OPEN ARCHIVES OF KAUNAS

*Asija:* “The most important place for me was the Sobor. Pretty much all of the most significant memories were associated with this building. I remember when a whole bunch of children ran to the Sobor, as a neighbour from a nearby house was getting married there. It was my first encounter with Lithuanian traditions and with the God in the church. I remember when we ran up the stairs and saw the bride with a veil, long white bridal gown and a church decorated with flowers.

*Alvydas Vaitkevičius: *I found this picture at booksellers next to Merkurijus without any inscriptions or signs...

*Alma: *Some time ago, this university was called Kaunas Polytechnic Institute and the campus was built only around 1975.  Specific dorms were designated for students from specific faculties and they would not be mixed. Different floors were divided for ladies and gentlemen. The discipline was strict. There was a lot of stress for students, when at 8 in the morning, someone would come to see if they have left for the lectures, and whether some rascals stayed in and slept. A few of us would go: laboratory assistants, rector or superintendent and, of course, the correspondent. Back then, we did not know the word 'journalist'.  The journalist was from the paper 'Tarybinis mokslas' (The Soviet Science).  He would travel with some old camera, thrown over his shoulder.  If he found someone sleeping, he would publish it in the paper immediately and the paper would travel around and be pinned on all notice boards in dorms and faculties. It is nice to remember what discipline it has been, when students would go to study wearing jackets, skirts, costumes and hats. Also, a lot of students would come from Latvia and Estonia. It is nice to notice the former students from Latvia still coming to see the dorm where they lived 20 or even 30 years ago. (2014)

*Gintaras: *Žalgiris Stadium was not only a place of sports events; people were also interested in the shows by stunt drivers from Czechoslovakia. You can only imagine how running tracks looked after their performances. :) The Soviet government took interest not only in the health of the sportsmen, but sophisticated pastime of the audience as well: next to the stadium (and in a lot of other places in the city), there were glass pavilions with drink vending machines. Here people could chat and discuss episodes from the matches and their results. Fifty kopeks and a glass of cheap wine called rašalas (‘ink, a derogatory term for cheap, poor quality wine) would quickly relax not only the tongue but brain as well... This place to get drunk has been replaced by a Hesburger restaurant, and instead of the stadium, there is MOLAS Shopping Mall. :) (2014)

*Greta:* To me, VMU equals study years. When I was still at school, I dreamed of studying in Vilnius, but VMU has been re-established for just several years, and it was so tempting, since it had a new study programme, and it was a completely new university without any Soviet traditions, full of promise that things here would be different, Western.:)  During the admission, Liucija Baškauskaitė (!) spoke to me (besides entrance exams, there was also an interview about motivation). Later lectures were delivered by a famous anthropology professor Arvydas Žygas (whose then incomprehensible yet enchanting lectures I started attending while still at school). There was also now-legendary Gintaras Beresnevičius (there was a rumour about him that he feared audiences, because he seemed shy and confused), an English teacher from Los Angeles, Amanda, a strict Frenchwoman Miriam (both connected to Kaunas by temporary romantic ties) and many others. Now I think, that there has been this promise of freedom in the air, the feeling that I have been missing for all my years in school. Since the number of students was ten times smaller, everyone knew one another or at least had seen one another before. Lectures were attended by people of different specialities and courses, so you could feel like a part of the community. It is no wonder that if you meet a person today from these times, even though you have not interacted with him or her, you feel the sense of kinship and this can be confirmed by all graduates from the first years.

*Liucija: *I arrived from the sea coast to study in Vilnius. During the last year, I married a guy from Domeikava. So, Kaunas Castle has become a stop in between Vilnius and Domeikava. And later, between my home and the workplace. Those were deep and poor Soviet times. The bus would leave every our, so if you were late at least for a couple of minutes, you had to wait for the next one to come for another hour. There were no shops around back in those days. So, in winter, you had to stand in the cold tortured by the wind. I sometimes see the same faces from those times, from the bus, but I don't feel any nostalgia for that place. It reminds me of dark times and distress. (2015)* *

Eugenija: "I lived nearby. I crossed the street, where there currently stands a Russian school. That’s how I walked into the cemetery. There was a mosque there, benches, the backyard of the school. Later they started dismantling everything there, diggings began, excavators came and they wouldn’t let us walk there anymore. I would only walk near the mosque and with the trolley I would then go to the central path. I saw that they were dismantling it, but from far away. That side was fixed just until the central path. Just as you walked in through the main entrance, on the right side there was a row of crosses made out of cement for soldiers. They were for Lithuanian volunteers. After a while they were all dismantled, replaced by benches and there sat “grannies” who jabbered. When they were dismantling the other side, near the orthodox church, you couldn’t see a thing. The dismantling there was grave. You could go to the marketplace by Vytautas avenue. I used to see a lot of people there, that would go on walks. Although I live really near, I just need to cross the street, this place is not a park to me even now. It’s a cemetery. I can’t be there. I get a bad feeling. One time an extrasens (medium) came to the city, she was showed around it. Although I don’t know why. the extrasens lady said that this place was no good. There were a lot of dead peoples’ bodies which weren’t transferred. There’s a bad aura. My son feels the same. He doesn’t take walks there and doesn’t walk the dogs. When I used to go on walks there, the mausoleum of Darius and Girėnas was still there. I was down there to take a look at it. But it was empty, the graves were no longer there. I saw the graves of Darius and Girėnas in the institute.

