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Field of dandelions before the nuclear plant construction
Visaginas cornerstone ‘Here the nuclear power plant workers’ city will be built. 1975 August.’
The first turbine is released
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Not everyone is allowed to live so generously, to build the town for the memory of people.
‘This town is like my child. I nurtured it, I raised it. And for me, I love this Visaginas with my whole heart. Every house, every street, every garden...’
- Viktorija
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‘The woods were full of machines, clamour and feeling.
Thunderous speeches about virtues and maturity.
In the clearings, like mushrooms after the rain,
houses sprout, grow, looked around and did not understand.’
- Algirdas
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‘In the start, the place was full of soldiers, thousands of them, and they were building Visaginas. But officially it was not allowed to know. They would hide if we would have tried to photograph them.’ – Vladas
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‘Our children were born here,
And every stone here is with our hands
Caressed and put down into the shared home,
With a hope that they will be secure,
And with a belief. Where are we going?
Is happiness in this world not allowed?
My dear city! You are not the ghost, no!
Life is a continuous motion.
My city is a fairy tale. No, perhaps it is a riddle.’
- Aleksandras
‘My dreams at night are not of the pleasant ones.’- Jonas
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‘There were times when they used our bodies to cool down the reactors.’
- Viktoras
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‘Long long empty corridors. Some people joked that we could now install some bowling tracks here since we sell the excursions. Tourists like it. They say it is exotic, dangerous, attractive.’ - Ina
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‘Some ancient civilisations left pyramids - what will we will leave but the nuclear waste for our future generations?’ - Ina
Energy workers street
‘I go through the streets, most of the houses are dark, no lights in the windows. There is no industry here, no jobs. Some people are traveling every day to Vilnius to work. Some people left to Russia, some abroad, some re-qualified to be hairdressers, manicurists, and the youth mostly left to the capital or England.’
- Janina
Shop transformed into a church of the Birth of John the Baptist (1992)
Beer
