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Over the river
Every city needs a place like Užupis, and I suppose over the years many have had them — districts close enough to be part of the urban scene but just outside the central jurisdiction, so that popular activities viewed as unwelcome in the city proper can still thrive. Užupis means “over the river,” the river being the Read more
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Ms. President
So this is how things swirl around here. Friday morning, we’re in class reading a poem by Kadia Molodowsky, a much-loved Yiddish writer who died in 1975, when we suddenly can’t hear the teacher, because a brass band is playing. Out the window, which is on the second floor of the ancient Vilnius University (founded Read more
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Shadows
It may be just an accident of geography that the Jewish Holocaust museum here is only a couple of blocks from the Lithuanian Museum of Genocide Victims. Or it may have been someone’s politically pointed choice. At any rate, it’s a very short walk between two perspectives that co-exist uneasily here. The Holocaust exhibition, in what Read more
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Reunion
When I came to Vilnius in 1995, Regina Kopilevitch was just beginning her career as a guide and researcher for Jews visiting Lithuania. Yesterday she took several Yiddish Institute students around the city, demonstrating the same deep knowledge, insight and wit that made that long-ago visit so memorable for me. She’s practically an institution here Read more
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Churches
You can’t throw a rock in old Vilnius without hitting a church, not that anyone should throw rocks at churches, of course. Last night I stood with a few hundred others in the nave of St. Casimir’s, a gorgeous Renaissance-era structure, and heard a wonderful organ concert. There are all kinds of churches here; Catholic, Russian Read more
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Frank Zappa
On a quiet Vilnius corner, not far from the old city center, a statue of Frank Zappa has stood since 1995. Why? This is a popular question. Read more
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