*Audronė*: „Pradėjau lankyti devintą vidurinę Senamiestyje. Paskui ją pervadino į Adomo Mickevičiaus, o dabar tai jau Jėzuitų gimnazija. Dabartinėje Jėzuitų bažnyčioje buvo sporto salė. Ilgai stovėjo nenaudojama, paskui padarė sporto salę. O vienuolyne buvo mokytojų seminarija, kol į Marijampolę neiškėlė. Ten mokėsi studentai. Paskui padarė proftechninę mokyklą. Kavinės nė vienos nebuvo. Dabar aplinkui – vien kavinės, restoranai. Buvo knygynas prie Jakšto gatvės, gyvenami namai, kuro parduotuvė, maisto produktų parduotuvė. /.../ Maironio muziejuje buvo žaidimų aikštelė ir paties Maironio sodas. Su daug agrastų. Nuraškydavom dar žalius...“ (2019)

When I was sixteen, it was the first time, when I brought my photo camera to the Oakwoord Park, Darius and Girėnas Sports Centre, the Hall and the Stadium. It was during the World Lithuanian Games in the summer of 1991. I followed the participants marching from the Old Town. There were crowds of people, great mood, no mournful atmosphere. The second day of the Games was coloured in bright green: a boy who carried Detroit Kovas flag gave me five dollars for a photo that I handed him when we met. My first honorarium in cash! As my aunt Zita (currently living in Detroit) found out, his name was Tadas Baukys. The euphoria did not last long. Shots were fired at the Lithuanian boarder and the crowds moved to Vilnius: again, for a funereal.

Elvyra: “When me and my husband arrived at Linksmakalnis, the soldiers were still there. After the restoration of independence, the town was passed on to the Ministry of Communications and Information; later to the Kaunas Radio Center, which leased the territory to the public limited liability company Statyba (Eng.: Construction). My husband had worked there. In Soviet times there was a KGB unit. There were many educated women living in Linksmakalnis and they had worked as translators - French, English. Encrypted international affairs. The military had named us as first occupants - there were about six of us, the first settlers. Nevertheless, they were very polite people ... I remember the day when we farewelled the soldiers and their leader from Linksmakalnis. That was in 1993 June 16, 1:45 p.m. Several Volga cars had stopped outside the gate. The military popped a bottle of champagne and tasted it. To toast their journey. That was an unforgettable day. As they passed through the gate, we were standing in the street. There were about eight of us. We didn‘t dare to enter any house. We had a suspicion that something might blow up. We did not feel safe and comfortable. At that time, it might have been safe in Lithuania, but elsewhere. Although, on the other hand, then, the era of banditry began. Soldiers had left it very clean, but Linksmakalnis looked gloomy. There were about 1000 of them and about 300 apartments. 75 families had stayed. They were scared. My husband would go to comfort them. I remember it well, every day from 4 pm until 9 pm he would spend time talking to them. They did talk about what happens now. It was mostly women that came to him. They were afraid that Lithuanian guards would beat and terrorize them. Some people did not even use light the first fall after the military departed. Imagine, you would go down Green Street – the windows are covered with planks, the lighting kept on for a short period of time. Unpleasant. Like in Chechnya. At that time, we were the only ones with a phone. If anyone got sick or in case of a fire, everyone would run to us. Little by little, they had left, now, only seven mixed families remained. Lithuanian wife with a Russian husband. There were periods when we had to live without heating. Only had electric heaters, while the meters couldn‘t sustain it. Only cold water running - on weekends we would go to bath in Kaunas. We were altruists, had to work without earning money while living poorly. I would never agree to it now. It seemed to be different back then. Now everything is for the sake of us, while we had never complained before. It was still long that we had waited for explosions. A sense of security came much later, maybe three or four years later, when more people came to the village and settled in the apartments. Intense work began, we forgot ... In 1996 – the first school in Linksmakalnis was opened – it had only five first-graders... ” (2019)

Street, yard, house. I still remember where a turn should be taken in order to find myself next to the nine-store house, which was my most favourite place in my childhood.

*Roberto: *When ice hockey was the most popular winter sport in Kaunas, the teams of Kauno Jachtclubas, LFLS and Makabi had their own ice-rinks. The largest, best installed, illuminated and most popular among the residents of Kaunas was the Ice-Rink of Kaunas Yacht Club (next to the Nemunas Island, somewhere between Maironio and I. Kanto Street), where the main matches between the teams of the highest league of Lithuanian ice hockey as well as figure and speed skating competitions took place. LFLS ice rink was a bit smaller. It was established at the corner of A. Mickevičiaus and Kalnų (now V. Putvinskio) streets. Not many people have memories about this ice rink in Kaunas, and even fewer of them have original photos. These three old photos from the personal album of the famous pre-war Lithuanian sportsman Vladas Dzindziliauskas captures the ice rink of Lithuanian Physical Education Union club c. 1933–1937. *Maybe some residents of Kaunas have more photos or memories about these ice-rinks of the Temporary Capital?* It would be very interesting to see them on this website. (2014)