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Until now, P. Ruseckas’ villa was located on Perkūnas Alley in the prestigious Kaunas Žaliakalnis district. Several architects live near it, so on October 14, the suddenly boiled destruction work caught the attention of many neighbors. Several institutions reacted to this: attempts were made to stop the demolition more than once, but as soon as the officials left the construction site, the heavy machinery began to creak again.
Saulius Rimas, head of the Kaunas City Municipality’s Heritage Department, publicly announced this on his personal Facebook account on October 14. Reported that the beginning of construction of Perkūno al. 11 demolition works – illegal.
ALSO READ: Passions for Destroyed Villa in Kaunas: Officials were horrified by the host’s arrogance, he said the facts were being manipulated
Entrepreneurs are arrogant
However, this case is not the first both in Kaunas and in the rest of Lithuania. For example, in 2017, standing on Vilties Street in the temporary capital, the following was entered in the Register of Cultural Property to Protect. Aukšta Freda’s mansion house was destroyed. At the time, heritage conservationists marveled at the owner’s arrogant actions, he himself claimed that he had not carried out the demolition work, the walls fell down.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / Building on Vilties street
In 2016, the portal “What is happening in Kaunas” described a case in which the wall of a barracks was demolished in Žemai Šančiai overnight. Later, heritage conservationists again found the works illegal. And in 2017, the same media wrote that there was no heritage-protected Lithuanian flying club hangar in Aleksotas. It is true that at the time the director of the S. Darius and S. Girėnas aerodrome assured that his building was in a state of emergency and promised to restore it.
Klaipeda residents and heritage conservationists were no less surprised by the case when three state-protected buildings were demolished in August last year.
Head of the Klaipėda Section of the Department of Cultural Heritage (CRD) Specialist Laisvūnas Kavaliauskas previously explained that the house on Daržų str. 14 courageously demolished, in the middle of a bright day, blindly covering it with a canvas on which the house itself was drawn, imitating legal restoration work. It is true that the CRD in September of this year explained that businessmen will have to compensate the damage suffered, estimated at 854 thousand. euros.
Aurelija Jašinskienė / 15min.lt photo / STT launched an investigation into the demolished building on Daržų street in the old town of Klaipėda.
Mansions are disappearing on their own
However, the heritage in Lithuania is collapsing not only due to the arbitrary actions of entrepreneurs. For example, in the Raseiniai district, Ariogala The Čekuva mansion’s heritage protection specialists repeatedly sounded the alarms. In July of this year, the CRD announced that it had formed a special commission that inspected the mansion and recorded violations of the heritage protection requirements.
The mansion in the Raseiniai district is registered in the Register of Cultural Heritage. The mansion, which has stood for several centuries, is now owned by an Irish citizen, whom heritage conservationists have been unable to contact for several years.
15 minutes repeatedly spoke of the endangered inheritance. For example, the treasure of the Jokūbava mansion, once located in the corner of the Anykščiai district, is protected by the state. But only officially. The papers in the officers’ drawers do not prevent the rain from running down the ceiling and collapsing the walls. In recent decades, the treasure and the ancient forge have collapsed so badly that it has become dangerous to human life..
A similar fate befell the first in Gudeliai, Marijampolė district Buildings of the Tiškevičiai manor house, which were left in ruins even without trying to imitate heritage care.
There is a lack of conscience in society
Viltė Janušauskaitė, a member of the State Commission for Cultural Heritage, architect and specialist in the protection of immovable cultural heritage, believes that the Kaunas Žaliakalnis case raised not only legal but awareness-raising issues.
“There seems to be a sector of society that does not value heritage much and looks at it with a lot of cynicism, only mathematically, insofar as it can be profitable,” he said.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / House illegally demolished in Kaunas
Furthermore, in the opinion of V. Janušauskaitė, the implementation of legal acts is a major problem in the field of heritage protection.
“It simply came to our knowledge then. This building was not an Asset of Cultural Interest, but in other cases the protected buildings are partially or totally destroyed because, economically, the fine received is less than the future benefit. Those responsible for the facilities calculate that it is cheaper to pay the fine than to do everything according to the rules, “said the expert.
According to V. Janušauskaitė, to prevent these cases and deter the destruction of heritage, several measures must be taken. First of all, don’t compromise.
If you destroyed the object, you must restore it to what it was. , so that it is not so economically attractive, “he said.
Erik Ovcharenko / 15min photo / House illegally demolished in Kaunas
Bede finger to trouble
The architect Povilas Konkulevičius, who rescues the wooden heritage, believes that the situation in the heritage protection system is bad and the case of Žaliakalnis illustrates this perfectly. For example, it is hampered by expert investigation of objects, because they are ordered by the owners themselves.
“Practice shows that whoever hires orders all the music. All over Lithuania you can find people who write that the house is tragic and uninhabitable. This is utter nonsense. Expertise and identification of valuable assets should, in general, be Exclusive prerogative of the Department of Heritage and heritage conservationists. Give it to the owner to determine valuable properties. It is good for a person to be honest, but if your goal is to build the house you want, it is very easy to do it by guessing what value it has “, he pointed.
In his garage, P. Konkulevičius keeps a collection of interwar furniture, parts of the façade of the wooden houses of Kaunas Žaliakalnis and accessories.
P. Konkulevičius also criticized V. Janušauskaitė for the fines which, in the opinion of the experts, are ridiculous.
“Obviously, there is a need to increase the fines,” he said.
Residents of listed buildings are left alone
At that time, Kaunas University of Technology, associate professor, architect dr. Vaidas Petrulis admits that the inhabitants of the protected objects also lack attention.
For example, in 2019 15 minutes wrote about a wooden house dating back over a hundred years in the Žvėrynas district, whose residents are calling for help; they would like to clean the wooden house, but everywhere they slam closed doors.
ALSO READ: Residents of the tree that collapsed in Žvėrynas felt hostage to heritage rules
“We are all very proud of our wealth, we speak, I mean power, but there is a real lack of real attention, which must have a financial or strategic expression. “When I work in that field, I really don’t feel like heritage is among the state’s top urban development priorities,” he said.
KTU nuotr./Vaidas Petrulis
Although there may be questions about whether someone’s property should be managed with state money, according to V. Petrulis, building owners included in the list of cultural values could also be helped in other ways.
“It can be counseling, compensatory mechanisms that help people and are more motivating. Buildings are managed in Lithuania, but especially those with monument status. Although there is a heritage protection program in Kaunas, where funds are also allocated for residential buildings. But Kaunas is more the exception in this case ”, assured the expert.
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