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*** LITHUANIA 2011 - Weeks 5~7 *** |
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 CAMPING
IN LITHUANIA 2011
- Molėtai,
Visaginas,
Ignalina Nuclear Power
Station,
Utena, Šiauliai,
the Hill of Crosses, and
Žemaitija
National Park:If the waters of the Nemunas River characterised our first 2 weeks in Lithuania, the hallmark of the second 2 weeks were sunsets over the lakes of the Eastern and Northern rural parts of the country.
Tearing ourselves away from the idyllic pace of
Camping Harmonie, we returned along the dirt road through the line forests (Photo 1 -
Leaving Camping Harmonie through Rūdiškės
pine forests) to rejoin the main A16 road at Trakai along to Vilnius.
Sparring with city traffic, trolley buses and speed cameras, we passed through
Vilnius with a pause at a truly mammoth Maxima hypermarket for re-provisioning
and lunch of Šaltibarščiai (cold beetroot soup) in the cafeteria, and turned off
on the northern side of the city
On a misty-moisty morning with cloud still hovering over the lake, we made an early start the following morning for the 25 kms drive to Anykščiai (pronounced An-eeksh-chey) for a ride on the preserved narrow gauge railway. Passing through remote hamlets with their brightly painted single storey wooden cottages, we reached Anykščiai in time to make enquiries about the town at the TIC and book our tickets for the railway. The lady at the TIC, speaking good English, told us the town's association with the 19th century Lithuanian lyrical poet Antanas Baranauskas whose principle work, Forest of Anykščiai, praised the region's natural landscape beauty, and is now regarded as one of the nation's most sacred cultural treasures. She also told us that pre-WW2, provincial towns like Anykščiai and their neighbouring villages had a significant Jewish population, all of whom had been systematically exterminated by the German occupiers. On the drive over, we had passed a sign to a Holocaust memorial which we should investigate later. She also pointed out on the town plan the area close to the centre where the Jewish citizens had lived and where their synagogue still survived. In describing all of this, she seemed to struggle with her words; was there a family connection, we wondered. The town's current population is 12,000; if this had been 8,000 pre-war, it could have been that 30% had been Jewish; 2,500 people of a small rural town mass-murdered by the Germans. All this was for later. First we had our ride
on the narrow gauge railway, a surviving part of the Tsarist-Russian network of local lines connecting the rural
Our visit to Anykščiai had not taken the usual tourist route to visit the museums and cultural centres; we had seen however where the town's once sizeable Jewish population had lived and where they had worshipped, and where, victims of German institutionalised mass murder, they now lay buried in mass graves in the sandy soil of the forests outside the town which the Lithuanian lyric poet had so praised. How ironic that the town's tourist literature made no mention of this sad fact of Anykščiai's recent history, one which had raised the emotions of the TIC lady. Standing here by the faded and forgotten memorial in the silent forest, we empathised with her.
Against this background, we were greeted at
Ignalina's Visitor Centre by Ina Daukšiene who had arranged our visit. She
introduced us to Anna our English-speaking guide who spent the next hour
explaining the workings of the reactors and answering our multitude of questions
about the social, political and economic impact both at local and national level
of the EU-enforced closure programme. At the peak of its working, the Ignalina
plant had employed 5,000 people from Visaginas; this number was now halved and
would soon be reduced to 500. With no other source of employment in such an
isolated town of 28,000 population, local unemployment now ran at 21%, with most
workers and their families in Visaginas being of Russian origin although now
Lithuanian citizens. We
The following day, we telephoned the Utenos Brewery to enquire about a visit, but could get no reply. We therefore returned to Utena in an attempt to talk our way past the Fort Knox security at the brewery for a visit. At reception, the visit organiser was again unavailable, but by good fortune a senior manager happened by. The security man explained our request; had we an appointment, he demanded with a self-important air. In frustration, Paul replied with counter officiousness: no one here ever answers the telephone for us to make an appointment. Very well, he would personally escort us for a brief visit despite his busy schedule. We were in! Leading us briskly along to the brew-house, he explained that Utenos, the largest production brewery in the Baltics, was now part of the Carlsberg Group. In the brew-house we were able to photograph the 8 huge copper mash-tuns/fermenting vessels (Photo 20 - Copper mash tuns in brew house of Utenos Brewery) and then led through to see the maturing tanks and finally the automated bottling plant. It was only a brief visit but against all the odds we had made it, and were grateful to the senior manager who had spared us his time.
