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Saule and Rebeka, Birzai 2002
A Winter Trip
One day in winter 1995-96 we decided that we were bored hanging around the bars of Panevezys. We decided to go on a trip. It was freezing that day, and snowing steadily. We racked our brains of where to go, should we go near or far, and I suggested Pumpenai, a village half-way between Panevezys and Pasvalys. The plan was agreed, though we knew nothing about the place, and we caught a bus and headed off. Within half-an-hour, we were there. The bus stop was a little bit away from the village so we started walking, enjoying the brisk air. There wasn't much to Pumpenai. Ewen caught site of a field of virgin snow, and excitedly he ran towards it, intending being the first to put his footprints in the new powder. What he didn't realise was that the field was several feet below the road surface. As he stepped off the side and into the field, he disapperaed up to his neck in it! We had to drag him out.
As we investigated the village, we came under aeriel bombardment from some local kids, pelting us with snow-balls. We returned fire and had a great 20 minutes fighting a winter war against the locals. After this exercise, we retired to the village restaurant for food and refreshment. It was a lovely location, in a retired windmill, but unfortunately, it didn't get many clients and so was rather expensive for mediocre fare. When it was time to return for the bus, we walked back out in the village and were shocked to find that as it got dark, a blizzard had picked up. We struggled through to the bus stop, directly by the Via Baltica, the road that connects Warsaw, Poland with Tallin, Estonia, via Vilnius and Riga, Latvia. Only the road was nowhere to be seen, the snow drifts were so bad. We saw the lamps of the bus arrive, but at the last moment the bus had to swerve to avoid us; we were actually unwittingly standing right in the middle of the two lane road!
The Statue in Vilnius of the famous poet Adomas Mickevicius, known, more famously perhaps, in Polish as Adam Mickewiecz
BUS TRAVEL
Bus travel was and is an essential part of getting around Lithuania, especially if you don't drive, or can't afford to. There are trains, but in Northern Lithuania, few towns are connected any longer. Both in winter and in summer, the buses can only be described as Sauna Buses. In summer, the heat of Lithuania causes you to boil in poorly ventilated sweat-boxes. In winter, the buses, the old Soviet Icarus models (I was always a little wary of the irony of naming a bus after a mythical figure who crashed and burned!), are super-heated, meaning that the twenty layers of clothes you have put on to combat cold, suddenly become very superfluous once on the bus. Twenty minutes before you reach your destination, you have to begin the arduous task of re-dressing to prepare for the cold on arrival, causing an uncomfortable final leg to your journey. Nevertheless, these buses CAN be very comfortable and only in Lithuania have I ever been able to fall asleep on a bus.
Once I caught a bus from Panevezys to Pasvalys. The conductor came round and as I was sitting at the back, I was the last to pay my money. To my surprise, the ticket was only half the price it normally was. The conductor then went back to his ticket machine situated next to the driver where he rings through the journeys and collects the tickets. He reached the back of the bus again, but walked off without handing me a ticket. I asked where my ticket was and got a curt reply stating that why did I want a ticket when I had got the fare for half price. The conductor had pocketed my money and not registered me as a traveller! This is fine except that without a ticket, if an inspector came on the bus, I would face a 10 litas fine, which I did not have and could hardly blame the conductor! I sat back praying no inspectors got on. At the out skirts of Panevezys the bus was stopped and policemen carrying sub-machines got on! Imagine my panic! Luckily it turned out that a wanted man had escaped from jail and they were only ensuring he was not on our bus.
Vytautas Gatve, Birzai.
On another journey, Rick, Neil from Ukmerge and I were travelling from Ukmerge to Utena on a Saturday afternoon. The conductor did not offer us a ticket and did not take any money from us. At first, we were glad of the cheap ride, but then realised that we did not have enough money to pay any fines. It was a risk not worth taking. Neil went up to the front of the bus and asked for three tickets. We were charged more than the normal fare. We sent Neil back to ask why. The conductor then made him pay even more money for having firstly not bought a ticket when required to do so, and secondly for complaining about having been over-charged! Never argue with a bus conductor.
In another similar situation, the three of us were going to get visas at the Department of Immigration in Vilnius. We took a trolley bus there. I had a ticket, which you purchase before you get on from a kiosk, and then are obliged to stamp at a machine on the bus. failure to have a ticket or to have it stamped results in a fine if caught. The tickets are remarkably cheap, so I always carried some with me when I went to Vilnius. Some Vilnius buses are so packed, that it is virtually impossoble to reach the stamping machine, so you hand your ticket down the crowds of strangers and one of them stamps it for you. Neil and Rick didn't have tickets and as it was a short journey, took the risk of not getting one. As we neared our destination a quite visibly vodka-soaked gentleman staggered up to us and stated he was a ticket inspector. He demanded fines from all three of us. He was no more a ticket inspector than I was and was chased away with a barrage of English and Lithuanian debunking his claims to our cash! You cannot fault his audacious sense of opportunism and entrepreneurship though!
A SHORT HUMOUROUS STORY
We were once watching a basketball game on the television in Panevezys. Basketball is more of a religion in Lithuania than a sport, and Lithuania have won three Olympic Bronze Medals in this sport, including a famous victory in 1992 in Barcelona where they defeated the Russians for the medal. As we watched, an ad break began. One of the girls, a Glaswegian, asked if that was the game over. We replied that it wasn't, that it was only the end of the third quarter. There was a pause, and then she asked how many quarters there were! As we rolled about the room laughing, she cried out that she didn't know anything about Basketball. We pointed out that while that may be true, she also knew very little about mathematics, and yet claimed to have a Degree in the subject! That is a true story!
