OPEN ARCHIVES OF KAUNAS

*Neringa: *In childhood, our parents would bring us to Vytauto Park. Back then, the roofs of Orbita looked like the caps of amanita mushrooms. This carousel was perceived as big children entertainment. So, what was left for us? The slow-paced Saulutė. In my early memories, children's festivals would take place in the park; it was possible to buy cotton candy and ride a pony. When the travelling American amusement park arrived at Kaunas, my mother protested our desire to go there and pay more than needed for our screams and flashing lights, so she brought us to Vytauto Park. She said that we would stay here just for a little while. The silence in the park was sometimes disturbed by tiny cars driven by its visitors. Right then, five minutes in a ship turned into an hour full of the simple joy of wind, and nothing better could have happened at that moment. I feel so thankful for her incredible patience watching her daughters from the bench. I come back here every spring for more than five years. Every time, I bring some people for whom this is a discovery. Now in my memories I see carousels, big ones, lots of slow conversations, Lithuanian music playing on the summer stage on weekends, with old ladies wearing starched collars waiting for the dancing on the little stage. Vytauto Park can be described as a little universe with its own spirit. But its crown does not belong to the carousels, their ancient demeanour and wild atmosphere, but rather to Regina, the employee who oversees a part of the park. I remember her presence in this space all the time and cannot imagine it without her. Without her, it would be a simple attraction. She somehow fills the space. Even when she stopped dyeing her hair orange and started to ignore the greying effect of time, she remained just as energetic: painted ladybugs on carousels, and if she recognized us, she would reproach us (“Why do you come so late this year?”). Sometimes she would wink and let us ride Orbita free of charge. This once, when I brought a group of foreigners, she got excited and started telling about her youth, when once at night, at Kaunas Botanical Garden, she caught a glimpse of a blossom of a large-flowered cactus that blooms once a year, and the other time, she told us about the real tree of knowledge: something about a walnut tree growing nearby and squirrels. Things like this helps you understand that sharing is good. Only each time, you return to the park as an old, somewhat guilty acquaintance, but not a conspirator enough for this to last for a little bit longer. This photo is for Regina. I have always wanted to give her this. (2014)

*Arūnas*: “I spent my childhood and youth in Kaunas. I managed to find a few photos. It makes me happy that people captured in them are still alive and well. So are the lions. The first photo was taken in 1956. From the left: me, my cousin Vytautas, my cousin Laimutė and sister Rūta. The second one was taken in the spring of 1969. While studying in Kaunas Polytechnic Institute (KPI), we had a big beat band Meteorai and before a trip abroad, we decided to shoot our promo photos in the garden of the Museum of War which was dear and interesting for us. From the left: me, keyboard, drummer Antanas Mačys, guitar players and vocals Gerardas Balaišis and Jonas Toleikis. Some of them have not parted with music to this day. We all wanted to be the Beatles in those times. We were restless. So, I am sending you another photo, without lions, capturing the attempt to fire at the central office of KPI with one of the museum's cannons...” (2018)

Laumė café that was working during the Soviet times was famous for its good coffee and sweets but the most important thing there was the sense of community. Youngsters who lived in the spirit of Laumė became a subculture of sorts, a group that called themselves lauminiai.

*Arkadijus Vinokuras (member of the "Company"**):* We were proud of Kaunas, and the situation of Lithuania hurt us, so a lot of us would carry a litas coin featuring Duke Vytautas from the Smetona times. Miesto Sodas has become the symbol of wanting freedom, a little island of anti-conformism and the hippie movement itself was an important phenomenon as an explosion of freedom in the Soviet Kaunas and Lithuania.

Eugenija: "I saw the graves of Darius and Girėnas in the institute. I was admitted to the medicine institute in 1945. As a student I was curious to see them. There was a chapel. In the chapel there were two graves. In the Soviet times. When the Germans came, the medicine institute got closed. Although some people were let to finish their year. At that time I was in my first year. I went there one day, the graves were no longer there. There’s a story to this. The faculty of the pharmaceutical chemistry was on the third floor. There were a lot of spirits there. German soldiers were put on duty near the institute. Because they thought that these were those graves. Darius and Girėnas were hit by Germans. In the faculty worked professor Šiaulis, he basically lived there, because he was a bachelor. I worked for him when I finished the institute. There also lived a man responsible for fires, Rauba. Professor Šiaulis along with Rauba invited the German soldiers, made them drink a ton of alcohol, gave them some ham and whilst the Germans were drunk the two men made a hole in a wall, put the two graves in it, and plastered the wall to finish it off. The graves had vanished. When the Russians came back, they built a mausoleum in the old cemetery." (2019)

*Audronė:* „Katedros šventorius buvo atskirtas plačia tvora, viduje buvo parduotuvytės. Smetonos laikais, pasakojo, buvo vien tiktai religinė atributika, o tuomet, žinau, ir mūsų namų valdybos poskyris. Ir įėjimas iš kampo, didžiuliai vartai. Šaligatvis daug mažesnis, Vilniaus gatvė – tokia suspausta, bet judėjimas vyko ir autobusais, ir priešpriešinis. Eismą uždarė gal 1973 m. Buvo keista.“ (2019)

*Vitalijus: *I remember Romuva from my childhood. A very long time ago, when my brother and I were little, we saw Phantomas here. Behind the cinema, there was an ice-rink, and we would go there to have fun with other children. Cinema was not an expensive entertainment option back then. It would cost 10 kopeks for children, and evening screenings, the most popular ones, would cost 70 kopeks. The room was divided into areas: more expensive in the front and less expensive in the back.

