by David Smiedt
Established in 1966 over 175 hectares, the museum consists of some 180 buildings interspersed with deep gullies and oak forests that are hundreds of years old. It also borders the Kaunas Sea, making for a backdrop of rare tranquillity and beauty. Better still, there are no souvenir stands or bored teenagers in period dress pretending to converse in ye olde turns of phrase. Rather, it’s as if you have found yourself in a village on a Sunday morning some time in the sixteenth century and everyone has gone to a church over the hill.
The buildings are arranged in groups according to the country’s five ethnographic divisions: Dzukija, Zemaitija, Sudovia, Aukstaitija and Lithuania Minor. Each group focuses on a homestead complete with fences, gates, kennels, wells with sweeps, beehives, crosses and wayside shrines. This invites a process of compare and contrast which is made all the more enticing as great care has been taken to replicate the orchards, vegetable gardens and flowerbeds of each district. Meanwhile, an onsite stud farm ensures a plentiful population of the stocky ochre-coloured Samogi-tian horses upon which Lithuanian agriculture relied for centuries. Combined, this presents a comprehensive picture of life as it was in rural Lithuania from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century.
Behind rough fences of five wooden poles suspended horizontally from bolsters stand homesteads from the Dzukija region in the country’s southeast. The buildings’ grey walls are made from overlapping wooden sidings which nuzzle beneath thatched eves then rise to a triangular apex. Since stone was at a premium here, wooden blocks were often used as foundations. The interiors are sparse and functional with a compacted earth floor, an oven and two larders. They speak of a life consumed with the basics of survival: warmth, food, shelter. Closer to the towns, however, split board flooring was the norm as were communal courtyards and bathhouses where locals flagellated one another with birch switches while grain and flax dried around them. In village layouts, the dwelling house faced the street while in an enclosed yard out the back was a barn or granary.
Enveloped by fields of buttery buckwheat bloom sprayed with lavender was a memorial to Lithuanian deportees to Siberia in the form of a yurt. Resembling an overcooked meat loaf, these dwellings consisted of wooden frames covered in cloth and then daubed with moss gouged from the perma-frost ground. Forbidden from heating these drafty excuses for adequate shelter, deportees were forced to endure deplorable conditions and unimaginable cold. Writing in the Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences in 1990, Dalia Grinkeviciute recalled:
The barracks became a huge grave of ice; the ceiling was covered with ice, the walls and floor as well. Often while people were lying on the planks, their hair would freeze to the wall.
In November the polar nights began. People started to freeze to death, die of starvation, scurvy and other diseases. The others lay on their planks either swollen from starvation, or no longer able to get up because of exhaustion and scurvy. Everyone without exception suffered from scurvy. We received no vitamins. Our teeth crumbled painlessly and blood flowed from our gums. Chronic trophic ulcers, which were painful and didn’t heal, appeared on our calves. Each day it became more difficult to walk because of our overall exhaustion and the haemorrhaging of blood into muscles and joints. It seemed as though dozens of needles had been stuck into your calves and each step brought pain. It was especially difficult to stand up in the morning. You could only get up on your tiptoes. Most of the time scurvy would affect the knee caps; because of the extreme haemorrhaging it was impossible to stretch one’s legs out. Thus people were left lying on planks with their legs bent and with huge blue swollen joints. Often diarrhoea followed, then death.
The homes of the Aukstaitija region exuded a more prosperous air. Anything would. Here the compact thatching extended only to ceiling height and was buttressed by a continuous border of dainty wooden rectangles. Sanded shutters painted with green accents stood sentinel beside the windows and a quartet of fluid wooden columns supported a canopy above porches by the front door. Scalloped edges and arches were carved into the eaves and even the vertical pickets in the fences were shaped into vaguely threatening points in what I can only assume to be a deterrent to would-be burglars. In addition to a scattering of handsome and sturdy wooden barns, some even had a second storey and intricately carved wooden renditions of Mother Mary in the front yard.
