Friday 17th May Klaipeda, Lithuania
Another day, another country. We docked in the port of Klaipeda in the morning and following breakfast set off on another excursion, titled West of Lithuania by coach and boat. Not only was this a great excursion due to what we saw, we had the most wonderful tour host, a young woman who told us so much about a country that we really knew very little about. Klaipeda is the 3rd largest city in Lithuania and the country’s port due to the fact that the Baltic Sea does not freeze over here and the port can operate all year round. The tourist season “Summer” is very short 3-4months because after that it is far too cold for tourists to visit. The country was established in the middle of the 13th century and was once one of the biggest countries, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. The current population is around 2.5 million, I think…you can google that! It has had the most turbulent time historically and as we heard the recent history of the country, we again realised how lucky we are to live in Australia. I will explain more later and will just write about the actual excursion first. We were taken through Klaipeda and saw more austere block-like cement buildings, built by the Russians after most of the town had been destroyed in the Second World War. Our guide described them as “ugly Soviet style” buildings. We continued on for about an hour out into the rural areas admiring the small farms and lush green fields. We arrived at a small fishing village called Minija and boarded a boat which took us on a leisurely cruise of the Minija River and then out into a huge Lake called Lake Krokai. Here we saw many birds and enjoyed the slower pace of cruising. Our guide pointed out some sand hills in the distance which were part of a small Russian state that borders Lithuania. We asked our guide how the country felt about what is happening with Russia and the Ukraine at the moment. She said that we are all very worried because we think we will be next in Putin’s line of fire. Following our cruise we returned to the old town of Klaipeda and did an interesting walk with our guide around the old town. We stopped for coffees and Lithuanian beer before walking the short distance back to the port and our ship.
Our guide was born in the early 1980’s and so had lived under Soviet rule for quite a few years of her childhood. She did not have a banana until she was 5 years old and western movies, books and even bubble-gum were banned by the Russians. Once, her Grandparents had gone to Poland for a holiday and returned with some “black market” bubble-gum for her and she couldn’t believe it. She shared it with her friends at school and was most popular.
Lithuania’s long history has been quite interesting but I won’t go into it too much here. During the 19th century, Russia occupied Lithuania and banned the Lithuanian language, books ect. Secret underground activities were set up to ensure the continuation of the culture. After WW1, Lithuania was again free from soviet rule. During WW2 Lithuania was occupied 3 times, first by the Soviets, then the Nazis and finally the Soviets again. During the Nazi occupation, 200,000 Lithuanian Jews were killed by the Nazis. Once again when the Soviets liberated Lithuania at the end of the war, the Lithuanian people were still persecuted. The Soviets sent the educated people and professors etc. to Siberia and then sent all the farmers there too as they wanted to take over the farms to create state farms. Over ½ million Lithuanian people were deported during this time. The people rejoiced when the Soviet Union collapsed and Lithuania became a free country again.
We finished the day with another spectacular theatre show, involving singing and dancing called the best of the Divas.
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