November Update:

Dear Friends and Family,

My November update is a bit overdue. I've had a busy month with travel and my research project, so this posting is going to be a bit longer. Vilnius is as pleasant as ever. Winter has definitely descended. I experienced my first snow a few weeks ago, which gave me reason to smile - winter is my favorite season. It has been getting darker much earlier, but it seems the same as winter in Montana. So, I don't think I shall have any qualms with winter in Vilnius....though I'm told this is still "warm" out.

Research: for those interested in more detail

This past month has been interesting in the way of research. My main challenge has been to refine the focus of my project, but now I am moving forward. The recent increase in emigration is really the hot topic in the country with labour market shortages, lack of high-skilled qualified labour, businesses increasingly turning to foreign labour (largely Belarusian, Russians, and Ukrainians), fastest rate of population decline in EU (attributable in some degree to emigration), future demographic pressures like the rest of Europe, and other sorts of macro-economic indicators. While emigration has helped to facilitate a decline in the overall unemployment rate, the country now lacks the reserve labour force to fill labour market gaps. In the meantime, much higher salaries abroad are attractive to young, high-skilled Lithuanians. While Lithuania's economy continues to experience a high growth rate, emigrating labour is an important issue for the policy-makers as they attempt to understand the consequences of the post-EU accession increase in Lithuanian emigration and the implications for the country's short- and long-term growth. Policy efforts have been rather dismal and uncordinated though. It was only this past May that the first conference was organized on the issue by the Civil Society Institute.

One of the primary challenges of research in this field of int'l migration studies is that it is generally impossible to quantify the number of emigrants and returnees. There is no reliable system of monitoring emigration and best estimates from statistics departments and census data, for example, often significantly underestimate the numbers. Most people who emigrate do not register their change of address. Some knowledge can be learned from stats published by the UK Home Office, for example, which instituted a registration system for those immigrants working in the UK. This is why we know that in the first year after accession, approximately 26,000 Lithuanians registered in the UK. Even while new registrants may have already been residing in the UK, they estimate that at least 40% were new arrivals. Ireland and Sweden reported 18,000 and 6,000, respectively. Thus, the number of Lithuanians emigrating to the UK alone makes up almost the total estimate of Lithuanian emigrants reported by the Lithuanian Stats Dept. All this is to say that we can assume that the flow has been fairly large, although exact numbers are unavailable. It is the dynamic and implications of these flows, therefore, that becomes the important issue.

Now to my project: I came across an Albanian survey carried on in the late 1990s that measures the causes and consequences of emigration and a 2003 Bulgarian study on potential emigration. I found the two survey designs very interesting and decided it would be worthwile to replicate a combined version of these two surveys in Lithuania. In a meeting with a reprsentative of the Civil Society Institute (branch of Soros Open Society Fund), I found that he too was very much interested in such an approach to analysing Lithaunia's emigration experience. The proposed survey will reveal important patterns of Lithuanian emigration and return emigration (transnationalism) and shed light on potential emigration since EU accession. In addition to other analyses, it will attempt to answer the question of the extent to which the experience of emigrants abroad since transition (1990) has resulted in return investment of emigrants' knowledge, skills, and income. Also, depending on the size of the survey we are albe to pursue, I may be able to analyze the potential for short, long-term, and permanent emigration. No such study has been conducted in the country and the micro-data should lead to some very interesting findings, which could then prove useful to policy-makers and other interested parties.

Today, I and the individual I am primarily collaborating with from the Civil Society Institute met with the director of a public opinion survey company to discuss the questionnaire, approaches to obtaining the necessary sample size and dynamic, and estimated cost. We are actively pursuing funding possibilities....it is not exactly a cheap undertaking and is beyond my individual ability to fund. However, a chief economist and professor from one of the banks we met with gave us a few ideas of potential funding sources, as well as permisson to use his name in our efforts. So, overall prospects are looking up though there are still some wrinkles to be ironed out. Due to the importance of the topic and the interest this project seems to be generating, it could be worthwile research not only for myself but for the country.

Okay, for those of you who were interested in more details of how my research is going, this was your summary. For those of you who are thoroughly confused or bored by the above, this next section is for you. Oh yes, and I did go to the conference held in Hamburg on new patterns of East-West migration. Was good to see how studies is this field are largely conducted and to discuss research with other participants.

To Russia and Back

My roommate, her boyfriend, and I decided to plan a week-long trip up to St. Petersburg, Russia and then over to Tallinn, Estonia and Riga, Latvia the first week in November. We set up some meetings for our research and then headed out. Below, I have included some journal excerpts, so hopefully it will be a bit more entertaining than a boring recap from after we returned. So, below you will find some journal excerpts. Too much or too little detail - sorry!

