RECOLLECTIONS OF JONAS BELIAUSKAS (1923-2003), 

A FORMER RAILWAY STATION MASTER

 

I worked as an assistant and a watchman. I was a stationmaster from 1949 till 1999. My father was a railway man too. I had to go to Sladutiskis, Utena, Panevezys. As I was an assistant so I had to heat a stove with wood or coal. As the wood (birch, ash and fir) burnt very quickly, we added some coal. When I was 17 I made my first trip by railway.

During the Independence the railway station was the most important place in the town. Every evening a lot of people used to go for a walk to the railway station. They came here not only to see the train off, to meet it, but also to look at others. They put on holiday clothes, the engine was hooting. It was a festivity.

Celebrating 1930, the year of Vytautas the Great, the people of Anyksciai planted a seven-year old oak near the station and dug a bottle under the roots. There was a letter about the life in Lithuania at that time, the list of the railway station employees and the signatures of the people, who planted the oak. This oak is still green.

After the war when I came to Anyksciai the bridge was destroyed, the storehouse was burnt. There were three watchmen and a stationmaster. I was one of them. We had to put the traffic in order to meet the trains, to keep connection with other stations.

When people were exiled to Siberia in 1941 I wasn’t there. But I remember 1948, when I was on duty. 21 carriages were gathered. They were empty. At night the army with bayonets came. At half past eight they began to carry people. They opened the door, made them sit down, threw their things. People were sobbing, it was so sad…

The most intensive traffic was from 1972 till 1990. There were 120 carriages at the station. There were a lot of passengers in 1957-1960. We used to sell about 300 tickets a day. Later the number of passengers was decreasing.

You could buy tickets to any town of the Soviet Union: Vladivostok, Murmansk, Odesa, Moscow. It didn’t matter that you had to change trains.

The station was open for twenty-four hours and there were a lot of people in it.

 

Raimondas Guobis wrote down the recollections.