This small hill has hundreds of thousands of crosses spread
all throughout. Big crosses, small crosses, wooden crosses, and metal crosses.
Tons of crosses! Originally, just a few were placed on the hill to represent
the lives of four martyrs in the area. However, they were taken away only to be
replaced again by even more crosses by other people. The crosses would
eventually be bulldozed into the ground and replaced once again. This cycle
continued until the man bulldozing the hill took his young son with him on the
dozer. Unfortunately, the little boy fell off and was run over by the
bulldozer, which ended his life. From then on, nobody bothered to remove the
crosses from the hill resulting in a place of remembrance and prayer for many
people. Most crosses looked very old, but some were dated as recent as last
April. There are many stories behind this amazing site which still today influences many people in Lithuania.
After we left the Hill of Crosses, we traveled to a very
large buffet restaurant in Riga, Latvia, which reminded me of a Latvian version of Country
Cupboard except that the food was really good. Those from home can relate. Now we are on a sleeper train for 16
hours until we reach Moscow. There we will be busy for 5 days participating in
several corporate visits like Coca-Cola and Mars.
