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Ewen, Kostas, Vaidas and one of Kostas work mates drinking beer in Kostas summer house
ARRIVING IN LITHUANIA
One of the experiences that always gives me a buzz is arriving in Lithuania. The whole thing begins when you go to the Departure lounge, and is especially joyful when you travel with Lithuanian Airlines, or Lietuvos Avialinijos as they are in Lithuanian. The Departure Lounge at Gatwick, it's filled with Lithuanian voices and you start to get excited. You are then called forward for boarding and if you are lucky, you get to sit next to a Lithuanian. The Hostess brings you a copy of Lietuvos Rytas, Lithuania's main newspaper. I never understand very much, but it makes you feel good, just to be reading something from Vilnius. The plane begins to taxi and you listen as you are told in Lithuanian how to work the oxygen mask. You're up in the air and someone begins to talk to you in Lithuanian. You order a beer from Panevezys or Siauliai and tuck into a snack of Lithuanian cold meats and salad.
The whole Lithuanian experience starts three hours from Vilnius. The best bit however, is when the plane comes in to land. It drops like a stone, which always plays havoc with my ears, but it circles around Vilnius, and if you are particularly lucky to have a window seat on the right hand side, and are landing in daylight, you get a magnificent view of the whole of Vilnius, the Old Town, the TV Tower, the Neris River snaking from country to city and back to country again. By this point, I have a great big grin from ear to ear. It doesn't happen on all flights, but if you are very lucky, you're on a flight where it does happen; as the planes wheels touch down on the tarmac and the brakes screech on, everyone on the flight breaks into applause and cheers, not in order to praise a clean landing, as in the old days, but because everyone is back on Lithuanian soil. The Travellers have returned to their homeland and are happy. I may be Scottish, but I always feel one of them and clap with them and feel as joyful as they do.
Class 9a at a Service Station on the way back to Linkuva from Vilnius
MY FIRST HOLIDAY
My first holiday in Linkuva was disappointing for me in some ways because quite a few of the Scots went on a trip to Kracow in Poland. It was the November holidays, a week from school and I didn't have the money to go on the trip. Even today, my friend James asks if I remember some incident from the trip which went down in Scotto-Lithuanian folklore as a great one, and I have to always remind him I wasn't there. However, in other ways it was a great holiday because I learned so much about Lithuania and Lithuanians because I spent so much time with them.
On the Monday, I was told that I needed a Lithuanian Social Security Book. This is a pass book, where your tax details were recorded, and perhaps someday will allow me to claim a small pension from the Lithuanian Government! We had to take a trip to the Social Security Office in Pakruojis. I had to complete several forms, and explain what various descriptions meant on my passport and other documents. As ever with this kind of thing, it takes an age to get done, awhole afternoon spent doing what would take 20 minutes in Scotland. Living in Lithuania, in 1994 was to learn patience! Bureacracy is filled with superfluous rules and protocols, everything has to be filled in triplicate, and every cross on every t has to be examined in great detail. A throw back to Soviet times, but it becomes even more of a trial when you are a foreigner, because the exotic aspect of all your documents appear to make the bureacrat work even more slowly, as if they were stringing the process out for as long as possible, to milk every last drop of interest out of it, savouring it as something worth remembering in a routine and monotonous job. Eventually I was issued with a green passport size book, with Vytis on the front, and the name of the Social Security Ministry. This became a prized possession. Doors opened with one of these books. You could no longer be fleeced in hotels as possession of one of these books allowed you to claim local prices rather than the tourist tariffs. Discounted air fares could also be bought. It was a powerful document and every term, the Headmaster painstakingly wrote in it how much you had earned, and how much tax you had paid (a whopping 32%!).