Things went even more upmarket in the Zemaitija (Samogitian) district, with pin-neat gardens and exposed beamwork that would not look out of place in a New York loft. The sprawling properties also routinely boasted wooden stables, kennels, a cow shed, a pigsty, a hen house, a smokehouse and a bathhouse. The Samogitians were particularly adept at whipping up the odd four-storey shingled windmill. Rarely relying on architects, the locals also built wooden churches that often featured a rectangular nave, a projecting apse (an architectural term which sounds much like an orthodontic complaint) and a detached belfry which doubles as a gateway to the churchyard. When the baroque movement swept through Lithuania, wood was again used in this region to create twin towers and façade pediments. These have now buckled and bulged, resulting in houses of worship that appear in some spots to be retaining holy water.
Zemaitija was the Beverly Hills of historic Lithuanian architecture and the region’s prosperity was whispered of by its buildings. Sheer bulk trumps detail in this neck of the Baltics. Here, the thatching has pretensions to topiary and the apex of the roofs are strutted with wooden triangular supports at either end. The roofs are also hipped or feature ciukurai, openings at both ends which are capped with smaller triangular coverings to allow smoke to escape but prevent rain from entering. The walls are formed by dovetailing stacks of single logs often in excess of ten metres long. There is a monumental solidity to these structures and once they were done they were done. No pissfarting around with extensions necessary.
The most imposing homestead in the museum hails from Zemaitija. Aside from the pair of granaries, cellar, cowshed and building housing an oven for baking bread, there is a manor house worthy of Hugh Hefner. It contains eleven whitewashed rooms, fourteen doors and a kitchen with its own chimney in the centre. On one end of the wooden manse are the living quarters, including a spacious master bedroom and guest accommodation. Down with the lackeys was a cosy apartment for the farmer’s mistress. It seemed that for the wealthy, this woman’s presence was simply a given. Another – but one which crossed all socioeconomic strata – was caring for elderly parents, as opposed to the ‘you’ll love it, Mum, the retirement community has aquaro-bics on Tuesdays’ chore that it has become in many societies. To this end, typical homes were built with a lungine, a room which traditionally received the most sunlight and warmth to compensate for the failing circulation and diminishing eyesight of the elderly.
Regardless of their origin or size, the traditional buildings of Lithuania never seemed at odds with the landscape. Rather, they were subsumed like a couple in an arranged marriage who had learned to love one another. Of the 180 buildings in the museum, 51 are open to visitors and these contain revealing insights into the domestic minutiae that might have unfolded between these wooden walls.
In the abodes of those who did it tough, work and living quarters were often one. Any aspirations to décor came from the woven blanket draped over a beam to dry or the rusting farm tools hanging from pegs on the wall. Suspended from the ceiling was often a woven baby’s cradle. A couple of rungs up the money ladder, indulgences begin to take their place among the necessities: A4-sized finely wrought landscape paintings hang from corners where the timber beams meet; delicate triangles of handmade lace overlap at the tops of the windows and linen exquisitely embroidered in a mosaic motif sits on plump mattresses. At the top end of town, the day’s ostentation was on display. Only in mid-nineteenth century Lithuania, this equated to a cuckoo clock, a palm-sized mirror in a carved wooden frame and turreted timber furniture finished in kahlua varnish and upholstered in oxblood velvet.
Speckled with reed-flecked ponds, the museum was crisscrossed by fen
ces with a vast array of paling configurations. Suspended in rows, they sometimes resembled giant versions of the chocolate sticks my mother used to serve after dinner parties. In the Zemaitija style, however, locals opted for uneven ashen logs hung in casual diagonal symmetry against forked supports. Some fences contained reed-thin mocha branches arranged vertically from beams like a line of models backstage at a catwalk.
With its mossy corries, ‘Sunrise’ spring that apparently promotes better vision among those who splash their faces with its water (still myopic, I’m afraid) and grassy expanses, I could have pottered about the place for more than the three hours I did. I left ruing my late start and the impending darkness then made my way back to Kaunas. The journey was one of niggling beratement. Being of the disposition where I cannot simply be charmed but have to subject the feeling to the rigours of dissection at best and cynicism at worst, I couldn’t shake the idea that I’d perhaps been sold a version of history too fragrant to be authentic. From the mulch of bitter winters, marauding armies each pushing their own brand of ideologically sanctioned violence, still-births and the capriciousness of agriculture, grew this sweetly scented rendition of yesteryear.
