KURISCHE NEHRUNG

Up there on the Sarmatian shores, the river Neman flows through a delta to the Curonian Lagoon. The lagoon is separated from the sea, the Baltic, by the Curonian Spit. This wonderful promontory is a hundred kilometers long and often no more than a few hundred metres wide. The sky arches upwards, the wind has blown enormous sand dunes ahead of itself between pine and birch trees. The area has been settled by Curonians and Germans. After World War I the northern part of the Curonian Spit became Lithuanian, and after World War II the southern half became Russian. The film takes place in Ribachi and Nida. Today they are inhabited mainly by Russians and Lithuanians, though a few Germans have remained in the Lithuanian part of the spit.