The original starting point for the exhibition was the legendary stained-glass windows of the children’s café Pasaka on Laisvės Avenue these unique works featuring Salomėja Nėris’ fairy tale motifs that delighted children with their bright colors Čiurlionis National Museum of Art for a long time after the cafe was closed in 1996 It was Vaiva who came up with the idea of bringing them to light After receiving funding from the Lithuanian Council for Culture restorers Dalia Mulevičienė and Daugis Bumbulis started restoring the stained-glass windows this raised the question: how should they be presented to the public once again “The initial idea of an exhibition exploring the Pasaka café soon expanded Auksė joined with her experience in Small Stories and the concept evolved into a three-story narrative about childhood in the late Soviet period We didn’t want to limit ourselves to just Kaunas or urban childhood we developed a broad portrayal of childhood moving away from stained glass as the main exhibit the stained glass and the café won’t be overlooked on the first floor of the exhibition,” V Petrulienė adds that children are often underestimated as participants in historical events and the hope is that the exhibition will encourage more frequent consideration of children’s perspectives and their voices the aspect of memory preservation is also important to the exhibition’s creative team “The exhibition is not only about childhood but also about the complex memory of the Soviet era we brought relics destined for disposal from a playground in Vilnius that is being reconstructed: two climbers and a globe The latter is a clear embodiment of Soviet colonial ideas who spent most of their childhood outdoors and on such climbing frames the globe is a memory of joyful play and friendships Aside from a few broken bones due to falling off the top The globe’s metal structure may be propagandistic but the space around it is filled with the boundless freedom of childhood Memory is deeply intertwined; we cannot keep only what is pleasant and discard what is not The most important thing is to learn to take pride in our lives regardless of the historical period in which they took place Feeling nostalgia for one’s childhood is normal even if it hangs upside down on a propagandistic globe,” A visitors will be invited to join the “March of Discipline,” which shows the “ideal” developmental cycle of a Soviet person: from diapers to becoming a pioneer “We’ll start with a “reconstruction” of a Soviet maternity ward This will reveal both the Soviet perspective on the physical body of a child such as illnesses and development and the social body of a child shaped in kindergartens and schools children in Soviet times were not considered individuals – they were merely future adults Projects that were supposed to turn into proper builders of communism if a child in a preschool group couldn’t read 33 words per minute they would be written off and if they were left-handed they were forced to retrain,” Auksė explains the Soviet era broke the respect for the child’s individuality and uniqueness that was nurtured beautifully in the Lithuania of the interwar period “This was also confirmed by one of our exhibition collaborators the head of the Pranas Mažylis Maternity Hospital the approach to children and childbirth was modern with the onset of excessive hospitalization were newborns and mothers separated from their families.” While working on this exhibition with Vaiva Auksė realized that phenomena related to childhood change the slowest “Tomas Biržietis mentioned that the first attempts to bring new approaches to childbirth began only around 1993 and men started participating in childbirth a few years later which have been preserved for many years and were passed down from generation to generation as an heirloom we heard about the flashbacks experienced by a 20-year-old girl at the Toy Museum when she saw a toy from the Soviet era.” fragments of memory will highlight the existence of children as symbols of freedom during the late Soviet period sometimes even those favored and appreciated by the Soviet system who managed to produce works filled with astonishing imagination writers – many people at that time created wonderful worlds for children and found refuge in them themselves,” Auksė explains one of the main highlights of this floor will be a large soft toy –  a hippopotamus known only through black-and-white photographs and the memories of the designers who created it “It is incredibly exciting to bring to light the artists whose childhood projects were not fully realized during the Soviet era Thanks to discoveries made by design researcher Karolina Jakaitė who curated the space for unrealized toy design projects in this exhibition we learned about a series of toy furniture designs created in the late 1980s by three designers: Natalija Andriuščenko-Jurevičienė The collection was presented at the Pioneers’ Palace in Vilnius but disappeared due to historical