Elena: “While drinking my morning tea, I read an article about the old Kaunas movie theatres:” It’s incredible, but today in Kaunas, out of almost 40 old movie theatres, only one had survived and is still operating. The rest became ghosts or a place where other activities are being developed. ” As I‘ve read those […]

Svetlana: “I was living in Siberia and came to Lithuania from Irkutsk when I was 32 years old. My husband is a Lithuanian exile, I met him in Siberia.I taught physical education at Linksmakalnis and Išlaužas schools. We taught in Russian. Only later we have switched to Lithuanian.My kids were taking classes in Linksmakalnis. The […]

Konstantinas: “My childhood passed here, about 80 years ago. I was the youngest of three sons. My parents were farmers. I remember I had no one to hang out with. After elementary school, I got transferred to Išlaužas School. I used to walk about 10 kilometres every day. The horse was harnessed only in case […]

Irina: “My dad is Russian. He came from Ivanov to serve in Šančiai, where he met my mother, a Lithuanian. In order to stay, he had to pass the Lithuanian language exam, he wasn‘t able to pass it right away. Eventually, he settled in the military headquarters in Linksmakalnis. Mom was a medical graduate. It […]

Elvyra: “When me and my husband arrived at Linksmakalnis, the soldiers were still there. After the restoration of independence, the town was passed on to the Ministry of Communications and Information; later to the Kaunas Radio Center, which leased the territory to the public limited liability company Statyba (Eng.: Construction). My husband had worked there.In […]

Eugenija: “I remember, when they destroyed Stalin’s monument. The windows of our apartment were facing the appendix. From the window I could say that the traffic had been stopped, people couldn’t walk across the street, nor go down the street of Parodos. A truck arrived. It was dark, a lot of police. I saw how […]

Eugenija: “I saw the graves of Darius and Girėnas in the institute.I was admitted to the medicine institute in 1945. As a student I was curious to see them.There was a chapel. In the chapel there were two graves. In the Soviet times. When the Germans came, the medicine institute got closed. Although some people […]

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 […]

Stasys: “Since I lived up the hill in the city, in Vaižgantas street, I used to go past the cemetery to work. This one time, one red-cheeked guy said you can’t walk through here – go around. I say: “Why? How come?” He yelled back to me: “I’m telling you you can’t. Get out of […]

Liucija and Daiva: “Sonata” was an integral part of our youthful life, just like lessons, it was the same with dancing. I remember, during Čiurlionis’ 100th commemoration, we have been traveling Lithuania with a performance. We were fifteen. We would get back late at night, and ran home from Panemunė bridge, while our frightened mothers […]

Rūta: “In the spring, 1958 we said our goodbyes to Kaunas VI Secondary School. I have received my silver medal on graduation.  In a couple of months, in August, I have started working at Kaunas Drobė Factory as a twin machine operator. It was a very large factory, at that time we had workers who […]

Siegfried: “Just at the outskirts of Kaunas, I was dug up by locomotive firemen and picked up like some kitten. It was the spring of 1947, the weather was still cold. The men asked me in German: “How did you end up here?” I told them: “I want nach Litauen, Kowno, Brot holen. To Lithuania, Kaunas, […]

Gercas: “Basically, all amateur activities had to go through a selection process. There had to be songs in Russian and Lithuanian. Amateur activities were allowed, but I am almost completely sure that there were people infiltrated in them as well. Director Judelis Rondaris decided to create a drama in Jewish language (Yiddish) and he needed people […]

Jonas: “The mosque that previously belonged to National M. K. Čiurlionis Museum was returned to Tartars in 1990. Someone had to overtake it, and there was no one who could do it. So, this is how I became the head of the community. My activities were mostly related to the mosque, its installation, exploitation and […]

In December, 2018 The lions that are protecting the entrance to Vytautas Magnus War Museum commemorate their 85th anniversary. On this beautiful occasion, the students of Kaunas University of the Third Age and dean Birutė Štuikienė gathered  to share their memories and congratulations for the museum’s lions.  

Birutė: “It was a long time ago…When in 1955 I‘ve settled down in Kaunas together with my parents and saw the sculptures of lions in the Garden of the War Museum, I was so surprised. For me, a 12-year-old villager, it was so beautiful, so beautiful – that was the first time I saw sculptures. […]

Jonas: “At the beginning of July 1962 and after graduating the 1st High School of Ukmergė (now the High School of Jonas Basanavičius), My classmate Vytautas Juknys and I, Jonas Navikas, arrived at Kaunas for the first time (!). After submitting our documents to the graduate admissions committee at the Central Office of Kaunas Polytechnic […]

Rimantas: “This photo of my daughter Edita is taken in 1963, when she was 3.5-years-old. I liked taking photos since my very childhood, we used to visit the garden in front of the Museum of War quite often, and this was where I captured her photo teasing the lions. I was working in a special […]

Žilvinas: “My brother and I, we are twins. We used to be very naughty children and to get some rest, our grandma would bring us for a walk to visit the lions. On one of such occasion, we found a photographer who took a photo of us all. Later something similar happened when we were […]

Arūnas: “I spent my childhood and youth in Kaunas. I managed to find a few photos. It makes me happy that people captured in them are still alive and well. So are the lions. The first photo was taken in 1956. From the left: me, my cousin Vytautas, my cousin Laimutė and sister Rūta. The […]