For our stay in Heydekrug we're at a Bed & Breakfast just a short way west of the city in the village of Matzicken (Matcikai). My early internet search didn't show any B&B’s in the city and I didn’t want a hotel. In Matzicken I found a couple but liked the farmstead the best. I did however have to write an actual letter to book rooms - no online booking. I wrote my letter in German figuring it was more likely someone will speak German over English. German tourism plays a big role in the Lithuanian economy, even before the collapse of communism, so locals learned the language to accommodate tourists. The reply I received was prompt and in German! Guess I’ll be able to talk with our host, I thought. The house looks very nice in the pictures (can I trust these photos?). It proved even better in person, lucky for us.
On our arrival the reality was a modern, two-story house surrounded by a large, well kept garden. All of this secured behind a solid looking iron fence. I stop the car just outside the front gate and we walk up the large staircase to the front door. It is the Emilija Petraviciene farmstead – but nothing about it resembled a farm! I knock. The door opens and there stands our hostess, smiling and graciously shows us in. Turns out she doesn’t speak much German at all! But we make do as she shows us around the house. Later during our stay I learned Emilija used the local historical museum staff to do translations and write the reply. It worked.
The inside décor is as lovely and nice as anything
in Western Europe, and more contemporary than typically found in the U.S. This isn’t one of those antique furnished
B&Bs typical in the States. No ruffles,
no colonial décor, no faux antiques. It is modern with lots of natural wood and very
large, thriving houseplants. Amazing considering how far north we are. All the
windows make it very airy and bright.
I made the reservation for two separate rooms to preserve my sanity and attempt to keep the peace. It helped that prices are so cheap. Separate bedrooms should make traveling in close quarters, with round the clock proximity to each other, much easier to. I’m used to traveling and living alone. Mom talks constantly, incessantly. I need quiet time or at least a chance to talk also, if only with myself.
Emilija’s husband instructs me to open the gate and drive the car in where it is protected by the iron fence. We never understand his name so always referred to him as ‘Emilija’s husband’. Additional protection to the property is provided by a large German Shepherd, let loose nights to patrol and keep watch. I’m not sure exactly what the dangers are but remember Aljirdas of the car rental cautioning us about parking the car securely. Seems everyone keeps their cars well secured here if they want to keep their cars at all. And I thought the big European car theft problem was just stealing cars in the west and moving them east for sale. Apparently in-country car theft is also problem, yet there are tons of nice shiny new Mercedes on the road – surely they’ll take that before this used GM Opal.
Emilija’s guests are mainly Germans, like my mother, persons displaced by the war who come back to revisit their former homeland. They are tied to these lands by generations who survived war, pestilence, hardship and forced expulsion. In contrast we in the U.S. are such a mobile population what do people consider their homeland? Do people go back to the windswept plains that blew them away during the Depression? Or others to the farms of their childhood in Ohio where a shopping mall has paved over the fertile fields of their memories? What about going back to today’s Detroit inner city to try to find the old homestead where Irish parents raised the family or in my own childhood a neighborhood where alleys once were clean places to play and hollyhocks grew? I think not.
These newly democratic countries face problems when former land owners come back to reclaim ownership of homes and farms owned before the war. Not only did Germany lose the war, but lost land to foreign occupation and domination. After WWII the eastern provinces, including East Germany, were under communist control with state ownership of land and resources. Farms were realigned to form large collectives. Now these returnees want to throw out the tenants of the last 50 years who call this home. They worked the property, put up with communist economics and years of deprivation; they feel it rightfully to be theirs. A lack of property laws in the former communist areas compounds the problems as there is no legal precedence for resolution. A new set of laws governing property rights needs to be put in place as soon as possible. Meanwhile there is tension as the economically comfortable prior inhabitants return to file their claims for properties. The worst part is these former owners have no intention of actually living here – they look to sell quickly and make money.
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