Saules Kapines…………..place of tranquility and rest.

Just a reminder on Halloween that graveyards aren’t necessarily ghoulish

Kindadukish's Blog - I am not a number, I am a free man (The Prisoner)

My friend and colleague Antanas took me to see a cemetery just outside the city centre of Vilnius.

 

Travelling by bus we alighted at Šv. Apaštalų Petro ir Povilo Bažnyčia just opposite the British Embassy and then made our way to one of the sixteen cemeteries that are linked to the church (so Antanas reliably informed me).

 

The purpose of the journey was for me to take photographs in the old cemetery, yes I know it is a strange place to go to take photographs but then again we photographers can be rather odd and eccentric people.

 

I had my new Nikon Digital SLR D5100 at the ready when Antanas produced an old bakelite camera from his bag. It must have been 30 years old and of course took the old style film roll. As our journey through the beautiful cemetery progressed I discovered that he had three…

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Kenesa in Vilnius

This is a Kenesa or Persian synagogue built in 1922 for the Karaims (or Karaites) who originally came from what was Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

Kenesa comes from the Aramaic word for assembly and is the source of the Hebrew word for synagogue beit knesset and the name of the Israeli parliament the Knesset.

The Lithuanian Karaims are believed to have come from Crimea near the Black Sea  to serve as the Grand Duke’s elite bodyguard in the 14c.

There were several of these kenesas built in Lithuania in the 14c but now there are only two; this one across the river from the parliament buildings on Liubarte street (not far from the Orthodox church) and one in Trakai, where there are also Karaim exhibits in the castle museum. And don’t forget the origins of the kibinas!

The Karaims survived the holocaust during the Nazi occupation as they aren’t technically jewish because  they don’t follow the Talmud but still suffered as a minority (and there are perhaps only 500 still existing in Lithuania).

Mysterious hill of crosses where pilgrims believe Christ can actually perform miracles

Kindadukish's Blog - I am not a number, I am a free man (The Prisoner)

The Hill Of Crosses in northern Lithuania has been a site of pilgrimage for hundreds of years. Consisting of a hill bristling with hundreds of thousands of crosses of every size and design, it is a powerful testament to religious devotion.

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