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After Lithuania lost Vilnius in 1919, all state institutions moved to Kaunas, which became the temporary capital of the country during the interwar period. For this reason, according to the Laimonas Užomeckis guide, many people flocked to Kaunas. Here the poet, prose writer, playwright, theatologist, literary and folk researcher Balys Sruoga came from Vilnius to the temporary capital on foot.
It stands to reason that due to such an influx of residents in Kaunas, there is a housing shortage. Suddenly they began to sprout in the prestigious Žaliakalnis district, which is located closer to the Center, especially near the radio station of the first Kaunas fortress in Lithuania and the Kaukas stairs.
Photo by Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Radio station in Žaliakalnis
“In the time of the tsar, there was a communication center here, all the information gathered here. There were barracks, the soldiers guarded the radio station. In order for the connection to be good, the mountain was left” bare “. So here, together to the radio station, there were plains and fields. At the bottom, the closest settlement was the mansion of engineer-architect Edmund Alfons Fryk near the present-day Stumbras factory. EAFry then moved his lands “up”. Little by shortly, due to lack of space, Žaliakalnis began to expand, began to “scale”, design and sell land to the people.
In 1923, the architect Antanas Jokimas, together with the Copenhagen architect, scratched the plan for the new city of Kaunas. They spent a lot of time planning Žaliakalnis. People did not shy away from getting up to live near the radio station. The entertaining students even competed on who would enter the radio station towers first. “When we met on Vaižganto Street, the guide L.Užomeckis began to tell the story of the district’s development.
Eriko Ovčarenko / 15min nuotr./Gidas Laimonas Užomeckis
According to him, from 1919 to 1939, about 12 thousand buildings were built in Kaunas. buildings, of which 7 thousand. – residential.
Interwar Fashion: “Profitable” Apartment Buildings
One of the first houses built in 1928 near the radio station on present-day Vaižganto Street belonged to the priest, writer and translator, politician Paparonis (real name and surname: Antanas Šmulkštys). Together with him, the famous Kaunas architect Klaudijus Dušauskas-Duž designed a modern 5-story apartment building (on the ground floor – auxiliary rooms, such as a laundry room), who created the project of the Belarusian flag (white-red-white ). .
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / J.Purickis apartment building on Vaižganto street
This house was built by a diplomat, a journalist, the initiator of the idea to declare Vilhelms Urachs King of Lithuania, the first Lithuanian representative to the German government, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Juozas Purickis. It was the residents of this and two other apartment buildings in Žaliakalnis, the legends who haunted them, that we decided to discuss in more detail in this post.
From 1919 to 1939, around 12 thousand buildings were built in Kaunas. buildings
“This is the first of the three apartment buildings that I want to discuss, where five or more famous people who deserved Lithuania each lived in the interwar period. In the interwar period, it became common in Kaunas for a person to build an apartment building with private funds, live with his family in one of the apartments and rent others at a high price. Around 1930, the minimum wage was LTL 100 and you could rent a 4-bedroom apartment in the J. Purickis house for LTL 500. I would say that it would be the same situation if we now wanted to rent an apartment for 2,000. per month, incredibly expensive.
At that time, most of the “profitable houses” were built. Even President Kazys Grinius couldn’t build a house just for himself; invited Vladas Lašas. Built and rented. He also went to the house of the famous singer Kipras Petrauskas ”, assured the guide.
From the rent of the house a maternity house was built
The radio station district, he said, soon became a zone for the wealthy. It is also interesting that in those days apartment buildings, like the ones that would cost millions of euros in those days, belonged to teachers, priests. Here is the famous obstetrician-gynecologist, Professor Pranas Mažylis, who rented a maternity home in his house, which is still in operation today. He himself lived in that maternity ward, he had no kitchen, so he ate the food from the dining room, which was also given to the mothers.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / P.Mažylis Maternity Home in Kaunas
Where are these funds in the hands of individuals? According to the guide, the answer is a riddle.
“Purickis was the chairman of the Lithuanian Union of Journalists when he was building an apartment building on Vaižganto Street. Perhaps money was left from the affair – while serving as Foreign Minister, Purickis was involved in the scandal of the” case of the saccharin, “L.Užomeckis smiled. – It turned out that the employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were transporting various contraband goods to Russia along with the cargo: the antiquities were hidden in saccharin bags. Jadvyga Tūbelienė, who worked at the Ministry, sister of Antanas Smetona’s wife, Sofia, and wife of Prime Minister Juozas Tūbelis, helped explain these crimes and seized Purickis, who was accused of speculation and illegal purchase of artistic treasures in 1921. It is true that Purickis was acquitted in 1925, and from 1927 he completely retired from journalism. “
By the way, J.Purickis, as the owner of a luxury apartment building that had sprung up in the neighborhood, was also a priest, only later married and removed from the clergy.
“It is not clear how much Purickis built this apartment, but I think it could have cost 0.5 million litas at the time,” the guide guessed.
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