Žemaitija has another unique and chilling feature: it's the only National Park we know of that includes a former Soviet
missile-silo base. Here, hidden away in the sparsely populated forests of
Plokštinė, the Soviet army built in 1960 one of the first rocket launching sites
in the USSR. The silos for 4 Soviet R12 nuclear missiles stood ready during the
Cold War targeted at Western Europe. Like something out of a James Bond film,
the rocket-launching site had a central control room flanked by 4 steel-lined
missile silos, 27m deep and 6m in width. The entire complex was underground with
only the domed lids of the 4 silos visible from above. The base had deployed the
missiles which Khrushchev shipped to Cuba in 1962
Our time in Lithuania was drawing to a close. After a further night's camp amid the pine trees on the shores of Lake Plateliai (Photo 28 -Paežerė Camping in the pine woods of Lake Plateliai), we should resume our westward journey to Palanga just to the north of Klaipėda, so completing our circuit of this trip's first host-country. During the past month, we had seen much evidence of the country's life under the former communist régime and learnt even more about the problems facing contemporary Lithuania since independence and the transition to market economy. We had however recently witnessed a small illustration of what freedom from Soviet oppression gained in the 20 years since independence had truly meant for the people of the Baltic States at an individual level. A Latvian family had pitched their tent near to us: mother, father and 2 daughters having both the means and freedom to enjoy a camping holiday, something which we in the West had taken for granted all our lives. It was a refreshing thought. Tomorrow we should be heading towards the Latvian border to begin our time in our second host-country. But that is for next week.
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towards
Utena. Some 25 kms beyond the urban sprawl of Vilnius, we passed a sign to 'Geografinis
Europas Centras'; this we had to investigate. Along a short track, we found the
ceremonial site marked with a white granite obelisk and alignment of the 27
flags of the EU member states (ranging from Portugal to Estonia and Finland to
Greece) (Photo 2 - The geographical
Centre of Europe in Lithuania). Unlikely as it seems,
this point marked the geographical centre of the European continent as defined
in 1989 by no less an authority than the French National Geographical Institute
and endorsed by the more credible authority of the Guinness Book of Records. The
grid reference of this spot in Lithuania - latitude 54° 54' north and longitude
25° 19' east was defined as Europe's central point after a re-estimation of
European boundaries, with Spitsbergen as the northern point, the Canaries in the
south, easterly point at the crest of the Urals in Russia and westerly point the
Azores. Underwhelmed with disbelief, we continued our journey through the
rolling agricultural country-side and rural backwaters of NE Lithuania.
Reaching Moletai, which our guide book
describes as an 'unstartling little town', we turned off to investigate, only to
prove the accuracy of this description. Our camp tonight was Camping Papartis a
pleasantly straightforward site on the shores of Lake Bebrus. Despite the long length
of days in the short Baltic summer, it was clear that from our lakeside camp we
should have a ringside seat of a spectacular sunset across the lake. With the
sun dipping towards the western horizon at 10-30 that evening, and trailing a
golden streak of light across the water, we were not disappointed, with the
sunset reflected off our camper and framed by silhouetted pine trees (Photo 3 -
Sunset over Lake Bebrus
at Camping Papartis). This was the first of this week's
classic across-the-lake sunsets.
