First impressions... in Kaunas

A pretty big audience for these fire jugglers in Kaunas

We spent our first week-end in Lithuania in the second city of the country, Kaunas. We met up with other volunteers from various european places, but spent most of our time with Aco, from Macedonia, learning for instance about the difficult economical and political situation of his country.




Among our first discoveries was the fact that it would be relatively easy to interact with young people here, cause almost all of them have a (very) good english. It will be much harder to connect with older persons, who used to live under USSR, so who only know Lithuanian and Russian. And lithuanian language is considered as one of the five most difficult languages in the world. Fortunately, Florence knows basics in Russian and Edouard has a fluent english, which makes them complementary. And even if they can't speak your language, most Lithuanians will always try to help you in case you get lost in the city jungle...

Kaunas was booming the whole week-end we spent there, with bands playing all sorts of music everywhere in the street, fire jugglers, and lots of good people to meet.

Devil : a sick sense of humour

the devil loves music

On Sunday, we went to the Devil's Museum, which was definitely worth a visit. This museum hosts a collection of more than two thousand sculptures and carvings from all over the world, most of them still from slavic countries and of folk provenance.

We felt like folklore and traditions used to be deeply impregnated in people's lives here. This is partly due to resistance against communism (the regime was forbidding any kind of belief apart from the main one) and strong paganism. Lithuania was the last pagan state in Europe, with an unbroken tradition of pagan practice in rural areas lasting until the early 19th century. And Eastern Europeans have a very different view of the devil from that commonly held in the West.

The devil is actually very close to man, he represents a part of ourselves. He is responsible for earth, flora, fauna, fertility, and is the patron of farmers and craftsmen. He loves music and has a very sick sense of humour. Hence the humoristic rather than sinister-looking collection. By the way, the devil is into drinking as well. God gave permission to drink two glasses of alcohol, one to God, the second one to yourself. The third one goes to the devil. When a man drinks this third glass, his throat starts burning... So watch out for the devil in you...


In pagan times, the devil was the equal of Gods, accepted by the people as a normal part of life. Only Christianism managed to transform the devil into a demonised creature. Today, slavic Paganism is undergoing a renaissance: traditional folk celebrations are again popular, and Pagan groups are springing up throughout the former Soviet Union.





On Monday the 9th, we left the city by bus, to reach our tiny settlement of Paluse, in the heart of Aukstaitija National Park...