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Baltics trip
Day 2 - 17th May - Vilnius, Lithuania (Part 2)
These grotesque dolls were in the window of a hair salon and put Chucky to shame. Not the best advertisement for a place that promises to enhance your aesthetic appeal.
Vilnius University
Filosofijos Fakultetas
Given how big their Philosophy faculty is, it's no wonder they're still a Third World nation
Parking on the pavement is a new concept to me
Small road
Street
Disgusting top at a wedding
St Anne's Church
Altar
3 of the stations of the cross
Bernadine Church. As you can see it's very run-down. The only well-maintained bit is the floor.
Organ
It's back to INRI. Do you see the sign of the Illumninati?
Roof of same chapel. Do you see the sign of the Illumninati?
Wall paintings
Roof
Wall painting, tomb
A lot of Lithuanian royalty were buried at the Bernadine Church.
Tomb
Sacrificial altar above a bottomless pit?
Not all the huge tracts of land were fertile.
Superbaby?
River
YC chatting up 12, 9 and 7 year old girls. One of them asked "money money". Maybe she's been to Siem Reap.
We then went to the Republic of Užupis, a self-declared artists' enclave.
On the street
Angel of Uzupis
Plaque erected by the Republic
'Free Tibet'. There was similar graffiti at the Cathedral Basilica.
'Crush Tibet' in Lithuanian?
Weird cobblestone pattern. It's quite a novel way of keeping traffic in the proper lane.
Assorted snacks. I had the fried dough with chicken and onion inside.
No more Republic of Uzupis
Locks on the railings of the bridge. They should be meant to symbolise love, and the logic is that you put 2 locks together. Seeing how many single locks there were, it seems Western values are polluting their youth, leading to short-term relationships.
We saw a Mini driving about with a giant Red Bull can on top. Hah.
Hill of Three Crosses
We then went to the "Lithuanian Museum of Genocide Victims". This was a very misleading name, since although in its own words its purpose was to "collect, keep and present historic documents about forms of physical and spiritual genocide against the Lithuanian people, and the ways and the extent of the resistance against the Soviet regime", in reality there was no campaign to wipe out the Lithuanian people*. As such, the Soviet occupation does not qualify as a genocide and to call it that is to mock the enormity of real genocides.
* - The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide defines it as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
Memorial monument
The dull former Communist building it is appropriately housed in
"Incorporation into the USSR: The Principal Committee was elected the same day, and was sent to Moscow 'to bring back Stalin's sunshine'"
Inspirational embroidery: "Only hope will overcome difficulties"
Holograms
These small photographs are tiny Lithuanian neoprints from the mid-1940s
Resistant Orbat (Organisational chart)
Anti-tank rocket launcher. I'm told the SAF still uses this WWII technology.
Pylon-climbing tool
MP-40 gun
"Military Organisation: Some violence against the civilian population occured, as happens in any war"
Justifying atrocities
The Battle of Varcia. Drawing.
The showcase of highlights the museum's contents will continue in the next post.
World War II was very fun since fighting against the Soviets there were the Pro-Nazi groups, the Anti-Soviet groups and the groups against both sides.