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Continued.......
Me on the Bridge in Pasvalys 1996. I'm not crying, just wet!
Neil, Ewen and I, in 1998, went to Pasvalys to visit my friend Violeta. It was the day of Princess Diana's funeral, and surprisingly I thought, Lithuania was extremely quiet that day as everyone watched the sad events in London. We took a bus down to Pasvalys and thought that we would just be spending the day in the town before heading back up to Birzai in the evening. We called Violeta from the Bus Station and she said that she would pick us up. It would take a while as she lived in a nearby village of Girsudai rather than Pasvalys itself. We sat in a bar and waited, and were joined by a large, hairy man who was very drunk. He managed to tell us that he was a poet and asked where we were from. When we said Scotland, he told us a story about how during the war, a British Ship called the Edinburgh had been torpedoed by the Germans, losing large amounts of bullion. I had never heard of this ship, but back home checked it out and discovered that the tale was true. It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of knowledge held by ordinary Lithuanians. Voileta arrived and took us back to her home. She warned us that there was a wedding going on it the village and she was acting as a waitress, but would try to spend as much time with us as possible. She left us to watch the video of FOJE'S last concert, Foje being Lithuania's premier band of the time. Their lead singer Andrius Mamontovas is now a very successful solo singer as well as having taken his version of Macbeth on tour around the world. Since I really love Foje, I enjoyed their farewell concert very well. It was not so exciting for Neil who remains one of Foje's detractors!
Violeta and friend, Girsudai, 1998
As the afternoon drew into evening, Neil and Ewen were anxious to get back to Birzai. It was Saturday night and we all wanted to go out and have a few beers. Violeta arrived back from the wedding and asked us if we would stay the night and go to the local disco, which was held in a village about 6 miles further out of Pasvalys. We agreed to go but I was warned that there had better be beer. We were treated as celebrities with everyone wanting to dance with us, the first foreigners at this village dance (I can't even remember the name of the village it was in), but to our chagrin, it was a dry disco. At about 1pm we returned to the house where we immediately prepared for bed. I was subjected to pelters from Neil and Ewen about the lack of beer.
Even today, horses-and-carts are still a common sight in some places. Birzai 2002
Just as we put the light out, Violeta (Neil had laughed raucously when Violeta had shown us a water-ring on which she had had her diminuative printed-VILE- in Lithunian pronounced VEELEY but without accents looking like the English word VILE, we both know to be a diservice as Violeta is such a lovely person-her father once asked me if I would like to go for a beer-I thought very nice, certainly, he picked a glass up and we went to a shack in the village (a true village, Linkuva has 2000 people but Girsudai has 300 at most) where through a hole in the wall, a woman filled the glass with cloudy home-brewed beer. He drank his beer in a oner, had it refilled and I drank mine also-fine he said, lets go home! We shared a beer, man-to-man over no more than 3 minutes. I am not being critical, this is the way things are done-one time I was in Girsudai, her mother gave me a lift in her car to Panevezys where I needed to go, as a favour!) knocked and said we had been invited to the wedding which was still going on. We got dressed again and went back out into the night, to two doors along. We were sat next to the Mayor of Pasvalys who charged large glasses with vodka and made us DRINK LIKE MEN/GERKITE KAIP VYRISHKAI! ie down in one. I noticed that were ribs to eat and having had pork ribs before and found them incredibly tasty, I told Neil to try them. He did so and turned with a look of horror on his face. They don't taste right he said. Ewen and I had a taste and advised they weren't pork. We asked the hosts and were told they were goat! After drinking too much vodka, dancing too much and eating too much, the party came to a close it was time to go home. I seem to recall a lone violinist playing mournfully, but that may be my memory taking poetic licence! Neil and I had to carry Ewen out, not because he was too drunk, but because he was refusing to leave, enjoying the hosptality too much. The next morning we took a taxi back to Birzai all three of us the worse for wear!
