Bajorai-Slide – Klaus Leo Richter

Last autumn, I bought an old Renault Kangoo. The passenger door wouldn’t open and the electric windows did whatever they wanted, but I hoped that this rickety thing would carry me to my destination some 1500 kilometres to the north-east. Aside from the price, I’d bought the car because it offered almost enough space for all my stuff. After packing, I locked the door of my tiny one-room flat in Berlin for the last time and squashed myself into the driver’s seat with a mattress above my head and parts of a cupboard on my right-hand side. I cast a scornful glance at the radio that I hadn’t managed to fix the day before and headed off. Following a terrible journey during which my window had refused to close after it started raining in the middle of Poland and a stop at the gas station where petrol was spilling from the tank, it felt like a minor miracle to arrive at my house in Bajorai.
The evening was setting in as I carried my stuff inside and started a fire in the old crooked fireplace, which welcomed me with a big cloud of smoke.

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After we dropped of Monika's father at the train station we drove back home. She seemed sad and told me that she thought it was only possible to be satisfied in life if you were born into a strong family. Tiny snowflakes vanished as soon as they hit the car. I'm not exactly sure what she meant by ‘strong,’ but I think she was talking about values. I turned my head to the left and observed the snowflakes. Because of the speed of the car, they seemed to be floating horizontally. I said that all families are fucked up and that we don't know what imperfections others that seem so much better than us are made of.
Monika told me about a family she’d met during her time in Norway. The father was a journalist, a very humanistic kind of guy. For one of his assignments, he’d investigated a Lithuanian prison. He’d said that it was the worst conditions he’d ever encountered in a European prison.
‘Very Soviet,’ Monika added.

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When Ernestas returned from the gulag in Siberia in 1956, he was already 40-years-old. His two sons, Mindaugas and Paulius hadn’t been born yet. His house wasn’t in Bajorai anymore, but had been moved beam by beam to the neighbouring town Kriaunos. It wasn’t housing his family anymore; instead, it was being used by the local authorities. His barn, which remained cut adrift in Bajorai, wasn't filled with hay, but with the scant belongings of a man who’d settled there.

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The TV flickers as Mindaugas tells me that after his father became friends with the camp commandant, he helped organise Ernestas’ journey back from Siberia. It's 6 o'clock, and the news is playing on one of the shallow Lithuanian TV stations. Protesting women are being interviewed, one pressing a bag of onions towards the camera. Mindaugas tells me that it's the wife of one of the big mafia bosses from the chaotic time after independence.
‘Our husbands are starving in the prison, the money they get for a whole week is just enough to buy one bag of onions,’ she tells a slimy-looking guy wearing a black slim-fit and a disproportionately large blue scarf that seems to swallow his head.
‘Like many others,’ Mindaugas continues, ‘my father wasn't allowed to register himself in Lithuania when he came back, so for the first years he only survived because first one and then another family let him live at their house in Bajorai.’

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Amidst his typical laughter Vytautas' neighbour, Eigintas told me to be careful when visiting Vytautas.
‘You know the house is haunted by not a few poor souls?’ he said. ‘Probably it wasn't that good of a decision by Vlad to build the foundation of his house with the stones from crumbling graves and the mural of the old cemetery of Bajorai. Most likely, Vlad and his family have been haunted from that day on; not so much by ghostly characters, but by the guilt-tripping of one villager or another.’

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It was in the same month about twenty years ago that Vytautas' wife and father both died of cancer. His wife had asked him to take her name when they married because she didn't like that Vytautas had a Russian surname, and he’d kept her name after she died.
When Ernestas returned from Siberia, Vytautas father, Vlad had to move out of Ernestas' barn. Vytautas told me that his father had been adopted as a little boy and that he grew up in Latvia. When Vlad moved to Lithuania, he’d hope to find a house for himself. During the time of melioration, in the same year of Ernestas' return, the officials decided that Bajorai should become a bigger agglomeration. It came at the right time for Vlad.

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‘Like always, before jumping from the plane we all got drunk. Now I'm old and fat, I can tell you. I was 22 when I went into the Russian Army. I had the choice between air and sea, so I chose to parachute. I loved jumping from planes.’
Eiginta's phone in the kitchen rings and he gets up to answer the call, limping on one foot. It was a short conversation with someone from his family. He returns and takes a seat in the armchair that faces the antiquated TV and from which he always can keep an eye on the driveway.
‘The day after New Year's Eve in 1986, four years after I’d returned from the army, I wanted to invite my neighbour for a drink. I was living in Rokiškis at that time and our balconies were next to each other. I tried to climb over to his side, and it was like wushhhhh. I went down in the blink of an eye. When I woke up, I started to shout for help. I was just in my shirt and jeans and it was very cold that day. I could see some clothes hanging in the branches of the trees. Together with a bush, they had broken my fall. Anyway, after that day I couldn't really work anymore. I’ve had a lot of operations and I’m living of an invalid pension now.’

