According to the Kaunas Fire Rescue Board (PGV) they received a report at 15:30 about a building that collapsed on Kaštonu Street in Garliava after an explosion has told BNS that one person was pulled out of the debris and handed over to medics “Special services and a lot of equipment have been deployed to the scene,” she said Initial data suggest that the one-storey house collapsed due to an explosion The only injured person is a man born in 1951 which broke away from cyberpunk that reemerged before the holidays due to a game of the same name released by the Poles From lone experimenters setting up metal workshops in garages to grand festivals Andrius Tapinas published the first steampunk novel Hour of the Wolf about the steam-powered Vilnius which then became one of the best-selling books This alone proves that the subculture already existed in Lithuania at the time He heard a girl dressed in steampunk-styled clothes singing at one of his events Arnoldas got fully immersed in steampunk and that happened when his friend asked him to install the interior of a future bar this experiment remained unopened (although a steampunk bar does exist in the capital and it is called Variokas) He says he is currently uniting a community of several hundred people who meet in camps; fifty of them are the most active enthusiasts They communicate daily on a Facebook group and evaluate each other’s work: metal sculptures “This is what I wear daily on the street,” Arnoldas laughs when asked if he has many steampunk outfits in his closet It’s all very simple – in August he will bring his flight and the like-minded people to the surroundings of Garliava (although born in Klaipėda a workshop fair and perhaps the dressed up participants will even a march to Laisvės Avenue If you were in Kaunas or Kaunas district last summer then you may have participated or at least seen the closing event of Kaunas – European Capital of Culture 2022 program Modern Elderships One of its highlights was the train trip on the unique route Kaunas – Garliava – Mauručiai – Kaunas and the train passengers consisted of residents and guests of the Garliava district eldership and none other than a company of steampunk enthusiasts Kaunas 2022 is basically a journey as well) presenting the modern action that took place in the historical surroundings of Kaunas by then It all started with the arrival of Hugo Herrera Tobón He has created a number of Subjective Atlases for cities around the globe that not only present places that are obviously attractive to tourists but also speak to locals “The story is quite simple – a member of Kaunas 2022 team who had learned about the Subjective Atlas and was interested in the idea then wrote to us looking for interesting community projects for the elderships of Kaunas district,” a while ago the artist told us about how he found himself in Lithuania (where he finally decided to stay!) and Sąnaša community members – set out to explore the area “We involved people in the preparation of the atlas; they told their stories and our challenge was to discover what values unite the inhabitants of the Garliava area and the Third Fort – all of these places have interesting things to offer we have revealed that people here are extremely skilled and feel a strong connection to nature That workmanship dictated the possible direction of further artistic activities it is a genre that requires a lot of skill,” Evelina Šuscickytė who coordinates the Modern Elderships project in Garliava eldership The Subjective Atlas was presented during the train trip and the first steampunk experiments took place throughout the last summer and create homemade devices or decorative objects but discovering new meanings and bringing objects to a new life is one of its values,” Evelina says The first steampunk enthusiast to set foot on these lands was Gintautas Velykis from Žaliakalnis who did it with a creative team: Edmundas Janušaitis They created new objects from the things discarded by the residents during the quarantine And the latter is mentioned here for a reason has been taking care of the fort’s resurrection it’s opening to the community and new creative ideas That’s why Arnoldas agreed to undertake the activities in the surroundings of Garliava this summer so easily But let’s go back to his estate in Švenčionėliai and find out how steampunk can be useful in everyday life When asked what fascinates him the most about steampunk – the visual aspect Samogitas answers that it is all of the above “Even my home is being slowly turned into a steampunk headquarters – from the gate to the bedroom And I like making these works because I create them out of secondary raw materials friends dig up and bring me rusty metal they don’t need collect all I need and if I don’t need some of it I take it back,” our new acquaintance laughs and adds that people throw away a lot of fantastic things One of the missions of the camp in the Garliava surroundings will be to show people what they can do with their own hands how such works can affect a person so that they would not be just a consumer and would be able to rediscover an old thing that broke down and give it new meaning Arnoldas own works are both decorative and practical He can create a sculpture but also furniture “People ask me: how do you make such a sculpture the details of which are interestingly glued together convinced that anyone can learn to “steam” the only important thing is to have an artistic sense Or the desire to discover it within yourself Although we really want to believe that in the summer we will be able to breathe more freely and communicate more closely So why don’t you check out your balcony or pantry after getting acquainted with the charming Arnoldas and his group in the surroundings of Garliava.  