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| St Anne's and Bernadine churches, Vilnius |
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| A room with a view |
Vilnius, April 10, 2005
I was wrong about the rooms at the Shakespeare Hotel in Vilnius. Each takes its name and style, not from a
drama, but from rather a writer. Along a corridor of Jane Austen, Tolstoy, Voltaire, and Mark Twain, we were assigned
the Hemingway.
Surely enough, we have photos of The Old (and young) Man….and The Sea, busts of safari animals, a
powder horn and even an antique rifle balanced across some antlers. To the latter I would bid A Farewell to Arms, but
I am not the decorator!
Since we face east, The Sun Also Rises into the windows, or would, were it not densely cloudy,
but the view from my pillow is two lovely churches nearby. Lacy Flamboyant Gothic brick towers overlay the red Baroque church
behind, both topped with typically intricate Lithuanian crosses. To our surprise, we weren’t able to ask For Whom
The Bell Tolls, as the towers have so far been silent this Sunday morning.
After arriving last evening, we took a walk
up the city’s main street, stopping for a light supper of buckwheat blini, black bread, beet salad and Boletus mushroom
soup. The alliteration was outdone only by the delicious taste. Tomorrow we take the bus to Kaunas, after tonight’s
dinner at a medieval restaurant, and perhaps a bite of cake at a café, sort of A Moveable Feast.
On April 11, we sat in the back row of a small and rather grungy bus, redolent
with exhaust fumes, for the two-hour ride to Kaunas. Winter was loosening its hold on the Baltics, but grudgingly, and
we saw few signs of spring. Even then, the gentle countryside was rather lovely, and if we saw no storks, we at least
spotted a nest on a farm chimney.
Kaunas, April 18,
An opalescent
sun tries futilely to get through the grey clouds that now cover Lithuanian skies. The air becomes chillier as rain
lets up, but we’re feeling very fortunate to have had nearly a week of beautiful spring weather. Now it’s
more typical, and we’ll consider the weather just another facet of our experience.
Kaunas has a rich history, even up to the modern era. The main
part of Kaunas
was a part of Russia in Napoleonic times, and just across the Nemunas River was East
Prussia. And it was precisely here that Napoleon began
his assault on Russia, crossing the river
with 500,000 troops. The brilliant strategy of Barclay de Tolly, a Latvian military
man of Scottish descent, to destroy everything in Napoleon's path ended the campaign in the Russian winter when there were
no provisions for the troops. There are monuments to de Tolly in Riga
as well as at his burial site in southern Estonia.
What have we done lately? Well, Chuck has been burdened by his heavy teaching load; they really get their litas'
worth, by bringing in foreign professors for just two weeks, and having them give a ten-week course in that time, in exchange
for travel, a room and several hundred dollars after tax. He’s also trying to write exams questions for both this
course and the ones he just finished at GA State, so it’s no vacation for him.
We begin each day by leaving
our funky old hotel and walking, rain or shine, three long blocks to another hotel for breakfast. This one is a 60’s
Soviet creation, what worse could I say? Ugly inside and out, its most outstanding decorative detail, to our minds,
is the collection of monumental chandeliers in the dining room. Molded plasticky looking glass pieces, sort of wave-or
leaf-shaped, in shades of amber, gold and brown, have been fitted together with steel studs. You gotta be there. Even after
our astonishment at these giant fixtures last year, we are still amazed each day.
The large room, usually filled
with Finnish, Japanese or German retiree tourists, holds a grand piano and a long food table. We like the herring, the country
pate, yummy dark rich breads, and, to our diets’ disaster, the wonderful blinis filled with cottage cheese. There are
fresh veggies and eggs, cereals and yoghurt, wieners and bacon, and sour cream for almost everything. One day I tried something
that looked like maybe creamed mushrooms. Oops! It turned out to be what I think is called “schmalz”
in Yiddish – mostly grease with some meat scraps.*
*Added later: A friend gently corrected me; “Schmaltz”
is chicken fat, spread on bread in substitute for butter in a fleishadicka (meat) meal Sorry about that!
Much of the information for C’s course is online, so he goes to the office and works
all morning, while I use the computer at the hotel, no internet of course, just word processing and picture editing. I do
my emailing early mornings at the office or at an internet café.
| Tado Blindos Smukle restaurant |
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| A mixed grill plus salad makes a delicious midday main meal. |
We try to eat our main
meal at noon, since Chuck's class lasts until 8:40 pm. A fair number of decent Lithuanian restaurants, quite cheap, are
here in the neighborhood, or we walk the 1 ˝ miles to the Old Town. As in Riga, many of the eateries are at basement level;
merchants used to build the lower floors for warehouses, and the brick walls and marvelous low domed ceilings are cozy and
very picturesque. A substantial lunch with meat and bottled water or beer for both of us costs a bit under ten dollars.
Kaunas, April 19. 2005
A person looking
for a modern hotel would be very disappointed here at the Metropolis. The first surprise, especially to the hobbling late
middle-aged couple laden with heavy luggage, is the lack of an elevator, or even a strong young man waiting about for some
work. Elegant high ceilings mean many more stairs to climb, and the spacious ‘luxury’ suites are of course on
the top – third – floor! The fortyish blonde at the desk, however, energetically hoisted our heaviest bags and
started up the steps at a faster pace than either of us could manage, even with our lighter pieces.
