Page 8 - Revelation
P. 8

Svetlana de Rohan-Levashova.   Revelation

            sunny summer days, not yet blurred with sorrows and many other things, light and
            cloudless like our far away childhood itself, are summoned to mind.

                  I was born in Lithuania, in a small and strikingly green town called Alitus, far
            from the stormy life of famous people and "great powers". It had then only about 35
            000 inhabitants who mostly lived in their own private houses surrounded by orchards
            and flower-gardens. An ancient forest which stretched for kilometres embraced our
            princely small town giving the impression of an enormous green bowl in which it
            placidly and peacefully snuggled, living its tranquil life.
                  It  was  built in  1400  by  a  Lithuanian prince, Alitis, on  the bank  of  the  wide
            beautiful river Nemunas. More precisely, a castle was built first, and the tiny town
            around it appeared later. The river looped around the town, as if creating some kind
            of natural protection, in the middle of which the blue mirrors of three small forest
            lakes glittered.




















                                Alitus                                 Islands on the river Nemunas




















                    One of the three lakes in the city               Neman, where we went for a swim
                  Regrettably, today nothing is left of the ancient castle; only its ruins survived to
           see the present day as it gradually turned into an enormous hill the top of which grants
           an amazing view of the river. The ruins were the most favourite and enigmatic place of
           our childhood games. It was a place of spirits and ghosts which, for us, still seemed to
           live in these old tumbledown underground tunnels and looked for "victims" to drag into
           their mysterious underground world. Only the bravest boys dared to go into them deep
           and far enough to return afterwards and scare their less bold mates with frightful stories.




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