From Russia with Lunch (20 page)

But first a word on salt. Most seawater contains around 3.5 per cent of the stuff. This has several effects, two of which being: it helps you float and results in only the hardiest of salinity-resistant plants flourishing within cooee of the shore. The Baltic's salt content, however, hovers between 0.1 and 0.8 per cent, which is hardly enough to flavour a cashew. Consequently, it means that swimmers hit bottom quick smart and that the surrounding coastline has a floral fecundity not encountered in many other seaside regions.

Nowhere is this more spectacularly apparent than in Pal-anga's 100-hectare Botanic Park. Formerly the estate of the aristocratic Tyszkiewicz family who ruled the Palanga region from 1824 to 1940, the park was laid out in the last years of the nineteenth century. Over the course of three summers, French landscape designer Edouard André – whose CV also included the Tuileries Gardens in Paris – created this masterpiece in the English naturalist style, which is slippery to define but easily envisioned with the words ‘Beatrix Potter backdrop'. Over five hundred varieties of trees loom over the grassland, which features myriad sculptures. Pick of the bunch is the lubricious bronze Queen of the Serpents, who has a body that would make Gisele Bundchen seem permanently bloated. There is also a capacious rose garden where the mere act of breathing is a Turkish-Delight-scented joy and blood-red petals dilute into prom-dress pink then confirmation white. The park is the botanic equivalent of a degustation feast with 60 hectares of trees, 24.5 hectares of fields, half a hectare of flowers, over a hectare of flowing water, 1.5 kilometres of beach and dunes and 18 kilometres of tracks to explore it all.

Better still, the place is not regarded as a pristine arboreal art gallery. Pick-up soccer matches take place on the lawns, couples canoodle behind tree trunks, camera nerds crouch millimetres from pansies to test their macro lenses and kids race leaves down streams. The garden's showpiece is the Neo-Renaissance Tyszkiewicz Palace, which now houses an amber museum. Built in 1897 by German architect Franz Schwecthen – whose friends no doubt carried umbrellas in case their mate had to introduce himself to someone – it is fronted by a ballustraded stone terrace approached via a pair of curlicued stairways. From this vantage point, beds of tiger-yellow gazanias flank an elongated pond with a fountain at its centre. Beyond which stands the beautifully simple Christ Blessing sculpture by Danish neoclassicist Berthel Thorwaldsen.

Perched on the stone steps, a twinge of regret took a seat beside me. The time had come to leave Palanga, which was everything a seaside town should be. Except contrived.

11

A question of spirit

A rabbi had to spend some time recovering from an operation in a Catholic hospital and became good friends with a nurse there. One day she came into his room and noticed the crucifix on the wall was missing.

‘Rabbi,' she asked him, ‘what have you done with the crucifix?'

He replied, ‘One suffering Jew in this room was enough.'

Travel writers all have personal milestones on their journeys. For some, it's the first time they become lost on a strange road. For others, such as AA Gill, it's when he notices himself falling into a routine – as in this is the place I go for breakfast, here's where I write up my notes in the afternoon – that serves as a stimulus for motion. For me, it's the turnaround, the point at which I will be furthest from where I started, that delivers a sense of progress. So it was that I headed east from Palanga through the wonderfully named Plunge and on to Siauliai. I wasn't expecting much from Lithuania's fourth largest city, half of whose buildings were destroyed in World War I. Come the sequel, the Germans and Russians exceeded their previous benchmark by obliterating 80 per cent of the town's structures.

Inhabited since the first century and Christianised by the Teutonic knights in the fifteenth century, the place came into its own in the second half of the nineteenth with the advent of new road and rail links. An economic hub of the Russian empire, Siauliai was home to flax processors, tile manufacturers, tobacco factories and confectionary plants. It's best known establishment was the Frenkel Leather Factory. Employing eight hundred workers, it was one of the largest firms in the Russian empire and so fine were its wares that it took gold medals at the 1905 Paris exhibition. The entrepreneurial zeal of the locals was corralled by the Soviet regime, which made Siauliai a high-tech hub for the production of electronics, radio engineering and televisions. By 1990, 30,000 of the town's 135,000 population were employed in local industries but with the collapse of the old captive markets, that number fell to 12,000 in just three years.

Siauliai could have gone the way of many other Lithuanian towns which found themselves in a similar position. However, instead of capitulating to the unemployment and seemingly inevitable exodus of young people to bigger cities with greater work opportunities, the Siauliai brains trust decided to play to their strengths. They not only offered electronics and computer manufacturers a relatively cheap workforce but a skilled one which had been assembling such components for decades. The Lithuanian government came to the party in the form of exempting from sales tax and customs duty materials brought into the country for manufacture. Then applied the same breaks when the completed products where shipped out again. It's a strategy that is paying dividends and nowhere is this more apparent than at the old Soviet military airport of Zokniai on the edge of town, the first such facility in the Baltics capable of handling all types of aircraft and operating 24/7 irrespective of weather conditions. Better still, the tab for this centrepiece of what is a new free economic zone was picked up entirely by the Phillips corporation.

