Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Vilnius Lithuania - Family History

Well kids, the father of your Grandpa Robert Gordon, was actually named Rainkin Kurchinsky. He was born in Vilna Russia, (Now Vilnius Lithuania) in 1886 and changed his name to Gordon when he came to America in 1901. He came through Canada to Boston and had to denounce the Czar (Nicholas) in order to become a citizen.Since it sounds like Colin will have some gigs in Lithuania and other parts of Eastern Europe, I am putting up some photos of Vilnius that I found on-line at http://www.galenfrysinger.com/lithuania_vilnius_2007.htm (Check out some history of the city at this site as well)
This is a photo of Gidimio Tower. Between 1503 and 1522 the city was surrounded with walls that had nine city gates and 3 towers.

Vilnius is the largest city and the capital of Lithuania with a population of over 500,000.


This shows archaeological diggings at the site of a former castle.

There are some fun pictures from this restaurant...
including...



It also has an interesting looking KGB Museum. It is a museum of genocide victims as the result of Soviet occupation from 1940-1991 and was established 10 years ago
in the former KGB Headquarters.


This was an isolation cell.
This is a KGB's officer's desk.

3 comments:

  1. The KGB's desk looks the same as my local banker's desk

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should go listen to his gigs there.Glenn and Colin will feel at home there(maybe?).

    ReplyDelete