Siauliai, Vilnius Gatve
Armed with my new symbol of belonging, Sasa and Liuda took me to Siauliai by bus the next day, where we stayed the night at the flat of Andra Didziute, the Art Teacher at Linkuva School. We caught a great double length bus to the suburbs and up several flights of a high rise block and spent the evening enjoyably. We took a tour about Siauliai the next day, visiting the Park that was a memorial to those who died in the Uprisings against Tsarist rule in the 19th Century, and which was recently discovered to be the site of a Mass Grave of German soldiers killed in the retreat from Stalingrad to Berlin. I like Siauliai a lot, and although I have sent far more time in Panevezys, I think if I ever went back to Lithuania to live, Siauliai would be a good place to stay.
We returned to Linkuva, and it was November 1st. This, as in many Catholic countries, is All Hallows, or the Day of the Dead, when everyone goes to the Cemetary to tend the graves of those who have left. I didn't go, but it is a big festival and we had a party at Liuda, Sasa, Anna and Jonas House. Gary and his Danish friend Anna came up from Pakruojis, as did another of the English Teachers from Gary's school, Genute, and Liuda's friend from Vilnius was there also. On the way home, Sasa asked me to sing a song, and was very tickled when I loudly sang Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen! Frequently after that day he asked me to sing the Robin Hood Song! On the Monday it was back to school.
The Party at the Monkevicius House, Genute, Liuda, friend and Anna
Sasa, Jonas, Gary and Anna
CHRISTMAS 1995
Christmas 1995 was the only Christmas I have ever spent away from my family, mainly because I couldn't afford the airfare home. We went to Utena to spend the festive period with all the other Scots who weren't going home. We arrived in Utena the weekend before Christmas and enjoyed a couple of evenings in Dobilas Bar, which I believe is no longer in existence. For some reason, the regulars in Dobilas Bar took a shine to me. One of them called Dosh, which was a corruption of Deutsch and referred to the fact that he had spent time in Germany always shouted when I went in Malcolm! Nix problema, Fuck You! Anyone I went in with who hadn't been there before assumed I had an enemy! Periodically through the night, he would stand up and shout this mantra and smile. I think that I was treated like this because I had went with him and his pals to a party. One night in Dobilas, Dosh's friend, a mean looking chap had come up and started speaking. He invited us all to his flat the next day. Everyone else had declined but I had accepted, really out of just interest. The guy also worked in Germany and had taught himself English from pop songs. He said he had been in the Speznatz. when I asked what he did in the Speznatz, he replied, ominously, that he had solved hijackings! The next day, Ia rrived at the rendezvous. I had started to have cold feet, because all the other Scos were ribbing me-they'll kill you and dump your body in the forest! I was thinking of doing a runner when Dosh and his friends turned up. We went to their house and I was worried that the conversation would dry up, and be restricted to the price of prostitutes in Scotland, a subject htat I knew nothing about, but which I felt I had become expert in after at least a dozen questions revolving about the subject! I shouldn't have been so worried. After opening the beers, me Dosh, the guy and three friends were entertained by music, played through a live performance size amp at full volume! A bomb could have gone off and we wouldn't have heard it! As we left later, the guy said that the neighbours did not like him playing his music so loud, but they did not complain, an indication that he was someone that people didn't cross! I returned to Dobilas and the Scots and berated them for not having faith. Sometimes, you have to take chances to get the experiences!
Utena was an odd town, at 40,000 people the same size as my home town. For some reason, it had the largest number of Scottish and American teachers of any town outside Vilnius, but oddly, had few bars, few shops and no hotel that we were aware of. It was, though, a lovely place, having three large, pretty lakes and was very close at all points from the country. I spent, both years, many weekends in Utena. I used to measure the distance to Utena from Panevezys by bus in cherry brandy. My bus always arrived at 10pm, by which time everyone else had had lots of beer and were quite merry. In the darkness, you knew that if you started a bottle of cherry brandy at Kupiskis, it was finishing exactly at the outskirts of Utena! (I apologise if large sections of this narrative are dominated by alcohol, but that was the currency our young lives were measured by!)
