Concert in the province
Fitzcarraldo is a film by director Werner Herzog about an engineer who is possessed by the idea of building an opera house in the upper reaches of the Amazon for the locals to listen to.
And L.Radzevičienė made sure that the Taiwanese who participated in this year’s Kristupas festival got what their classical music star, baritone Haoming Chan, had asked for in advance. His wish was to organize a concert in the province of Lithuania. And it happened.
At the beginning of August, Lithuanian soprano Salomeja Petronytė and Renata Marcinkutė-Lesieur, organist and artistic director of the “Sacred Hours” festival, performed with Haoming Chan in the Merkinė church.
This was just one of many events in Merkina this summer.
One of the last ones is the Samanas, an ancient day organized for the third year in a row by “Merkinė Fabrik” in the middle of August, an event dedicated to the culture, archeology and national heritage of Dzūkija.
Redressed Merkina
Journalist L.Radzevičienė and traveler Vytaras Radzevičius, host of the TV show “Pasauli pododai” turned Merkina into a center of attraction for the arts and together they started catering and tourism services business.
At the same time, they made the visitors a little confused, because as long as the creative family worked under the project “Encouraging local culture entrepreneurship – Merkinė dvarvieta”, the events organized by them were free of charge.
Funds from the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area subsidized by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway were allocated for this project – about 850 thousand. euros. True, some of them remained unused, because during the four years – the pandemic and the war – the construction estimates swelled, and the planned works were simply no longer possible to carry out, but cultural and entrepreneurship promotion activities were implemented.
The project created together with partners in Lithuania and Norway has already finished, so we will have to ask for money for tickets to the events, because they are needed not only for organizing events, but also for the entire farm – for electricity, waste management, and water fees.
But how did these two people, who had nothing to do with Dzūkija, start holding concerts and cooking pilaf for guests on the Merkinė mound? The idea to cling to the village came at a time when V. Radzevičius’ grandmother was no longer there.
“12 years ago, while driving from Vytaras’ grandmother’s funeral home to Vilnius, we talked about how good it would be to have our own homestead in the village. Perhaps in Kupiški, where Vytaras felt nostalgic for his childhood places.
He is a man of action – if he sets his mind to something, he does it. So as soon as we returned home, Vytaras started looking for homesteads for sale in the vicinity of Kupiškis”, said L. Radzevičienė.
But the first particularly beautifully described homestead, about which information appeared on the classifieds portal, was not in Aukštaitija, but at the junction of Alytus and Varėna districts.
“Vytaras did not delay and bought the homestead. We managed it and were already living in it, when the news about the tender for renting the Merkinė estate announced by the municipality of Varėna appeared.
There was one competition, after it didn’t take place, another, and everything turned out so that Vytaras was the only participant of that competition. As a co-owner of the company “Merkinės muilo fabrikas” founded in 2019, he rented the manor for 40 years and soon started operating there,” said L. Radzevičienė.
The community also liked it
The community of Merkinė welcomed the settlers nicely.
“When we started our activities, local residents said that this is how they imagined the manor house – not privatized, not surrounded by a fence, but open to everyone. The biggest compliment to us was the wish of success from one of the famous photographers based in Merkinia – Algimantas Černiauskas.
Then, when Vytaras and his cousin Tomas Radzevičius told him about the idea to establish a restaurant on the grass next to the factory building, A. Černiauskas pointed to the rainbow hanging over the manor: “This is for your luck,” Laisvė recalled.
This is how a gastronomy workshop appeared near the red-brick factory building – the summer terrace “Pasauli potodai”.
Later, in 2023 after the renovation of the former laundry, through the facade windows of which visitors’ eyes are directed to the confluence of the Merkis, Nemunas and Stangės streams, the “Kepsnių cechas” restaurant was installed in it.
The cultural activities started by the company “Merkinės muilo fabrikas” (from 2023 – “Muilo fabrikas”) have become attractive to the local community.
“We have a Film Club, we organize meetings with writers.
Since 2020, every year in June, we have had “Opera with Jeans” – a free event. There was also a performance by soloists Rafail Karpis, Šarūnas Šapalas and Laimonas Pautienius.
For now, this is a mission of culture and slow food, because the financial benefits are not yet visible,” said L. Radzevičienė.
Organizer duo
“Merkinės Fabrik” is full of cultural events, but a large team of organizers is nowhere to be seen. Is it possible to do it in two?
“The team is small, we need more of it in the kitchen, and we organize the events ourselves,” answered L. Radzevičienė.
According to the project, together with its Norwegian partners, “Merkinės Fabrikas” alone had to prepare 12 film educations – meetings with directors – and the number of film screenings reached 90. How did you manage to do this?
L.Radzevičienė, taking the phone in her hands, simply called the directors, with whom her paths brought her as a journalist.
That’s how she invited Arūnas Mateli, Vytautas V. Landsbergis, Dagne Vildžiūnaitė, Audrias Juzėnas and other best Lithuanian filmmakers to “Merkinės Fabrikas”.
“When you do it, you do it, but you need to devote a lot of time to it,” the woman testified. – The year of the project was very intense. I followed and still follow the attitude that we didn’t work on the project because of a tick, but to have fun ourselves.”
“Merkinės Fabrikas” also invited people to artisan fairs, where sellers of their products and discerning buyers met.
Good experience seminars were held, the topics of which L.Radzevičienė came up with herself, for example, ornithologist Marius Karlonas told about the birds nesting in the vicinity of Merkina, the owners of “Laimingu vegetišu ukios” – about strange vegetables and Lithuanian birch syrup, the owners of “Aušrinės” cottages – about the forest established in the forest a popular accommodation place, and there is a great shortage of them in the vicinity of Merkina.
People came to the seminars from Alytus, Varėna, Druskininkai, Liškiava, as well as big cities.
“All this took place for free during the project, but now that the project is over, we will have to pay for everything, so we will sell tickets. Another option would be to do nothing,” Laisvë mentioned.
Priority is for construction
All the closest ideas of the Radzevics – both Laisvė and Vytarus, and Tomas and his wife Rasa – are currently connected with construction.
“There is an old wooden building in the manor. We want to renovate it to accommodate pilgrims.
The “Camino Lituano” – St. Jacob’s Way passes through Merkina, and that building should become the main resting place for pilgrims. We called it the Dream Workshop.
The large building of the former soap factory should become a cultural club, but many challenges will have to be overcome in order to restore it. After all, it stands on a mound in the Dzūkija National Park.
If I thought of planting roses near the terrace of the building, I would not be able to do it, because you cannot dig the ground.
But we dream of reviving the old buildings, the big one as well, and continuing cultural activities, because we don’t want to leave what we started,” said L. Radzevičienė.
And the large building of the manor house was built in 1897. built a soap factory – also has a name. This is the future “Workshop of Culture”.
“The building once housed a hospital and other institutions. The last nursing home operated there, it was closed in 2014.
It needs repairs and money for repairs.
Then, when the competition for the lease of the manor was won, the pandemic began, followed by the war, and all of this dramatically increased the prices of building materials and works. We implemented the cultural activity part of the project as planned – we finished it this spring, and the construction was extended.
The family of T.Radzevičius are the most important investors, Vytarus and I are journalists with other skills necessary for business, but we would not be able to raise such an activity alone.
So now we save everything we earn at the “Kepsnių cheche” and “Pasauli potų” summer terrace for building repairs,” L. Radzevičienė told about the behind-the-scenes of the business.
2024-09-07 19:43:28