*Asija*: ”A protest happened in Ramybės (Serenity) Park, after which it was decided to remove the cemetery located in the park. Three schools were located near the cemetery and we (students at the time) saw everything from very close. Male teenagers could not miss such an event. They scavenged graves and brought found bones into the classroom in order to scare girls. Braver ones went deeper into the graves and showed everyone crosses or rings they had managed to find. This was a most horrifying period of Kaunas history. It united us with the Lithuanians.” (2017)

*Audronė*: ,,Gyvenau ir ligi šiol gyvenu name, kuriame yra ,,Medžiotojų užeigos“ restoranas. Papuoliau į visai kitą aplinką. Iki 1953 m. augau Žaliakalnyje, ten – žalia, gražu, o čia papuoliau tiesiai ant bruko. Bet žinot, kaip vaikui – labai greitai viskas pasikeitė. Kiemai – pilni vaikų, butai buvo komunaliniai, tai tų šeimų – daug, vaikų – daug; nesudarė man jokio didelio skirtumo. Tik tas, kad Nemunas šalia. Buvo daug draugų, daug šurmulio. Kai paskaičiuoju, kažkur apie trisdešimt kieme. O dabar nė vieno nėra. Žaidimai būdavo labai šaunūs: aišku, policininkai ir vagys – ir apimdavo visą pusę senamiesčio: pilį; eidavom nuo vieno turgaus iki kito turgaus. Senamiesty jų buvo trys: vienas, kur dabar prie Pilies autobusų aikštelė, stotis; kitas, žuvies turgus skvere – ten, kur dabar pastatyti namai; ir trečiasis – Gertrūdos ir Gimnazijos gatvių kampe. Iki dabar Rotušė pakeitė savo veidą tris kartus. Pirmiausia buvo smėlėta didelė aikštė. Priešais Jėzuitų gimnaziją buvo slėptuvės, turbūt likusios nuo Pirmo pasaulinio karo. Slėptuvės ir purvina, medžiais apsodinta aikštė. Vėliau dalį medžių panaikino, dalį – pasodino ir padarė vidury didžiulę klombą, pačioje Rotušės aikštės viduryje. Į ją takai ėjo nuo kiekvieno kampo - tokia žvaigždės forma. Buvo suoliukai, aišku, buvo ir pavėsio. Po to išklojo šitą grindinį. Tai – jau trečias Rotušės vaizdas. Pati Rotušės aikštė buvo, galima sakyti, ketvirtas turgus. Aikštėje buvo priemiestinė autobusų stotis, aplinkui visur stodavo autobusai. Ties kiekvienu kampu stovėjo po gazirovkės vežimėlį, kaip mes sakydavome. Prekyba vykdavo iš rankų. Kur dabar stovi Maironio paminklas, buvo benzino kolonėlė. Maironio name, pirmame aukšte, buvo vaikų darželis. Aš jo nelankiau, bet daug mano klasiokų lankė.

*Liuda Riaukienė*: “My grandparents Povilas and Vanda Tarnauskai were shareholders of Versalis company. They founded it with two more friends in 1930. Tarnauskas also worked in the kitchen as a chef, and Tarnauskienė was a cashier. In some sense, she was the face of the restaurant: her duty was to welcome everyone and smile to the guests. [...] The restaurant had a very large kitchen. The food was of very high quality. The wine would be provided from the wine cellar that was located at the corner of Laisvės Alėja and Maironio Street. My grandfather learned his culinary skills in Petrograd, where he went specifically for this purpose. There was no one else like him in Kaunas, who could organise such luxurious receptions and cook various birds, pheasants and so on. While he worked, there used to always be a porcelain decanter with krupnik or Lithuanian wine nearby: he used to sip it while cooking. If it wasn't for my grandfather's culinary skills, both of them would have been deported with the first trains, but as I have said, no one else could have organised receptions as he did. [...] Restaurant Versalis had its own orchestra, with a leader of Jewish origin, Jaša Kašinski. This restaurant was the only one in Kaunas with cabaret featured in its evening programme. Cabaret dances usually were dancers hired mostly from abroad (Germany, the First Czechoslovak Republic), also two Lithuanian girls, sisters Irena and Genutė Lyvaitės (when they worked at Versalis, they were both approximately 17 years-old). The girls used to dance on a round stage in the hall. The restaurant was frequented by high officials and artists. Theatre director Borisas Dauguvietis and his wife used to come here often as well. Count Jonas Benediktas Tiškevičius rented a room in Versalis hotel for quite a long time.

*Gercas:* "Basically, all amateur activities had to go through a selection process. There had to be songs in Russian and Lithuanian. Amateur activities were allowed, but I am almost completely sure that there were people infiltrated in them as well. Director Judelis Rondaris decided to create a drama in Jewish language (Yiddish) and he needed people who new Jewish (Yiddish). I could speak it quite well and I liked acting. The play was called “Shalom Aleichem”. We were envied by dancers and singers, because they wanted to sing and dance more. They met our drama with hostility, but residents of Kaunas liked it very much. Our audience was not only Jewish, but also Lithuanian and of mixed families. There are quite a few mixed families among us." (2018)

*D.B.:* Even though that for most residents of Kaunas, Picture Gallery seems as located in a Bermuda triangle, to me it has probably become a symbolic place, where I made the decision about my profession. My mother told me that she would bring me here quite often (I remember those visits like a mirage...), and supervisors, according to her, could not hide their surprise seeing a little girl exploring each item so thoroughly.