Those who fled to the village named the most important thing, which can be disappointed without appreciation

We often hear success stories, but there are some aspects that can be left unaddressed.

Gitana Butavičiūtė and Nerijus Jockus bought a farm in the Ignalina district and returned from emigration two years ago. However, the farm in the Ignalina district, from where it is more than 100 km to Vilnius and 30 km to another larger city, Utena, several tens of kilometers, is not your first purchase upon returning to the Homeland.

The family already had a farm in the Zarasai district, because they invested money in real estate while working. However, the place was remote, people were unfamiliar and decided to sell it. Only from farm to farm, large farmers will not be able to expand and compete. Land prices are several times higher than in Ignalina, and it is common for the owner to declare the areas for himself and take the money.

The young men decided to move to the homeland of his wife, Ignalina.

“We worked in a vegetable factory in Northern Ireland for five years: we made porridge. We left with the goal of making money and coming back. We did not have a precise plan for what we would do,” says Gitana.

Nerius admits that he immediately thought about taking various branches because the weather is unstable and it would be too risky to trust a monoculture farm.

“We manage 27 hectares. If we only grew cereals, we could not earn a living. It is possible to live on a mixed farm with strawberries. Sometimes they say that people live better than 100 hectares of grains of one hectare of strawberries,” says Nerijus and says that people are familiar with and buy strawberries directly from the garden. The location is convenient for such a business, next to a busy asphalt road. Also, if you grow strawberries and need to be transported a couple of miles on a gravel road, they will lose their commercial appearance.

“If I worked on a foreign farm, I might spit and migrate, but here you know you will leave everything for yourself and your property to the children,” say the people raising the two children.

Another fugitive from the village is Martin Frolov, who settled on a remote farm in the Iganlina district. Only this man fled to Vilnius, not from abroad, but from Vilnius.

“In the beginning, life was like this: the house in Vilnius caught fire and my wife and I moved here because we had already started building a straw sauna. After that, I realized that I like it here because there is inner peace. Over time, a business came up to live, ”says Martin.

Now he lives renting and selling off-road vehicles. He also mentions another advantage: it is much easier to organize affairs in the municipality than in Vilnius.

He himself, who had worked in construction for ten years, built a straw house for two years, and then realized that he no longer wanted to return to the big city. Ignalina Municipality has been living for seven years.

“I have always been a child of nature and I enjoyed life in the village. As a child, I lived in the village for two years, attended a small school, and enjoyed it. “I did not like my homeland, but I liked the country,” admits M. Frolov.

The citizen does not plan to surround the farm with an area of ​​4 ha and dedicate himself to agriculture. He lives here with his wife and raises a young child. The closest neighbor is 500 meters away.

“Friends stayed in Vilnius, we often go there, but now I see that friends, when they experience what it means to live in the countryside, ask to find a place to rent or buy nearby farms,” ​​the person shares his experience.

It is not separate from the world: Internet and television work the same as in the city.

For those who want to run to the village, Martin suggests first evaluating the most important circumstance: how to earn a living. He himself admits that there are simply no jobs in his country, or he will have to work for farmers for a few euros a day and, as a result, he had to establish his own business.