EVERYTHING in the Lithuanian garden is rosy, for the present at least.
It's not rosy-red, of course, and that is part of the reason for the
joyous celebratory atmosphere which existed in Vilnius this weekend.
On Tuesday the last of Russia's combat troops, one of the final
reminders of the old Soviet days, left for home; at least those few of
them who had homes to go to did -- many had lived here for decades.
All that remain now are some members of the medical corps, sick
soldiers in army hospitals, and a contingent left behind to guard
munitions which are to be transported to Russia at a later date.
It was a quiet, peaceful evacuation with just one note of defiance. A
Russian soldier wrote with his finger on the dusty rear window of a jeep
a misspelled and ungrammatical sentence meant to convey the meaning ''We
will be back''.
But the momentous event has already been overshadowed in Lithuanian
minds, for hot on the heels of the departing soldiers a plane arrived at
Vilnius airport with the green, white and red livery of Alitalia -- it
bore Pope John Paul II on his first visit to territory once part of the
Soviet Union.
There were still some old Soviet emblems around in the form of the
Ilyushins and Tupolevs formerly of Aeroflot but now of the new
Lithuanian airline, but the signs of change were far more striking.
The president of the republic Algirdas Brazauskas, once first
secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party, made the sign of the cross
on the welcoming platform and stood to attention as the rarely performed
and seemingly endless full version of Gounod's Papal Anthem was played
by a band from the country's young army. And the president was quick to
highlight the other great event.
''I would like to draw attention,'' he said, ''to the fact that, on
the eve of your holiness's visit, the last remaining foreign military
units were withdrawn from Lithuania. After 54 years our country has
become absolutely free. This is a very significant coincidence.''
The occasions have indeed been historic. In the space of a single
week, a country which has traditionally looked westward saw the most
important reminder of its dependence on Moscow dissolve and a country of
intense Catholicism returned to Rome but not, perhaps, to the Rome of
today.
One of the most repeated comments from Lithuanians in the streets over
the weekend has been the expression of joy at being visited by the Pope,
tempered by suggestions that John Paul II was too reformist, too much of
a liberal.
As in all post-communist countries there is a certain uneasiness at a
new freedom which so far has brought far more headaches than benefits.
There has been high inflation, the beginnings of unemployment, a
decrease in the standard of living for most people, and a rise in crime.
There is no going back to communism, of course, but there exists a
hankering for a return to the pre-communist womb. A yearning to return
to the days of reasonable prosperity the memories of which have been
passed on by those older Lithuanians who were alive before the Red Army
arrived.
But those were the days before Vatican II, the days of the Latin mass,
the days when the Church played a major role. There were echoes of those
times in Vilnius Cathedral, the first place visited by the Pope on his
arrival on Saturday. From 1956 to 1988 it had been a museum under the
Soviet authorities. Now its baroque interior houses, once again, the
remains of St Casimir, and yesterday it resounded to hymns in Latin and
Lithuanian.
Since early on Saturday morning there were crowds passing through the
square in front of my hotel. Family groups, little knots of teenagers,
crocodiles of schoolchildren led by teacher, all moved towards Cathedral
Square where they joined in the singing of the hymns of vespers relayed
from inside.
The crowd was quiet and respectful rather than in celebratory mood,
conveying the impression, in the president's words, of a ''new civilised
nation with a tradition and culture of its own''. The president and the
government had left little to chance. From Saturday and for five days,
there has been a ban on the sale of alcohol in central Vilnius. Some
visitors from the provinces had a last fling in the restaurant of the
Lietuva Hotel which overlooks the city. The hangover, in the form of a
return to the hard world of market economics, will make itself felt on
Tuesday when the Pope leaves for Latvia for a two-day visit followed by
a day in solidly Lutheran Estonia before returning to Rome.
* Seamus Martin is Moscow Correspondent for the Irish Times.
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