Seven: Inclination

lithuania 2 Minutes

When I first arrived in Kaunas at the end of January, the city was wet, dark, and dormant with winter. Now, in spring, Kaunas is bright and alive. The built environment of the city is filled-in, integrated into the natural environment as if the two are woven together. The city has become fabric: the warp of street and structure is threaded through the weft of river and wood so tightly that it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other.

Being from Florida, where the seasons offer little in the way of variation, I have never seen a spring so pronounced and drastically different from the winter that preceded as I have in Lithuania. In this blog, I wanted to use color to convey a sense of change. As you’ll see, the photos are not necessarily in seasonal order, but rather have been ordered to allow color to emerge in the same way that spring emerged here in Kaunas.

Presence in Absence

A boardwalk crosses the dunes of the Curonian Spit, leading to the Baltic Sea.
Metal bones on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
A wooden man uses interpretive dance to express the agony of existence.
Trijų mergelių tiltas (Bridge of the Three Virgins). The pedestrian bridge, constructed in 1976 and renovated in 2014, spans the Nemunas river and provides access to Panemunės šilas park.
Figures are carved from fallen trees in Panemunės šilas park.
Kaunas Reservoir. The reservoir, which feeds the Kaunas Hydroelectric Power Plant, was created in 1959 by damming the Nemunas river above Kaunas.
An emergency services structure on the shore of Kaunas Reservoir.
A tree grows atop the Kaunas dam. The dam’s gantry cranes can be seen in the background.
Gantry cranes mounted to the top of Kaunas dam. The cranes are used to hoist open the dam’s spillways. Separate cranes, housed inside the dam’s structure, operate the penstocks that feed the power plant’s turbines.
On the shore of Kaunas Reservoir.

Ink and Inkling

Chimneys protrude from the top of a hill. The chimneys ventilate the old gunpowder bunker that is built into the hill. The bunker, once part of the system of forts that compose Kaunas Fortress, has been converted into an event venue called Parakas.
Parakas from the ground level.
A ticket stub from Buitis, a post-punk show held at Parakas. The show was headlined by Lithuanian bands Pindrops and Vilkduja, and Belarusian band Molchat Doma.
Music from Molchat Doma. “Na dne” was the last song they performed at Buitis.
A wall inside the bunker.
Though the bunker has been cleaned up and prepared for use as an event venue, it is still very much a bunker. It is cold and damp, and there are no venue amenities such as bars and toilets (both of which were provided outside).
Pindrops.
Molchat Doma.

Nothing Less

Paths such as these help pedestrians negotiate the hills that surround central Kaunas.
Trijų mergelių tiltas.
Looking upriver from Trijų mergelių tiltas.
The proverbial May flowers.
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9 thoughts on “Seven: Inclination”

  3. I really liked how you organized the pictures to coincide with the emergence of spring–the transition from listless grays to vibrant colors. Your flower pictures are stunning. I could see every nuance and detail within the flower’s beauty. And, of course, the writing was beautiful. It was just enough, and the metaphor winter and spring woven together like a tapestry was a nice touch.

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