Closer into town, Siauliai is proof that a city's vibrancy and allure need not rest on its architecture or pulchritude. Although the mile-long pedestrian boulevard that bisects the city is lined with drab concrete office blocks, there is a sense of optimism and energy about Siauliai. On Vilnius Avenue, the rattan furniture of cafés spills out from under awnings and into iris-shrinking sunshine. Fathers on their lunch breaks chomp down on hamburgers with their daughters who are making the most of school holidays by reapplying lip gloss between every bite. Office types in Tom Ford sunglasses curse and sanctify their PDAs to one another between lattes. It was a town on the move, and so far the new corporate regional headquarters and the stores which catered for their upwardly mobile employees were managing to strike a balance between flash and functional.

Aside from its dynamism, what I loved most about Siauliai was its recurring sense of whimsy. There is space here, for example, for the biggest museum devoted to cats I've ever seen. It's also the only museum devoted to cats I've ever seen. Nonetheless, amid the 4000 poems devoted to felines, stained-glass windows featuring the second best pet you could ever have (start writing your letters of indignation now) and trinkets ranging from the cute to the cutesy – moggy toilet seat cover with matching brush, anyone? – there is much quietly said about the bond between humans and animals. As well as how much the former value the gift of unconditional love the latter can impart in exchange for food, shelter and a scratch under the chin.

Near a museum that rhapsodises bicycles to the same degree are two wonderful public statues that would probably be dismissed by classicists but are big enough on heart to have earned special affection from the locals. The first is the Reading Man. Cast in bronze and top-hatted, this portly gent has one hand tucked behind his back while the other is raised to his cheek in what could be construed as Dr Evil's signature move. He is, in fact, holding a monocle to his eye as he reads an imaginary newspaper. Siauliai was at one stage a hotbed of journalism and the commemoration of this flurry of words appealed to the thesaurus
dork,
dweeb, pointdexter
, nerd in me. Due to the angle of his fingers holding the monocle, dozens of Siauliai scallywags have dubbed – or should that be doobed? – him the Smoking Man. Many's the morning when street cleaners find the bronzed patriarch cradling a half-smoked joint. The second sculpture which moved me to dumb grinning is entitled Grandfather and His Children. Located beside a bus stop it features a dozing patriarch stretched horizontally with his legs curled into his stomach. On these limbs sit a trio of grandchildren whose expressions hint at ‘I dare you to hold his nose closed' mischief. He, meanwhile, seems neither bothered nor thrilled by being used as a sofa.

Despite careening towards the future, Siauliai is best known for a monument to the past that lies 12 kilometres out of town. Off a nondescript road on a nondescript knoll lies what is perhaps Lithuania's most potent symbol of nationhood and the abiding theological faith which has seen it endure. Officially titled Jurgaiciai Mound, this ersatz monument is better known as the Hill of Crosses and is probably the nation's best known tourist destination, at least for those who come here wanting to get a sense of the country's history as opposed to merely their own.

As with most Lithuanian sites, no one can quite agree on a definitive version of its origins. According to various Livonian chronicles, here stood a wooden defensive fort built by the Lithuanians then destroyed by the Teutonic knights. Another view came courtesy of my guide book which, in an impressive flourish of generality suggested, ‘It may at one time have been a backdrop for pagan worship, though it is also possible that it was a holy place for early Lithuanian Christians. And it therefore could be the case that the first cross was planted there in the Middle Ages.'

Supposition aside, the sharp money is on the notion that what has today evolved into the Lithuanian equivalent of the Statue of Liberty began as a sombre gesture of backroads remembrance. The first group of crosses were speared into the earth here in memory of the Lithuanian insurgents killed during the failed 1831 rebellion against tzarist rule. Thirty-two years later, the locals had another go at their Russian rulers and were dealt with in a similarly brutal manner. They were once more commemorated with crosses on the hill and archived photographs suggest that by the end of the nineteenth century there were around 130 adorning its crest.

It wasn't until half a century later that the Hill of Crosses grew to the point that it became a proclamation of defiance. In the late 1950s, the families and friends of those who had perished in the bitter Gulags began erecting crucifixes here to mourn their loss. With the number who never came home multiplied by the individuals who felt compelled to lament their personal losses, the Hill of Crosses soon became a statement of two concepts – religious faith and not-quite-dormant nationalism – that ran counter to Soviet ideology. Bulldozers were called in, and by 1961 the wooden crosses had been burned Klu Klux Klan style while the metal ones were melted down for use in more ideologically sound constructions.

