Vilnius Ventures

Welcome back to Seikkailu Suomessa!  Last time I updated you guys, I had just returned from my week long trip through Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia.  This time, I'll be talking about my final two classes here at Aalto as well as my trip to Vilnius, Lithuania.

Schoolwork a Plenty:

Now that I have started the fifth period here at Aalto, it is a signal that my time here in Finland is coming to an end.  This period I am taking two classes, Customer Relationship Management and Negotiation Analytics.  These two classes involve a good deal of mathematical analysis and like my other classes this semester, both of these classes heavily depend on case analysis's to help reinforce the material you learn in the class.

Lithuanian History:

That pretty much covered everything that is new at school right now, but there will be more coming up in my next post.

Like I said, following my last post, I went on a weekend trip to the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, but before getting too far into what I did while I was there, I want to do my usual thing and provide some historical background information on Lithuania.

Lithuania is different from its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia, because it actually existed prior to World War One.  Lithuania was actually the final pagan country to fall to the Northern Crusades performed by the Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order and Lithuania was one the largest nations in Eastern Europe.  Lithuanian has historically been considered a "Grand Duchy".  After researching the term, it appears that it was applied to countries that were not considered to be kingdoms or empires, but still held a great deal of power in its region.

While it was pagan for most of its history until the late 14th century, but it had a small stint in the early 13th century when it was an actual kingdom, not a grand duchy.  King Mindaugas I converted to Roman Catholicism to try and halt the crusades and after being coronated, he switched back to his pagan religion and attacked the crusaders.  The pagan rituals continued in Lithuania until the personal union of Jogaila, then the Grand Duke, and the Queen of Poland.

The two nations went through turmoil, but in the mid 16th century, after the Union of Lublin, the two were formally conjoined to form a new nation known as "The Commonwealth".  This nation was one of the largest in Europe, encompassing most of Belarus, the Baltics, Ukraine, Poland and small parts of Russia.  The Commonwealth was mostly dominated by the Polish culture and language, with Lithuanian customs being considered secondary.  The nation existed for a few hundred years, but both Poland and Lithuania were absorbed by the Prussian, Austrian-Hungarian and Russian empires.

Lithuania wasn't a nation again until the Red Revolution in Russia.  The new nation was much smaller than its historic predecessor, but was also occupied by Poland until the start of World War II.  During the war, Lithuania was brutally occupied by both the Soviets and the Nazi forces, with the latter enacting the Holocaust on the Lithuanian Jews.  After the war, the USSR forced Lithuania to join it and Lithuania once again disappeared from the maps, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, regained its independence.

Today Lithuania is a member of the European Union and recently adopted the euro, phasing out the old currency.

Quick fact:  Two of our Men's Basketball players are from Lithuania.  Laimonas Chatkevicius and Mindaugas Kacinas are natives of the Baltic country.

The Trip: Vilnius, Lithuania



Vilnius is the capital and the largest city in Lithuania and boasts the largest old town in all of Europe.  When compared to Riga and Tallinn, Vilnius appears to be better off economically and things are getting better in the country with the adoption of the euro.  When you compare prices in Vilnius to Helsinki, everything is much cheaper.  In fact, you can get a dinner at one of the more respected restaurants in Vilnius for about 5 euros.

I arrived in Vilnius at about 12:30am and after having one of the scariest taxi rides I have ever experienced, I arrived at my hostel, but there was one problem.  When I got out of the taxi, there was no sign of my hostel, no signs or anything.  Thankfully, there was a younger Lithuanian couple walking down the street that helped me find the entrance.  You can see the entrance in the photo on the right, its just a gate with a small sticker with the name of the hostel.



After getting a good night's rest, I set out to see the old town and made my way to the Cathedral Square and went to the Gediminas Hill to see the tower and get a good view of Vilnius.  The reason for the name is that the Gediminas was one of the most powerful Grand Dukes in Lithuanian history.  The tower is all that remains of the Upper Castle that helped defend the city for hundreds of years. Currently, the tower serves as a small museum telling the tale of medieval Vilnius.  After seeing some of the relics, I stopped to take in the panorama of the city.

After visiting the tower, I made my way down the hill and went past to the City Hall to take a free walking tour of the old town.  The tour was amazing, and regardless of what city you are in, try to find out if there is a walking tour, the local tourist office should be able to help you.  Our tour guide gave us an extensive three hour tour and showed us some of the most interesting parts of the city.