kaunas2022.eu LRT English retraces the key moments of the story and its significance What had been initially a domestic dispute over child custody caught the nation's attention on October 5 when the media reported about a double murder of a judge a businessman from Kaunas District Drąsius Kedys Details started emerging that Kedys had been battling his former partner for the custody of their five-year-old daughter and accused her of soliciting the child to a secret ring of powerful paedophiles was allegedly part of the ring of child abusers and Naruševičienė When Kedys' wild allegations had not made an impact he'd hoped for It is believed that the the child's mother according to the journalist Dainius Sinkevičius who covered the story for the Delfi.lt online daily meanwhile the police kept silent on the details of the case allowing speculations about a secret paedophile ring ruling the country – another individual identified by Kedys was Andrius Ūsas a politician and adviser to a former Seimas speaker – to spread among the shocked public further inflamed by opportunistic politicians only too willing to score some points The story had all the semblance of a moral panic says Vilnius University professor of criminology Aleksandras Dobryninas is what happens when three things come together: a factor or a group that is deemed threatening to social structures and values; a reaction against it; and a context that facilitates the spread and amplification of the anxiety The situation in 2009 was indeed highly charged: the country had entered a severe economic recession that saw the GDP take a double-digit dip unemployment soar and many people lose their savings massive crowds had been protesting and smashing windows of the parliament building the media and law enforcement was at a low point and Kedys' story became a focus point for all other problems and unarticulated concerns A number of people started lionizing Kedys purportedly a lone warrior taking on the corrupt system They channeled their mistrust and resentment towards the government with rallies demanding “the truth” and action against the “paedophile ring” Conspiracy theories proliferated and it didn't help that Kedys' own body turned up near Kaunas Reservoir The official cause of death was given as “choking with vomit” which many of his followers wouldn't accept the main role in the story passed on to his sister A temporary custodian of Kedys and Stankūnaitė's daughter she took it upon herself to protect her niece from alleged paedophiles a court finally ruled to give the girl's full custody to her mother Venckienė utterly refused to hand over the child who was living in her house in Garliava Kedys' sympathisers had developed into a movement with its own mythology and iconography – many of them sported purple scarfs and were sometimes dubbed “the purple ones” Members of the movement held around-the-clock vigils outside Venckienė's house in Garliava preventing bailiffs from carrying out the court order a police force stormed the house and took the girl in order to hand her over to her mother with Stankūnaitė saying she could not have a peaceful life in Lithuania.) The storming of the house in Garliava was televised and the standoff between Venckienė and the law enforcement were minutely covered with much hype by the media a big media event and should be viewed in the context of a massive transformation that the Lithuanian media was undergoing at the time the costs were growing and the media were in a dramatic transformation – print media was giving way to online media,” Dobryninas recalls “At the same time [...] the quality was dropping Mass media wouldn't have time or resources to make expensive quality content they needed to catch the audience as quickly as possible – and so they'd exploit such events.” “I am not saying that the media was feeding off the Garliava story but they had a lot to win from it,” he adds were deeply divided and overhyped over the issue there was even a soapy dramatised TV series called ‘The Price of Courage’ again a thinly disguised reference to Kedys' first name Venckienė transformed her fame into electoral gains during the 2012 general elections secured over eight percent of the vote and seven seats in the Seimas Prosecutors decided to charge Venckienė with a number of offences – including defying a court ruling and subjecting her niece to abuse – and asked parliament to lift her legal immunity Venckienė fled the country to avoid what she claimed was politically-motivated persecution she had been battling an extradition order before being brought back to Lithuania last Wednesday the return was closely followed by the media and small groups of supporters sprang up to protest Venckienė's treatment With another general election in less than a year “The society is different from what it was ten years ago,” says Sinkevičius but it won't be the same story as it was.” Jolita Gudelienė, the court's spokeswoman, told BNS that no requests to postpone the opening of the trial had been submitted as of Tuesday morning.Read more: Moral panic of the decade: former judge's extradition rekindles 10-year-old story The case will be heard by a panel of three judges: Valdas Meidus Venckienė was charged with refusing to obey a court order she could face up to three years in prison if convicted The 48-year-old woman says the accusations are politically motivated The former judge fled to the United States in 2013 after the Seimas stripped her of immunity Venckienė was jailed in Chicago in March 2018 and extradited to Lithuania in November 2019 Nine of the original 13 charges were dropped following her extradition due to differences in the Lithuanian and US legal systems Venckienė was a central figure in the so-called Garliava story that started as a dispute over the custody of the daughter of her brother was shot dead on his way to work on October 5 a suburb of Lithuania's second largest city Kaunas Kedys had accused Narusevičienė of subjecting his daughter to sexual abuse The latter was acquitted by all courts of pedophilia charges Kedys disappeared after the murders and was found dead in April 2010 Law-enforcement said that deaths didn't involve violence.The events fueled conspiracy theories in Lithuania Venckienė took care of her niece and defied court orders to hand her over to her mother The girl was eventually taken from her aunt's house in Garliava by police Venckienė and her supporters established a new political party the infected persons' official cause of death was another disease and three deaths were caused by legionellosis according to data provided by the LSMU Kaunas Hospital the hospital was notified of the death of a person aged between 71 and 80 years A total of 24 legionellosis cases have now been confirmed Legionellosis may result in a fatal form of pneumonia and is caused by exposure to the Legionella bacteria species found in contaminated water according to the World Health Organization (WHO) told BNS none of the samples from 11 water reservoirs and pumping stations tested in Kaunas had been found to contain Legionella bacteria the NVSC said last week that out of 16 water samples taken from sick people's homes while two did but the levels were within the established norm Health Minister Arynas Dulkys said earlier the legionellosis outbreak in the city and district of Kaunas was linked to the cleaning of tanks at the Garliava water pumping station says it took water samples on its initiative from the water system in Garliava soon after the initial report about the outbreak The company also points out that it's responsible for water supply "up to the inlet metre and the company is not responsible for the quality of the internal pipeline network"