As Lithuania’s post-Soviet generation comes of age, a local theater troupe is making sure the evils of the communist past are not forgotten.
It is offering a three-hour refresher course — as KGB prisoners.
“These few hours should provide a quintessential Soviet-era experience,” said Ruta Vanagaite, producer of the interactive show that runs in a former bunker in Naujasode, 25km from the capital Vilnius.
PHOTO: AFP
“By the end visitors should feel how, under a totalitarian regime, they are nothing,” she said. “They should realize how much progress there’s been over the past 17 years.”
Before heading 4m underground, participants begin a journey back in time by swigging a cup of ersatz coffee and donning a fufaika, the quilted cotton jacket worn by prisoners in the Soviet gulag.
From then on, the curious tourist is treated as a simple “comrade-prisoner” — obliged to respond to barked questions and commands from a half-dozen actors with a simple yes or no.
After saluting the Soviet flag, participants are made to perform physical exercises, such as squatting, running and rolling in a blanket while wearing a gas mask.
The ryhthm is dictated by an actor in KGB uniform, who screeches orders in Russian as his German shepherd dog strains on its leash.
The Orwellian show is set in 1984, and takes place in a bunker that until 1991 housed emergency radio and TV transmitters which were meant to be used if a NATO attack knocked out other Soviet facilities.
Lithuania, which was occupied by the Soviet Union during World War II, declared independence in 1990 and won international recognition a year later as the Soviet bloc crumbled.
In the early years, Soviet rule was notoriously brutal.
Some 360,000 Lithuanians were jailed, killed or deported to the gulags of Siberia and central Asia in the 1940s and 1950s.
In later decades, lower-level repression became the norm, although in a last gasp the Soviet regime cracked down on the Lithuanian independence movement in January 1991, killing 14 civilians.
Today’s Lithuania is a democratic, free-market nation with previously unimaginable opportunities for a new generation in its population of 3.4 million — notably since EU membership in 2004 opened the road for tens of thousands to work abroad.
For Lithuania’s teenagers, 20 and 30-somethings, the Soviet era is a non-existent or distant memory, while a swathe of older people who missed out on the benefits of change are nostalgic for the relative economic security.
“Half the population of this country misses the Soviet period and around half a million young Lithuanians never lived through it,” Vanagaite said.
In the bunker, visitors are forced to sit through Soviet-style May Day speeches, littered with praise for global communism and homages to steelworkers and the people of Cuba.
They are also treated to a medical check-up, where a doctor threatens to use a vintage dental drill on them.
The most unpleasant part of the show, however, is still to come.
The entire group of about 30 visitors is made to face the wall with their hands up, then a male participant is picked out.
In a booming voice, an actor playing a KGB interrogator browbeats the hapless individual into confessing that he has stolen from the factory where he works — an act of “anti-Soviet sabotage.”
Trying not to crack under pressure, or even attempting outright resistance, is a bad idea: The bunker has its own solitary confinement cell.
The tension only falls towards the end, as the “released” visitors are allowed to visit a Soviet-style store and leave with a toilet roll that is a soft as sandpaper.
Students make up a large percentage of the bunker’s visitors, although they are given a toned-down version of the show.
Adults have to sign a disclaimer which informs them that they risk verbal abuse and will have to perform physical exercise.
After the show, visitors are treated to an ultra-Soviet supper of tinned beef and a glass of vodka.
“I was curious to get taken back to this period, but for me it was really just a show, because I’ve drawn a line under the past,” said Lina, an accountant who was in her early teens when Lithuania won its independence.
Jolanta, a teacher in her forties, added: “Young people must come here to feel even a little bit of what we went through.”
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS