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Vytautas is a former policeman and militia. He worked in the Šakiai district militia for 24 years, and for a year after Lithuania regained its independence, he managed to wear a police uniform.
Later it was time for retirement. Together with him, there was more time for his hobby: creating, producing, inventing, renewing various things.
No one will say how many of them are in Mr. Vytautas’s house. How can I count if there are only about a thousand pens, about 600 different badges? Vytautas keeps his collection in an old farmhouse. Here in the courtyard, a gazebo made with his own hands, all the decorations of the courtyard were created by Vytautas himself.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Vytautas Butkevičius Collection
When you come, you may or may not understand. You may like it or not. However, a visit to Vytautas leaves no one indifferent. And this is not only due to things, but also the host’s open heart and desire to communicate.
So if you visit, be prepared to hear stories. For example, above the woods, when Vytautas, who was driving with his friend, suddenly saw a monkey squatting in a tree.
“The man I was driving with was already preparing to cut down that branch. When I put it in my hands, I say what are you doing? ”Vytautas said.
He brought a strangely shaped tree branch home and soon after improving it he created a wooden monkey. There was a similar story with the gorilla and the strangler. They were also seen in the forest looking at the trees. After all, it is said that it is very important to notice shapes and symbols in the forest.
In general, many of the accumulated exhibits of Vytautas are made of wood. Perhaps more correctly: with accumulated, but created. Carved, trimmed. Turned.
V. Butkevičius inherited his interest in wood from his father, a carpenter. However, he says, none of the three brothers has chosen this profession. And for Vytautas it was a hobby.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Vytautas Butkevičius Collection
Vytautas comes from the Naumiestis Eldership, which is located sausage, as he says kilometers from Griškabūdis.
“And I studied there, at Naumiestis High School. Later, I worked in the Šakiai militia for 24 years and in the police for a year. I was an inspector of juvenile affairs, then a vigilante ”, he says.
Vytautas and his wife have lived in Griškabūde for nine years. The family with all the exhibits accumulated by Vytautas moved here after selling the plot with a house in Naumiestis. The carpet was large, about 60 acres. And not so much when children grow up. In addition, it costs firewood and charcoal to heat the house.
“Our home in the Naumiestis nursing home was the most avant-garde. The house is large, made of wood, with a loft. You had to work on everything. We kept raising animals.
Coal was terribly expensive, it was impossible. We thought about and sold that house. Before that, we found an ad that a 13-acre parcel with a cabin is for sale here. This is how we got to Griškabūdis. And here was a terrible nettle, there was probably nothing, ”says Vytautas.
By the way, it is important to know that many exhibitions were also put together. “How is it? I transported them by car, ”says V. Butkevičius, who began collecting and creating while working in the military.
Of course, not everything fit together and some had to be left behind. For example, a swing that could be filled by several people at the same time, or a ladder four meters high. However, the new items were soon replaced by new ones.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Vytautas Butkevičius Collection
The hut, which was sold together with the plot in Griškabūdis, was not suitable for living. It is very old, with bent beams. There used to be a hotbed here, and then this building was turned into a dwelling. So Vytautas saves his collection and bought and built a small mobile home for life.
It’s hard to believe, but now it looks like this and it looks like a Scandinavian style house.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Vytautas Butkevičius Collection
And who needs a three-story house? So we bought a little house, we have just introduced the veranda ”, says the interlocutor.
Then Vytautas brought out special plates: “They are made of clay, glass plastic and something else. There are air gaps, and the panels are not afraid of cold or rain, they have a 50-year guarantee ”.
These panels became the decoration of the house. But Vytautas invites us to the viewpoint (“Because the house is constantly being repaired”), which is in the courtyard of the plot. He built it himself. And next to it, barbecues made of tires.
When entering the gazebo, you have to step on a colorful carpet. It is true that it is out of the plugs. Does it look like this.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Vytautas Butkevičius Collection
There are also coconut shell cups, because Vytautas does not throw almost anything.
Even old milk packages have become a kind of pillar, vases made of plastic bottles, old perfume bottles and keys have found their place.
“It’s a hobby, a way of life and ecology. After all, no one gives up, you don’t litter. I will always throw it away,” says Griškabūdelis, who creates other forms for old things.
Therefore, listening to him and eating plums, I did not dare to even roll his dice, remembering that a man had made a hat out of plum dice. Here it is.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Vytautas Butkevičius Collection
In fact, hearing stories about exhibits starts to turn your head. Especially since the owner can tell almost everything. Suppose that a stick is a supposed fall. He is about 160 years old and the former owner of the club received his gifts for a good job.
Vytautas has also amassed a collection of pens, which includes around a thousand exhibits. This hobby, he laughs, is also known to his GP. So while he’s prescribing medicine, he keeps coming out of the closet and donating a new pen: “The hospital has a great variety of pens.”
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Vytautas Butkevičius Collection
“I think at night, and when I get up in the morning, I do it. I have to do at least one thing every day, ”he says. “I can’t help it.”
And add very seriously. When you have something to do in life, when there is no activity, it seems that you are not destined to grow old. Probably because Vytautas says he is 71 years old, it’s hard to believe.
Speaking of his collection, Vytautas says that it is not a museum: “I just like to show that collection to people, to communicate. It’s fun to sit and talk. You yourself say a lot, you learn a lot from people.
I do this for myself, for my friends. Day and night my doors are open to people and I have given a lot. People’s comments are nice, from them a lot, ”says a wonderful Suvalkian dialect.
“And how does the wife accept this hobby of yours?” I ask, tasting the sweet boletus baked by Vytautas’s wife and daughter.
“Well how. With his wife everything to be, – says Vytautas. And add. “But sometimes he likes it.”
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