The Christmas Party in Utena. Fiona, Andy, me and Rick
On Christmas Eve we decided to go to Dobilas again and on the way, purchased our beer and champagne for the Christmas party the next day. Ewen was there. He had been given a colossal bonus by his school, intended to get him home to Scotland for Christmas. He had gone to Vilnius to buy his ticket but had been waylaid by the bright lights and had ended up spending the lot in two weekends of living the high life in the big smoke. This meant that his mum was expecting a prodigal son who wouldn't arrive! Ewen phoned home and his mother asked him where he was. When he answered Utena, she wailed that he was supposed to be at Glasgow Airport! He was lucky he was the other side of Europe!
The Christmas Party. Fiona, Andy and Rick
Ewen had an uncanny knack of landing on his feet, and always found a place to stay wherever he went. When I lived in Pasvalys, my kids had shown me an article in the regional newspaper saying that Birzai had a new teacher called Ivan Cameron. I was struck by the fact he had the same surname as me and wrote to his school saying that I was a Cameron too and if her wanted he could come down the following weekend to Pasvalys to see me. I warned him that he needed to let me know if he was coming, in case I made other arrangements. As it happened, I got a letter myself that week saying that Steve who had lived in Utena the previous year was in town on holiday from Brno in Czech. Not having heard from Ewen, on the Friday, I took a bus to Utena. Ewen turned up in Pasvalys to find me gone and not knowing if I had only nipped out for some milk, went to a bar in the town to wait for me. He ended up staying the week-end in Pasvalys, making many acquaintances. I was very jealous because whenever we went out in Pasvalys, Ewen always knew more people than I did!
Back to Utena, with our large carry-out, we went to the pub to find it shut. We hadn't realised that the evening before Christmas Day is THE major Christmas Festival in Lithuania and everyone had gone home for the family rituals. We went back to Rick's flat (Rick, an Englishman, was on his second Tour of Duty in the 'Uva, like me) and got stuck into the beer and Champagne. We woke up on Christmas morning with hangovers to discover all the booze had been drunk. It was going to be a dry Christmas. To clear our heads we went out for a walk and discovered that all the shops were open! It was a miracle! We loaded up with more alcohol and it started to snow! A white Christmas! We had bought two large chickens and Jethro who had been a chef in a past life did the cooking. We ate, drank, played party games, made party hats and Christmas Crackers and had a magnificent Christmas. On Boxing Day, Rick et al left to spend New Year in Prague, while Ewen, Fiona and I returned to Panevezys for a New Year of squabling, the BBC World Service and too much beer!
Rick attempts to strangle me in Trabais, Panevezys 1996. also in photo is Brigitte, Gwenda, Ewen, Stefan and the back of Mindy's head!
Later that week, suffering from Cabin Fever, and spending too much time in each other's company, the three of us went round to Chris' house. Chris was a very nice American Peace Corps volunteer in Panevezys. His girlfriend Mindy had just arrived from Seattle and she was to spend the next 6 months in the Pan. That night, though, she must have thought what the hell had she let herself in for. She had had a nightmare journey from the States, and because Vilnius Airport had been snowed out, the plane had landed on the coast at Palanga. Because the ticket said Vilnius, she was put on a bus to Vilnius Airport, and then had to catch another to Panevezys, so she was tired and with the usual wide-eyed innocence of a new recruit in the company of world-weary veterans. We were having a pleasant evening talking and relating stories of our experiences.
Trabai's, Panevezys. Rey, Big George, Stefan, Rick and me looking gaunt. By this time, I was under 10 stone, the V-diet!
Ewen was irritating me by constantly interrupting everything I said. Mindy had asked about food, and I was relating that you could get cheaply a really nice sausage casserole mix, but that the shops only sold the equivelant of hot dog sausages which didn't soak up the casserole juices so well. I bemoaned the fact that you couldn't get traditional Scottish pork links in Lithuanian shops when Ewen interrupted again and said that he could get them in Birzai. I snapped; the combined effect of a weeks bickering caused me to lose the rag and I blurted out angrily, Ewen, you can take your link sausages and you can ram them up your arse! Poor Mindy, already suffering from the culture shock of transferring from Seattle to Panevezys then found herself, bewildered, in the company of three radge Scots beer-weathered and belligerent. Mindy, though, got used to us and we spent many good times together!
