The Stones Cry Out

     Why is Soviet architecture so ugly? On a Road Scholar tour to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, I saw a lot of it, and, boy, is it ugly. When the USSR had control of those countries, they plunked these bare concrete boxes down next to variously colored and ornately decorated homes and shops from previous centuries which have kept their charm. Not that baroque is exactly my cup of kvass, but it’s fanciful and ebullient. Earlier styles have symmetry and decoration. Soviet brutalism (the perfect name) is not fanciful or ebullient. It’s the wet blanket of European architecture.

     In Tallinn, Estonia, they’ve tried perching super-modern glass enclosures on top of the brutish concrete. My personal jury is still out on that technique. Points for effort. In all three countries, they’re working on renovating the depressing structures to make them more attractive. It takes a lot of time and a lot of money and, no doubt, a mighty effort of the spirit.

     I asked my fellow Scholars, “Why is Soviet architecture so ugly?” A couple of the engineering-minded men opined, “It’s cheap.” The Soviet occupiers wanted to make their presence known for as few rubles as possible. And a woman added they didn’t do any maintenance either; they just let things rust. All of this made sense, but something else still whispered on the edge of my awareness.

     Then I got a chance to visit with a Lithuanian friend of a friend. He kindly drove me around the city of Vilnius, saving my poor tired feet and giving me a different perspective. So I asked Egidijus, “Why is Soviet architecture so ugly?” He answered without a pause, “Because they reject God.” The pieces dropped into place. The human ability to create and appreciate beauty is a gift from the One Who made us in His image. Gazing on beauty may nudge our thoughts to the sublime and get us thinking that there is something, Someone, higher than the state. And if we’re building the Soviet Man, we can’t have that, can we?

     The brave and beautiful Baltic countries have come a long way since throwing off Soviet rule. May they have all success in covering the lumps and scars with beauty. And may they know whence comes their help.

Fort IX

     Outside Kaunas, Lithuania, the bus turns down a fairy-tale lane where leafy branches brush the windows on both sides. The lane opens onto gentle green hills as smooth as a golf green, looking softer than down. The setting calls for picnics and kites and curly-haired babies taking first steps. But to the left is a concrete sculpture that blasts from the earth in three tall jagged sections. I can’t make sense of it and must turn my eyes away.    

Our guide leads us to a dent in the earth, too large for a ditch, not quite a ravine. It is covered with the soft green grass. At the far end is a brick and stucco wall, pocked and scarred in patches. Perhaps from bullets. This is Fort IX. 

     A paved plaza is lined with memorial plaques, one for Russian soldiers and many for the Jews, the 50,000 people killed here. The city of Munich acknowledges with shame and mourns the thousand Jewish citizens who were sent to this place to die. Their plaque is a blue mosaic riddled with black lines like cracks.    

     Time to look at the fortress built into a hill by the Russian Tsar’s army for a garrison. At first, it has an image of Old World charm, a pink wall and a red brick enclosure with green-roofed turrets. But when you get closer, you see the barbed wire. When the Soviets came, they used it as a prison. When the Nazis came, they made it a death camp. 

     We learn that one Japanese diplomat stood for humanity by issuing visas to allow Jews to escape. Some Lithuanians hid their Jewish neighbors. Others turned the Jews in and helped to murder them.    

We have read the memorials and looked into the depths. Now we turn to face the sculpture. It roars and rages, masses of arms and fists and furious faces, jagged, frightening, overwhelming. Like the memory. Like the truth. It stabs upward through the grassy earth and shrieks at the sky. In a beautiful world, men still work evil.

     I don’t see any birds, not even a pigeon or a piebald crow. There are flowers, though, along the paths, under the fences, tiny wild ones like purple clover and Queen Anne’s lace and bright yellow flashes of some brave little blossom. Small, but alive. Small, but real. Innocent and beautiful. Thank God. We drive away, brushed once more by the green leaves.