc.), but maybe the logic is that it's okay to have foreign languages in museums, because they're for tourists as well as locals.
Back at the room Mark just had time to get caught up in his log for 23:00, the time he has been going to bed. Evelyn has been going to bed at 21:00, but she has been writing a much shorter log this time. She also has time to read a novel. Mark takes notes all day long and writes at night, gabbing and gassing with who knows who will be reading this.
May 11, 1994: Mark woke up early and could not really get back to sleep. He says, 'I did read a good article from the April 6 'Economist' stating the Lithuanian government does not deny the collaboration of some Lithuanians in killing Jews in the Holocaust, but they point out that there were also Lithuanians who protected Jews. The policy of the government is to say, 'Let's just forget that some did one and some on the other when faced with the situation.' The position of Israeli Jews is very much that it very much matters who was on the murdering side and who was on the protecting side. Protectors should be noted and mass murderers should be punished. The 'Economist' says 'curiously absent' from the debate are Lithuanian Jews. And the Israeli government calls them 'stooges.' I don't happen to believe they are stooges at all. These are people who have suffered under Soviets, Nazis, then Soviets again. |
