Linksmakalnis

Irina: “My dad is Russian. He came from Ivanov to serve in Šančiai, where he met my mother, a Lithuanian. In order to stay, he had to pass the Lithuanian language exam, he wasn‘t able to pass it right away. Eventually, he settled in the military headquarters in Linksmakalnis. Mom was a medical graduate. It is hard to explain what exactly they were doing. We just knew they were "serving." I went to a school in Išlaužas, one could tell right away - we were from Linksmakalnis. We were all named as ruskiai (Russians in a disrespectful way ). I had a Russian last name, so I was always excluded. I remember the times were very few people here. We would spot everyone who moved here.
I was born here, therefore everything is so beautiful here. It may be weird for some. Although, if I think now, it was a scary place 13 years ago. There were very few people, everyone knew each other. The town was empty and grey, especially in the gloom of autumn. I remember once walking a dog when a car passed by. A window opens and somebody says, “How do we get out of here? We drove past when saw a beautiful name and decided to visit it here. But as far as we drive, we keep bumping into the forest...”
We live in a house on the street which was built by German prisoners. When we were doing a renovation in the bathroom, we found a wall of red bricks. We have decided to keep them, exfoliate, polish them. On one of them we did find a calligraphic inscription in German "In this house ..." - we weren‘t able to read the rest. It would be very interesting to find out what is written there. ” (2019)