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PARTY ON THE STAIRWELL
On the Monday we met two of Ewen's acquaintances in Birzai after dark. We had a couple of drinks in a bar and then they invited us to a party. We walked to the party, and stopped to say hi to another friend on a street corner. The streelights were switched off, which outside of the main city centres is normal, even now. In 1999, my father and I had spent a pleasant evening at the Dicpetris residence in Linkuva and were walking back to the Sidlauskas' in pitch darkness. In most towns, the street lights are turned off about 15 minutes after the last bus arrives from wherever the last bus arrives from, in Linkuva, being the 8:20 Vilnius to Joniskis bus. As we walked through the dark, on the road, the pavement being too shaded to walk safely, there was a rush of air and a man going full pelt on a bicycle shot past us. It was pure luck that he didn't hit any of us. He was probably entitled to believe that at that time of night there would be nothing on the road, but it was a chance he took that luckily didn't cause any injuries!
Another view of Musos Gatve, Linkuva
On a similar evening two years before, Neil and I had gone for an evening at Mr Dicpetris house. A laden plate of cold meat, sprats and julienne vegetables had been put in front of us and we had taken our fill, fully. We were then informed that this was only the starter and were offered a full chicken main course and two helpings of ice cream. Throughout the evening we had also been offered beer, wine, champagne (or the very tasty Lithuanian sparkling wine known as Shampanas, made in the southern city of Alytus from imported Georgian grape concentrate), brandy (also from Alytus) and home-made Rigan Black Balsam, a sickly, treacely medicinal drink about 40% proof that sticks to the roof of your mouth. As we left, we were fairly drunk and completely stuffed. We waved good-bye to Algis Dicpetris and walked out into the pitch night. As we walked along the strech of road towards the centre of Linkuva, which had no pavement, an Opel sped towards us, alarmingly fast. I knew we had to get off the road, and Neil and I stepped onto the verge. In my state of tippsiness I was convinced that we had not stepped far enough and squeeled to Neil that he needed to get further off the road, as I took one more step towads safety. The next thing I knew was that the car had shot passed and I was looking up towards Neil, who was looking down on me with a disbelieving look on his coupon. I had taken one step too many off the road and had fallen into the wayside ditch. I was spreadeagled at the bottom of a trench and Neil was looking down on me asking what the hell I was up to! I managed to pull myself up and we wandered on our way, but just as we reached the end of this stretch, the accumulative effect of over eating, mixing our drinks somewhat and falling in a ditch caused me to feel ill!.. This triggered Neil off and as the two of us suffered-Horror of horrors!-the street lights came on and in the distance we could see Mr Dicpetris waving! He had managed to use his influence as schoolmaster to get the streelights put on for just long enough to allow us to make it home without breaking any bones! We did not thank him for that particular kindness!
The Apascia River in Birzai
That was Neil's first visit to Linkuva but he went there a year later the week of Ewen's wedding. I had gone to visit the Sidlauskas family leaving Neil back in Birzai. Ewen's friend Derek however had arrived and Neil offered to show him a piece of the real Lithuania. They missed the bus to Linkuva from Birzai and had asked a taxi driver to take them. The taxi driver did not know where Linkuva was-he thought it was in Latvia! Linkuva is about 40 miles fom Birzai, and is quite a famous village in northern Lithuania! Neil and Derek arrived in Linkuva, not knowing what to do, apart from Neil remembering where he had stayed the year before. He arrived at the Sidlauskas house, where Rey, who he had not met before, just happened to be home from Scandinavia (Rey now lives in Malmo with a Swedish woman with whom he has a daughter). He asked if Rey knew where I was, and was taken to Dicpetris' house. We were in the middle of another of those lavish meals that Bernadeta Dicpetriene makes when, Neil and Derek arrived, Derek looking completely wide-eyed, having only two days before arrived from Glasgow and immediately thrown into the mayhem of Lithuanian rural life, a culture shock, at the best of times, that I had at least had the chance to grow into; he was just thrown in at the proverbial deep-end! The Rigan Black Balsam made another appearance and I think everyone had a great time, before retiring to the Sidlauskas ranch where Rey insisted on finishing off the evening with Tequila slammers before bed. I seem to remember the next day we went to catch an early bus back to Birzai, via Pakruojis in the pouring rain, before realising that Rey, having lived away from Linkuva for some time, did not know the new timetable and the hour getting soaked at the roadside waiting for a bus that didn't come, was an hour we could have better spent in bed! Never mind!
the Sidlauskas Family. musicians.
