The Baltic Republics are quiet countries located between much larger and louder countries. Their history in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania was at times saddening. They were caught in the center of power and land struggles; conquered and controlled by their neighbors; and stepped upon many times by different cultures. Nonetheless, these people are extremely generous and our time in these three countries was educational and fun.
We arrived in the capital of Estonia, fresh off the ferry from Finland. Our hosts were a lovely family who welcomed us into their homes. They had two small children, and we enjoyed a supper with them. The capital, Tallinn, is a simple city, with a very nice citadel at its center. The citadel is not the largest we've seen, nor the most impressive, but it was still nice to walk around.
We visited a few other small towns on our way to Tartu, where we stayed with a Hungarian girl who was attending the university there. This girl was absolutely fanatic about Estonia. She spoke of it as if she loved it more than Hungary.
In Latvia we visited Riga, the capital, before heading to the south-western coast. Riga has a very beautiful city center. The architecture is almost like the main square is surrounded by ginger bread houses. It's almost reminiscent of the beautiful buildings in Brussels - almost.
In Riga, we stayed with a nice - but strange - family in these old Soviet apartments. I always enjoy staying in Soviet apartments; they are all the same no matter what city or country. There's a story that people in the Slavic former block countries often bring up. It goes something like this: a man is visiting friends, and during his last hours with them, he becomes very drunk. They put him on his plane home; he stumbles aboard and promptly falls asleep. When he wakes up his plane has landed, so he goes out of the terminal and hails a taxi. He tells the taxi his address and does his best to keep from becoming sick - due to his hangover. They arrive at the house, the man pays the taxi driver, and steps up to his door. Sticking his key in, he turns the knob, and enters the house, only to find that it is not his house at all. In fact, it is not his street, nor his city. He didn't even get on the right plane. Such are the living facilities in the former block countries.
On the coast of Latvia, we stayed with a young woman and her boyfriend. Originally, we were supposed to stay with her sister, but something came up. In the end, it turned out perfectly. This woman took us on a tour of her town, and down to the beach. She told us so much about the history of Soviet times in the Baltic Republics, but it was all very negatively skewed. In our travels through former Soviet and block states, we have discovered that young people are all very negative about "communist" times, and people who actually lived in those times - whatever their political affiliations - are often more neutral or even nostalgic. Older people tell stories about having only one banana their whole childhood, or even their mothers fighting with other women over a pair of stockings, but they often leave out the negative sides that the youth seem so absorbed by.
(An odd thing relating to the beach we visited with this woman: many months later in a museum in Berlin, we saw a photo of people being executed on that beach. Part of the story that woman didn't know.)
Finally, we entered Lithuania. We were desperately running out of time at this point, so we only visited a couple places. At first, we entered the sand dunes national park outside of Klaipeda. We drove along the whole sand dunes until we actually reached the border with Kaliningrad! It was all rather strange, so we did not spend much time. We also visited Kaunus, Vilinius, and Druskininkinai, but I wish we could have visited the open air park near the latter. Near Druskininkinai there is an open air park where a group of people have collected artifacts from Soviet times. In this park are some of the only remaining statues of the Soviet leaders. Someday, someday...
