Better late than never, I am posting some photos from the last trip to Vilnius.
Here are some photos of the exhibition of Uzgavenes "dolls" on display in the Teachers' House courtyard. Uzgavenes signals the end of winter around the beginning of Lent.
In the meantime in Georgia, the devout amongst us are already fasting, with lunch consisting of lobiani every day till Easter. I rather like lobiani, a sort of Khachapuri with kidney beans instead of cheese, but every day? Too much.
Ice sculptures? It's been done before in Vilnius (I thought I had photos on the blog but it seems not) and in Sakhalin here and in Ljubljana here), but this exhibition for European Capital of Culture celebrated Vilnius's special architecture.
By the time I got there, they were melting, though it seemed that there were plenty of spare ice blocks to do running repairs.
European Capital of Culture 2009 in Vilnius started with a bang, even though not as planned. Austerity measures planned by the government proposed to cut the budget for the activities. Then artists complained too much money was going up in smoke with the New Year fireworks, which could have been spent on art (meaning them, the artists). I missed the fireworks so I can't say.
However, I did catch the excellent exhibition of 30 pictures by Pirosmani, the famous Georgian painter. Most I had seen before, either in Tbilisi or in Washington once, or in the film of his life.
True, they are paintings in the naive style (before it was "discovered") but they are full of life, especially the animals. It was good to see places I recognised like the painting of Batumi. And of course they are very evocative of Georgian life, though the ladies are generally thinner now.
The exhibition is on till May at the Vilnius Picture Gallery-Lithuanian Art Museum which has a slideshow of the Pirosmani paintings. I particularly like the painting of the bear by moonlight, even if it looks more like a fox: it is naive painting after all.
As if to celebrate this, we have just discovered Pas Ramazi, a new (to us) Georgian restaurant in Vilnius, but haven't yet tried it. Here's a review (in Lithuanian but with pictures).
And God knows what fantasies the Lithuanians have about the women of the Caucasus with this McDonalds poster of a "Big Lavash". I've never seen any woman with a veil, though perhaps there are some in Azerbaijan.
This post has photos taken at the end of October. My internet has been either down or so slow it has been impossible to get the photos on a post till now. Some of them were taken when it was going dark and I forgot to change the settings on my camera.
In no special order:
No, I don't know who it is or why he is planted in a square off Vilniaus gatve. It's not even listed under Wacky Vilnius in VIYP.
I spotted this on a bus shelter. It's a poster from the 1930s, claiming that consumers needed protection from speculators, middle men, agents etc. I wonder why it was chosen to advertise an exhibition of old posters. Antisemitism is growing in Lithuania.
I spotted this on All Souls Day. Someone had set up a little shrine with candles and a bicycle painted white. Not clear whether someone was killed here.
In Vilnius there are lots of old churches, so I was not surprised to see this copper dome waiting on Dominikonu to be hoisted onto the roof. However I turned my back for a moment and suddenly there were two. One day later, the bell tower was already working and the bells ringing out.
This notice at the entrance to Uzupis, declaring the Uzupis republic is nothing new. But I hadn't seen the 4 languages underneath before.
This is one of the cosy cafes for which Vilnius is famous. It's by the Uzupis Angel, and decorated (as you might expect) with angels. Not sure why they have the Latin motto but it sounds good: Coelum est in nobis, which seems to translate as "heaven is in us", a noble sentiment.
In a courtyard we spotted this statue. If you enlarge it you will see the reason for the steps thoughtfully placed so that you can put your All Souls candles by the feet.
And here is the Uzupis Beauty Salon for Top Dogs.
This traditional wooden cottage (behind the fence) doesn't have gnomes in its garden, it has storks.
This is the one we found most bizarre. It's a photo of a plastic surgery clinic, at around 6pm. Now you would think that customers would not be so keen to have their plastic surgery exposed to the world, without blinds. But when we went past, all was visible.
And adding to my collection of musical public transport, here is the bus dedicated to Vagneris (Wagner to you and me).
