Life in the ruby. Smugglers on their way to an abandoned grave

On the way to the smugglers

Karaviškės is a town located near the road that connects Dubičius and Krokšlis. However, offenders follow this path unless it is in an exceptional case. The traffic here is small but fun. I’m probably right when I say that besides the locals, only smugglers and border guards travel here.

From Karaviškės to the Belarusian border, about one kilometer. The walking distance is covered in 10-15 minutes. The surroundings are isolated and humid. So it’s not surprising that people who smuggle cigarettes across the border have loved these areas.

That smugglers with border guards play cat and mouse games here can also be seen on hidden video cameras along the way. As it is one of the few cross-border highways, the cigarette smuggling business is trying to find out more and as quickly as possible about the movement of officials and the ambushes.

A small town on two shores.

It is difficult to get a picture of the Karaviškės when overtaking and not getting out of the car. Rural farms are located in a large area. Also, some of them are on the opposite bank of the river. And it can be reached unless you cross it or arc a few kilometers over the surrounding bridges.

There are not ten farms in Karaviškės, and most of them are uninhabited. The town was never large, most of its population was registered after the war. 1959 55 people lived here. However, data from other censuses show that there were generally between 10 and 30 permanent residents in Karaviškės.
Karaviškės departs somewhat from some of the surrounding villages in terms of nationality. If the nearby Paramėlis, Katra, Rakai, Balbutai have a Belarusian identity, then Karaviškės is a Lithuanian settlement.

A clone that will shine a little

If we get to Karaviškės by the left (south) road, our eyes will definitely not stop at any exceptional farm. Your eyes will definitely catch behind the rare beauty clown.

The four-slope roof clown type is now very rarely found anywhere. These were built by our ancestors about a hundred more years ago. Later, simpler gable roofs were preferred.

The roof of the clone reaches almost to the ground, and the cleared space near the wall is used for stacking firewood. Sometimes such a ceiling can be extended or later extended to the ground. The resulting space is used to load agricultural implements.

The clone is known as a dependency on Lithuanian farms for more than half a thousand years. At least. Its purpose is the storage and threshing of cereals. Hay, moss and other natural goods that did not require special storage conditions also found their place there.

The young people of the village loved the building itself so much that it was possible to book a date in the hay and quietly hide, as well as a large area next to the building itself, called the cloister. There was a lot of space here, so it was possible to go on a cruise or play the old Lithuanian game – ripka.

Smugglers are interested in my visit

Realizing that the village is located on both sides of the Ūla river, I try to find my way to the farms on the other bank. You have to go back a few kilometers to the bridge over the Ūla, which is not very reminiscent of a tourist water river. In this section, Dzūkija’s pride is severely crippled. From a meandering, fast-flowing river, a meager drainage ditch a few kilometers long was made here during the Soviet era, which even fish don’t like very much.

There is a cross in the field near the bridge. At first glance, perhaps even a little disrespectful. In the past, chapels, crosses or other sacred symbols marked the intersections of the roads and seemed to wish good luck to those who transited this road. Now this place is more like a marker for unloading logs …

You have to move on to the next part of Karaviškiai right here. The car is moving slowly down a little traveled forest road. It is not possible to accelerate at least to the speed allowed in the city by the roots and the holes thrown to the surface.

Driving deep into the woods, I notice an SUV coming up behind. Surprisingly, encountering a car on these forest roads is rare. Especially since I didn’t see any movement while driving through the meadows.

Even more interesting is that when I stop, the SUV also stops about a hundred meters away. Then he drives back and turns around. Smugglers seem to be interested in what got stuck here on their properties. This type of open tracking of suspicious machines is common on these edges.

Nobody cares about the grave on the farm

If it weren’t for the bad road, you probably wouldn’t have noticed the abandoned graveyard just off the road. Since the speed is low, there is no rush, I just look around me as I move. Something unusual caught the eye of one of the trees. I stop to look.

If my visit piqued anyone’s interest, it seems that the grave discovered after leaving has not been of interest to anyone for a long time. A broken wooden fence, a deciduous grave, and an overgrown path to an everlasting resting place that once stood.

The inscription “Edvard Akstin 1892-1948 Member of the Dubovich Underground Committee of the Communist Party of West Belarus, Kotovsky Squad” ends in a granite grave. Next to the fence there is another tombstone. Concrete obelisk with broken cross. It contains even more names and the name of Akstinai.

Monuments were built and installed on the outskirts of the Karaviškės farm. The resident he met said little about the abandoned grave in his home. To some extent the house was bought from here by the mother who buried her son. Edward was a lonely supporter, but the locals didn’t like him very much. Although the people of these lands were used to various forest fighters and it was not news to them. However, according to a local neighbor who heard him from other stories, this partisan was noted for his cruelty and robbery.

Someone hated and complained. An ambush was organized and the partisan was killed. He didn’t want to be taken to the cemetery, so his mother buried him in her garden. While he was alive, he cared for the grave. When he died, his son’s grave was destroyed.

Gloomy thoughts and untold stories

It’s hard to hear stories like that. In the meat mills of wars, people were killed, tortured, and oppressed without ever choosing either side. It’s cheap when you choose your path and fight for your truth. Then it is easier to die.

However, these cases are probably the most difficult for mothers who cannot choose their own pain or persuade their child. They have to maneuver, bury the children, and cry for life. But sometimes when they die, everything that mattered to them for their entire life disappears at the same time. Tėviškės farms are for sale, and graves that are cherished by loved ones are abandoned.

I leave the town of Karaviškiai with such sad thoughts. I do not know if it is possible to describe even the settlement of several farms in one report. And now many interesting themes remain intact: the lake near the village, which suddenly disappeared and disappeared, the Stone Age settlements on the shore of the Ūla, the story of another grave on another farm and many more stories.