Back to the story in Birzai (do you remember, we were going to a party when we stopped to talk to someone?) A broken Lada with only one front headlamp and about 7 people inside stopped and one of the men spoke to me. I said that I didn't understand and was met with what I knew to be curses (after my first day teaching Lithuanian kids, and I'm sure it's the same the world over, I didn't know how to buy a loaf of bread, but I knew every Lithuanian and Russian cuss under the sun- I went into the staffroom at the end of the day and asked what certain words that had been uttered by cherubic mouths meant, the Teachers looked horrified and asked who had said such words to me-I had to answer everyone!-only later did I find out that they were swear words, although I had guessed as much!). One of the Lithuanian members of our group went over and spoke to the inebriated guys in the car. Turned out that the car was full of Police Detectives who were warning us to move on as it wasn't safe for the town to have young guys talking on street corners after dark! We walked on and arrived at the flat of the party. It turned out that the person whose flat it was didn't even know he was having a party and wasn't home! This seems to be a Birzai tradition. On xeveral occassions, Laisvidas Sidlauskas has invited me to his flat for a party, but when you arrive at his flat, he puts his coat on and takes you elsewhere! The host was still at the wedding we had been at in Girsudai (we didn't recall seeing him there but sure enough, that was where he was!) Country weddings always last longer than town ones in Lithuania! Ewen's lasted two days, and it was sort of a country wedding as the reception was held at a beer factory in the country near Birzai, a good place to hold a joint Scottish/Lithuanian wedding, but that's another story, told on the next page! The Girsudai wedding had lasted from Saturday, through Monday!
The next door neighbour informed us where mein host was and lent us a glass to drink the bottle of herbal brandy we had bought from (Starka- it is a brandy based drink, flavoured with 37 different types of leaves, herbs roots etc etc. It is very strong and almost hallucinogenic. Unlike other similar brandy based herbal licquors, Starka is guaranteed to give you the most vivid and surreal dreams!) We sat in the stairwell drinking beer and Brandy from the solitary glass. Eventually the missing host arrived, needless to say the worse for wear, and joined us. He was quite drunk, and his wife wouldn't let us come into the flat, so the Party continued in the stairwell until it was time for bed. A most odd experience!
Party on New Years Eve, Panevezys 1995, Asta and Vilma are at the right
BEAR IN A SIDECAR
Once in the Winter of 94/95 we saw a bear in a sidecar in Utena, the home of Lithuanian beer (they may tell you that that honour is held by Kalnapilis or HillCastle in Panevezys, and I have had a tour of the Kalnapilis Brewery, but Utena is truly the home of Lithunaian Beer in my opinion!). We were standing at the side of the road having just been shopping when we heard a motorcycle coming towards us. We looked up and noticed that it had a sidecar and in the sidecar was what looked like a particularly hirsute man. As the motor-cycle drove past we realised that it was not a hairy man, but a bear with a crash helmet on! One of our group burst into tears saying how awful for an animal to be treated like that. I'm not so sure, the bear looked like it was enjoying itself, but then I'm no vet. Just one of the bizarre things you see in Lithuania. In Vilnius a couple of years ago, we saw a guy who wandered around the Old Town all day, carrying a tree. Okay, so it was a fairly small tree, but it was still a tree! Odd also was the ceremony marking the unveiling of a statue in Vilnius, which I saw on TV in 1996. The Statue was covered in a sheet and there was all the pomp and circumstance of a state occassion. There was even an Army Brass Band there, along with a plethora of dignitaries. I wondered who the statue would be of; Darius and Gireno, the legendary airmen who flew their plane all the way from America to the Lithunian border before crashing in 1936? Perhaps they were honouring that great Lithuanian of the political scene, Algirdas Brazauskas, Prime Minister and President. Who could it be? Imagine my shock when the curtain was pulled away to reveal......FRANK ZAPPA!!! That doyen of iconclasm, of the anti-establishment, having a statue unveiled in the presence of the great and the good, including an army band!! Living in Lithuania certainly had a strong element of the surreal!
