Sunday morning

Which bit of the border do I photograph? The dead bit in the past? The transitional bit like the flaking paint in this picture? The modern bit? A composite of all three? More research required. Bah! I’ll try and make it out to the Jewish Cemetery today. It dates from around 1950, when the original one, closed by the tsarist regime after the Rebellion of 1830, was removed in order to build a stadium in the centre of Vilnius. The stadium was built by German POWs. Remember, Vilnius had been occupied by the Poles since just after the end of WWI before being invaded by the USSR and given back to Lithuania in 1940 before being invaded again by the Germans and once again being recaptured by the Soviets towards the end of the war in Europe. Notoriously, many of the Jewish headstones were incorporated into post-war development projects including the infamous flight of steps leading up the hill in the centre of the city to the former Trade Union Palace. Oh, and yesterday in the cemetery at Rasos, which is almost entirely Polish, I found the grave of the Lithuanian national hero Jonas Basanavičius (1851-1927). Like many Lithuanian national heroes, Basanavičius spent a large amount of time not actually living in the country he was so fond of. An irrational nationalist who wrote as much gibberish as sense, the inscription on his tomb is in the old style of writing Lithuanian. I found that rather amusing. Anyway, not important at the moment. I’m enjoying the journey. No idea where it’ll end.