RUSNE (Lithuania): There couldn’t have been a better way to make a point in non-violence.

Lithuania, one of the major Baltic countries facing an impending threat of invasion from Russia after its recent annexation of Crimea in Ukraine, will unveil the statue of Mahatma Gandhi a few hundred metres from the Russian border.

The Russian Enclave of Kaliningrad and the village of Rusne in western Lithuanian with a meagre population of 3000 people face each other and are divided by a narrow stretch of a local river.

In a major statement of peace, Lithuanian prime minister Algirdas Butkevicius and Gandhi’s grandson and former governor of West Bengal Gopal Krishna Gandhi will unveil to the world a statue of friendship between Gandhi and Jewish architect Hermann Kallenbach on October 2.

Kallenbach was born in Rusne.

The local municipality officials have chosen a prime spot right next to the river and by a historic Jewish synagogue to install the monument.

It is expected to become a major tourist draw besides playing the part of spreading Gandhi’s doctrine of non-violence.

In an exclusive interview to TOI, Vytautas Laurinaitis, the mayor of the district of Silute said “Gandhi and his philosophy are taught to our students and his life story is included in their text books. However Kallenbach was the major discovery for us that Gandhi. We had extensive debate over the location. We want to show it as Kallenbach returning to his home”.

“We will now beautify the entire route along the river to the monument. The spot is very well visible and nothing blocks the view. Not only will the monument be seen by Lithuanians but also by Russians on the other side. The municipality has contributed 10,000 euros which will be used for landscaping the area and creating a pedestrian walk”.

Deputy mayor Virgilius Pozingis says that during summer, 32 cruise liners dock at the Klaipeda sea port each carrying around 3000 passengers.

“It is therefore bound to become a major tourist destination. People will also learn about Gandhi’s philosophy. After the monument is unveiled in October, we expect the tourist numbers to go up by three times,” Pozingis added.

Lithuanian sculptor Romas Kvintas is almost done with creating a life size bronze statue of the two historic figures at the village of Kallenbach’s birth.

Kvintas told TOI “I have been researching extensively and collecting visual images on Gandhi for my statue. I have watched the movie Gandhi by Ben Kingsley several times and it has left a major mark on me. The statue is almost 1.9 metres tall. My monument of Gandhi will be one of the finest made on the great Indian philosopher”.

The money to commission the statue was raised by Lithuania’s ambassador to India Laimonas Talat Kelpsa.

Kallenbach was introduced to the young Mohandas Gandhi while they were both working in South Africa and after a series of discussions they developed an intimate and long lasting friendship. Kallenbach was born in 1871 as the third eldest out of seven children of a German-Jewish family. In 1896, he went to South Africa to join his uncles in Johannesburg, where he practiced as an architect. Hermann studied architecture in Stuttgart and Munich and later became a South African citizen. A skilled ice-skater, swimmer, cyclist and gymnast, and a successful architect, Kallenbach acquired considerable property in South Africa.

Yet a major transformation in his life took place after he met Mahatma Gandhi.

In 1904 he met Gandhi, who was then working in South Africa. They had long discussions on religious and other issues. He was highly influenced by Gandhi’s ideas of Satyagraha and equality among human beings and became his intimate friend and a dedicated devotee.

In 1910 Kallenbach, then a rich man, donated to Gandhi a thousand acre farm belonging to him near Johannesburg.

The farm was used to run Gandhi’s famous “Tolstoy Farm” that housed the families of satyagrahis.

Abandoning the life of a wealthy, sport-loving bachelor, he adopted a simple lifestyle, vegetarian diet and equality politics of Gandhi on this farm.

In Gandhi’s words, they became “soulmates” and, for a time, shared Kallenbach’s home. Kallenbach also accompanied Gandhi in his first penitential fast at Phoenix in 1913. Kallenbach also acted as a manager during Gandhi’s epic march.

He also accompanied Gandhi and his wife on their final voyage from South Africa to London in “1914. Gandhi and Kallenbach used to call each other as “Upper House” and “Lower House” respectively.

Kallenbach planned to accompany Gandhi to India in 1914, but with the outbreak of World War I he was interned as an enemy alien at detention camps and shifted to the Isle of Man as a prisoner of war from 1915 to 1917. After the war he returned to South Africa, where he resumed his work as an architect and continued to correspond with Gandhi.

The rise of Nazism and Hitler’s anti-Jewish propaganda shocked Kallenbach into a rediscovery of his Jewish roots. He became a Zionist, served on the Executive of the South African Zionist Federation and planned to settle in Palestine (Ere? Israel to Jews).

At the request of Moshe Shertok (Sharett), Kallenbach visited Gandhi in May 1937 to enlist his sympathy and support for Zionism. The architect once again became a simple man, participating in all the activities of Gandhi’s ashram life.

Kallenbach died in 1945. He left a portion of his considerable estate for South African Indians, but the bulk was left for the benefit of Zionism. His large collection of books went to the Hebrew University, and his cremated remains were buried at Deganyah.