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Coming in to land at Kaunas......
The sign to look out for
Needs a bit of work.....
Looking along the avenue
My sister and I are doing a bit of a family pilgrimage to Kaunas. Our father, Jurgis Miksevicius and his family had to leave in 1940. His father owned two picture theatres, The Metropolitan and The Forum. I found a brief reference to a film festival being held in 'the historic Metropolitan theatre'. Do you have any idea where this building is?
Many thanks
Carolyn
I'm not from Kaunas, but according to the internet, former "Metropolitan" is now Kaunas State Drama theatre: Laisvės al. 71.
I also found that "Forum" was in soviet time called "Laisve", but now it is disco club "Metelica": Laisvės al. 46a.
Sorry, forgot that VT does not accept "funny" characters.
Addresses are Laisves aleja 71 and 46A - it is the "central" street of the city.
Thankyou!!! It makes me shiver to think we will be able to see these buildings...so much lost family history.
The thing I adore most about my town is that just in few minutes you can move from busy street to assylium of green. Zaliakalnis- the city district that I grew up and live till the day....Most part of it is occupied with Oak Park , the ZOO and blocks of private houses. Sometimes it is hard to believe when strolling down those little quiet streets that you are just a few minutes walk from the city center and not in some sleepy suburb.
The church of Sts Peter and Paul was been built in 1408-1413, although then building works were had been going on and were finished in 1624. The church was strongly damaged in wars and fires, for example, after great fire of the roof in 1732 only one tower was rebuilt. In 1895 the church got name Cathedral and in 1921 Basilica. In USSR times the cathedral was closed and the interesting fact that the museum of atheism was organised inside :-). Since 1990 the cathedral was reopened.
Church was built in XV century in honour of that Vitautas the Great was alive after battle with Tatars. It seems it is only one church that has a name of the person who is still not canonized. In XVII century the church was completely damaged by Swedish troops, but later reconstructed. Till the end of XX century the church was partly broken several times and has been reconstructing only in last years. The Church is situated on the ban of Neman River.
There always has been some kind of "competition" between Kaunas and Vilnius. Most of people living in Vilnius don't say any good thing about Kaunas. Most people living in Kaunas don't say some good words about Vilnius because of that. And "Kaunas is Kaunas" is the most common phrase here, what means that Kaunas is the best:)
I found many times an abbrevation JHS written on walls of catholic churches, on chasubles (ceremonial clothes of priests), on the Host (the holy bread eaten at holy communion, a Christian religious ceremony).
To be honest I didn't know what stood for this abbrevation JHS. I saw it again at the building which which housed Archdiocese of Kaunas (west of Town Hall Square). And I asked the Lithuanian priest I met there. He new English and asked me whether he could help in any way... and after a few common greetings I asked him. he explained me that JHS was an Greek abbrevation of the three names of Jesus Christ the Nazarene. In real it should "I" and two Greek letters: eta and sigma.
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