Me, Fiona and Rey, outside Fiona's flat in Panevezys
SHORT HUMOUROUS STORY
Two years ago, December 2001, our friend Arturas came over from Vilnius to see Edinburgh. Neil James and I had stayed at his flat in Vilnius once when we arrived and he had come to the football with us. He is a nice guy and used to work in one of the big Vilnius banks. We took him for a night out in Scotland's Capital and we all stayed over at James' flat. The next morning everyone was in the kitchen helping make breakfast. I was getting dressed in the living room, listening to the conversation, the reminisces. Then Arturas said that I did not look like the others. He said that all the others looked like Scottish men, but I looked different. They asked what I looked like and Arturas said that he did not know the word in English, but knew what it was in Lithuanian. He said the word but no-one except me knew what it meant and I went through and explained causing uproarious laughter amongst my pals. the word was Cigonas (pronounced Chigonas). It means gypsy!
Rudens Gatve, Linkuva
Me, Fiona and Rey, outside Fiona's flat in Panevezys
THE KETTLE
In 1994, Gary and I and some of the other Scots went down to Vilnius for a night out. We met with Mairi, who was from Crieff which is a small town near my home town of Perth. Mairi worked in Kedainai, which has one of the largest Protestant churches in Europe. Lithuania is a Catholic country but has small Protestant congregations, mianly in the north, the centre of Lithuanian Protestatism being Birzai (incidentally, Rey's mother is Protestant, one of the very few Protestants in Linkuva. Her parents were sent in the 1940s to Siberia by the Russians-they survived and returned to Lithuania in the 50's. She is from the village of Nemunele Radviliskis, right on the Latvian border. Once she took me there and I borrowed a bike and decided to cycle into Latvia. I cycled for a kilometre and came to farmhouse. I shouted to a woman in the yard, where is Latvia! She laughed and shouted back 100yards up the road. I cycled for 200 yards and got very cold feet! I had cycled into Latvia illegally. It was only two years later that Ewen told me that Nemunele Radviliskis was in the Passport Zone meaning that you had to have your passport on you at all times. I had been there twice and hadn't taken my passport; I had broken immigration laws twice, inadvertedly!)
St Annes Church, Vilnius. Napoleon admired this church so much when he invaded Russia, he wished he could put it in his pocket and take it back to Paris!
Mairi was very friendly with a chap from Kedainai who was studying to be a policeman at the Vilnius Police Academy. He let us sleep on his floor after spending the night on th tiles in Vilnius.The next morning Paul put on the kettle to make coffee and went for a shower. He forgot to make sure there was water in the thing. The element was burned out. Unfortunately, the kettle belonged to the Virgis' flatmate who had just bought it the day before, having spent a months wages buying his pride and joy. Virgis was inconsolable,bewailing the fact that his room-mate would kill him for having broken his treasure. We spent the morning touring the department stores of Vilnius searching for replacement we could ill afford! Virigis was the subject of a story that I have to admit to finding incredibly quaint and so typically Lithuanian! When he graduated from the Police Academy, as an intelligent young man, he was posted to the Kedainai CID, or detectives. His first case involved a man whose chickens had been stolen. He decided to interview the man's neighbour and so called round the day after the theft was committed. Seeing himself as something of a Sherlock Holmes, he called at the neighbours hoping that he would give him clues as to the culprit. He asked the man if he had heard anything in the night. At which point the man broke down in tears and confessed that he was the thief! Virgis by all accounts was disappointed that his first case had been so easy to crack (this tory reminds me of one my sister tells of her friend who moved from Edinburgh to the Scottish Highlands some years ago. She bought some chickens for their eggs, but the birds didn't lay. She didn't have the heart to kill them and buy new ones and just assumed that she had bought sterlie chickens. Years later, and not a single egg layed she woke in the middle of the night and going into the yard for some air, had witnessed her amiable neighbout stealing into the chicken coop and leaving with a basket full of eggs! The chickens had been laying all along, but her neighbour had been taking them all!)
Memorial to those who have died for Lithuanian Independance, Kaunas
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