hinterland to
major towns served by Russian broad gauge main lines. This line linking Anykščiai
to Panevėžys was built in 1891; it ceased regular traffic in 2001 but was
re-opened by volunteers as a tourist attraction. The trains are now pulled by
former Soviet TU2 class diesels, but before our ride one of the volunteers
showed us their museum collection which included a Czech steam engine built by
the Škoda engineering works at Pilsen (Photo
4 - Škoda-built steam
engine at Anykščiai
railway museum). She asked why we had chosen to visit the Baltic States,
and we explained our admiration for their resilience in conserving their
language and culture despite centuries of occupation and oppression. She
observed sagely that the 20 years of freedom since independence had posed more
of a threat to the Lithuanian language and culture with the youngster generation
born since 1991 attracted by the novelty of American culture through TV and the
internet. Ironically it seems that the less language and culture are
threatened, the less they are valued. We chugged in an open-sided carriage
behind the diesel engine (Photo 5 - Anykščiai narrow gauge
railway) for 20 miles to Troškūnai, a large but isolated
farming village to see the monastery church there filled with the regular
Catholic images. The walk from the station gave further chance to discuss
with the English-speaking guide about life in contemporary Lithuania and the
severity of Baltic winters.
Back in Anykščiai, we shopped at the Maxima supermarket then walked around
the area of attractive wooden cottages where the TIC lady had said the town's
pre-war Jewish population had once lived (Photo 6 - Wooden houses in former Jewish district of Anykščiai).
Tucked away in a small square behind a modern apartment block, we found the remains of what
clearly had once been one of Anykščiai's 4 synagogues, now lying
semi-derelict, its former congregation long since exterminated in the forests
just outside the town. With this in mind, we drove out to investigate the
Holocaust memorial. Just off the road, we followed a sign which read Holokausto
Ankų Kapai (Holocaust mass graves). Along a sandy track into
the woods, we found
a small and sadly neglected stone memorial with an almost faded inscription, and
surrounded by a rusty fence. If our arithmetic was correct, here were the mass
graves of some 2,500 Jewish citizens of Anykščiai shot here by Germans in
WW2 (Photo 7 - Mass grave of Anykščiai
Jews exterminated in WW2). The soft sandy soil of these
hillocks among the pine woods bore witness to yet another act of German
barbarism. As we stood taking all this in, 2 elderly ladies appeared from the
woods, collecting berries and mushrooms, amazed to discover English visitors; 'Angliškai
- well I never' they seemed to repeat to one another and to us, equally
surprised that we could not understand a word of their chatter.
Our next campsite was at Palūšė in the NE
Lithuanian lake district of the Aukštaitija National Park. The campsite, a
modernised hut-encampment dating from the communist period, with a very
welcoming lady-warden, was set on the hillside above the village's attractive
wooden church of St Jozef (Photo 8 -
Wooden church at Palūšė). That evening in this pleasantly
sited camp with the fine weather continuing, we enjoyed another barbecued supper
(Photo
9 - Barbecue supper at Palūšė
Camping). Armed with a detailed map and good
advice from the National Park office in the village, we set off the following
morning for a day's walking among the hillocks and lakes of the Aukštaitija
National Park. The Šiliniškės ridge starts at the look-out point of Ladakalnis,
believed to have been the site of pre-Christian sacrifices to the pagan goddess
Lada, the Great Mother who gave birth to the world. This 175m hillock, which in
a flat country like Lithuania, is considered a significant geographical feature;
it took us all of 10 minutes to reach its 'summit', but the view of 6
surrounding lakes made it worthwhile. From here we followed a path along the
pine-covered ridge with views of more lakes (Photo 10 -
Lakes and pine woods in Aukštaitija National Park). The
path led to the Ginučiai castle mound, an elongated conical hill which
had been the site of a 10th
century defensive fort built by Lithuanian tribes to
withstand incursions by Germanic crusading knights at a time before the
Lithuanians' unification into a nation-state by King Mindaugas. The hill was
crowned by a memorial stone recalling a visit in 1934 by the autocratic
president of Lithuania, Antanas Smetona. Smetona had planted an oak at this
historic site; the Soviets destroyed the oak during their long occupation,
causing Lithuanians to treat the place with even greater reverence; Smetona may
have been a dictator, but at least he was a Lithuanian dictator! With the sun
filtering down through the pines, this was a delightful path with views out
across the Aukštaitija lakes (Photo 11 - Aukštaitija National Park pine woods).
