SPRING IN LITHUANIA!

I drove from Vilnius to the coast today. The distance is not more than 300 km, and the great four-lane highway makes it a quick and easy drive. But it's not long before I start slowing down. The sensation of the Lithuanian spring suddenly begins to penetrate into the car and who could then remain unaffected? 

There are still patches of snow around the undulating landscape of yellow-brown fields, but the smell of wet evaporation which lies like an invisible blanket over the soil, says very clearly that the long and cold winter now seriously is coming to its end.

The many groves, which in a few weeks are going to appear as green and lush, still stand dark and seriously gloomy. The bare branches of the clusters of the birch trees dare as yet not quite believe that winter is over. In the larger forested areas there is a haze at the ground, under the heavy branches of thousands of majestic trees that in the autumn dropped their needles and leaves which now lie there like a wet and brownish carpet over the damp forest floor. 

The ice on the larger ponds has a damp blue boundary along the land. Only the middle course of the ice is still nearly white, but it is no longer ice fishermen to see out there. Danger signals of unsafe ice is clear, but the fishermen know that it's not long before they can fish with a rod from shore or by boat, so they hardly despair. 

There are neither tractors nor farm animals to see in the fields. The ground and the soil is still too wet. The silence and tranquillity that characterizes this beautiful Lithuanian spring landscape is thus even more obvious and intrusive. Almost melancholy in spite of the spring that is in the making. 

I stop at a rest area. A narrow dirt road leads into the woods nearby, and suddenly I attentively see that the road leads to a rather derelict cottage there in the woods. It is obvious that this was once a beautiful wooden house, but now the peeling green paint and wooden cladding is in poor condition. The little barn on the other side of the small yard is in an even worse situation. Then the door of the house opens, and an elderly woman with heavy clothing comes out. She carries with her two dented tin cans. The plastic age has still not reached out here. I stand there and almost insolently observe this woman. I hear the chickens, possibly also some geese, cackle from inside the outhouse, and I see the woman filling up both buckets with water from a well in the courtyard. From the ridge on the old house, there is installed a five-meter high, rusty radio antenna. Maybe the woman and her family after World War II were sitting in this little house listening to broadcast from western radio stations with the hope that Lithuania would be liberated by western nations? 

I approach the coastal town of Klaipeda on my journey to the west. And suddenly I see it fly over the road in front of me, the year’s first stork. It's back! It has once again chosen to leave the fertile lands south of the Sahara to the benefit of Lithuania's northern fields. Yes, spring is here!

The ice on the Baltic Sea has this year been thicker and more extensive than in many, many years. That is still evident along the seashores north of Klaipeda. But the light, the amazingly strange shifting Lithuanian light, is carrying clear signs that spring is here. The sea breeze is still fresh, but still provides a renewed spirit and volume to my lungs which otherwise mostly breathe the Vilnius city air. The Lithuanian coast is at least as attractive now in the spring as it is when the summer sun and the long sandy beaches soon will draw tens of thousands of longing sun and sea visitors out here. 

The sun is about to go down over the Baltic Sea’s slow waves when I again sit in the car. This time to drive back to Vilnius. The music I play as I head back east, I have received from Danute Z. in Canada. So also to give you the right spring mood, dear reader, I suggest you get comfortable in your seat next to me and enjoy the trip and this amazing tribute to Lithuania, performed by singer Mickey Michael:

A new spring has come to Lithuania ...

Aage Myhre

Editor

25 March is Lithuania’s stork day! 

The white stork (gandras) is usually felt to be the national bird of Lithuania. Lithuanians believe that storks bring harmony to the families on whose property they nest; they have also kept up the tradition of telling their children that storks bring babies. Stork Day is celebrated on 25 March with various archaic rituals: gifts for children, attributed to the storks, such as fruits, chocolates, pencils, and dyed eggs, which are hung on tree branches and fences; snakes are caught, killed and buried under the doorstep; straw fires are lit.

Notably, Lithuania is a beneficial and important habitat for these birds: it has the highest known nesting density in the world!