Stalin World

November 12, 2008

It’s a memorial park with a difference. Grūto Parkas, located near Druskininkai in the south west corner of Lithuania, hit the media when it opened it’s display of decommissioned Soviet-era statues and garnering the sound-bite nickname Stalin World. It even won the 2001 IgNobel Prize for Peace.

In the re-establishment of Lithuanian Independence following the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc in 1989, symbols of Soviet rule were systematically removed. Statues were torn down and left to rot in junk yards around the country. However in 1998 a canned mushroom tycoon gathered these together and established Grūto Parkas as part historical, part art and part tourist attraction.

It is an almost disturbingly pleasant atmosphere in the park. Pleasant pathways wind through the forested area, speakers pipe tinny propaganda music and green clearings scattered throughout are now home to the representations of some arguably horrible people. A museum houses documents and films which cover the history and brutality of the era and the suffering of the Lithuanian people while outside Lenin stands, arm raised, on the banks of a pretty river.

Grūto Parkas is worth a visit if you are in the area. It’s five kilometres outside Druskininkai and you can get there by bus as it lies on the Vilnius-Druskininkai route which runs several times a day. Ask the bus driver and he will let you off, but it is still a kilometre walk down a small road to get to the park itself. Entry is 15 Lita (around 4.50€) and an audio guide will cost an extra 40 Lita (11.50€).

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