Nov 2

I'm sitting in one of the sleeper carriages on a night train bound for St. Petersburg, Russia. I feel like I should be in some old black and white film set in the Soviet Union. When we walked up onto the platform at the Vilnius train station, an old train that has surely been around since Soviet times sat on the tracks. Now, here I am, bumping along on the train as it chugs through the night across the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Russian country-side. Such an adventure, such an experience. Jacob is studying for the GRE, Jennifer is checking out the guidebook, we're eating our favorite Lithuanian treats, and I'm going to pull out one of my most favorite books brought along for the occasion - Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Quite fitting is it not!

...We are stopped in Daugavpils at the moment, or what used to be known as Dvinsk. It is fascinating - Jennifer's great grandparents and other relatives emigrated from Dvinsk from 1898-1921. They fled Russia during the pogroms. They say that the sidewalks in Dvinsk are made of Jewish headstones. Jacob's great grand parents also immigrated to the U.S. from this region.

...My eyes are starting to get heavy as the train presses on, so I'm going to curl up on the bench seat with the heavy wool blanket provided and get some sleep. The old man in the carriage next to us is snoring quite loud. With my bag and coat piled under my pillow, I listen as the train clanks along and rumbles over the rails while the snoring fades into the background. Arriving at the Russian border, I have this strange almost fearful sensation that Soviet guards armed with large guns will board and perhaps cart us off to "never to be seen again" land, Siberia, that is. I suddenly imagine myself a fugitive, guilty of trying to escape undetected under Soviet eyes. My passport is a fake and my real name is Anna Kerniskaya. In wide-eyed suspense, I catch my breadth when the border guards come down the isle to our box. Where can I hide? Should I run? What will the prison camp be like? Instead of gruff soviet guards demanding identification, a couple kindly-looking older women bundled in heavy boots and camouflage coats step forward. Their makeup is carefully done and the older one of the two speaks to us in perfect English with little accent. It ended up an altogether simple and pleasant exchange; I legally entered Russia, I was not carted off to prison, and I am not a fugitive trying to escape Soviet detection. I am simply a tourist getting caught up in the moment of a not so long ago history that seems lurking behind every corner.

...As we rumble along through the cold Russian night, every now and then the train slows and stops for a few minutes as we come to another town. Some voices are speaking in Russian in the distance. Peaking out the frosted window, I can make out some cold-looking gray buildings, train cars sitting stationary on the tracks, and a few faint lights from the station. My imagination gets the better of me again. What must it have been like to be one of those who felt the full brunt of Soviet oppression. How, I wonder, did they bear it? Where did they find the strength to wake to another day full of meaningless brutality and misery. Many didn't wake- they died of hunger, exhaustion, froze, or were killed in the concentration camps. Did they hear the same rumbles, the same clanks of the train like I do now. But think of their cold, the horror of being crammed into box cars like cattle - if you survived, it would be to face a life worse than death in a work camp. Were these woods, dark and stark as they are, the same woods they walked in and hid in?

...The train is almost to St. Petersburg and dawn is slowing creeping upon us. The world on the other side of my train window reveals a crisp layer of snow wound among the brown weeds and brush that form the vast frozen-looking Russian landscape. What appears to be small dachas stand as stoic, dark shadows against the pinkish-gray morning light. The bare black limbs of trees are softened in the morning glow and provide a kind of backdrop to the scene. And so we slowly roll on toward St. Petersburg, the city built by Peter the Great to be the gem upon the waters of the Neva.

Nov 3

Upon arrival, we managed to find our way to our hostel, which is right in the Center of St. Petersburg on the street under the arches of the General Staff Building near the Palace Square. Location and price couldn’t have been better.

...I stood, though I can hardly believe it, in the Palace Square. The square is flanked on one side by the Winter Palace/Hermitage and on the other by the huge wings of the General Staff Building, headquarters for the Russian army, which wrap half-way around the square. This spot was the scene of the "Bloody Sunday" massacre in 1905 when troops fired on thousands of peaceful demonstrators who pressured for reform. The event sparked a revolution, but it only led to limited concessions from the tsar, which in turn led to the 1917 revolution and the downfall of Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs. Think of that day - the uproar and tumult as the Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace, Lenin arrived back in the city in a carriage, 1917, the Russian Revolution - Workers of the world, unite! History, history has flitted through this square. Here, the rise and fall of empires. Men with visions walked here, and so too their visions would die with them. Came the tsars and tsarinas of the Romanovs, Lenin, Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin... So they came and so they have gone and go. For a moment, though, I expect to be transported back, to see these events, both tragic and glorious, unfold again before my own eyes. Ones imagination is called forth by the very stones and buildings that still stand as they did then. (pictures around Palace Square: me in front of Hermitage. Yellow building is army headquarters)

