Zemaitija, the Lowlands, Potato Dumplings Paradise

Zemaitija is full of storks. All of them moved here, after they left Sweden. Look out so you don’t make stork-mash out of this mighty bird when you drive by, as they are often out for walks.

Zemaitija is the northern lowlands, at the coast. The landscape is more or less flat, with a small hill somewhere. The Zemaitijans are another people, different from the inland Lithuanians. They are tough, some say hard. They resisted the Crusaders longest, as they tried to christen the country in the 15:th century. However much the rest of Lithuania smirks at the Zemaitijan dialect, they can’t help falling head over heels for the food, the large round-ish zeppelins, the Zemaitijan potato pancakes with pork, and ”koldunai” - the Lithuanian ravioli with mushrooms or meat. All of Lithuania gobble them with the same, great appetite. This article is about a very minimal tour into the Zemaitijan inland. It describes but a small fraction of all that’s there to see. Well, everything is not fantastic. If 80 % of all the mythological stones, famous persons’ birthplaces and fabulous stone collections on the map are boring, there is still a 20 % remainder worth seeing Here’s a little of both.

This is the lowest level. Click the images to enlarge!

Orvydas Farmstead, Sculpture Park Kazimieras Orvydas (1905-1989) and Vilius Orvydas (1952-1992), father and son, their Christian belief mixed with mysticism and a great deal of screwyness, sorry, artistic freedom, resulted in a very exotic sculpture park, some sort of public monumentalism, called a monument, an anthem, an ode to individualism and the human soul . Vilius Orvydas was a true believer and functioned as spiritual leader to many people. In one place in the park is a lawn where pilgrims came to receive guidance from him. If you are only going to see one thing in Zemaitija it must be Orvydas sculpture park outside Salantai, in a place called Gragzdele, even if Vilius himself in an interview said he didn’t want it to be called a museum. “This is no museum. It is a spiritual meeting-place,” he said. The whole park breaths of mystique, a mixture of Christian belief, astrology, and a tinge of paganism. And a lot of other tinges! At the entrance you are met by the most fearful threat of all, a Russian tank. At closer inspection you see that it is stuck in the mud, is being grown over, and is broken down in general. Orvydas’ calm belief has changed the threat into something helpless, a symbol of the Soviet Union that fell apart. Earlier, the tank was standing guard on a concrete plinth at the military cemetery in the middle of Salantai. Fortunately, it is no longer there. Instead it is slowly decaying in Orvydas’ park. After the fall of the Soviet Union they didn’t want the tank in the town, but didn’t know where to put it. “Allright, put in out at my place,” Vilius reportedly said. We’ll start our tour of the park by entering the Gates of Paradise (St. Peter’s Gate, Petrui vartai), very elegantly written in electric welding on the rectangular, rusty metal sign. Orvidu herbas, Orvydas’ family coat of arms. There’s a church bell at one place. When we pulled the rope, Perkunas, the God of Thunder, answered with three thunderclaps. That’s why these images are made in rain. A real photographer doesn’t shun some rain. Works of Special Significance One of the few women in Orvydas’ works. Very beautiful. Is that a Dalek in the middle? A rocket of metal tubes. Maybe. A rotating house. You go into it and turn a wheel. A free-breaker. It’s obvious that this figure wants to get out of the stone. If you look closer you see the fantastic art of stonemasonry. The zodiac. The solar system is cut out on the stone tablet to the right. The planets have Our Father cut into them, in reverse. Orvydas Hill of Crosses  ? There’s an altar in the middle of it all. There are many stone spirits, tree spirits, suffering trees, sleeping stones, yawning stones and half finished sculptures everywhere. This series shows but a small selection of all the fantastic, strange, screwy, half-finished, astrological, mystical... I’m not even trying to arrange everything in the order that you see it in the park, but rather into categories. Question is, if there is an order. The series ends with a picture of the stonemasonry workshop. Orvydas’ Christian Belief and a Strange Intervention by Michail Gorbachev Vilius Orvydas opposed the Soviet Union and its atheism, and they were quick to take revenge with continuous harassment. The park was condemned as unhealthy and unstable and the artists were remanded to dismantle it. Several tons of stones were removed and Orvydas was accused of stealing “Soviet property” (i.e. the stones). Soon enough the locals gave him new stones. Very often pilgrims would come to Vilius, and this is the meadow where he preached. It is perhaps obvious that this is Golgatha? It seems like the road to salvation is up! A documentary was made in 1992, the same year that Vilius died, showing president Michail Gorbachev visiting one day. He asked Vilius: “What crime are you guilty of, that makes them so nasty?” The answer was: “I believe in God”. After that the authorities’ pressure decreased somewhat. In the middle of all the, well, masses of sculptures, we find Orvydas’ residence. It is completely dark inside, but a few long exposures show, in turn, the altar... ..the stairs to the sleeping loft and its decoration, a drinking scene... A look through the door. At the river bank outside sits a strange, huddling man. and the eating chamber below. Lack of Maintenance Here, in this ordinary house, lives the sister Palmira Orvydaite-Beniusiene. A lot is broken in the park. The failing economy makes maintenance difficult. I want to show the sisters’ sign with an appeal... for contributions from all good-hearted people, to get money for an alarm system, maintenance of broken sculptures, a café and some huts for visiting artists. Orvydas’ family graves at Salantai cemetery At Salantai cemetery in Gargzdele (not the military cemetery) both Kazimeras and Vilius Orvydas are buried in a grave they cut themselves. It is without names or dates of death. Kazimeras died in 1989 and the son in 1992, in the last trembling moments of Communism. The symbol of Lithuania is inlaid on the grave in black marble. Their grandparents lie close by. That grave was cut by Orvydas, too.

