The Baltic States, St. Petersburg, and Moscow
September 26- October 14, 2013
Part One - Lithuania
Page Three - Rumsiskes Open Air Museum and Kaunas
In the town of Rumsiskes, there is an open air ethnographic museum.
It is a collection of 18th and 19th century rural dwellings.
Inside one of the rural dwellings. Note the crib hanging
from the ceiling.
Children's wooden furniture in another one of the farm homes. The stool on the left is to
help a baby stand up.
Our tour guide Miina, who is from Estonia, standing
outside one of the rural dwellings at the Open-Air
Museum.
Close-up of the Lithuanian woman who gave us a
tour of the open-air museum.
Wooden carving in the town square
Elderly woman at the Open-Air Museum who was
selling her hand woven products inside a craft building.
Irena Valaityte Spakauskiene at the Open-Air Museum.
She talked to us about her and her family being deported
to Siberia in 1941 by the Soviet Union. She was 13. The family
went with only their summer clothes on their backs and had
to survive arctic Siberia. You can google her name to get more
of her story. The book "Between Shades of Gray" is loosely based
on her life, and the book is now being made into a movie.
Tour guide Miina with Irena, who is in her 80s.
Irena survived hard labor, freezing conditions, little food
and little clothing. Many of her fellow deportees did not survive.
Irena's mother died of starvation in Siberia. Her
father was separated from the family when they were
deported and was soon executed. Irena eventually managed
to escape and make her way back to Lithuania where she
had to stay in hiding for many years.
It is thought that the Baltic States lost up to 1/3 of their populations
as a result of the Soviet deportations and executions under Stalin. KGB
rounded up people and shipped them stuffed in train cars to labor
camps, etc.
Photo on display inside the train car. Prisoners made drawings
expressing their plight.
This is the type of structure that the deported Lithuanians had to
live in Siberia. About 40 people had to be stuffed inside
to protect themselves from the severe cold when they were not
doing forced labor for 12 hours or more a day.
City of Kaunas, near Rumsiskes and the Open-Air Museum.
It is the second largest city in Lithuania.
Kaunas Town Hall in the middle of the Town Hall Square
in old town Kaunas, with a bicycle structure in the square.
This bicycle artwork with 2 pots of flowers on each bike was an interesting concept.
After World War II Kaunas became the main industrial city of Lithuania –
it produced about a quarter of Lithuania's industrial output.
At Kaunas Franciscan St George Church,
which is under
renovation.
This Catholic priest saw us looking around
and eagerly gave us a complete tour.
Link to Page Four- Klaipeda and Hill of Crosses
Pat's Home Page