The Hill of Crosses

Trip Start Jul 13, 2009

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Lithuania Siauliai, Lithuania
Sunday, July 26, 2009

Siauliai (pronounced Show-lay) is about 140km north east from Vilnius - a further 10km from there town is a tiny place called Domanti - upon hopping off a local bus here - you have to walk an additional 2km along a single road that cuts through farmers fields to get to the Hill of Crosses. No-one knows how this place came about but it predates WW1, it's a mound that currently holds over 100,000 crosses, In as much as it is clearly a place people come to pray - it's also a place of remembrance - so many people unaccounted for during the occupation - men taken from their families, children and the elderly who were weak & perished and were left in unmarked graves throughout the Baltics and the in isolated Russian colonies...

hill of crosses

single cross

This site was burnt to the ground by the soviets three times and after each occurrence, the locals would sneak in at night time (it was guarded & surrounded by wire) to replant the crosses. It was a v. emotional and moving place. There were lots of women clearly there to grieve and to pray - but even when I was on my own and walking through the towers of 8-10ft wooden/metal crosses, each covered in rosary beads and smaller crosses - decorated like christmas trees with religious paraphernalia... It was hard to not feel their loss.

What everyone was queuing for..

overview

For a nation that was so strongly repressed - they clearly found ways and means to express their religion and their grief, I guess without hope, what do you have left?