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‘I'm hooked on the alcohol now, I have to tell you. You know, when I started, everyone was drinking in those days. If you didn't drink, you were the stupid one. I hated the army. You used to get beaten there. They were beating the new and weaker ones like dogs. To escape the army, some of the guys used to hurt themselves, shooting themselves in the foot or eating needles so they’d be taken to the hospital. One day, I was looking in the mirror, telling myself, “here you are my brother,” and I almost started to cry.
There were some good things happening too though. Like one time when they punished us for getting drunk before jumping. Nah, okay, maybe not good, but funny. There were 24 of us guys and our penalty was hard work. They sent us to the Russian side for that, but there we just got drunk even more. When we got sent back, they sent the most wasted ones to a construction site as further punishment, whilst the others were transferred back to the military base. I was at the construction site. You want to know what I call ‘destiny for the alcoholics?' On that day they came to the military base to pick up guys to fight in Afghanistan, of the five of us at the construction site, none of us ended up in Afghanistan.’

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‘Shortly after my accident, my free-fall from the balcony, I moved back to Bajorai. My grandparent’s house had been empty for about six years until I came back. The witch from Kriaunos used to say that Bajorai has an abnormal energy, and she didn't mean it in a good way, believe me. I'm telling you, a car has crashed into every big tree along the roadside at least once. I crashed into one too. And you heard about all the suicides here, didn't you? You know where your father used to live a 13-year-old boy hung himself in the barn. Then there was the boy who had an affair with a married woman, and they were both found hanging in the house. Some time later, the husband hung himself too. And then there were the others…’

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“‘Oh, my! Jesus!” That’s how my great-granddaughter reacted when I told her about my childhood. Eat some more! They are nice, aren't they? Do you like them?’
I take another handful.
‘In 1941, when I was four-years-old, my mother was very poor and my father had just died - so she didn't really have a choice - my sister stayed with her, my brother went to relatives and I was sent to the orphanage. I was there for four years. I was hungry all the time. Not once in four years was my hunger sated. The first thing they did when we arrived was to shave our heads bald. Everybody looked the same, just like in a prison. Once, when I was five-years-old, me and a friend tried to escape, but we didn't get very far. Everyone on the street would recognise where we came from because of our looks. During Easter and Christmas, they even sent us to beg for food. That was the only time that they would dress us up in a bit nicer clothes. My great-granddaughter is in the third class now. That’s the last class that I could finish. I love to read, but when I write I still make a lot of mistakes.’

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‘The orphanage stood right next to the train station. I saw the people that were being taken to Siberia. I didn't understand what exactly was going on at the time. Although the windows of the trains were tiny, I remember the expressions on those faces very well. It was horrible during the war, but after the war, it was even worse. There was no food anywhere. The Germans had a storage unit where they kept ammunition and guns not far from my mother's house. When the Russians came they blew it up, but not everything was destroyed. There still was a lot of that stuff around, and we kids used to play with it. When I was twelve, I threw explosives into the river; everybody used to do it. The explosion was so big that the water burst some meters into the sky. From that day on, I never touched anything from there again. Not so my brother though. When he was 14, he built a gun out of wood. He took some ammunition that he’d collected and loaded the gun with it. It backfired into his head. My brother died that day.’

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‘Inside the house, the thermometer was showing zero degrees. My flowers were frozen! I was under a blanket, head and all. It was only because of my breath that I didn't freeze like the flowers.’
It was still pretty cold in the house when we paid Smilte a visit. After no one from her family had been able to reach her on the phone for some time, her niece had come by two days before and reheated the house.
‘So where are you from? Ah, I know, that’s where Stasevičius used to live. One of you sit here, and one of you over there. Ah! You see how they are sticky?’
I peel off a piece of fruit-bread which had been on the armchair and got onto my trousers and reach across to put it on the table.
‘Don't move! Be careful, be careful! The legs of the armchair aren’t stable.
Monika sits dead still, only her lips moving as she asks Smilte how it had come to pass that she couldn't heat the house.
‘That's what it means to live alone. If you can't walk, then you can't heat the house. You can't do anything, and I couldn't step on my foot. You know, the water bucket got too full. I never let it get full normally because I can't carry it then. I always carry it out when it’s half- full. When I tried this time, my foot! Such pain! And then I couldn't walk from that moment. And then from the cold as well, that’s why the leg refused to work and wouldn’t get better. You know, after I fell from my bike one day, they had to operate on me and my leg's full of metal now.’

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‘When my Niece was visiting, she handed me some cookies she'd brought with her and told me they weren’t tasty, but very expansive. And yours? Aha! It’s whipped cream and jelly; they’re not tasty, but very beautiful.’
A pungent smell hangs in Smilte's kitchen.
‘You know, the whole summer my wood was standing outside, and it was such a wet summer that it didn't dry at all.’
With her antiquated fireplace full of holes, she’d loaded the hotplate with a pile of wood to dry and some of the pieces had become charred.
‘When I returned to Bajorai shortly after independence, my mother was still alive and the neighbours were still here too, though they soon left. You know, all the factories closed at that time. I’d been living in Vilnius and working as a cook in the canteen for a big factory. Three-hundred people lost their jobs at my place! There was no chance to find a job at that time. Private shops and restaurants didn't exist yet. So that's why I returned.’

