By Marta Vosyliūtė

First, I am Lithuanian and I did not emigrate. Secondly, the way I’m gonna tell you stories is subjective and the aim is not making laughs of Lithuanian stereotypes, but to think twice before you make a decision. My point of view is that stereotypes are dotted lines, and the more you think, you deny them and also, you invent yours. So knowing stereotypes helps.

1. Inner monologue of the intelligent Lithuanian on his holiday time in Nida:

...and suddenly you realize that thanks to all gods, especially pagan ones, you are here, in your beloved  bourgeois space of  Lithuania, on that little segment of our  99km sand and sea stripe, and you understand how precious it is and still thank your mother for taking you to the sea every year, and all other Lithuanian  parents who were and still are taking their children to the sea and pack of their families in every centimeter of those sandy kilometers, maybe stuck  in traffic/ in shops/in lack of money/ in kiosks/ in the afternoon nap/ in mobile games in touch-screens. But all dirty and still innocent screens come to sea every year too, mostly summer.

Being intelligent only means you can come to the sea in winter time too and intelligent has always busy mind and clothes of pale colors, not to hurt the eyes of the locals and every Monday he is sure he begins running every morning. But the bones are lazy, he repeats "I was not born to get up early as a damn factory worker, so let’s stay in bed for more and let my heart lay more ".  He dreams about the writing a book, he almost sees the cover collage, he almost knows the size but not the theme / but not the last page, it does not matter at the moment, so in Nida he spends time reading all other books that he was gathering all year round.

And well, the beloved type: flaneur. The defining characteristic of those flâneurs is that they don’t have any practical goals in mind. Flâneurs are standing in deliberate opposition to capitalist society, with its two great imperatives: to be in a hurry and to buy things…What the flâneurs are doing is looking.

2. Nida is the main area in the long town of Neringa in Curonion Spit. Besides that, Nida and Neringa are beloved pagan names of the daughters in Lithuania. Poetess Neringa Abrutytė was born here, Nida should be proud of her, but as always, child has gone, she emigrated as all other hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians. Is it a wound or possibility to survive? Should we make a poetry spring in Nida? Sure.

3. Curonian Spit is unique creation of nature and pagan gods. But not western ones. Sand is alive, and it was eating villages in sand-storms, for example  during the 1706-1846 period 14 villages become victims of such storms. Old Nida in 1678 and 1732 was buried in sand too. Later, when people planted bushes and trees to stop the sand, they could survive safely.

In my head, the biggest number of time and amount of small pieces my mind can figure out is this "falling down into the sand all the rest of your life."

4. Nida is an expensive place for the locals - most of food and all things must be driven from the continent. To say "I have spent my holidays in Nida" only means you are rich, you are famous and rich or your grandparents live in Neringa. Ok, sometimes it means your are hippie from the camping. At the end of the public season on the seaside main mass consists of Lithuanian inteligents, young Mac generation cafes and yacht owners, emotional and rich Klaipeda people. Russians and germans are demi-season.  By the way, russians pronounce that proudly "da, my byle na pribaltike, da, tam ticho i spakoino, ir poka mala nashych." –[yes, we were in Baltic, there are still silent and not too much of  us, Russian,s yet] and Germans, yes, they look at Neringa as nostalgia land and in nowadays rule Neringa by their money. Or yes, at least we think so. And yes, they know, that in Klaipeda/Memel Adolf Hitler was giving speech from the theatre balcony one day after this city was given to fascists in 1939 March 22. But ok, lets take it as a theatre performace.

5. A theme of divine nature and holiday romance must be fulfilled with old germans having fun, sex and sometimes - marriages with lithuanian women, here we can divide women to young - who want to emigrate, have family and raise children for them, because any german is richer than most of the lithuanians. And other group is mostly divorced women who only want to spend the rest of their lives with dignity, which again means richer lives and maybe no violence in families. By the statistics, 63.3 percents of lithuanian women has experienced violence from their life partners.

