Viktoras Petkus’ Apartment

This beautiful old town building you’re standing in front of may seem ordinary, but it was, in fact, an object of constant surveillance by the KGB. For good reason. You see, Viktoras Petkus lived here. He was a constant nightmare to the Soviet regime – a persistent dissident from the time he was a teen. He was first arrested at 19 for activism and dissemination of illegal printed news and he spent 6 years in a labor camp in Komi.

In 1977, the KGB conducted a search of his apartment here and found many issues of underground press, a number of Helsinki Group documents, and two typewriters, suspicious merely by their presence. According to the KGB, there was really no reason for a random individual to own one typewriter…let alone two. Thus, Petkus was arrested for a third time – this time he was sentenced to three years in jail, plus 7 years in a strict-regime labor camp and 5 years in exile. In 1988, he was released slightly early due to pressure put on the USSR by the West to free political prisoners. And, as you can expect, as soon as he was back, he returned to his activism.

Members of Lithuanian Helsinki Group with Andrei Sakharov and other local dissidents in Vilnius, 1975.

He was an active writer and editor after independence was reinstated, and passed away in 2012. It’s too bad we cannot hear his epic stories directly from him, but worry not, we will meet other living legends!

For example, let‘s see what‘s directly behind us. Find a building right in front of Petkus‘ apartment building – the one that has the number “15” on it? Then, click “continue.”

Next stop: Dominikonų 15, Vilnius

Upon his return, he tried to earn himself a higher education but the Soviet authorities kept putting obstacles in his way. In 1957, he was arrested once again for possession and dissemination of anti-Soviet and nationalistic literature. This meant 8 more years at faraway labor camps.

When he finally came back to Lithuania in 1965, this building in front of you became his home and a safe shelter for the free-thinkers of Lithuania – poets, priests, liberal intelligentsia, and creative youth groups all found their place here.

In 1976, encouraged by the prominent Russian dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, Petkus co-founded the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, which reported human rights abuses in Lithuania and emphasized the right of peoples to self-determination, reminding the world of the illegal occupation of Lithuania.