Summer resort weathers the winter freeze

  • 1999-01-14
  • Paul Beckman
The tiny costal resort town of Nida, a top vacation spot in the summer months, becomes a virtual ghost town come winter. Paul Beckman wandered over to the Baltic Sea coast to see how the locals keep afloat when the days get short.

When Lithuanians are asked to recommend summer vacation spots in their country, two places consistently top the list: Nida and Palanga.

Although they are both called coastal resort towns, Nida's tinier size lends to its reputation of being the more peaceful and easy-going option. Still, its serene summer atmosphere seems oddly vivacious when compared to its appearance come winter; the place is a veritable ghost town. For local business folk, the off-season dry spell causes yearly financial worries.

One local businessman defined the profitable summer season as May through October. Naturally, when the summer gravy train stops making its rounds, many business people spend an ample chunk of the off-season trying to stretch their previously-earned profits over the dry months.


The extremes

Despite Nida's tiny size, it is dotted with a number of hotels called "rest houses." According to a manager of such a hotel called Ruta's, each establishment tinkers with different off-season strategies. Some choose to close down completely until the more lucrative season begins. Others stay open the whole year, usually operating with a skeleton crew consisting of the upper administration.

"The off-season is very difficult," the manager said. "About five rest houses remain open at this time. New Year provides a small spark in business, but after that, just a few visitors trickle in on the weekends. During the summer season, our rest house is almost fully occupied. Even as early as January we start getting calls for summer reservations. In the mean time, we have to rely on the previous summer's profits to make ends meet."

For some locals, finding a job in the hotels can prove challenging even during peak season. The hotels' need for employees with English and German language skills attracts students and people from other parts of the country to seek seasonal work in the town.

Rest houses often offer a wide variety of services. Heated indoor pools, saunas, exercise rooms and billiard tables would seem to add enough fluff to attract some winter tourists in search of a bit of pampering. To sweeten the deal, rest houses which remain open slash their room fees. Ruta's for example chops their normal 120 litas ($30) per night fee in half during the off-season.

The lack of winter tourists, however, corrodes even these perks. Rest houses prefer to not squander summer profits on heating pools or firing up saunas for the occasional visitor. So as some prices plummet, others become humorously high. The Lithuanian Telecom rest house features a heated pool which costs the summer visitor between 15 and 20 litas per hour. The winter guest, on the other hand, would have to fork over 150 litas to cover the heating expense. Comparable figures apply to saunas at Ruta's.


Fishy winters

Nida's seaside location offers an irreplaceable treat for fish-loving tourists. An endless supply of fresh smoked fish can be found at the turn of nearly every corner. The fisherman and smokers, however are not exempt from the winter doldrums. In addition to a decrease in demand during the winter months, they apparently face other problems as well.

Antanas Spirgis, a local fish smoker, established his own tiny company with just a handful of employees. Before this winter, he said they usually did not work at all with fish in the off-season. Now, he claims to have no choice.

"Because I have established a company, it doesn't matter if I work or not in the off-season. I still have to pay some sort of taxes," said Spirgis. "So for the first winter I decided I might as well continue working."

Spirgis described his first winter of smoking fish as especially bizarre. If duelling with the tax man and yearning for the summer sales were not challenging enough, he said even the winter weather was playing tricks.

"The ice in the lagoon makes it very difficult for the fishermen to actually get a decent catch," Spirgis explained. "At the moment it's too thick to take a boat out, but it's too thin to ice fish on."

Nevertheless, Spirgis still manages to get some fish. After completing the eight-hour long smoking process, he distributes his work to nearby "fish kiosks" for local consumers.


Good Neighbors?

For the past couple of centuries, Lithuanians have had trouble identifying any advantage of being nestled between the geographical bosoms of Russia and Germany. For Nidans, however, this position is starting to pay off.

Every year, scores of German tourists come to Nida because of their historical roots planted in the "once East-Prussian" area. Besides, compared with closer summer hot spots in Germany or Denmark, a trip to Nida often proves to be financially sensible for the Germans who come.

Just on the other side of Nida's towering sand dunes lies the Kaliningrad region. The no-entry-visa-required deal that exists between the region and Lithuania makes Nida a hassle free vacation location for the Kaliningrad Russians, who come even for winter holidays. The manager at Ruta's said their rest house is now also attempting to attract tourists from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

"We've established relations with a Russian tourist agency in the bigger cities," he said. "They organize trips to come here."

Because winter still lurks, the locals of Nida will have to continue tightening their purse strings. But as the seasons begin to change in a couple of months, the empty streets of the cold, little fishing village will once again be filled with visitors, enjoying the only Nida they know.