The broad hallways
probably exceed the width of some medieval streets in this old city, and even the doors seem oversized. Near the staircase
on each floor is a desk and chair, a reminder of the recent past when KGB associates monitored the comings and goings of guests.
Stained glass windows were popular when the hotel was constructed, and a large one adorns each landing.
| Metropolis Hotel window |
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| Stained-glass, especially in stairwells, was popular in early 20th c buildings like our hotel. |
Our living
room measures some 16 by 24 feet, and the bedroom is even larger. The parlor decor, colorful if not chic, includes a bright
red wall-to-wall tweed carpet, ivory, brown and blue striped floral wallpaper, and olive green plush overstuffed furniture,
so low to the ground I can’t sit without some assurance of assistance in rising. The reluctant wallcovering indeed succeeds
in parting from the wall at intervals. An enormous mahogany cabinet extends a dozen feet along the wall, and provides space
for a bar and big tv set. A third of the wide bay window is filled by a huge dusty philodendron, and a scratched desk offers
the business traveler workspace.
Entering the bedroom, one is struck by its spaciousness; a dance floor would easily
fit on its open area. Across the room, a worn “French Provincial” style wardrobe is dwarfed by the space and by
the wide sagging bed, which sports threadbare but nicely ironed sheets and duvets. The gray and black tweed carpeting in this
room, worn bare in spots, vies with the flowered walls, whose mottled beige and white background owes not a little to water
damage over the years.
Two framed nude studies provide an artistic note against the peeling wallpaper, but the piece de
resistance, a huge white glass sphere in one corner, proves to be a lamp that slowly changes from one pastel shade to another
when turned on. “The Atmospheric Light,” we call it. This exotic piece is the only functioning
lamp in the place; the rest of the lighting is from eleven sconces distributed among four rooms.
The back hallway,
where coathooks are found, could easily house another bed or dressers, and leads to a small WC and medium bathroom, both tiled
in a bizarre mustard brown and black tile, but adequate. Our favorite items in there are an S-shaped heated towel rack, wonderful
for drying laundry, and the swinging tap that serves both sink and deep tub. Never mind that the water issuing from
it is grayish yellow; we Don’t Drink It.
We believe that many Americans and others might find our accommodation unacceptable,
but tourists in the Baltics need above all flexibility, and with a little of this, and a sense of humor, the Kaunas visitor
can have a reasonably comfortable stay at the Metropolis.
| Living room at Metropolis |
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| This is about half the length of our living room, which also included closets and cabinetry. |
Kaunas, April 21, 2005
On a day
I’d hoped to take more pictures, dawn lightened to a uniform gray. We’re already seeing the northern summer sky
effect; iridescent turquoise hung over the western horizon as we walked back from supper last night at 9:30, and daylight
begins around five. By the time we get back to Riga in June, sunset will come at ten (and last 90 minutes) and evidence of
the sun’s return will be apparent again by 3:00 a.m. During summer visits to the Baltics we simply never witness
darkness during waking hours.
Chuck’s hectic work schedule this week allows no time for sightseeing, but we’re
continued to find interesting eateries for lunch; that’s all the ‘recreation’ he gets. Meanwhile I walk
several miles a day, back and forth to the Old Town, through numerous galleries and museums. Half my trek is down a broad
avenue that the Soviets transformed, some forty years ago, into a pedestrian mall. Much of the city’s elegant shopping
is here, along with chic hotels and innumerable pizzerias. Lately carpenters have been busy constructing platforms for outdoor
cafes, which got some use in the early warm days last week, but now sit deserted with the return of winter temperatures. Sharply
contrasting the show windows filled with expensive (even for us) western goods, elderly women and crippled men kneel or sit
on even the chilliest days, one per block, often murmuring prayers, begging bowls held forth. These leftovers of the old economic
system, often on pensions of only a few dollars monthly are pitiful reminders that life is still harsh for many in the former
Soviet Union. A middle-aged guide we used last year candidly admitted that for many of her generation, the advantages of the
communist system seemed attractive in the competitive, cash-based rat race of today’s economy. Indeed, a large proportion
of the populace works at two or even three jobs, just for basic support.
In this season when few tourists visit Kaunas,
we see life going on in a more normal way, and certainly virtually everyone we see is a local. We’d thought there might
be some outpouring or demonstration at the new Pope’s election, as we heard that the mourning for John Paul II was overwhelming.
On our bus ride here, we even saw gas stations with their commercial flags at half mast! But it was Chuck who encountered
our first news of Benedict XVI, on the internet. Presumably the crowd I saw going into a church the following morning laden
with flowers, intended to pay their respects.
| Kaunas Old Town |
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| 16th century merchant houses along the Town Hall Square |
Another aspect of local
life is the intense interest in basketball. As the hometown of one of Europe’s premier pro teams, Zalgiris, Kaunas residents
follow the game with great passion, and we sadly had to witness the second hoops disappointment of the year when the home
team went down our first week here. Not to be completely devastated, the locals are now enthusiastically cheering another
more successful Lithuanian team, as it makes its way to the Final Four in Moscow. Balts are also immensely proud of the Latvians
and Lithuanians who achieve renown in the NBA; it’s the only American sport that makes the news here in The Year of
No Hockey.
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