Life in Lithuania in the 1970's [ Stories from Siberia continued] Life in Lithuania in the 1970's [ Stories from Siberia continued] Translated from Lithuanian from the memoirs of Irena K Victoria and I shared a bedroom and our mother slept on a divan in the lounge room. I suffered from a lot of arthritis due to the cold Artic conditions we had to endure for 37 years of exile in Siberia and Victoria constantly suffered from digestive problems. She could only eat tiny amounts of simple and bland food. I was lucky to find a few hours of part time work at the local pharmacy as a book keeper, so I was able to get medicines for Victoria and our mother when they got really sick. Then I was elected the spokeswoman for our block of flats because I was experienced in dealing with Russian officials. We spoke Lithuanian at home of course and with our relatives. Victoria’s son Victor, married a nice Russian woman in Svedlovsk and they had a baby daughter called Juliya. Victor missed her son and I often thought that her illnesses were linked to her sadness at having to leave him behind. We could not believe how poor Lithuania had become. Our pensions were tiny. There were roubles instead of litai. Our little country had become russified. Instead of speaking about belonging to a community, people were now calling it “a collective”. There were lots of Russian words being used in the Lithuanian language. Lithuanians would describe someone as “maladiets” if they had done something good and they said things like “the collective has made a decision”. There were queues everywhere and a shortage of basic foods and household items. Shop assistants were downright rude and surly, as they were paid salaries by the communist government whether they were polite to people or not . In our block of flats, the Russian neighbours told us that it was just as well that we had learnt to speak Russian in Siberia, because their government was going to be in power forever. To console ourselves, we’d often go up to the top of the hill overlooking our city of Kaunas and dream about Lithuania being independent again. Encouraged by the beautiful panorama, we never gave up hope.