In an ember-on-life-support twilight, I wandered through the cobbled streets of the Old Town. It was my last night in this ‘most Lithuanian’ of cities and knowing that my grandfather Moses had travelled through the place on his way to South Africa, I indulged in a game of historical hypothetical by picturing him on the very avenues I was ambling along. For me, Kaunas was a fetchingly modest city, blessed with a sense of its past but not willing to forgo it for its future. Unless there’s a basketball game on, it’s a quiet place. Even on weekends. To be sure, there are bars and clubs aplenty, but they – like the locals – aren’t as obsessed with being seen as those in Vilnius. All of which gives the place a rather subdued air. To Moses, however, fresh from his comparatively minute home town of Birzai in the country’s north, Kaunas must have seemed a bustling, bewildering cocktail of two parts daunting to one part exciting, all washed down with a chaser of the unknown that awaited. Speaking as a traveller who cracks the shits if I have to fly on a plane that still has communal movie screens, his bravery is unfathomable.
The architecture in the Old Town has changed little since he was here and many of the buildings feature basements that are leased by restaurants. Which in turn had been rented out by the wedding parties into whose photo albums I had wandered earlier in the day. Travelling alone gives licence to one’s voyeurism. And through windows at knee-height, burnished candlelight and a solo clarinet playing ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ flittered. On my haunches, I invaded an unguarded privacy, indulging in the mundane details of these strangers’ lives as they intersected with the extraordinary nature of the event they had gathered for. A father blustery with pride and whisky danced with his newlywed daughter. He exhibited the plodding choreography of a man who had waited years for this moment but given little thought to what would be required of him when it eventually arrived. Cheek by jowl were the restaurant’s staff, for whom this pastiche was just another day at the office. To pass the time, they swapped in-jokes with their eyes. They’d seen too many first dances, heard too many speeches and interrupted too many bridesmaids putting the best man to the test in the toilets.
By turns indifferent, touching and downbeat, this succession of basement windows brought with them their own melodrama. The parents of one bride held hands beneath the table and exchanged ‘well at least he makes her happy’ glances. A woman in the grips of both a fascination with cerise and the onset of menopause stared gimlet-eyed at her vodka-soaked husband and his jigging cronies, perhaps evaluating the path her own marriage had taken. Every character was worthy of a backstory. As I conjured one about a bridesmaid who had fulfilled the supporting role on so many occasions that she thought she’d been typecast by men as not quite a leading lady, a stumble of groomsmen bounded up the stairs and onto the street. At which point I pretended to be tying my shoelaces. By the window. Whose light was necessary to complete the operation. Neither the interrogation nor the aggression I had feared were forthcoming. What did materialise was a bottle of vodka and a shot glass. I was not allowed to leave until I had toasted the happy couple’s health.
Buoyed by their largesse, I decided to seek out more convivial company and what better place than Bumerangas, Kaunas’ only Australian-themed bar? Surely, here I would run into a cane toad, a sandgroper or at the very least someone I could describe as bonza. Located down an alley so narrow a dog would have had to wag its tail vertically, I eventually found the place. Inside, a half-arsed attempt had been made at thematic decoration. Which is a fairly Australian way of approaching such tasks. There were Fosters posters, day-glo yellow ‘beware of the crocodiles’ signs, fluffy koalas and caricature drawings of bush characters penetrating sheep. Whenever a foreigner decides to dust off this stereotype, I amuse myself by playing along with a story about how lanolin was inadvertently discovered, but the prospective audience in Bumerangas didn’t seem up for a laugh.
A surly barmaid with such bad regrowth it looked like she was sporting a mohican grunted in my direction. At the same time, a couple of barflies whose skin had turned the grey of old men’s undies briefly turned towards me to assess whether I would pose any hindrance to their cirrhosis program. In the corner slouched a group of scowling men in purposefully mottled leather jackets and dark jeans. You know a bar is quiet when you can actually hear mugs being placed onto coasters.
