Lithuania’s Worst Theme Park in the World

Back in Port Elizabeth, we had a traveling fair that would set up shop around December each year. It had been dubbed ‘Pleasure Land’, and to this day I wonder whether that was supposed to be ironic, or an in-joke between whichever deviants and/or variety of sexual predators got the place going to begin with.

Sure, that kid belongs to her.

Cracked tracks, rumours of serious derailings and the uncomfortable attention to detail on the bikini-clad, decapitated mannequins in the Horror House aside, the place still held an attraction. A child is basically a mockingbird with the capacity for producing larger poops. Blinky lights and cotton candy draw them like flies to… well, theme parks. Mix in the partially veiled promise of imminent demise, and no amount of blacked-out vans smelling vaguely of boiled sweets and lye will keep them away.

In the end, it’s all about having fun.

This is something that the Lithuanians have never understood.

Enter the Lithuania’s idea of a jolly good time: being herded into an ancient Soviet bunker, six meters beneath the ground, in the arse end of nowhere, and allowing yourself to be physically and verbally abused, Cold War style.

My bags are packed already

The 1984 Bunker is glaring proof that no-one ever bothered to teach Lithuania how to have fun. While all the other countries were off sharing chocolate malts and necking over at Lookout Point, Lithuania was smoking cigarettes out behind the woodshed, dissecting amphibians and attending to his vintage, The Cure, vinyl collection.

Attractions include being strip searched, interrogated, tortured (with fire) and being forced to confront a barking, snarling Alsation, it’s teeth and jaws snapping bare inches form your groin, whose day job involves the location and exhumation of dead people. True Story.

“Go on, ask me what I did today. Or, better yet, smell my breath.”

All this in the name of history. Apparently, a large portion of the youth are miffed that they got to miss out on all the fun during WWII and the Cold War, like the famine, paranoia and, oh yes, the Russians. In order to fully understand their past, they explain, they need to experience it, which is a little like an English major saying that the only way he will ever manage to fully comprehend the Marquis de Sadé is to corn-hole a wood chipper.

And did we mention that many of the ‘interrogators’ are 100% ex-KGB agents? One has to sign an indemnity form well before setting foot anywhere near this hell hole, which is unsurprising when you hear the owner making jokes about the multiple times that their interrogators (professional killers) have grown a little overenthusiastic (suffered horrid, PTSD flashbacks) during their performances (squeal pig sqeal swine get my hands red and sticky do you see that know where it comes from this lumpy ball of red well I promise you it’s not where it’s supposed to be). Walking into this cement tomb of insanity is, in a very real way, tantamount to stepping into Charlie Manson’s cell and paying him to pretend-kill you.

You know, for your education.