The city of Siauliai, in the north of the country, sits on a plain. Despite the flatlands that surround it, a hill has appeared. Now, if you've read either of my two blogs before, you'll know that I'm in no way religious, and, yes, what happened on his hill has everything to do with God but, more importantly, everything to do with being human.
In 1795, Lithuania became a part of the Russian Empire, a curse it wouldn't truly shake off until just over twenty years ago. Uprisings against the Russians would periodically happen and Lithuanians would die with their bodies lost in forests, never to be returned to their families. People took to remembering their unburiable loved ones with a cross on this hill. During Soviet reign, religion was banned. Still, the crosses came. The KGB stationed men around the hill to prevent the addition of crosses. They also twice builldozed the site and even went as far as to scheme a reservoir plan that would put it under water. Even so, by the 1980s, after all this time, the hill only had a couple of thousand crosses.
Then, on the 11th March 1990, liberation came and the people of this little country, with a population of just over 3 million, had the freedom to follow their faith and, by extension, to add crosses to the hill. And they did. And then people abroad heard about the hill and they started coming to Lithuania to add their own crosses too. One of those people was Pope John Paul II. He came here in 1993, added a cross, and celebrated mass for around a hundred thousand people.
The hill is now the most surreal religious location I've ever seen, bunches of smaller crosses hanging from larger crosses in an almost infinite regression - several hundreds of thousands of them - each one a symbol of a loved ones who died, or prayers for those still managing to cling on. There is more beauty and humanity on this tiny hill than in the grandest cathedral. This place was built with love, not money. For me, it's not the release of godliness here that is to be celebrated - I have no connection to that - but the release of what a nation really wanted for decades that was suppressed by the Russian Empire and then the USSR. They wanted to express love for someone and they were denied that. Freedom eventually overcame all.
Less serious is another magnificent Lithuanian gesture of freedom. In 1997, the bohemian residents of Užupis, a once-neglected district of Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, declared independence. They had an anthem and a flag and an army of 11. To understand the tongue-in-cheekedness of their claim, their national day is April 1. But what is the point of this elaborate joke? It's simply because they can. In the centuries previously, even a jokey insurrection would have been quashed. Now Lithuania was free. Satire was possible. And like all good satire, the humour is allowed to be daft but the message is serious. Once again, freedom overcame all.
The impression one gets is that liberty is very important for Lithuanians. It's odd coming here not long after Belarus. Life there seemed to be getting along adequately, albeit under a dictatorship. But if Lukashenko, the boss of Belarus, didn't want a hill full of crosses or a silly breakaway republic - with a constitution that claims that a dog has the right to be a dog - it simply wouldn't happen. Sometimes it's the little victories that are the most important.
Jolanta, the director of tourism in Vilnius, who gave me a certificate signed by the mayor, said that I could now be an ambassador for Lithuania. Yes, I can. Come here. It's nice. And it's free.
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