Tag Archives: warnings

Champagne Bucket trips, former Soviet Union, Lithuania

The Vilnius Series… How Lithuania became a Soviet country… (part five)

On Saturday, June 21st, Bill and I woke up to bright, sunny skies. I was glad for that, because I was really looking forward to visiting the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. This very special museum, formerly known as the Museum of Genocide Victims, is housed in a building that, for about 50 years, was where the Soviet security services (also known as the KGB) operated in Vilnius.

Two years ago, when Bill and I were briefly visiting Riga, Latvia, on a cruise, we heard about a similar museum in that city. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to visit the museum in Riga, although I am hoping we can go back to Riga and see it. Now that I’ve read up on Riga’s museum, I’m actually thinking the one in Vilnius is probably superior. I’m still interested in going there, though. While it’s horrifying to learn about what people went through as the Soviets forcefully occupied neighboring territories, the fact that they all survived that regime is somehow hopeful to me.

Bill and I set off for the museum, enjoying the sunshine and pleasantly cool summer temperatures. Vilnius is a nice place to be in the summer, especially if you’re tired of hot weather! I took some photos along the way.

A bust of the man responsible for the defunct Lita, Lithuania’s former currency.
The birds were almost tame. They looked well fed. I relate.
Some kind of demonstration/parade was going on.
Lithuania is very Ukraine friendly.

When we got to the museum, we took a moment to look around the area near the front door. It was a chance to catch our breaths and prepare ourselves for what we were about to see… and take a few more photos.

Yikes!

We walked into the old building and immediately had to climb a few steps to get to the cashier to buy tickets. We decided to just wander through the museum, but guided tours are also available and bookable through the museum’s official Web site. Tickets for the museum can also be purchased online for six euros per adult, although obviously we didn’t do that. Now that I see that guided tours are available and can be arranged by theme, maybe I would consider visiting again for a more in depth look. They do have to be booked ahead of time, though. The guided tours in English are quite reasonably priced at 20 euros per person. The ones in Lithuanian are only 15 euros per person!

I took many photos in the museum. As long as you aren’t using a flash or a tripod, it’s perfectly okay to take all the photos you want. I felt compelled to take photos, because I was so affected by what I was seeing and reading. A lot of what I saw reminded me a lot of what’s happening in the United States today.

I’m not saying our country is being invaded by Russia, but it is, in a sense, being occupied by a personality cult. And so many of the Lithuanian attitudes I read about in the museum reminded me of what I’ve seen from American Trump supporters. I’m sorry to say this, because I know some people might be offended. But I see it very plainly. Maybe it’s because I’ve been away for so long. Likewise to the methods used to subdue the country and get people to accept and comply with the occupation.

Anyway… here are a lot of photos of the exhibits before we reached the cells in the bottom of the museum.

Then, after exploring the upper two levels, it was time to venture into the basement level, which is where the cells were, along with the execution chamber, where over 1000 people were executed. We saw the exercise yards, too. It started with a look at the “boxes”, which were tiny closet sized “rooms” where new inmates were kept before they were processed.

An office…
The first “box”.
The second “box.”
The boxes described…

From the boxes were examples of cells and other facilities used for interrogations, storage, punishments, and executions.

A straitjacket in a padded cell.
Showers
A punishment cell where the inmate was expected to stand on the disc, to avoid the water in the bottom of the cell.

The following photos are of the courtyards/exercise boxes for the prisoners…

And finally, we visited the execution chamber. They had put glass over what appeared to be white sand. A video played a graphic clip from the 2007 Polish historical movie, Katyn, showing a man in handcuffs being forcefully wrestled into a room and shot in the back of the head. Another couple was in the room with us as we watched that violent and bloody scene. They were familiar with the movie and cringed in horror, just as we did, when the character was executed without a second’s hesitation. Then, the man’s dead body, still handcuffed, was dumped in a pile of other bodies, like so much trash.

We walked back up the steps from the execution chamber and retraced our steps back to the beginning of the museum, although we could have cut through the outside area. I’m glad we retraced our steps, though, because we missed a few rooms on the way down.

On the way out, we stopped to sign the guestbook. Some people wrote disrespectful comments in it, but most people– folks from all over the world– seemed to be as awestruck as Bill and I were.

Once we were finished visiting the museum, we stepped back out into the pleasant sunshine. I took a few more photos near the museum’s entrance and of what appeared to be a nearby shrine.

We decided we wanted to take a walk by the Neris River. Since this post is so heavy with photos, I think I’ll pick up with that story in the next installment. Stay tuned!

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anecdotes

No lifeguard on duty!

This morning, one of Bill’s friends posted a picture of their cute little girls enjoying an indoor swimming pool.  The girls are absolutely adorable, so they alone should have been enough to capture my attention.  What I actually noticed first, though, were the walls around the pool.  I could only see two of them, but they were heavily adorned with huge warning signs.

The first sign says in huge, bold letters:

WARNING: NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY.  No swimming alone.  Children under 14 years of age and non-swimmers shall not use the pool unless accompanied by a responsible adult.

The next sign says…

MAXIMUM POOL BATHER LOAD 15.

Another sign says…

WARNING!  NO DIVING!  

I’m sure the “no diving” sign is posted because the water is probably only four feet deep or so…  It’s hard to find an “old school” deep pool in America anymore.  Luckily, they are everywhere in Europe.

Easily visible in the photo, there is also a long list of pool rules in type too small for me to make out, but I guess they cover everything not already covered in the big signs.  I see another sign that looks like a crude picture of food and beverage crossed out.

Now, had Bill and I not recently gone swimming alone in an Austrian beer pool, maybe these signs wouldn’t seem so over the top to me.  When I lived in the United States, I saw these kinds of anti-litigation signs everywhere and never thought much of them.  Now that I live in Europe again and have walked along the sides of ponds with no protective fencing and observed children walking and riding their bikes alone in our neighborhood, the signs seem strange.  At some point, Americans surrendered their common sense and businesses and insurance companies became hyperaware of the need for warnings.  Seems like this wasn’t the case when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s.

Before anyone mentions it, I don’t think Stella Liebeck, the lady who spilled hot coffee from McDonald’s, is necessarily to blame for this hyperwarning society we have right now.  For one thing, Stella Liebeck was well within her rights to sue McDonald’s.  They sold her coffee that was way hotter than the industry standard.  Yes, she stupidly put it between her thighs so she could add cream and sugar, but the coffee was so hot that it gave her serious burns that affected her for the rest of her life.  Moreover, she had originally only asked McDonald’s for about $10,000 to cover her medical bills.  They offered $800.  She sued and a jury awarded her big money, most of which she never got.

On the other hand, it does seem like since the big 90s era McDonald’s hot coffee case, Americans have gotten a lot more interested in disclaimers that cover every possible scenario that could come up and lead to a lawsuit.  I would expect a similar attitude in Germany, where people seem similarly prone to litigation.  And yet, when I go swimming at the Mineraltherme, I don’t see humongous signs posted warning about what’s not allowed or what could happen while floating in the pools full of many peeing patrons and face suckers (sorry, but it’s the truth).  I don’t even see signs warning me that I might see nudity, not that that’s dangerous per se, but what will the children think?  ðŸ˜‰

I contrast the sight of those signs in the American pool with what was on the walls at the Starkenberger Beer Pools in Austria.  There, we saw many murals, many of which were very bawdy and probably not suitable for audiences under age 13.  Bill and I were left alone to bathe to our hearts’ content, drinking as much beer as we wanted.  There were no lifeguards on duty and no one was there to check our ages or tell us not to dive.  Fortunately, we were smart enough to survive the experience.  I’m proud to say that we lived by our wits that night!  And what memories we have!  It was one of the most fabulous evenings we’ve had since our move back to Europe.

The only sign at the Starkenberger Beer Pool…

A magical experience!

I wonder if those signs really do prevent drownings or other tragedies…  Somehow, I doubt it.  What they do is make it somewhat harder for people to be sued.  At the same time, they also kind of curb the ambiance and remind everyone that there are dumb people out there who have to be explicitly warned not to do dumb things.  It’s a little depressing.  I’m a big fan of Darwinism, but that’s probably because I’m nobody’s mother.

I have spent the whole holiday weekend holed up at home.  Perhaps later today, we will go out and try a new restaurant.  But for now, I will think about how lucky I was to get to swim in beer with no lifeguard on duty and no warning signs protecting me from my own negligence.

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