Page 261 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Estonia Latvia & Lithuania

CENTR AL LITHU ANIA  259

6 Grūtas Park
Grūto parkas
Road Map D6. Parko 47, Grūtas
village, Druskininkai. Tel (370) 3135
5511. Open 9am–sunset daily. & 8
7 - ∑ grutoparkas.lt
Around 90 statues and busts
of figures once glorified by the
Soviet regime stand in alcoves
on a forest trail in Grūtas village.
Most of them once graced
squares and gardens, before
being torn down by cheering
Lithuanians in 1991. The park’s
owner, Viliumas Malinauskas,
was awarded the Ig Nobel
Russian Orthodox Church with striking domes, Druskininkai Peace Prize in 2001, the year
the park opened.
Immediately on the left inside futuristic-style buildings still Information in English
the park, a road leads to survive, including the now- is given on each of these
Zervynos, a village with unpaved closed Soviet-era physio therapy ideo logical relics. A mas sive
streets and the scenic Ūla river treatment centre with deco- metal statue of Lenin that
bubbling underneath the foliage rative waves of solid concrete once stood in front of the
and wooden bridges. hanging in mid-air. KGB build ing in Vilnius lost a
The serene town inspired thumb while being wrenched
painter and composer by a crane from its pedestal.
5 Druskininkai M K Čiurlionis (see p265), who Another statue shows Lenin
lived here from 1890 to 1911. with the Lithuanian
Road Map D6. * 17,000. @ from
Vilnius. n Gardino 3, (313) 608 00. The Čiurlionis Memorial Communist Party’s First
∑ druskininkai.lt Museum, located in his family’s Secretary, Vincas Mickevičius-
wooden house, dis plays period Kapsukas. Both statues were
Lithuania’s foremost spa resort, furniture, his notebooks and decapitated in 1991, but their
Druskininkai is a haven of peace copies of his artwork. Another heads have been joined back.
and tranquility. Main roads museum in the town, the There is an image of Stalin,
bypass the town, tucked inside Jacques Lipchitz Museum, is which once stood outside
a bend on the thickly forested dedicated to the Cubist sculptor Vilnius train station until it
Nemunas river, and noise who was born here in 1891. was dismantled in 1960.
restrictions allow peace to Rusų Karys (Russian Soldier)
prevail. After thriving on 200 E Čiurlionis Memorial Museum is a statue made by Nazi
years of popularity, Druskininkai M K Čiurlionio 35. Tel (370) 313 51131. prisoners of war from metal
suffered an eco nomic shock in Open 11am–5pm Tue–Sun. taken from the wrecks
the 1990s, when it found itself Closed last Tue of the month. & 8 of German planes shot down
deprived of Polish, Belarusian E Jacques Lipchitz Museum by the Soviets. There are also
and Russian tourists, who once Šv Jokubo 17. Tel (313) 56 077. statues of Red Army liberators,
stayed in its sanitaria. Open call ahead for opening hours. & poets and other heroes.
Wellness tourism has,
however, been revived since the
1990s. The sanitaria offer water
and mineral mud treatments,
massages, beauty programmes
and fitness trails through the
forest. Bike rides and long walks
are possible along the Sun Path,
which leads through the
picturesque Ratnyčia Valley.
The boulevard-lined town
centre preserves wooden villas
from the 19th and early 20th
centuries, mainly found on
Laisvės Square. The delight ful
Russian Orthodox Church also
stands in the same square.
On Vilniaus Street, some Busts of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin in Grūtas Park

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