The synagogue in the town of Alanta in the Molėtai region stands on slight hill side a little bit away from Ukmergės street on the right-hand side of the Alanta-Molėtai road. It is unique in Lithuania and Europe. It is one of only seventeen surviving wooden synagogues spread across Lithuania. Judging from its shape, it is thought it was built in the late 19th century. The Alanta synagogue is the only surviving synagogue from the Romantic period with an intact interior and interior stairs left in Lithuania.

The renovated synagogue will be handed over to the Molėtai regional administration for managing public use of the state-protected heritage site for cultural, educational and tourism activities including exhibits and tours teaching local Jewish history.

by Rytas Sakavičius

One average day doing my usual thing, scrolling through facebook, an entry caught my eye about a European who is a national hero of Zambia. The most interesting part was his surname, Zukas.

It sounded familiar, but I didn’t really believe it: is it possible we wouldn’t know about this person? We so love stories about people whose ancestors came from Lithuania and it hardly matters whether they identified themselves with Lithuania. Not expecting much, I put “Simon Zukas” into a search engine. The results were suprising. Born July 31, 1925, in Ukmergė [Vilkomir], Lithuania. That’s when I got interested, thinking it strange such an important and exceptional African political figure might be completely unknown in his native land.