On the drive back to camp, we passed examples of the traditional carved wooden
folk-art wayside shrines incorporating the figure of the Contemplative Christ,
the Rūpintojėlis, seen throughout the country (Photo 12
- Carved wooden folk-art
Contemplative Christ shrine); a similar carved
wooden figure was set up in the churchyard at Palūšė (Photo 13 -
carved wooden Rūpintojėlis at Palūšė churchyard).
And that evening, looking down from this same churchyard at Palūšė, we
witnessed yet another splendid salmon-pink sunset across Lake Lūsiai (Photo 14 - Sunset over Lake Lūsiai
from Palūšė churchyard).
Approaching 2-00pm, we drove out to the
Ignalina Nuclear Power Pant to keep our appointment. Passing signs warning we
were now entering a 'Limited access zone', we parked close to the main entrance
of the station, with the triple ventilation chimneys of the reactors towering
overhead. We had arrived, and it would be misleading to say we were not nervous!
(Photo
16 - Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant). Ignalina, the
only nuclear power station in the Baltic States, had 2 water-cooled, graphite
moderated nuclear reactors of the same design as the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine
which suffered the disastrous melt-down in 1986. Ignalina's Reactor #1 came
on-line in 1984, but Reactor#2 was delayed until 1987 because of Chernobyl.
Ignalina's 2 reactors, originally the world's most powerful, had the capacity to
generate an electrical output of 1,500 megawatts. But the plant's design
similarities with Chernobyl and the lack of containment building in the event of
nuclear accident was cited by the EU as ultra high risk, and the power plant's
phased decommissioning was insisted on a pre-condition to Lithuania's
accession to EU membership in 2004. The Lithuanian government was compelled to
accept this in spite of the economic consequences of finding alternative energy
supplies, given that Ignalina had produced 70% of the country's electrical
supply needs. The EU agreed to pay €820 million towards decommissioning costs
with compensation payments continuing until 2013. Reactor #1 closed in 2004,
followed by the decommissioning of Reactor #2 in 2009, and construction of
improved containment storage for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel rods.
The plant's closure has resulted in severe
economic, social and political consequences for Lithuania. It had provided the major
source of employment for the people of Visaginas, and EU compensation has made
little impact on bringing alternative employment in so remote and isolated a
region. A 2008 opposition referendum to extend Reactor #2's working until a
replacement Western-design nuclear plant was built was only narrowly defeated;
its success resulting in breach of EU accession terms would have caused major
political embarrassment to the government. Attempts to negotiate financing of a
replacement nuclear plant at Ignalina with international investment companies
have met delays amid global recession, and any start date remains uncertain.
Meanwhile Lithuania has had to bear the cost of extending the capacity of its
fossil fuel generating stations and buying electricity and gas from Russia,
placing it at the mercy of its all-powerful eastern neighbour. Dependency on
Russian fuel supplies has increased concerns about energy security; the
price of electricity for both the Lithuanian public and industry has risen by
30% with forecasts that Ignalina's closure will decrease Lithuania's GDP growth
by 1.5% and increase inflation by 1.7%, a major blow to this small country's
struggling economy.
extended our thanks to Ina for arranging the visit, and
to Anna for giving us a detailed, frank and personal insight into the social and
economic consequences of the plant's closure; her father had been a Russian
immigrant worker at Ignalina and his employment future was uncertain. The visit
had given us an entirely new dimension of understanding of the economic and
social issues currently facing our host country, of which most visitors to
Vilnius, as they switch on another light, are completely unaware. During the
drive back along the approach road, we passed the now inert transmission lines
which no longer carry electricity from Ignalina (Photo 17 - Inert power lines from Ignalina).