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‘We are four sisters from the same mother, but our father had two boys from his first marriage. He was a widow,’ Elžbieta explains, taking a seat on the lathy couch. ‘Understand, it was after the war. Many men had been shot and were under the earth, and the others, well, many were hiding, had left the country or been expelled, so there wasn't a big choice. So my mother married him although she was eighteen years his junior, and he had kids. He was a good man, though, a very good man. He grew up in this house. He was the oldest of eight brothers, and because of this, he took over the farm. When I was a kid, he used to take apples to Moscow and sell them there. His brothers, one went to Australia and became a scientist, economics or philology, something like that. He ran away after the war and never returned to Lithuania. Another one was a school director in Zarasai before he left for America. Another one was the police officer here. They sent him to Siberia. He didn't do anything wrong though. He and his wife were living in Zarasai at that time. Their neighbours were a Russian officer and his wife, and the wife used to throw garbage into their yard. Well, the two wives got into a fight over it, and they sent her to Siberia, so my father’s brother followed her there.

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One summer in the 1950s, Kastute collected an exceptional amount of hazelnuts. With the profits she made, she bought a house. Having previously served as a sauna, it wasn't big. It only had one room and a little corridor. A man of average size could make three to four steps on the long side of the room, but Kastute could make five to six big steps. After the remains of her tiny clay house which had collapsed some months before were levelled, her new house was moved to Bajorai. Like all the saunas in the region, Kastute’s new house had been used not only for washing one’s body, for recreation or even births, but also for smoking fish, meat and cheese. The smell was probably still present when she moved in and the walls most likely still covered in soot. According to the stories told in Bajorai, the soot never left her house because her chimney never stopped releasing smoke into her little room.

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When Kastute became pregnant in 1931, she wasn't married. Her lover left for America. He promised her that he'd return with some money in his pocket, but he never came back and Kastute remained unmarried for the rest of her life.

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Before the Soviets came, Kastute was a hard worker. Up until that day, she’d worked for farmers all her life. Effectively, she continued to work hard for as long as her body allowed her and even after her body refused she dismissed the pain and the obstacles that nature had thrown in her way. Just as stubbornly as she disregarded the limits of her body, however, she refused to work for the Soviets. As a consequence, she would never have the pleasure of electrical lights, remaining the only one in the village without a connection to electricity.

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The roaring engine sound outside my house lets me know that the two neighbouring boys, Titas and Justas have arrived. It’s getting dark outside, but through the window, I can still see that they brought a packet of chips and some cans of beer with them. I smell my underarm. It stinks. But it isn’t that nasty smell that I used to produce in the city, that stress-odour. Anyway, since the oven in the sauna is burning, my body odour will be replaced by the smell of smoke in an hour or so.
‘Hey bro, how’s the sauna?’ Titas greets me.
‘Hey, everything under control, need to check in half an hour maybe,’ I reply.
‘Warm here,’ Justas says, putting the beer and chips on the table and opening a can.
We sit down and Titas checks his phone. I know he doesn't really like the music I have playing.
Two young mice appear. They’re tiny and uncommonly trusting. Probably it’s their first adventure outside of their nest. Bump! Titas stomps one of them to death. He lifts his foot and for a second the mouse sticks to his sole before it drops to the ground. The other one tries to escape but seems confused, its tiny feet not that quick yet. Joining the hunt, Justas takes one of his slippers in his right hand, waiting for the right moment to attack. Slap! He got her,... or him. He,... or she is still moving. Slap! Dead. I congratulate them on their successful hunt as the track on Spotify changes to something more stirring, Titas' and my body move to the beat.

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I'm the biggest hypocrite in 2015,
Once I finish this, witnesses will convey just what I mean.
I mean, it's evident I'm irrelevant to society,
That's what you're telling me, penitentiary would only hire me.
Curse me till I'm dead,
Church me with your fake prophesizing that I'mma be another slave in my head

We go outside to throw the mice on the compost and have a smoke. Titas quit smoking some two or three months ago, but he pulls a joint out from his jacket pocket.
‘Do you want?’ he asks us.
‘Ah, maybe, but just little bit,’ I reply.
Justas gives a sign with his hand saying that he's not interested.
We are going back inside and the same song is still playing.

Institutionalize manipulation and lies,
Reciprocation of freedom only live in your eyes.
You hate me don't you?
I know you hate me just as much as you hate yourself.

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Title: Bajorai

Years: 2017-2019

Location: Bajorai, Lithuania.

After I moved to the small village Bajorai in north-eastern Lithuania, I started to take interviews and photos from the villagers and made scans of photos from their family albums. In an essayistic form, the series approaches issues of trauma and an unresolved past while it speaks of forgotten people who inhabit a marginalised sphere of Europe, as well as of today’s Lithuanian society.