...We spent the afternoon wandering through section after section of the Hermitage. The Hermitage, which also incorporates the Winter Palace, is one of the most famous museums in the world. Apparently, to spend one minute in front of every peace of art in the Hermitage would take 5 years. We wandered through the 19th century French artist section and saw famous Classicism art of those such as Rousseau, Romantic period paintings of Renoir, Monet, Pissaro, Cezanne, new-Impressionism of Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Kadinsky, and Rennaisance art of Raphael. There were also DaVinci originals of the Madonna and Child and other of his works. In one section, we wandered through "Raphael hall" – a whole room of canvas frescos that Catherine the Great commissioned Raphael to make. The museum is also home to the only sculpture by Michaelangelo that exists in Russia - that of the "Crouching Boy." There were also works of Degas, Monet, Seurate, Renior, Lorrain; the list goes on and on. My absolute favorite was the rather large collection of 17th centurey Rembrants. We spent quite a while gazing at and listening to our audio descriptions of his pieces. It is truly fascinating the seemingly internal light that he created in the pieces. I actually glanced up to look for the lamp shining on the painting, but then I realized it is the very painting itself that seems to glow around its subjects. My favorite pieces are the Decent from the Cross, the Portrait of an Old Jew, the Return of the Prodigal, and Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac. Rather a neat experience.

...A ballet in St. Petersburg? Balanchine's The Four Temperaments? Okay! The three of us reserved tickets online to attend this ballet at the famous Marrinsky Theatre, also known as the Kirov, home to a world famous opera and ballet company. This was especially a highlight for me based on my background in ballet, so I was able to appreciate it much more than Jennifer and Jacob. I sat in the fourth box on the first balcony on the right side of the stage. Four intermissions and about four hours later, I must say that it was brilliant. I will save my readers the detail of the scenes, technical difficulty of the choreography, the grace and precision with which it was performed, and the beauty and of the feet and footwork, general extension, and composition of movements. Splendid.

Nov 4, 2005

I split off from Jennifer and Jacob today to look for my own adventure while they visited the Jewish synagogue. I do love to explore and St. Petersburg seems a very explorable city. I first visited the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, one of St. Petersburg's most majestic churches with its towering 262 ft dome and curved colonnade. The cathedral is named after a supposed miracle working icon of Our Lady of Kazan, which is housed in the cathedral. Interestingly, it was home to the Museum of Atheism during the Communist era and only in 1999 returned for religious use again. Imposing and impressive seem the right words to describe it – gold or bronze molded ceilings, rows of pillars, many stunning religious paintings, and a huge golden version of the Madonna. There were so many people crowed in there - hundreds! Although the cathedral is quite large, it was packed from front to back and side to side. A Russian Orthodox service was something I had never experienced up till now. I couldn’t help but be surprised at their piety in the repititous bowing and crossing. A small choir from the balcony offered up some sort of musical chants or prayers, which echoed through building and was rather awe inspring. People were also lighting candles and bowing their heads to a picture of the Madonna or this icon. Also interesting, all around the cathedral were venders selling small versions of this icon and other religious material. The elaborate alter seemed carved in pure gold. The priest and his helpers were dressed in ornate robes, and perched on top their heads were dome-like crowns. It was a fascinating religious scene, particularily since such religious expression was so long denied in the Soviet Union. (picture above: cathedral. pict below: on Neva)

...Meandering may way through the throngs of worshippers and back into the street after my unplanned 45 minute layover, I stumbled upon a canal boat tour about to embark. I began to walk on, telling myself that I should be frugal and not spend too much money...but then I realized that this was ridiculous - one because it was cheap and two, who knows if I will ever be back to St. Petes. I bought a ticked and hopped on. The boat wound through a few of the streets and then floated out into the Neva. The Neva! I was on the Neva river from which I could see St. Peter and Paul cathedral and fortress hiding in the foggy mist. Back toward the opposite shore stood the Winter palace and St. Isaacs Cathedral. It was chilly but a splendid ride.