A statue of St Christopher carrying Christ on Gedemino Prospekt, Vilnius' main thoroughfare
PASVALYS
I didn't really get to know Pasvalys all that well. The people there didn't seem to me as friendly as in Linkuva, but then I had so many friends in Linkuva(being a foreigner in a village of 2000, it's easy to become something of a celebrity whether you want to or not, in a town of 13000, it's possible to lose yourself!) and I discovered very late on that the main reason I'd been offered a contract in Pasvalys was because the school needed an English Teacher in order to upgrade from an ordinary Secondary School to a Gymnasium. I was given 10-to-15 year olds to teach who didn't know a word of English, but only one 45 minute lesson a week. Very difficult to achieve stunning results! At least I hope they learned a little something of interest during that year! In Lithuania under the Russians, each region was designated either an English Region, a French Region or a German Region. Pakruojis Region in which Linkuva fell was an English Region, meaning that the foreign language taught in schools (after Russian that is!) was English. Only in Gymnasium Schools was a third foreign language taught. Pasvalys Region, next door, was a French Region. Which made Pasvalys that little bit harder to cope with than Linkuva- if people knew a foreign language, it tended to be French and my French was very rusty! I think also that I didn't really get to know Pasvalys, because I spent a lot of my time in Panevezys, which was only 30 minutes away by bus. I think I spent on average 4 nights a week staying in Panevezys and made lots of friends there. We had quite a gang. Ewen used to come down most week-ends, as did Rey who shared a flat with me in Pasvalys. I had a Scottish girlfriend whose flat I stayed at, and there was another two Scotsmen, Alan and Steve in the city, as well as four Americans through whom we got to know Asta (who married one of the Americans), Kristina (who I now visit every so often in London where she lives with her fiance also from Panevezys) and Vilma, an Art Teacher who taught in Paistrys, a village near Panevezys. Panevezys being a large city always had so much to do- it had a cinema several night clubs and numerous bars, the best of which were Trabais, named for the East German car and Cicinskos. Trabais, is now shut down, but used to be our regular haunt. The beer and food was good, but cheap, although the toilets were dreadful and were closed by 10 every night due to flooding. Outside Trabais, I got a one Litas note signed by Samas the lead singer of top band BIX after they played an outdoor concert there. Cicinskos was also a good place to go. One evening, Ewen and I went there before catching the bus back to Pasvalys and Birzai.
A close up of the Hill of Crosses
We had enough money between us to buy 2 beers and one pack of cigarettes. Before we had a chance to order, two litre glasses of Czech Beer were placed in front of us. We ordered our cigarettes but decided not to drink the beer as we couldn't afford to pay for it. Next the waiter came over with two plates of pig trotters and bean salad. We said that we hadn't ordered that and couldn't afford to pay for it. The waiter smiled and said that it was on the House, the owner was in and he wanted to show us a bit of real Lithuanian Hospitality. We really appreaciated that and left with the money we came in with! On a sourer note, we went there the following week and the owner wasn't in. Some louts threw firecrackers at us and the waiter just laughed. Both sides of the coin!
The Parade through Birzai on Mindaugas Day, 2002
Soundtrack to life in Lithuania 1994-96
for those who were there!
Anything by the Cranberries
Ein, Zwei, Polizei by Modo
Always by Bon Jovi
Shut up and sleep with me by Sin with Sebastian
Rocket Man by Kate bush
Wichita Linesman by Glen Campbell
Last Picture of you by the Lotus Eaters
Any other you recall, e-mail me!
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