The Apascia River, in Birzai.
THE MOUSE
In Linkuva in 1994 I had a mouse in my flat, which drove me crazy. Every night it would appear, getting in goodness knows how, and begin scratching and gnawing at the back of my wardrobe. The wardrobe was too heavy to move, and so the only way to stop the mouse was to get up, bang on the wardrobe and the mouse would scurry away...but only temporarily. Soon it would be back gnawing and gnawing. My sleep was terribly interupted. I was permanantly tired and it got to the stage that I was sometimes walking with nightmares. It was an awful situation. We stopped all available holes in the flat, but still it got in. We even lay a trap, loaded with cheese, but the next morning, I awoke just as tired with the cheese gone, but the trap intact. Antanas Abromavicius came round and said that if the new trap didn't work, he would lend me a cat! The thought of borrowing a cat to catch a mouse was alien to my Western sensibilities, but the mouse had to go. That night was the last night I heard the mouse; word must have got out that an assasin had been hired!
Spring came and the mouse returned. However, I quickly worked out that it no longer had a fascination with my wardrobe. It was living in my kitchen. I could live with it, but the thought of its possibly disease ridden body scampering over my clean work-tops mad me quesy. But we lived in uneasy symbiosis for a couple of months. Then one day, Gary and I were in my living room when it made the mistake of entering the room. I dived for the door and blocked all means of retreat. Its ass was mine. It had made its final mistake and the mouse's demise was iminent. We chased it round the room wielding hefty objects. Lucky for it, it managed to find behind the immovble barrier of the radiator. Our gazes caught and my heart melted; its furry little scared face twitched up at me and I knew there was no way, I could ever kill such a cute little creature.
Nevertheless, it had to leave. Summer was here, it could survive outside and would have to. We attempted to capture it again, but this time it scampered into the fold-down bed, which had a swing mechanism. I opened up the bed but no mice was seen. At this point, I should warn you that those of a nervous disposition, or any mouse lovers may wish not to read the denouement. I pushed the bed away from the wall and looked into the other side of the mechanism. As I had opened the bed out, the bed had wedged against the bottom of the mechanism. Just as the bed had met this barrier, so had the mouse, causing it to become crushed. Its broken body lay lifeless in the wedge. I was absolutely sickened. I had wished death on this creature for months and just when I had realised that this wish was uncalled for, I had accidentally killed this new friend. We disposed of the body appropriately, but I have never viewed mice with my previous hatred since that day.
A street in Birzai, with shop and Beer Bar
SIMTADIENIS
Another Lithuanian tradition is Simtadienis, or the Hundred Days. This is a tradition in school whereby the final year students celebrate their final one hundred days before they graduate. The year I was in Linkuva, there were two graduating classes, each with about 12 children in each. One of these classes were all females. Each school celebrates the Simtadienis (pronounced Shimtadyenis) differently; in some schools it is a big deal, in others a minor affair. In Linkuva, the parents had hired a mill in the village of Udekai, about 6 miles north of Linkuva. I was invited as was Gary from Pakruojis; it was to be an all night party on three levels. The only other adults there were to be the two form teachers of the two classes, teachers who had been the form mistresses since the kids entered the senior school in the fifth grade (they were now in the twelfth and final form). It was a saturday night. Gary came up to Linkuva from Pakruojis and we met the kids outside the school in the early evening. We caught a bus to Udekai, probably the Vilnius to Joniskis. The mill was a great setting for a party. On the ground floor, it had space for dancing, sitting and smoking (Lithuania has a very modern attitude towards smoking, certainly in comparison with Western Europe. A large proportion of adults smoke, however, there is no smoking on public transport, at a time when in the UK this was still allowed, and many bars did not allow smoking, smokers had to go outside or into special rooms set up for the purpose).
The Fire Station in Birzai
On level one was the main party room, which had many tables set up, laden with food that the parents had made and sent earlier for the party. The third floor had a small room with beds for anyone who couldn't stand the pace! It was a very enjoyable evening in the company of two classes of very talented and erudite 18 year olds. There was muc home made beer to be drunk and the night went by in very entertaining fashion. We danced the night away and enjoyed ourselves. At one point everyone had to do a "party turn". I had no idea what to do, but Sasha was there; although not in the final year, his sister Liuda was, hence his invite. As I stood there wondering what the hell I could do for my turn, Sasha shouted out, sing the Robin Hood song, so I did. Robin Hoood, Robin Hood riding through the Glen! It went down a treat. Later on, Sasha and I had a pretend sword fight, Errol Flynn style jumping onto the tables and across the dance floor, somewhat drunkenly, but to everyone's amusement. I kept sitting with the 2 form-teachers but they kept pushing me onto the dance floor, telling me that I should meet with the girls! In the morning at about 8am, we all left and caught the first bus back to Linkuva, by that time I was quite merry and when we arrived back in Linkuva, was singing the Robin Hood song at the top of my voice! It took days to recover. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining night, more so than this brief description does justice to!
Mamontovas and Foje in concert, Birzai 1997
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