My Travel Adventures

Having left Vilnius this morning, I want to jot down a few notes on the differences I observed between the Baltic countries while they are still fresh in my mind. Firstly, the capital cities are very different architecturally. Tallinn does have quite a few imposing baroque and gothic buildings, but its alleyways, city walls, and towers give it a distinctly medieval feel. Riga, on the other hand, has a strong Hanseatic atmosphere thanks to its prominent brick gothic churches and its location on the wide Daugava River. Much of Riga’s urban fabric is also woven out of art nouveau. Finally, Vilnius is the quintessential baroque city, though it boasts a few neoclassical and gothic gems.

On my last full day in Lithuania and the Baltic states, I saw my friend Diana, and together we made a trip to Lithuania’s second largest city Kaunas. The modern history of Kaunas is quite interesting, as it briefly became the country’s capital during the interwar period. During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921, Vilnius frequently changed hands between the Poles and the Russians. In 1920, the Soviets awarded the captured city to Lithuania, but Polish President Józef Piłsudski secretly ordered a mutiny to annex Vilnius. Kaunas, which had been Lithuania’s provisional capital during the unrest after WWI, thus remained its capital for twenty years until its return to Lithuania in 1939 by the USSR – which proceeded to annex Lithuania in the following year.

This morning was the first cloudy morning during my entire trip, and I was very thankful for it. While it meant my pictures would not be full of beautiful azure skies, it also stopped my bouncing from shade to shade like a desiccating frog. My first stop today was the Gate of Dawn, which houses a prominent icon of the Virgin Mary in a chapel facing the inner part of the city. When locals walk through it, they often turn around and cross themselves, sometimes adding a short prayer. Right in the vicinity are the Church of Saint Theresa and the colourful Orthodox Church of the Holy Spirit, and farther along the same road one can see the imposing baroque-era Church of Saint Casimir and the city’s neoclassical town hall.

My tourist itinerary for today was sparse, as I have already seen much of Riga and some of its environs. After checking out and leaving my bag at the hotel, I walked to the train station, where I bought tickets for the train to Jelgava. Jelgava is the largest town in Zemgale (Semigallia) and the erewhile capital of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. As many other places in Latvia, the origins of modern Jelgava reach back to the Livonian Order, which ruled the town until its fall in the late sixteenth century. The newly created Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was a vassal state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from its inception, and it fell to Russia in the Third Partition of Poland.

I struggled to come up with an itinerary for Latvia, as travelling between interesting places can be quite difficult without a car. The medieval town of Kuldiga lies a good three hours away from Riga and the buses are not frequent, while the buses to Pilsrundale seem to have been discontinued entirely. Latvia’s second largest city Daugavpils can be reached by train, but the journey takes three and a half hours, and to be honest I am not sure there is all that much to see.

Contrary to the gloomy predictions of the weather forecast, today was a lovely day. I began the morning at Freedom Square, where I took pictures of the column to the 1918-1920 War of Independence. Using the symbolism of this location, a large banner of Ukraine’s and Estonia’s flags hangs from the large building at the northern end of the square. Somewhat to the detriment of the message, the building houses Tallinn’s Department of Transportation and has a rating of 2.2 stars on Google Maps.

It is a strange time to be in the Baltics, as the normality of everyday life belies the concerning headlines in international relations. Just yesterday, for example, I read that Russia has been stirring up trouble at the border with Estonia by removing demarcation buoys from the Narva River. What complicates matters even further is that due to the USSR’s Russification policies, about a fifth of Estonia’s current population is ethnically Russian. This makes it difficult to gauge how much of the Russian I hear around here is being spoken by Russian emigres, refugees from Eastern Ukraine, or locals.

Having finally found a job, I realised I do not need to spend all my days searching for one. My new posting will begin in June, and until then I will be using this suddenly brief period of freedom to travel and visit friends. Thinking of where to go, I remembered that I thoroughly enjoyed my travels last summer, when my wanderings took me to Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It was warm but not hot, the days overflowed with many golden hours, and the weather mostly stayed sunny. Since I have not yet been to the Baltics, the concrete choice of destination was easy.