In 2010 around 3300 lithuanian citizens married foreigners, and this is the highest statistics in EU again. Women preferred germans, americans, russians, british, men preferred russians, belorussians, ukrainians etc.

Official sexual harassment is only several percents [to compare - about 40 percents in EU], but we will never know, maybe it is because they are AFRAID to complain. Actually, woman still feel themselves guilty even if they are victims, and it does not matter, that lithuanian women have the highest education in EU countries. [which means that 67 percents of diplomas in our universities are given to women.]

And yes, young germans are also welcome to Nida.

6. Fire in May 2006 was national catastrophe as 200 ha in Curonian Spit have burned away in 5 days. Officials suspected it was done consciously, but nobody was punished. It was not about 5 mln litas damage and it was not about the Unesco list, but it was about the impossibility to stop, all nation was waiting and staring at news and waiting and waiting and praying for fire to stop.
It was that rear event of uniting - The community which has nothing in common. /A.Lingis

7. ok, Thomas Mann came to Nida on holiday and so liked the area that he built a summer house there to which his family came every year in the early 1930s. As the house-museums website tells, "it is not difficult to imagine how much the family (they had six children) must have enjoyed the summers there. Now it’s a  venue for conferences and music recitals."

But if you are really curious, you can find documentary film with big sad secret of Thomas Mann, and his children are talking about it in their memoirs. Ill better stay silent.

8. Communism in Nida. In 1965, when officials wanted to show unique places of Soviet Union, the Jean Paul-Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir spend one week in Lithuania and Nida was the main place to show. And yes, they had a photographer following them everythere in dunes. That’s how documentation  as Art in Lithuania history was legitimated. The famous couple have visited Soviet Union several times. In photoseria they go with shoes on dunes sand, than Sartre stops to take the sand away from his shoes and Simone takes her shoes away and goes barefoot. By the way, the photographer Antanas Sutkus admitts, at that time he didn't know that Sartre was communist. But it was Westernomania to call themselves communist, safely living outside to Soviet Union -  as Camus, Picasso etc, because they never visited Gulagus, and their relatives were not shot no reason or dead from starving in Syberia.

Now it is discovered why Sarte has visited SU many times - it is because of his russian translator and kgb agent named Zonina, they had love story, and he even dedicated famous book "Words" to her. But the affair ended and he has never visited SU again.

9. Nida Colony is the term which historically means the german expressionists painters group  - Max Pechstein, Lovis Corinth, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Mollenhauer etc, who stayed in the hotel owned by Hermann Blode. While it existed, famous people visited Nida - writers Hermann Sudermann, Agnes Miegel and mister Sigmund Freud etc.

By the way, health resort hotel business formatted alternative to before only sailing and fish business to locals. Of course, new buildings and new job possibilities appeared.

Nida colony now means visual aspect and all generations have their own opinion of what this expression must look like; but plain-airs of traditional painters takes place here too.

10. Sea is blue, Nida is blue, Prussian blue and all blue cobalt colors are suggested for artist to use here. Also wood is typical. Especially - wooden things, that sea throws to a beach and we gather them. Also beautiful stones and the pieces of silky glass and yes the amber, but it is in another chapter.

11. So, the legends and first is about Juratė and Kastytis. [names are pagan, name Juratė is based on word Jura=which means sea]

According to an ancient Lithuanian legend, the sea-goddess Juratė fell in love with a fisherman Kastytis. When the thunder-god Perkunas found out, he became very angry at Juratė's love for a mere mortal. He struck down Kastytis and shattered Juratė's undersea palace made of amber. It is said that, when winds whip up raging storms in the Baltic Sea, one can still hear Jurate moaning over her loss and, afterwards, one can still find small pieces of her amber palace washed out on the Baltic shore among the seaweeds.

And all what is left from Kastytis is local cigarettes trademark. And that’s  why Germans created utopia about the amber cabinet – only in the name of nostalgia.

