Letter From Lithuania
Just got a mail from my friend, Andrius Repšys from Šiauliai, Lithuania. In his mail, I'd like to share some facts and photos of this little country in the Baltics, once colonised by the USSR and now part of the great European Union. The very last country in Europe to accept Christianity. Andrius is a cartoonist, graphic artist, stamp designer, website designer; all rolled in one. Currently the proud host of a website, that documents history and facts about Lithuania and beyond; [ Lietuvos.Net ], Andrius has since garnered a few national awards in his art accomplishments. Hehehe.. And yours truly, moi is proud to have more than 100 original pictures on Kuching and Singapore featured on his site.
To maintain the original flavour in the content of his mail, I have decided to include the whole text. Here goes (By the way, Soon is my abbreviated Chinese name):
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Hi Soon! :)
Have i told you? - this summer I had the 4 days-trip to historic places of west-Lithuania. I want tell some my experiences for you. That was great. I was tired after my trip :P, but happy very much. We (me and my friend Aivaras) ride with car about 150-300 km each day and walked about 15 km each day. I've visited places, that I never knew before and never seen before. We have visited places that were of great importance in 8 - 14th centuries - hills, on which there were the wooden castles built. Some of that hills were visited by tourists everytime in little groups, but most of them are still fogotten, grown with trees and hidden in the deep province, government still don't care about them as good as it should be. One foreign archeologist said about one of that hills, that is one of most interesting archeological objects in the Word - on that hill there was wooden castle and village about 2500 years ago - later I'll show photos of that hill for you.
When we walked searching for them and climbing them - we felt like comers from the middle ages, that are seaching for their home :)) - map of living places - villages was completely different at that time. That was time before Christianity came to Lithuania. West part of Lithuania was the last land in the Europe to accept Christianity. That was land of warriors with about 500 years of neverending wars (that was independent tribe - separate from other tribes of Lithuania for many hundreds of years, there was no agriculture as I know - there was just hunting and fishing and wars for long years). That warriors fighted against crussaders and in the year 1410 they won against them finally - in the Zalgiris battle - leaded by King of Lithuania Vytautas and in union with King of Poland Jogaila (Lithuanian too). Besides - that old tribe stopped invasion of Mongolians - army of Chingis Chan. Son of Chingis Chan was killed in the west part of Lithuania.
There were wooden castles on the hills every 3-10 km in all the central part of West Lithuania in that time. That hills were surrounded by lakes, swamps and forests. That is amazing to get to know and feel, that these people were not of low level of civilization, thinking and feeling. Sad thing is, that wooden castles cannot survive like castles made from stone - they dissapeared for ever. Besides - Lithuania was occupied by Russia for last 200 years (except of short periods of independence: 1918-1940 and 1990-till now), so Lithuania's history was written mostly by Russians and Germans :( And... no one had possibility to investigate that old history - most of that hills are waiting for archeological investigation. Sad thing is that now people care just for money, just few of them has an interest in their history :( I hope that interest will revive when Lithuania's government will start support investigation more and care more about village-tourism. Who knows maybe I will be able to show that places for you in real some day ;)
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I'm eager to see your photos too! :) I will have my FTP prepared very soon.
Have a good time, Soon! See you on ICQ
Andrius =)
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