Green and blue – part I

 

After many years of not being independent, typical countries can show, that where there’s work there’s food and now they are making their way forward to a better status. Today these lands are a window between Europe and Russia and they were always a point of interest. Each of the lands, who conquered these counties have left their mark there, but none of them was able to root out their tradition.

I never thought of Baltic States as the priority destinations, but they’ve remained a yet unexplored part of Europe on my list. But not to make a boring trip, I’ve took my grandmother along. To make it even more unusual, we travelled most of the countries in our own arrangements. For a group of Slovenians we’ve met in one of the capitals, we even became an away from home local attraction. But it wasn’t our first journey together – only the most recent one in a long line of them.

The history of the Baltic States is for most people here a dark area as they were passed from one owner to another. Cruelty did not know borders and these countries were under German occupation in World War One and by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War Two. Many people were then deported to Siberia.  During the second world war they were an object of fights between Germany and Soviets, but the Soviets came out on top. The local population suffered huge losses and many took refuge far from home. To top it off, a lot of work force was sent here from Russia, to start the new industries and this meant a huge changes for the future, even in the religious sense. During the journey we felt the Russian spirit as most orthodox churches still stand out. The next thing which surprised me was communication – especially in the countryside – where the knowledge of English is extremely low. In cities you can usually get by with English, but on the countryside you usually start off by “do you speak English,” and a few times I couldn’t even get a no for an answer. The friendly people started talking to me in their own tongue first, but when I didn’t understand, they switched to Russian. Here you can see, that Russian was a dominant language.

 

  

All three countries have many, we can say almost endless, sand beaches. In colder months the beaches become white straights, for when they are covered with snow and the sea freezes, the look as endless whiteness with no end. During summer, however, they turn into paradise beaches and party centres for all generations. At first glance they resemble the Pacific beaches, but instead of palm trees they have pine trees. Local people also make the events livelier by organizing many events and other tourist infrastructure. And interesting tourist attraction are also centuries old wooden villas in pine tree woods, which are open only during summer months. A special beach is the Cape Kolka in Latvia, where a part of the sand beach extends into the sea. Here you get the feeling as though you’re at the end of the world, as there is nothing but sea almost all around you. As we travelled outside the tourist season we did have some problems finding places to sleep in, so end of April and beginning of May do take some more organizing. There are many places to sleep over along the coast, but are closed before the summer begins.

 

It’s surprising, how well the locals have kept many of the ancient villages, where visitors can still see their pristine look. The life in villages still goes on as it did in the past, in the yard, in the kitchen where housewives work, with horses that people still use in the fields, with men sharpening blades using flint stones to mow the harvest and wind mills turning in the wind, with animals grazing on the pastures behind fences made of natural stone or wood. Curious visitors can freely walk among them and if they want also help out at chores. On the other side you can see a completely different kind of countryside which is neither old not modern, in remote villages, which are poor isolated clusters of houses, or maybe even individual farms. Almost nobody comes here, as the roads are really bad, with a feeling you will not be able to go on. It’s very unusual to see a remote farm, which is in a complete mess of old machines, garbage and many thing that do not belong there. It’s a special feeling to experience their typical countryside, because nobody wonders off to here, unless organizing a trip of his own and with a car. Many farms and villages are so remote, invisible and with terrible road connections, but still full of people, who are really happy to see a foreigner coming by. So it’s possible to see the farm up close as nobody is ashamed of how messy it really is.

 

Lithuania is the poorest of the three countries, but it has the special attraction you should not miss if exploring the Baltic. It’s hard to describe what you feel when you see the only hill in the country and even this one has thousands of crosses on it! A rough estimate would be, there are 100.000 different crosses there. The local people know this is the biggest pilgrimage site of the Baltics, and do know it’s good for business. Some even call this hill the Međugorje of Eastern Europe. The history behind this hill is connected to a legend of a father, who was awake at night at the site of a daughter with a deadly illness. It is said that a godly person told him to take the cross – on his knees – to a 13 kilometre remote hill. He had done it and the daughter was miraculously cured. After the miracle was reviled to the people, many others in need of miraculous help, of weak health or in search of happiness started carrying heavy crosses to the hill. During the Soviet regime the crosses were constantly torn down, but the locals never gave up and the tradition lives on. So today the hill is full of thousands of wooden, metal, plastic… crosses of all sizes and this is one of the top tourist destinations in the country. Today people from all over the world come here with crosses, but not only for themselves. They bring them for health or happiness of their loved ones or even the deceased. Among all the crosses you can even see real works of art, but you can also buy a rosary to wrap around one of the many crosses that are already there.

 

 

More about our journey next time, when we’ll present you an article for Globetrotter about the historical cities, water sources and an interesting bad experience which turned out to be quite fun.