The Baltics

Exploring ex-SSR’s

As I write this, it has been over 10 years since Rob and I made our second O.A.T. (Overseas Adventure Travel) trip. And this particular tour was as close to a dream come true as could be.

As a child growing up in a largely Irish Catholic parish in the ’60s, I was intrigued by the idea that our family was NOT, in fact, part of the ubiquitous Irish diaspora; it had originated from two small, seemingly insignificant eastern European countries which, until 1989-90, were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. Their position “on the dark side” meant current information was scarce. Any articles or images that did make it across the western world’s great ideological divide were muted in shadowy tones of Soviet evil–as we were continually reminded.

I was an avid reader of random encyclopedia volumes back in the day. Talk about going down a rabbit hole! At home, I relished our several sets: the 16-volume Golden Book Encyclopedia (until I cut it up for various school projects), the 20-volume Golden Home & High School Encyclopedia (sacrosanct!) and the authoritative 5-volume Columbia (as in the university) Encyclopedia. (I still have those!) In schools and public libraries, World Book Encyclopedias were my go-to source for a quick reading fix.

(Was it undiagnosed ADHD that attracted me to these mid-century equivalents of collected sound bites?)

Once I found out that both of my paternal grandparents had emigrated from “Lithuania” (It was tsarist Russia then), I became a sponge longing to absorb as much information as I could on their region of origin.

(I have no explanation as to why I never actually asked them any questions about the old country while they were still with us. A missed opportunity.)

While my research was less than in-depth, what historical information I did find was accurate but sparse. Not surprising since my data sources were written for a self-centered American audience that cared little about the rest of the world once the great wars ended. In most of these narratives, time/progress/news/etc. seemed to stop around 1940…and there was little or no new information to be had thereafter. And, in the encyclopedic world, every entry on Lithuania carried some version of the same ominous phrase:

“…since 1940 a constituent republic of the USSR, but still unrecognized as such by the United States.”
-Columbia Encyclopedia, Second Edition, Vol. III, 1960

I always wondered why this great country of ours never came to the “rescue” of our little Baltic homeland and its sister nations — until I learned more about our own “great” history, even today, of both ignoring and instigating all sorts of amoral and immoral deeds, all in pursuit of the mighty American dollar. Sometimes, ignorance can truly be a blessing.

With my childhood curiosity thwarted by this lack of information, my longing to explore our familial roots was supplanted by newer interests — although never completely. Hearing an off-handed remark or finding a written reference to anything Lithuanian still piqued my interest.

And then, in 2010, a distant (and hitherto unknown) cousin in Cleveland contacted me. He had been communicating with a mutual Lithuanian relative, Česlovas, who was also doing research on the Švedkauskas (i.e. Swetkis) family tree. Česlovas asked the Cleveland relative to seek out our family. The ultimate trigger!

(Too) long story short: I began researching the family genealogy on my father’s side. My Lithuanian cousin provided a wealth of information on the family going back to the 1500s and a back-and-forth exchange of gathered information ensued. Then, in June of 2012, Rob and I took the ultimate leap by journeying to meet the family while getting to exploring these hitherto veiled worlds.

Thus our adventure began, starting in the three Baltic countries and their capitals and ending with a 2-day visit to Russia’s Baltic jewel (and former capital), St. Petersburg.