Senas Stalčius (Old Drawer)

Music club Senas Stalčius (Laisvės ave. 46a) was open for several years since 1995. The club was established in the building of cinema Laisvė (called Forum during the Inter-War period). It is a great example of a certain type of architecture in Laisvės Alėja: a public building designed in the internal yard.

Senas Stalčius was a club of alternative rock that united musicians and artists. The club was founded by a group of young creative artists Be Batų (Without Shoes). The owners of Senas Stalčius aimed to promote rock, which was then in decline in Lithuania. Concerts, poetry evening and music festivals took place here. Lithuanian rock band Requiem played there for the first time (in 1996).

Aleksandra Fomina, writer: Senas Stalčius was a place, where I felt this clear and strong beat of the artistic life for the first time. I could see the hairdos of punks, dyed in every colour imaginable, listen to weird and mysterious music by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and other amazing rock bands and feel like I ended up in a fantastically beautiful cinema film.  My two friends and me, we used to sit on tall chairs and look around as if we were in some enchanted underworld kingdom... I remember walls with peeling paint, decorated with draperies, records, beads, all sorts of stylish items: gramophone, platform shoes spray-coloured and nailed to the wall, ancient copper teapot next to the ceiling with a snake stuffed with rags hanging on it... There was this bartender with black hair and bright blue eyes which I would recognise out of thousands of others: we were all in love with him at one time or the other.

We used to write him notes on paper napkins with a pen and leave them on the counter before departing, and after reading them, he used to flash us a smile and wave.

Later we used to argue with tears in our eyes at which of us he was waving. I think that David Bowie would have liked that bar, because in his music videos, I saw characters that reminded me of the visitors of this club. It is weird but Senas Stalčius was crowded during any time of the day. Youngsters used to sit with striped, colourful shirt, girls in clothes that we called vintage, like some characters from a fantastic performance, on a very important and interesting mission... I will never forget that atmosphere, even though sometimes it seems that Senas Stalčius has been a dream, a mass hallucination. It was even more weird to leave that basement and go to Laisvės Alėja. There was a jewellery store with cheap flashy items on display. We used to emerge into a different world, eyes ached from the reality, and legs would automatically turn to the side other than home. And I always wanted to come back: I was there only for a couple of times, but every time I pass the former Laisvės cinema, I enter the gateway on purpose, look at the basement stairs and feel this special aura. Even back then, when I was a fifteen-year-old, they would not sell me even coffee. They told me that I was young and that was not healthy for me.