At one point, the door opened to reveal a trio of per-oxided girlfriends in sequin-encrusted denim who sniled (a sneer crossed with a smile) at their equally frost-tipped beaux then proceeded to drain milkshakes in between puffs of their menthol cigarettes. Things livened up however when, apropos squat, one of the bovver boys pulled a chrome revolver from his jacket, cocked the hammer, took aim at the door and squeezed the trigger. I couldn’t tell whether the firearm was real or not, but the metallic click it emitted after the trigger was pulled didn’t sound like any toy I’d ever heard. Murky suspicions that I had somehow been interrupting a private party were thus confirmed and I took my leave to the peals of raucous laughter in the rapidly receding distance. That was the only instance in which I felt intimidated or unwelcome in Kaunas, a city so wholesome you feel that just being in it negates the need for bran.
Deferring to my philosophy of never eating in venues whose title features a foodstuff and a first name – Joe’s Pizza, Kebab Pete’s – I sought refuge in a bustling restaurant specialising in traditional Lithuanian fare. What I thought was a charmingly dated throwback was in fact a chain of three eateries known as Berneliu Uzegia. Which I believe is Lithuanian for ‘to gouge through the wallet’. Generically rustic – read wooden interiors and various copper implements hanging from the ceiling – it had been recommended by the local tourist information office. According to its brochure, the chain ‘cherishes Lithuanian traditions and does it in a very professional way – not only of dishes, interior, waiter’s [apparently there’s just the one] clothes but also various events are genuinely Lithuanian’. I doubt I could have done as well writing in Lithuanian, but this blurb was followed by the rather forceful: ‘You will have delicious and filling dishes. You will participate in tasting Lithuanian. We will prepare fun cultural program.’
Apparently the ‘fun cultural program’ involved being treated with utter ambivalence. After seating myself at a vacant table, I smiled my best ‘could I order when you have a moment?’ smile at the passing staff, who did just that. Passed. Some arm action was clearly called for. When, however, I caught the eye of the barman with a wave, he merely returned the gesture as his offsider collapsed into fits of giggles. At least there was a vestige of acknowledgment, which is more than could be said for the harried waitresses. All of whom had perfected that visage of indifference I hadn’t seen since I asked Julia Greenwood to dance at a party in 1984 only to be told, ‘No thanks, I’m dancing already,’ as she scanned the room for boys with tricep
s and a driver’s licence.
The waitresses had been decked out in traditional rural clothing and, unlike the ‘can’t wait to get back into my Levis’ expression of barely concealed resentment on display at themed restaurants in other countries, these women seemed wholly resigned to their sartorial fate. Evolving in the early nineteenth century, these ensembles are imbued with a rustic femininity as well as a diverse regional variety. In the Aukstaitija province, where Kaunas lies, they’ve been working a lighter palette for decades, with white being the dominant shade. Featuring scoop necks and bouffant sleeves that are gathered then flare into filigreed lace just above the elbow, these smocks serve as a backdrop to colours which are not so much a riot as a fully fledged civil uprising. Lavishly embroidered waistcoats in dainty burgundy checks are popped over the top then teamed with fulsome skirts in a Madras-esque blend of green, yellow and fire-engine red. Still more horizontal bands of garnet run along the bottom of these garments and the whole shebang is set off by sashes that seem to be the result of shrinking a Persian hall runner in the tumble-dryer.
With the kitchen’s galley doors functioning as the entrance to a catwalk, a succession of waitresses emerged in outfits representing most of Lithuania’s more notable historic fashion hotspots. There were the saturated Suvalkijans whose aprons were stitched still-life masterpieces of clover, lilies and suns. Next on the runway where the Samogitians, who tested the boundaries of clashing with a fervour that made Vivienne Westwood look like Country Road. Horizontal striations were piled on verticals resulting in aprons that taunted your perception of depth. Especially when set against the favoured choice of another striped skirt carefully selected to have not a single complementary hue. It was then the house of Klaipeda’s turn to shine and in this region, a dark palette – navy, purple and the old black – had been the staple of Baltic sophistication. Again, apron motifs ran north to south with a patterned band at the hem. The skirts against which they sat echoed these strokes and provided a fetching counterpoint to sashes whose daedal patterns were as complex as they were condensed.