12. Second legend is  about Eglė and Žilvinas. This legend is so old, that it remembers times then people had connection with trees, so Lithuanians call this legend their national. Egle name means spruce tree.

Once upon a time in Lithuania, lived an old man and his wife. Together, they had twelve sons and three daughters. The youngest girl was named Eglė. On a warm summer evening, all three girls decided to go swimming. After bathing with her two sisters, Eglė discovered a serpent [grass snake] in the sleeve of her blouse. The serpent spoke to her in a man's voice, saying, "Eglė, promise to become my bride, and I will gladly come out." In order to get him to leave her clothes, Eglė pledged herself to him, not understanding the possible consequences.
Three days later, thousands of serpents came for Eglė, but her relatives tricked them three times in a row. A goose, a sheep, and a cow were given instead of the girl, despite the warnings of a cuckoo. Finally, the enraged serpents returned and took Eglė with them to their master at the bottom of the sea.

Instead of seeing a serpent, Eglė met her bridegroom Žilvinas, a handsome man and the Serpent Prince. They married and bore four children, living happily. One day, Eglė wished to visit her home, but her husband would not allow her. In order to be allowed the visit, Eglė would be required to fulfill three impossible tasks: to spin a never-ending tuft of silk, wear down a pair of iron shoes, and bake a pie with no utensils. Upon advice from a witch, Eglė was able to complete these tasks. She and her children left Žilvinas to visit her home. After meeting with Eglė and her children, her family wished to keep her rather than let her return to the sea. They plotted to kill Žilvinas. Eglė's brothers asked her sons to reveal the secret calling of Žilvinas, but they would not. Finally, one of Eglė's daughters disclosed it:

"Žilvinas, dear Žilvinas,
If alive - may the sea foam milk
If dead - may the sea foam blood..."

The twelve brothers then called Žilvinas out from the sea, and killed him with scythes. They kept the secret of their deed from Eglė. Worried, Eglė called her husband, but only foams of blood returned from the sea. Discovering that her beloved husband was dead, Eglė turned herself and her children into trees. Her sons were turned into strong trees: oak, ash and birch; her daughter was turned into a common aspen, and Eglė was turned into a spruce.

So here we can see how sadly love stories end.

13. But lets end our legends with a positive one, about woman creator Neringa.

On the western coast of Lithuania, where river Nemunas spills its waters into the Courish lagoon, on a tall hill once stood castle of Ventė.  An amazing giant daughter was born to its rulers, and they named her Neringa. She grew, and grew, so quickly, that at nine months of age, she was as tall as an adult. She was beautiful, good, and courageous. She always willingly helped everyone. When the foaming sea threatened to overturn a fishing boat, she boldly waded through the waves, and carried the boat to safety on shore. One day a great storm arose from the west. The sea carried sands onto the shore. The waters of Nemunas and the sea threatened to overtake the land.  Ventė, which guarded the mouth of the Nemunas, was in deadly peril. Neringa, thinking quickly, immediately began to build an embankment around the castle.  She filled her apron with sand from the sea bottom, and carried it towards the land near Vente,  then emptied it. Again and again, despite the raging wind, Neringa carried the sand, and built a long rampart, saving the castle.  As she carried the last apron ful of sand, the ties on the apron broke, and a veritable hill of sand fell into the waters near shore. In that place, the lagoon is shallow, not more than one meter deep.  And that is how the Neringa peninsula ("Curonian spit")  was made, and the famous dunes of Nida were created.

*** And yes, in our seaside romeos meet juliets, juliets meet germans, border officials are staring at tourists sex in dunes, not to a contrabanda goods.

Your steps are smaller than the goddess Neringa’s ones, your houses are not made of the amber, you are mortal. So never dare to sit on the seashore with your ears shut down with mp3 player, even if you bought it only for your morning sports, because you must listen to sea sounds, otherwise you can be punished by gods.