Returning to Visaginas, we passed the huge roadside pipes which once carried
free by-product steam from the plant to heat all the town's apartment blocks;
this had now to be replaced with alternative and costly oil and gas heating. The
pathetically few industrial units at the town's outskirts showed how bleak the
employment future was for residents of Visaginas. Unless financing agreement is
soon reached enabling work to begin on a replacement power plant, younger people
will be forced to seek work elsewhere in Lithuania or Western Europe, leaving a
declining and aging population in this once flourishing little town hidden away
out here in the remote forests. We drove away sadly; whatever your feeling about
nuclear energy, there was no denying that history and the EU has left the
Russian population of Visaginas locally a bleak employment future and the people
of Lithuania nationally a raw economic deal in terms of energy supply.
We camped that night near to the modest town of
Zarasai, just 5 kms from the border-crossing to the Latvian city of Daugavpils
where we should be in a month's time. The town can be rightly proud of its
delightfully welcoming and well-appointed campsite site on the shore of Lake
Zarasai. And that evening as the sun dipped across the lake, we were blessed
with yet another glorious sunset with the golden glow reflected across the water
through the trees and reeds (Photo 18 -
Sunset over Lake Zarasai at Zarasai Camping).
Leaving Zarasai, we turned off on a
single-track lane which took us to the remote hamlet of Dusetos. Our reason for
heading into the rural hinterland was to have a traditional Lithuanian lunch at
the Užeiga (Tavern) Prie Bravoro, a micro-brewery (alus datykla) operated at their cottage at the edge of the village by the Čižo family; four generations
of the family have brewed the dark, unfiltered beer here since 1863. Father,
Ramūnas, was brewing on the day of our visit so were we unable to enter his
brew-house. But we were welcomed for a light lunch of hot beetroot soup and a
plate of delicious crispy blynai (potato pancakes) with sour cream. One of the
daughters, Rūta, told us of the family's brewing history and its product brewed
with only natural malted barley and hops, the only sweetener being wild honey
from the surrounding forests. The cloudy, unfiltered beer was chocolate-coloured
in appearance with a light and hoppy taste. During the communist period, it was
illegal to sell their product, but Ramūnas had continued brewing for family and
friends. He turned to brewing full-time again in 1995 and now the family markets
its product to a wide range of pubs and craft fairs. Rūta also assured us that she would continue the family tradition of brewing as the 5th
generation (Photo
19 - Lunch at Užeiga
(Tavern) Prie Bravoro microbrewery).
On the subject of brewing, we were anxious to
visit at least one of Lithuania's national breweries. Having failed at Svyturys
in Klaipėda, we had telephoned the TIC at Utena who, we had been assured could
arrange a visit to the Utenos Brewery. No it was not possible, was the answer;
the brewery had closed. This seemed unlikely and on reaching the small town of
Utena, we drove to investigate. At an industrial estate on the edge of the town,
there was the Utenos Brewery large as life and clearly a substantial employer.
At reception, a young employee acted as interpreter: but the person who dealt
with visits was not there; could we come back tomorrow. The Utena TIC had some
explaining to do. Now we knew that Utena was not a particularly noteworthy town;
one guide book made no reference and the other dismissed it in a couple of
unflattering sentences. We were not prepared however for just how much of
a non-entity place it actually was.
Despite our searching diligently, the TIC
proved as elusive as it had been misleading on the phone. We tried the police
station, but that was locked. A passer-by at the supermarket made the most
apposite observation: Utena was only a small town with nothing of interest to
see, she explained; why don't you go to Anykščiai. How true this was; every
trip has 'one of those days', and today this was it. Utena would go down in the
annals as the proverbial non-entity town.
