Soviet Bunker - the strangest tourist trap in Europe (Lithuania)
As a German shepherd barks and lunges towards them, two dozen audience members scurry down a dimly lit hallway. An army officer, in a camouflage green wool overcoat and cap, menacingly directs them into a room that reeks of mildew and stale cigarettes. Once inside they are forced to face a wall — with their hands behind their backs — covered with a huge red and white Cyrillic banner that reads, “You should be careful and watchful.”
At first there is a smattering of tense giggles and sniggering banter, But over the next 10 minutes, as several people are pulled from the line and interrogated, it all gets rather serious. After being asked rapidfire questions in Russian such as, “Are you involved in selling drugs?” or “Why do you carry foreign currency?”, the unlucky few who have been picked on are either made to do push-ups, sit on their knees with their hands behind their heads or sent for several minutes to a dark cell. One woman who comes back into the room after her solitary confinement is told she must confess that she works as a prostitute and will therefore become a KGB informant. The dog sniffs and nudges at her while she shakily sits down to sign.
If it sounds like a scene taken from the Soviet Union circa 1984 then that is the whole point. The brainchild of Lithuanian theatre producer Ruta Vanagaite, Soviet Bunker — which is a part of the official program of events during Vilnius’s reign—shared with Linz, Austria — as European Capital of Culture 2009 — has been intriguing audiences with its Soviet realism for more than a year.
Soviet Bunker is part of a growing genre of site-specific theatre across the globe. It takes place in a disused bunker outside Vilnius, built in the mid-1980s for Lithuanian television to broadcast in case the capital came under nuclear attack—with performance art. The actors in Soviet Bunker are more like bossy improv artists who direct the audience through the five-metre-deep bunker; there is no fixed script and the actors’ interactions with the audience members are the mainstay of the show...
Read entire article at Times (UK)
At first there is a smattering of tense giggles and sniggering banter, But over the next 10 minutes, as several people are pulled from the line and interrogated, it all gets rather serious. After being asked rapidfire questions in Russian such as, “Are you involved in selling drugs?” or “Why do you carry foreign currency?”, the unlucky few who have been picked on are either made to do push-ups, sit on their knees with their hands behind their heads or sent for several minutes to a dark cell. One woman who comes back into the room after her solitary confinement is told she must confess that she works as a prostitute and will therefore become a KGB informant. The dog sniffs and nudges at her while she shakily sits down to sign.
If it sounds like a scene taken from the Soviet Union circa 1984 then that is the whole point. The brainchild of Lithuanian theatre producer Ruta Vanagaite, Soviet Bunker — which is a part of the official program of events during Vilnius’s reign—shared with Linz, Austria — as European Capital of Culture 2009 — has been intriguing audiences with its Soviet realism for more than a year.
Soviet Bunker is part of a growing genre of site-specific theatre across the globe. It takes place in a disused bunker outside Vilnius, built in the mid-1980s for Lithuanian television to broadcast in case the capital came under nuclear attack—with performance art. The actors in Soviet Bunker are more like bossy improv artists who direct the audience through the five-metre-deep bunker; there is no fixed script and the actors’ interactions with the audience members are the mainstay of the show...