A Blue Sky Tuesday

Good Morning! Labas rytas!

Drinking our morning coffee on our last Tuesday in Vilnius we saw blue sky and sunshine out our skylight - let's get outside quick and enjoy it!

We felt like this guy - glad to be out, glad to be alive!

We headed east toward the old Subacious gate - past our friends' apartment building with its impressive wrought iron -

and the view from the eastern overlook was like seeing the city for the first time - in sunshine at last!

We descended the 100 or so steps - blessedly ice-free - and walked along the small Vilna River -

to the large white Russian Orthodox Church on its banks - the Church of the Holy Mother of God. The church has an unusual look, with a dome something like the church roofs you see in Armenia and Georgia.

We understand that in the early 1800s Vilnius University used it for a library, classrooms, and even dissection rooms for anatomy classes. Part of it was also used as a soldiers barracks before efforts began in the 1860s to restore it as a church.

The churches of Vilnius have endured some rough treatment. (Our Lutheran church being used as a warehouse and basketball court, as an example.) Then again, most of Vilnius' synagogues have completely disappeared.

We had not been inside this church before, so we went in and were greeted by a woman who demonstrated how to wipe our feet on the floor mat before walking on her freshly-clean floor. We followed her instructions.

It's a very large church, with the tallest iconostasis we've seen in Vilnius.  We noticed that in a side chapel there was a coffin and flowers and a photo, and soon some people started arriving for a service - so we took our leave.

A few days ago we walked upriver to the St. Peter and Paul Church, a very special place - not so much for its exterior,

but for its brilliant white interior -

every inch of the inside is covered with white stucco saints and legends and frozen flowers and lace -a place where you could gaze and meditate for days.

I've never seen the Beatitudes on a church wall before. I'm guessing that on the left it says "blessed are those who mourn" and on the right "blessed are the poor." (But I didn't pack my Latin dictionary, so I'm not sure.)

On the left is St. Florian using a pitcher of water to douse a burning church. We often saw Florian's picture or statue on Austrian firehouses - the firefighters' patron saint. (Maybe I've even seen his picture on the firehouse in Kohler, Wisconsin - am I imagining things?)

And sailing through the middle of the nave is this Viking ship of brass and crystal.

When Liz was out walking some days ago she found an exhibit at a school and snapped some photos -

All made of papier-mache. We think the theme was something like (freely translating): Healthy Ways -  Healthy Body, Healthy Soul.

Something a Family and Consumer Science teacher would be interested in.

Nevertheless we ended our sunny morning walk at

our favorite Italian bakery - a plain brioche for Liz and a barge-sized chocolate brioche for me.

Along with some scrambled eggs at home, it was a scrumptious ending to our sunny walk. I don't know what it did for my "kune" but my "siele" was very happy.

Weavings

Hello Everyone! Laba diena!

Soon after we arrived, Liz was the first to discover the network of little streets nearby, in what was the ghetto neighborhood across the street from us.

On the left is the Embassy of Austria. And across Gaon Street (named for the great Jewish teacher who lived on this street) -

is the Stikliai Hotel, a five-star member of the Relais and Chateaux chain. (We look in the windows.)

The painting above the hotel's front door - glass blowers (stikliai). I'm guessing that the hotel once was a glass blowers' workshop, or that there were one or more shops on the street beside the hotel, which is also called Stikliai.

With the hotel on the right, and a nice bakery there on the left, you can walk down a few doors to Bistro 18, where, with friends Deb and Marty, we had a very nice meal a few days ago. At the end of the street stands the Church of the Holy Spirit, originally a Dominican monastery, now a mostly Polish congregation.

The same spot, just looking a different direction -

and on one of these little streets there's a weaving studio that Liz has been peeking into off and on for weeks and weeks, and the other day we finally stopped in.

We had seen strips of weaving like this at the national museum - sashes for the national costumes display.

We had to make some small purchases, of course.

The weaver told us that Maria - adorned with rosary beads - is her faithful companion in what is certainly a lonely occupation.

If we haven't mentioned it before, amber seems to be the number one souvenir here in the Baltics.

This shop window is one of dozens and dozens. Yesterday we visited two amber museums where we learned how amber becomes amber - basically it's fossil resin that fifty million years ago, more or less, flowed to the sea, where most of it is found.

Another item is the nesting dolls - matrioshkas - which are traditionally Russian and not Lithuanian. But you can spend hundreds of litas on some pretty fancy ones -

I bought a very plain one - just because I no longer have the one I remember from Moscow days.

And finally, if you're hungry -

these larger-than-life cepelinai (sausage-filled potato dumplings) should dampen the hunger pains!

I sveikata!

Statues in the Snow

Good Morning! Labas rytas!

Another snowy morning! The streets and sidewalks are starting to look and feel like December once again.

Following our "a new thing every day" program we took the bus yesterday north across the river to the Kalvariju turgus, the old open market.

It was a very snowy day, so there weren't so many sellers, but still it was busy. I took a couple pictures inside the meat hall

which was basically the sausage and bacon market. A lot of pigs perished. I expected that someone would tell me to put my camera away and I wasn't disappointed. But at least I got a couple pictures.

 We bought some beautiful eggs, some craisins and apricots, and some dill for our supper last night - we had purchased some smoked trout at the duty-free shop in Helsinki and so last night we enjoyed smoked trout with dill and sugar snap peas on penne pasta. Excellent! And we watched a DVD of "The King and I", one of several we've borrowed from the US Embassy.

Yes, these cars are parked and the drivers are gone. Too busy to bother will parallel parking!

I've been strangely attracted to the "Green Bridge" and its statues. They are straight out of my Moscow days, done in the socialist realism style.

There are two sets of figures on each side of the river. This one is about education,

and this set is obviously military - it's the one set of figures that has had its identifying plaque removed or torn away. Since the statues date from the Soviet days, perhaps it's not a coincidence that the military statues have lost their sign. (And there is a slight provocation in the hammer and sickle emblem within the spear point atop the flag.)

The other two sets are "labor and construction" and "agriculture." Though they are Soviet era statues, because they are not blatantly anti-Lithuanian - in fact they were designed by artists with Lithuanian names - and because they make the bridge a real work of art, the statues have not been vandalized, except for that missing plaque.

One other snowy statue -

"Zemaite" - the Lithuanian novelist and story-teller, 1845-1921. In her Russian-occupied country it was not permitted to speak Lithuanian, but she came to know people in the countryside who spoke it anyway, and as an adult she spoke and wrote her stories in the forbidden language. The statue dates from 1970, interestingly, a time when the Soviets (Russians) were still in power.