Our onward route westwards across Lithuania
passed through Panevėžys, but our guide books could find nothing noteworthy
to say about Lithuania's 5th largest city other than describing it as an 'unenticing
grey sprawl'. As we drove through, it was clear that this was not an inaccurate
or exaggerated description. The main square of Laisvės Aikštė had been totally
dug up just to emphasis the city's unattractiveness, and with the intolerant
traffic, we were thankful to get through unscathed, and on towards Šiauliai
(pronounced Shy-ow-ley), Lithuania's 4th largest city. Our base for the next 3
nights was Camping Gražina, a small privately owned campsite run by an
enterprising and hospitably welcoming family in the gardens of their
guesthouse-home alongside their vegetable and fruit growing small-holding. In
addition to the washing machine to catch up with laundry, they also offered us
free wi-fi internet access to upload a new edition of our web site. The main
reason for coming to Šiauliai was to visit one of Lithuania's unique
institutions, the Hill of Crosses. As the name suggests, this is a low mound in
the open countryside, approached along an avenue of lime trees, and covered with
literally 1000s of crosses, large and small planted by both individuals and
organised pilgrimages. But this simple description fails to do justice to the
religious and nationalistic significance of the Hill of Crosses for Lithuanians.
There are as many myths explaining the origins
of the Hill of Crosses (Kryžių kalnas) as there are crosses covering the Hill.
It may have been of pagan origin associated with ancestor worship, evolving
naturally over the centuries, with Christian crosses replacing pagan totem
symbols. The anti-Tsarist rebellions of 1831 and 1863 and the need to
commemorate the fallen was the factor which turned the Hill into a shrine of
remembrance. The Lithuanians planted symbolic crosses at this prominent place in
the countryside since the Tsarist authorities would not tolerate such open
displays of nationalistic and Catholic sentiment in an urban setting. The Hill
assumed a significance as an expression of Lithuanian national and religious
fervour after all the threats faced throughout the country's troubled history.
The need to demonstrate allegiance to Lithuanian national identity, heritage and
Catholic religion assumed an even greater symbolic importance during the 45
years of Soviet occupation, despite the planting of crosses being an arrestable
offence. The Hill became a focus of patriotic pilgrimage with people planting
their crosses to commemorate the 1000s executed or deported by the communists.
Determined to eradicate such manifestations of Lithuanian patriotic sentiment
and religious expression, the Soviet authorities repeatedly bulldozed the Hill,
yet overnight more crosses continued to appear as people responded by planting
replacement crosses. By independence in 1991, some 40,000 crosses covered the
Hill and they still go on multiplying. In 1993 Pope John-Paul II celebrated Mass at
the Hill adding further to its prestige as a pilgrimage destination, and of
course more crosses. The Pope even added his own marble cross inscribed with the
message Thank you Lithuanians for the Hill of Crosses which testifies to the
nations of Europe and the whole world the faith of the people of this land.
From the approach path, we gazed in amazement still unable quite to comprehend both the individual and collective significance
for Lithuanians of this institution which so embodies the expression of
their religious and patriotic sentiment. A towering wooden figure of Christ with
arms outstretched seems to usher pilgrims up onto the pathway which rises amid
the myriads of crosses (Photo 21 - The Hill of Crosses, Lithuania's religious and
cultural symbol).
The atmosphere at sunset or on a gloomy day when the wind rattles all the 1000s
of crosses is said to be transfixing. We walked around the passageways which
wind over and around the Hill: there were large ornately caved crosses, metal
and plastic crosses, smaller ones simply left leaning against others, and all
were hung with 1000s of tiny crucifixes (Photo 22 - 1000s of crosses planted at across the Hill of Crosses).