Mosedis: Vaclovas Intas’ Stone Museum Mosedis residents themselves thought that their village was the most boring in the land. There was nothing special to see at all. In 1955 the hospital got a new doctor and amateur geologist called Vaclovas Intas (Vatslovas), who very soon discovered the interestingly shaped stones all around, and started to move them to the hospital garden on his bicycle. After some time he got so many stones that he had got himself a museum of rocks. Nowadays the Mosedis people has discovered the charm of stones with strange shapes. Everyone just got to have one in their garden. Sezamai - atsidaryk! (Open, Sesame) is the fitting text on the museum gate. In there you’ll find - stones. And some lovely surroundings, but still mostly stones. I do agree that some stones do have strange shapes, and that there is a portal of millstones. And an old American soldiers’ helmet. An anchor and a large propeller, not of stone, with the text: “Pagan sanctuary”. From the anchor hangs two “bombs” of iron called “Nefertite’s and Cleopatra’s earrings”. The entrance fee also allows you to see the geological collections of sand and stones (wow!) and gallstones (well, the guy was a doctor after all). There’s one joke, a frying pan with flat stones, called ”Zemaitijan pancakes“ after a popular dish looking something like that. There was a wedding among the stones. They didn’t seem to have fun, but perhaps they were under the influence of some substance, giggling and fighting. Perhaps they were stoned? Closer to the city centre is a smaller collection of famous stones given by various countries and institutions. It wouldn’t be Lithuaniua if a few stones weren’t honouring a few heroes, such as the Lituanica pilots Stepanas Darius and Stasis Girenas, and one for Vilnius University and one for Iceland, which was the first country to recognise Lithuania after independence in 1991... and a stone cracked bu lightning. And it must have happened recently as the surfaces were quite fresh. But a stone museum is still only stones and not extremely exciting, if you are not a geologist, that is. The geologists probably go on a pilgrimage to this place and stand around, licking the showcases with various types of sand, or walk around caressing the more than 200 different stones collected from the surroundings, deposited by the inland ice or given by various nations, such as Sweden, Finland, Latvia etc. It gets one point on the interesting scale to us non-geologists. The Church of St. Micahel the Arch Angel was white, big and closed. It is a Calvary church with little chapels with... all the stations of Christ’s suffering around. They were closed too, but we managed to open a few and had a look inside. Looking into the Holy of holies. It wasn’t very locked, really. Apart from that, there isn’t much in Mosedis. Well, you can buy buns with poppy seeds in the small supermarket and look at all the gardens which people have stuffed with strange stones. It’s high status here. This may not be the town’s finest house, but...

The Salantai Cathedral: The Church of the Virgin Mary’s Ascension The Zemaitians differ from everyone else. They are capable of the strangest things. Right in the middle of nowhere, after many miles of gravel roads we enter the village of Salantai. The two church towers can be seen from far away. The towers are on top of an enormous cathedral with spires and pointed arches. It is the Church of the Virgin Mary’s Ascension , a fantastic building worthy of a big city, stuck in this remote place among the cows and haystacks. Salantai is in itself a small farm village where most things seem to be closed and the milk trucks drive around in the village centre. Nevertheless there is a small supermarket with 28 brands of beer and 47 brands of sausages. “Suddenly it just appears through the trees” is impossible to say, because the cathedral is so big... that it overshadows everything around. It’s visible several kilometres away. I don’t know the where to draw the line between a church and a cathedral but this one is definitely a cathedral. We go in and our jaws drop. What do we see? The world-class altarpieces. This is the left front side altar. And this is the main altar. I don’t know if I have seen anything as beautiful in all the churches in Vilnius. The right front side altar is just as amazing. And there are people sleeping inside the altars. Let’s look closer at the main altar. The carvings are unbelievable. The Virgin Mary herself stands on top of the lit altar-box, with all the saints around. The wood is a bit cracked behind her, but this means nothing. Everything is no nice and clean and perfectly made, and I can’t understand how it came to end up out here. The left isle looking back towards the entrance. The stairs to the pulpit are to the left. Jaws dropped. Gobs smacked. The Lithuanian traditional banners hanging from the ceiling just heightens the ethereal feeling. The right isle leads to the right front side altar (huh). The pulpit with its spires and towers. And a pendulum clock. That’s unusual. The sky was so boring and this view was so cramped I thought I could just as well play with it. Outside is a memorial to the heroes of the partisan war (1941-1952) and those who were deported from Lithuania, cut by Vilius Orvydas. The rest of the town hasn’t changed much since the occupation. This is the main street with a flower shop and a small food store. The Fine high-class food store “Kulinarija” has retained its Soviet look, closed long ago. The cinema ”Uz taika” (to peace) looks like it could fall any minute. It’s not used as a cinema any more. It’s full of various junk and large cake boxes. It is a poor town when the central city dwellings look like this. Everything looks like it came from a French movie from the thirties. If anyone can fill me in on the history of the church I would be most grateful.

Kalnalis “Industrial Church” Kalnalis is a very small village that you would normally swoosh through, if it wasn’t for the church, the Church of St. John Nepomuk. It was built in 1990 and is straight, high and pink, looking like a converted factory building. The outside had absolutely no decorations. The only nice thing on the outside is the old gate, probably from the old church in the same place, which may have fallen apart, burnt or something. The inside is quite modern and not so bad. As we crept up the creaking steps... to the organ loft they were having a mass for a dead priest, we think. The stained glass windows are hypermodern too, and we especially admire the one depicting Christ as some sort of superhero... The parish seems to be very poor, but they wanted a giant church nevertheless. The front looks like it has taken a few bangs since 1990... but the bangs from mortar trowels wasn’t one of them. Perhaps a somewhat smaller church would have left more money for maintenance? and, of course, the Vytis window. The previous, temporary church is a sagging house close by. The lightning conductors look like spears.