VILNIUS

Fifty or so churches scattered around the city, Virgin Mary and the sheep; amputated limbs, the art, Dadaism, the torture, the forced relocations, a straitjacket, the soundproof execution room in the basement of the KGB headquarters. The TV tower, the liberation, the Baltic Chain of Freedom, the Singing Revolution. Folklore, paganism, the old patterns, the kinship with Poland; the tall people, the basketball team, the many layers of paint in the prison cells; Hotel Neringa, and the architect who came there to eat. The high-ranking officials, the surveillance. The reign of terror, the spying, the informing, the war crimes, the pogroms, the forests, the acorns, the resistance movement, poverty, the wooden houses, the new skyscrapers, the banking scandals. The diaspora and migration, the unemployment, the tourism, the Jewish quarters – and the ever-present threat from the neighbouring country.