CARRYING A WATERMARK

The goddess Laima assigned the fate of a sea port to the city of Klaipeda. The city which was tattered and burnt six times, the city that has lost its sacral backbone, the city that has lost its ancient roots and mythical connections. “Due to the cyclical catastrophes the city has endured historically as well as its constant transformance from a place of geo-political and cultural significance into a land of another’s domain, Klaipeda has been doomed to be eternally modern: a place of new beginnings whose inhabitants have fallen and risen repeatedly, a space giving birth to new routes.”

Having lived the part of the industrial transit centre during the Soviet regime, Klaipeda has taken a turn towards being a maritime capital.

A naval yoke lifted the glances of those lost in the murkiness of their fields, on Thursdays it replaced steaks with fish dishes, during the summer it made the civilians don the seaman’s blouse and cut the waves in their yachts, it encouraged all to follow the wind and always carry a compass close to one’s heart. It inspired the drawing of a mental picture of the touching and romantic sunsets and sunrises and the capture the light it shed on those lonely pine trees watching over the skeletal ships. It whispered: take a picture of your family alongside rigorous looking sailors with monkeys on their shoulders, smoke a pipe but, God forbid, do not look for the Swiss Alps.

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