One of the more interesting parts of the city is the old Jewish areas.  Before WW2, Vilnius boasted a large and well respected Jewish community and had one of the largest libraries in Europe in the Greater Vilnius Synagogue.  During the war, many of the Jewish people were forced into one of the two ghettos that the Nazis had set up.  Unfortunately, not much remains of the Jewish quarter today, including the synagogue and most of the Jewish population.  Today it is a residential area and save for a plaque explaining this, you would never know what used to be there.

After visiting that part of town, we paid a visit to another interesting area that is called the Republic of Uzupis.  Uzupis is not a recognized republic, but it is a neighborhood populated by the artistic community.  The republic does have its own constitution, written in about 10 different languages and also guarantees certain rights like the right to no rights.  There is also a president that you will occasionally see him driving a yellow Cadillac through the city and there is also a standing military (all 12 of them).  Our guide told us that Uzupis was originally one of the most unsafe areas in Vilnius, but many artists began flocking the area due to the cheap housing costs and now it is a place for many young people to meet or live.  It is also unique because not many places can have the Dali Lama as an honorary citizen.

One of the bridges into Uzupis

The next stop on the tour was St. Anne's Cathedral.  It is an impressive red (it was originally yellow) brick Gothic cathedral dating to about the 13th or 14th century.  There is a myth that when Napoleon visited Vilnius during his march to Russia, he wanted to take the cathedral back with him, but this is not true, but makes for a good tourist story.  After the cathedral, we eventually made our way back to the Cathedral Square, which is home to the Vilnius Cathedral.

St. Anne's Cathedral

The Vilnius Cathedral

I met a few people on the tour and when it was over, we all went and got lunch from one of the local places and talked for a while.  Some of the people I was eating with said that I should visit the Museum of Genocide Victims.  I spent most of the rest of the day exploring the old town and enjoying what Vilnius had to offer.

The next day unfortunately had some bad weather, with it raining most of the day.  So after taking a long walk in the rain, I decided to pay a visit to the Lithuanian National Museum.  The museum is great way to get acquainted with Lithuanian history and most of what I learned was included in the above section.  There was also an exhibit showing the Easter traditions of Lithuania, and while the country does have the standard Easter eggs, there is a tradition involving these large broom like objects (I cannot find the name and cannot remember what they were called).

After spending a few hours there, I moved on the the Museum of Genocide Victims.  Originally I thought that it would go along with the Holocaust Museum also in the city, it is dedicated to the victims of deportation and execution at the hands of the USSR and Nazi forces since World War Two.  The museum itself is located within the old KGB headquarters building in Vilnius.  The museum has three floors, with the first two giving a timeline of the occupation and how many Lithuanians tried to fight against their Soviet occupiers and the bottom floor is an old prison containing a few exhibits.

During the Soviet occupation, thousands and thousands of Lithuanians deemed dangerous to the Communist regime were either deported to Siberia or were jailed in the bottom floor.  Many of the Baltic country citizens are described as being somewhat cold and reserved, but after seeing what the Lithuanians had to go through, it is easy to see why that is the case.  The hardest part of the museum was wandering through the jail.  Walking past cell after cell, some had normal accommodations, but the others were horrible.  There were a pair where the inmate would be forced to stand on a platform and was forced to balance on it while the floor was covered in about a foot of ice cold water.  When the inmate fell, they would have to step back on until the process was over.  There was another cell that was dark inside, but you could see a straight-jacket bolted to the wall to keep unstable inmates in place.  After working through this network of cells, you go outside and see the yard where prisoners received some fresh air, but past an unassuming door, you come face to face with the execution chamber where over 1000 people lost their lives.  The inside of the room is cold and bare, and the floor is essentially a glass walkway with the personal belongings of some of the executed prisoners located under the glass.  After seeing that I was ready to leave.

The main entrance to the Museum of Genocide Victims

Upon leaving the museum, I realized that the rain had stopped and decided to pay a visit to the Three Crosses Hill.  After a strenuous climb, I arrived at the monument.  There has been a set of crosses over the city since the 17th century, but the current three have only been there for about 30 years.  Currently, no one actually knows what the crosses were originally meant to be, but following their independence in 1991, it is considered a symbol of the city and provides some of the best views in the city.

The next day I flew back to Helsinki and prepared myself for my new classes.  Overall, Vilnius was a great city and I hope that someday I can visit again.  Now this weekend, I will be travelling again, and this is your hint this week, along with a photo.  Like when I went to St. Petersburg, I have already mentioned the country in this post and it was also occupied by both the Nazis and Soviets.

This photo is courtesy of Google image search

Thank you all for reading, stay tuned for more adventures!