OPEN ARCHIVES OF KAUNAS

Ramybės park (Kaunas Old Cemetery)

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.

Those, who were layed down in a row with the crosses, those gut dug up and transferred to a soldier cemetery. A lot of monuments were left here.
Moreover, there was a really nice monument for an actress or a songstress. Ona Rimaitė. During All Saints’ Day, they would put a candle. I didn’t see any candles for others. Sometimes flowers.
I remember people getting mad and making noise, when the demonstration in the cemetery was driven away.
I know, that I had already come back to study in the institute, but which year that was I don’t remember. My colleague Brasiūnas got into that whole mix of the demonstration. We saw, that in Vytautas avenue there were police cars. Although from other people I didn’t really hear, what exactly had happened." (2019)