Prague Journal

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Hello from Lithuania! Vicki and Rick went to pick out a rental car – and came back with an upscale Hyundai Sonata for our trip to Lithuania’s “amber coast” on the Baltic Sea. We left Kaunas at 10am, drove about 250 km northwest to Klaipeda, took the ferry across the strait to Kursiu Nerija, the Curonian Spit, and drove 50 km south to Nida, the southernmost part of Lithuania on the peninsula. This peninsula, named Neringa in 1961, is a sandy strip approximately 50 km long, the largest part of which belongs to Lithuanian Republic and the southern part belongs to Russian territory of Kaliningrad. From one side, the peninsula is washed by the waterways of the large Kursiu Lagoon, and from the other, the Baltic Sea. The wind from the sea and lagoon have formed high sand dunes, some of which are more than 60 meters high. This area has been a national park since 1976, with cute gabled houses, outdoor restaurants and shops, and clean beach areas that bear no resemblance to the rural shanties or rundown Soviet-era high rises that we passed on the main highway from Kaunas to Klaipeda.
We stopped at Juodkrante, the small town just north of Nida. Juodkrante comes from the words juodas (black) and krantas (shore). The main attraction in Juodkrante is the “Witches Hill” (Raganų Kalnas), a forest path bedecked with a collection of about 80 weird and wonderful wooden sculptures. These amazing sculptures were first commissioned by local artists in 1979, and each summer new sculptures are added during an art camp in Juodkrante. Each wooden sculpture illustrates a different character from the Lithuanian world of fairytales and myths. The sculptures are larger than life and are very detailed, personifying many old folk tales. http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~garwood/tr/lt/LithuaniaGallery1.html
There are many fables and customs associated with witches, most of which are associated with midsummer, the shortest night of the year, which is June 24th. In olden times, this was called Feast of the Dews, or Rasos. When Christianity was established in Lithuania, the name was changed to Feast of St. John, according to agrarian folk calendar, the start of haying. The main aim of the festival on this day was to protect the harvest from natural calamities, evil souls, witches and mid summer visitors like draught, hail, downpours of rain and thunder. It was believed that activity during this night of supernatural creatures or female witches was ill disposed towards men, animals and plants. To keep animals from their malevolent actions, animals were put in barns before sunset and were fed bread with salt for protection. Mountain ash branches and wheat sprays were hung on door posts for protection against evil spirits. During the night of the Feast of St. John, witches party and rage all night and invent all kinds of enchantings. Several sculptures depicted the devil, who asks for your help to get off a tree and for your help will tell you where to find the miraculous blooming fern, which is said to protect from evil eyes, cure sickness, and bring good luck. Just past the gates of hell, the cock crows, and the musicians gather for dancing and celebration.
Nida, the southernmost part of Lithuania on the Curonian Spit, was originally a fisherman’s village. Now it is a Baltic resort town, the epitome of the spit’s charm with pretty rustic houses and sparkling waterfront framed by the majestic sweep of the dunes. In 1930-1932 Nobel Prize-winner Thomas Mann spent his summers here, and there is a museum in the Thomas Mann house above the bay, not far from a lovely Lutheran church. We walked along the beach, hiked through some lovely forest areas. Our hotel, the recently-renovated Nidus, is about 600 meters from the bay. We were given grand treatment since we were their first guests since its reopening. We are here just before the expected onslaught of tourists, and there is a lot of construction and painting going on all around the small town. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the beach. It reminded us of a coastal resort on Cape Cod – no indication that this was so recently a Soviet nation. We had dinner – eel, herring, trout and mushrooms—at a charming fish restaurant near the waterfront. We’re at 55-degrees north latitude, so at this time of year, the sun doesn’t set until after 10 p.m. In fact, the night is not very dark here even at midnight. Nonetheless, we had a good night’s sleep after our long day of driving and hiking.

posted by JWinn @ 9:37 PM