changes The highlight of this collection is a huge hippopotamus now reconstructed by designer Rasa Balaišė who has recreated the toy using modern materials and rich colors.” Petrulienė continues by noting that when it comes to Soviet propaganda everything is relatively clear – the technologies and methods they used is how we managed to grow up despite it all but how we grew up to embrace freedom overall The third floor of the exhibition explores how we managed to achieve this and where the resilience of Lithuanians came from very few genuinely believed in propaganda during childhood it was merely a façade,” the exhibition curator marks which for a long time was scrutinized by the system so much so that even fairy tales were pushed aside in the postwar years and replaced by socialist realism this left no room for metaphors or deeper meanings a typical critique from the editorial team of the children’s magazine Genys for submissions sent in by children would sound like this “Your little story is too imaginative and won’t appeal to readers It would be better if you wrote about how things are going at school!” such as Eduardas Mieželaitis’ Zuikis Puikis only gained popularity during the late Soviet era the story was considered to lack political engagement “The late Soviet era was more receptive to freer A significant contribution to bringing fairy tales back into the daily lives of people of this time was made by the writer and publisher Aldona Liobytė She initiated the publication of both foreign and Lithuanian fairy tale series As literary scholars and Audronė Meškauskaitė who consulted the fairy tale space for the exhibition and traced the fairy tale revival in the late Soviet era They were the ones that brought back authenticity to everyday life allowing us to speak to children about important things in the Aesopian language,” Auksė says Fairy tales will also be found on the third floor of the gallery where each letter will be assigned a corresponding work or object related to children’s books and fairy tales.  the little woody is like Pinocchio’s cousin The hero is not sculpted but born out of the love of a real woman and an oak tree fairy tales and children’s literature at that time came closer to literature for adults Sigitas Geda and his Songs of the White Nothing The poet has said that he did not want to avoid scary words Mikelionytė adds that children’s culture was a kind of cover “The expectations for these works were lower we compare them with the standards applied to monuments in the public space.” Petrulienė stresses the importance of the memory of the late Soviet era: it is the only way to appreciate how far we have come and to rejoice for example – today we are angry that textbooks have not been printed in time But this is due to constant updates and changing situations You only have to remember that in Soviet times there were no such problems – the same textbooks were published for decades It’s really nice to see such a contrast,” Auksė emphasizes.  She says that it is just as interesting to discover details of one’s own past in the exhibition even if they are related to Soviet propaganda “I remember very well being shamed at school for being an only child and not understanding why And it is only now that the author of the book Fosterlings and historian Ieva Balčiūnė revealed that these were the guidelines of the party’s propaganda – more builders of communism were needed so families with one child were belittled while medals were given to large families it was not the adults but the children who made fun of me being the only child This shows how pervasive propaganda can be.” “Our exhibition is a great opportunity to reconsider our personal relationship with Soviet history and discover elements of it that we have not yet explored.” the curators say that although the exhibition is aimed at adults they encourage the youngest children and teenagers to visit as well “It can become a great space to “meet” with the older generation of your family while simultaneously getting to know the Soviet era better starting from experiences that often contain more nuances than a textbook,” Auksė and Vaiva conclude the conversation ciurlionis.lt  The Environmental Protection Agency (AAA) announced that at 10 a.m air quality was the most affected in Vilnius’ Žirmūnai and Kaunas’ Dainava neighbourhoods meteorological conditions for pollution to dissipate will remain unchanged on Monday and Tuesday and air quality will still be poor as no precipitation is forecast with medium strength southeastern winds A reduction in air pollution may be expected only on Wednesday Healthcare experts advise people to refrain from intense physical activities outdoors or use respiratory protective measures if outdoor activities cannot be avoided clean surfaces and monitor one’s state of health The AAA reported earlier that air pollution occurred not only due to local sources but also as a result of forest and peat fires in neighbouring Belarus.