Having an inkling that the pugnacious Lithuanians wouldn't walk away from this stoush, they also sealed off all the roads to the hill and had the site patrolled not only by the army but the secret police too. Who were both mystified and narky when the sun would routinely rise on several nefarious crucifixes that hadn't been there the day before. While the Russians publicly discussed plans to flood the area or contaminate it with nuclear waste, the numbers of crosses swelled. Three times the hill was razed and on every occasion, the locals whipped up a new and improved version.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the number of crosses multiplied exponentially. Lithuanians, émigrés and the faithful from abroad make pilgrimages here to pay homage to the souls of the specific departed or to the general glories of a higher power. The result is crosses that range from three centimetres to three metres in height. Some, like the looming figure of Christ at the base of the hill, which was donated by Pope John Paul II when he visited in 1993, are intricately wrought works of plaintive art while others are mere wooden or metal right angles. These in turn form vertical and horizontal platforms from which hundreds more crosses and amber rosaries are hung, sometimes in such hallowed multitudes that all but the shape of the supporting structure is lost altogether. A network of boardwalks laced through this forest of piety, which all but obliterated one's perception of depth. So thick were the crosses that I felt it was possible to plunge an arm into their midst up to the elbow and still not strike the original tribute to which they were affixed. Bead-festooned Madonnas also abounded as did wooden sculptures of Christ. One featured a seated saviour who was festooned with such a phalanx of crucifixes that his mournful expression suggested he may have started off standing. Although he is titled ‘The Man of Sorrows', I christened him, ‘Our Father of the Undiagnosed Hernia'.

Even though there were around fifty visitors exploring the site, most stuck to a central corridor and a sense of isolation could be found by peeling off onto one of the many paths that radiated from it. Even the gentlest of breezes transformed the dangling crosses and rosary beads into a tintinnabulation of poignant insistence somewhere between a dirge and a lullaby.

What was most moving among this Escheresque mass of religious iconography were the specific and personal details. A weathered photo of a smiling teen who died not long after it was taken. A favourite scrunchie entwined with a locket. An identity card from a German firm featuring a man grinning a ‘first day on the dream job' grin. A pendant emblazoned with a marijuana leaf. In this most public of arenas, dominated by imposing statues of empathy from Christian communities around the world, it was these private nods to the dead that ground like knuckle on bone. The names of neither the deceased nor the remembering were recorded. Both parties knew what was what and that's all that mattered. From grand crosses fashioned in papal-approved workshops to those haphazardly constructed from twigs and hair elastics, there was room for them all on this hill. As there was for Buddhist prayer flags and a Star of David donated by the Israeli government. In celebrating religious freedom, it had somehow distilled the idea into something more universal. I had never planted a cross of remembrance before and I doubt I ever will again.

Emotionally encumbered after the Hill of Crosses, I drove west to Panevezys. On the way, the Samogitian forests thinned into fields of canola drizzled with petite terracotta flowers. It was all grey nomad pretty, especially since some of the birch trees had begun to blush scarlet at autumn's first premature advances. The charms of this landscape were inversely proportional to the city which eventually sprang from it. Choked by a seemingly relentless tourniquet of high-rise concrete apartment blocks, Panevezys has all the charm you would expect from a mid-level manufacturing centre for television tubes, compressors and electric cables. Not to mention copious amounts of beer, which would be required to numb the depressing reality of making television tubes, compressors and electric cables. Panevezys had the feel of a nursing home on the brink of receivership whose management had decided to leave up the Christmas decorations all year round in an effort to cheer up the residents. To whit, the constant loop of can-can music being piped through speakers around the CBD.

Dumping the car near the bus terminus at which it seemed dour locals were queuing to get the hell out of town, I made my way to the local tourist office where the frost-tipped lass on duty responded to my request for a room as if I'd asked her to dress up like a nurse and take my temperature three ways. Having grumpily ascertained that I wanted to stay close to the town centre, she directed me across a pedestrian mall that was as unprepossessing as it was windswept to the Hotel Panevezys. Look up ‘concrete cancer' in the dictionary and you'd most likely be presented with a picture of this establishment.

Despite meagre sunshine outside, the majority of the heavy velvet blinds in the cavernous lobby were drawn. Wheeling my suitcase over the remains of a parquetry floor, I sidestepped the carcase of a lounge suite covered in cracked linoleum and made my way towards the reception desk. Which was deserted. Taking a little too much pleasure in slamming my palm onto the bell, I was subsequently baptised by the dull grey wash of a fluorescent light being turned on in a distant back room. The woman who eventually emerged from it had a bouffant that wouldn't quit, bingo wings a-go-go and an expression permanently set to fulminate. I doubted she had ever enjoyed a gruntled minute.

‘Hello,' I said, smiling out of fear. ‘I believe the tourist office called and reserved a room for me.'