Some were inscribed with the date of a pilgrimage, others were tagged with the names or
photos of deceased. On the one hand, the sheer scale of the crosses planted at
the Hill as a fervently nationalistic and religious institution overwhelmed the
senses; on the other hand, this was offset by the awareness that every single
one of the crosses represented an individual act of devotion or personal
expression of remembrance. Our feeling of being intrusive voyeurs on all of this
was offset by the fact that other Lithuanian visitors were doing exactly the
same; it was a Sunday outing with a difference.
From Šiauliai, we drove westwards to spend our
last few days in Lithuania in the Žemaitija National Park. Leaving the main road
near to the small town of Plungė, we turned off onto the single track lane which
led in 12kms to Plateliai, the National Park's main village. From here the Šeirė
nature trail follows the shores of Lake Plateliai looking out through
silhouetted overhanging trees over the lake with perfect reflections of clouds
in the placid waters (Photo 23 - Cloud reflections in
Lake Plateliai). This walk along the lake shore and back
through the forest gave wonderful photographic opportunity at every turn (Photo 24 -
Lake Plateliai in the
Žemaitija National Park). And camped by the lake shore
that night, we enjoyed yet another magnificent sunset across the lake (Photo 25 -
Sunset over Lake Plateliai). 
The village of Plateliai is noted for its carved
wooden folk art, seen outside cottages and on wayside shrines, but the
ethnographic museum in the village displays curious items from a particularly
unusual local custom. The Plateliai Shrove Tuesday day and night-long
celebrations, the Užgavėnių, entails masked revels and dancing with a procession
of decorated carts or sledges (photographs showed that snow is often still on
the ground), and a bonfire on which the effigy of a grotesquely costumed old
lady is burnt. How long ago was it, we wondered, when such pre-Christian
traditional Springtime renewal festivals entailed purging the community of
ill-fortune (driving out the devil in Christian parlance) by the
burning-sacrifice of a live old woman under the pretext of being a witch. The
similarities of these revels to other masked traditional Spring-tide renewal
festivals throughout Europe was uncanny. The museum at Plateliai displays the
carved wooden masks still used in the Shrove Tuesday revels (Photo 26 -
Masks from the Plateliai Shrove Tuesday traditional revels), many
entailing goat-like horned demon devilish figures. We had seen similar carved
wooden masks used in village carnivals in Sardinia with the same exaggerated
hooked nose. Such animalistic Springtime renewal celebrations must go back into
the mists of time; this one at Plateliai however is still very much alive and
kicking, taking place every Shrove Tuesday, and the display of masks certainly
enlivened an otherwise rather stuffy ethnographic museum.
sparking the Cuban Missile
Crisis which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Mysteriously the
Plokštinė base was closed in 1978, the nuclear missiles withdrawn deeper into
the USSR, and the base abandoned to rot for 2 decades. After independence, the
Lithuanians opened what remained of the former missile launching site under the
name of the Plokštinė Militarism Exhibition, with visitors escorted underground
to peer down into the malevolent subterranean silos from a maintenance gallery.
But age and decay had clearly taken their toll and the subterranean galleries
became so dangerous that they had either to be closed or refurbished, and EU
monies were procured for restoration. To our disappointment, we had discovered
that the site would therefore be closed for 12 months and we could not gain
admission. We did however drive the 5kms along a forest dirt-road to approach
the site in the hope of seeing at least something; it's not every day that you
get anywhere near to a former Soviet nuclear missile site! We ventured to the
gates and barbed-wire fence, and hesitantly parked alongside the builders' vans.
Restoration work was taking place but we managed to persuade a National
Park official to give us 5 minutes to view the base from above ground. All
that was visible on the surface was the raised concrete covering of the
underground central control complex, but far more ominously the 4 huge grey
domed lids of the missile silos (Photo 27 - Nuclear missile silo at Plokštinė former Soviet rocket base).
As we drove back along the dirt-road, we pondered that, although the base now stood empty
of its evil contents which had the potential to fry most of Western Europe, how
many other such silos still stood in both East and West fully armed with their
nuclear payloads. It was a chilling thought.