...Following the canal ride, I tried to take the metro to find the house where Dostoevsky lived. The metro was terribly confusing as everything was written in Russian – one cannot make sense of such an alphabet having not studied the language before. Even with my descent sense of direction, I had no idea were I was and could not figure out the streets, so I quickly made my way back to the metro and Nevsky Prospect. Instead, I visited the splendid statute of Pushkin that stands in the park where he was killed in a dual with his wife’s lover. A tragic ending. Is that not fitting for Russia’s greatest poet. I then wandered over to the church of the Spilt Blood, a main attraction for its Russian Revival style, which was erected as a memorial on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. The mosaics on the inside are stunning. (pict. left: cathedral)

Nov 5, 2005

Peter and Paul Fortress across the Neva. It was build by Peter the Great in 1703 to mark the founding of the city. The cathedral inside the fortress is also something of a Baroque masterpiece. Inside the elaborate and ornate Cathedral are the tombs of the tsars and tsarinas. It is this fortress that the Bolsheviks took over in the Revolutionary events of 1917.

...We then made our way to the Museum of Political History, which was formerly the Kshesinskaya Mansion, commissioned to be made for the prima ballerina. This visit was one my most favorite things thus far – not because the museum is amazing, but because it was the base of operation commandeered by Lenin and the boys at the time of the Revolution after the failure of the provisional government. I stood in the very room where communist propaganda was organized, and I stood in the very room where Lenin sat and wrote his pieces, and I looked out from the balcony from which Lenin addressed the masses in his call for a revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. The museum also houses a number of articles, such as Lenin’s April Thesis on the purpose of the proletariat, the declaration on the rights of the workers and exploited, as well as much writings, pictures, and other artifacts from Stalin forward. (pict. right: in Lenin's study)

...After the museum we rode the metro a bit to see a couple of interesting stops (three navigators is better than one). Now, when you step out the metro's underground platforms, it is more like stepping out into a great hall of a palace. One stop in particular was lined by huge columns of glass with Soviet stars in relief. Sculpted into the walls of another stop are silhouettes of the "soviet workers" in their different occupations – content, proud, and happy looking folk carrying out their daily work with the hammer and sickle insignia on the wall nearby.

Nov 6, 2005

Visit to the Russian Museum. The Russian Museum houses one of the greatest collections of Russian art in the world. We had very little time to spend here before catching our bus to Estonia. We spent some time looking at the 20th c. art, but I didn't get a chance to see any of the Soviet Realism art.

Before, rushing off to catch the bus to Estonia, we had a quick lunch at the Literary Café (frequented by Dostoevesky and Pushkin). I'm such a fan of Eastern European food. Hoorah for borshch and blini!

Briefuly on Tallin, Estonia and Riga, Latvia

We had about a day and a half in Tallin and stayed with some Fulbrighters there. Although we didn't have much time and I had to do some research there, we gave ourselves a walking tour of the old town and learned about its history. The city maintains an aura of medieval times with its turrets and spires and some of the world's best preserved medieval walls and towers. It is simply lovely. At one point, I bought some roasted spiced almonds from a tradtionally constumed young lady - she told me they cost one rabbit skin or 12 kroons. I went with the kroons since I hadn't been out rabbit hunting that day. (pict. left: Tallinn old town center. pict. below: overlooking a lower section of Tallinn old town)

Riga

The stay in Riga was even shorter. I had a meeting set up there and had even less time to explore. But this was okay since I visited Riga two summers ago while interning in Vilnius. Riga's old down is also quite nice, but I definitely rate Tallinn and Vilnius higher.

That's all for my description of our travels. What follows are two rather creative attempts to describe a couple of days this last month:

Nov 13: Glimpse of a moment in a day

I'm standing in tightly packed crowd. The chill is starting to seep through the boots and my breadth hangs in the air. A prayer is being sung and although I can't understand the language, I bow my head in respect. At the proper moment, the crowd also joins in song or repeat the words of the director of the service, something akin to a chant. And many keep repeatedly crossing themselves. Amassed here on the cobblestone street leading up to the Gates of Dawn are hundreds of people, mostly older but with a few younger people scattered throughout. They are gathered on this somewhat chilly day for a special outside mass. A few umbrellas pop up here and there to ward off the light mist coming down. The service is conducted from the balcony that opens up over the gate arch. Behind the priest sits the supposedly miracle-working icon of the virgin Mary covered in brilliant gold, a leading pilgrimage destination in Eastern Europe.

I wandered into this throng of the religiously observant while trying to return to my flat on this Sunday morning. There seemed to be a crowd blocking the way, but it could not be so thick, I thought - I will just wind my way through on the side. I made it about half-way up the street, but there was no going any further once I realized that the throng was a rather large and compact mass of people, mostly babushkas. To turn around, too, would perhaps be rude now. How long will they stand here I wonder? Surely the service will only last for a few minutes. My curiosity piqued, I decided to wait around and see what had drawn so many people this Sunday morning.

An old man just to my right is starting to kneel down; It is cold and the idea of kneeling down on the cobblestone makes me shiver. He moves slowly as old age seems to have taken its toll; one knee at a time he manages to stoop down nonetheless. Behind him, two older women bundled in their coats and headscarves find the strength to bring themselves to their knees on the cold stones. By now, I was rooted to the spot with something akin to curiosity and awe. It reminded me so much of the hour or so I stood in the Russian Orthodox mass in St. Petersburg that I had stumbled upon. Here too, I wanted to be apart of whatever it was that had drawn hundreds to the street to observe mass. I wanted to see, hear, and experience what they were experiencing in the moment and contemplate its significance. The voice of a young woman leads the crowd in a song of worship. Their voices blend and echo in the street while climbing languidly above the spires of the cathedral to slowly dissipate in the November air. I close my eyes as I attempt to capture the beauty and harmony of their voice, the scene, the presence of the people and the moment. Surely, I thought, they can not attempt to deliver the sacrament to such a large crowd. There are no pews and isles to provide the proper setting. But mass can be delivered just as well in the street as in a cathedral I found out. A path is formed and those who care to partake simply push through while others move aside. The few minutes I expected the mass to last turned into at least an hour.

Although I'm probably an overly curious person, I couldn't help but be fascinated by the scene and wonder at the sigficance of even just a Sunday gathering. Religion - it amazing, you know. How it drives people and impact societies! Faith shapes societies and cultures, and sometimes it tears them apart. It provides motivation, purpose, grounding, and people cling to it. How is it that faith is so deeply rooted in the lives of so many, whatever culture, tongue, and history? And certainly not everyone holds the same faith, but even that so many identify with and observe some manner of faith is fascinating. How much it means to people! Faith seems to be a rare thing in this life that many trust to never fail them. And when that freedom to worship and honor one's beliefs is denied people, it lives on in their hearts until the chains are thrown aside. But that is it, you know - it is only the public expression of faith that can be shackled, not faith itself. The soul is beyond the tyranny of men. Hmmm..can I truly say that? Imagine, decades of occupation, decades of such religous expression deemed illegal, and then imagine the significance of such religous freedom today. So, I felt, I must drink this in. I must pause for a moment and contemplate the significance. I've sort of stepped into a chapter of unfolding history even now.

So, I push my hands deeper into my coat pockets and am glad for the added warmth of those around me. I want to ask them, "What does this mean to you the freedom to worship in public? Tell me, please, what is the significance of your beliefs. Why, dear sir, do you bend your knees on the cold cobblestone-What has life taught you about your faith and what has your faith taught you about life that you still have the strength to kneel after all these years? How important has such faith been in the lives of Lithuanians? And what do you think of the religious devotion of your country today? Is not such observance waning? Do the younger people populate the pubs more often and more so than they do the pews? Why do you think that is? Will faith be as important to the next generation as it was to your own? These and other questions filled my mind as I stand in Ausros Vartai beneath the gates of dawn. Suddenly, the choir begins the strains to a familiar song that I surprisingly recognize but have not heard in years. The words form again in my mind and I hum under my breadth while Lithuanian voices echo beneath the spires. They sang: "Jesus, Name above all names, Beautiful Savior, Glorious Lord...Emmanuel, God is with us, Blessed Redeemer, Living Word."

Nov 26

Was one of those "don't forget this" moments in life. I went down to cathedral square last night for the "lighting of the Christmas tree" event nearby the bell tower at the end of Gedimino gatve. I scooted my way through the crowd to get as close as I could to the stage. I strained to watch the bit of singing and acting performance on the stage in front of the huge constructed tree. Everyone was bundled up and the entire square packed with people young and old. A few of the more exuberant young people jumped up and down too the music. The snow flakes were gently falling and a couple of inches of freshly fallen snow graced the scene. And then the moment - the huge tree lit up (electrically) and everyone was smiling and cheering. Then, huge fireworks danced and exploded around the bell tower. I tipped my head back and watched as bursts of color lit up both the tower and evening sky while dazzling us all below. It was kind of surreal you know - realizing where I am way over here in eastern Europe and sharing in this wonderful moment in the old town of little ol' Vilnius. It's hard to explain, but t'was one of those times when you take a picture with your mind and commit to never forgetting the moment and the feeling of it all.

Address

For those of you who have been asking for mailing address info, the best way for me to get mail is through the American Center (embassy section).

Laura Thaut, Fulbright
C/O Cultural Affairs Officer
American Center
Pranciskonu 3/6
01133 Vilnius, Lithuania