As a girl from a post-Soviet block in the south of Šiauliai, who spent her teenage years living in a very different reality compared to what the current teenagers experience, I can definitely claim that growing up in Pietinis – the southern district of Šiauliai – wasnt for the faint of heart. I’m not saying that it’s any easier for kids today. There are new obstacles and challenges I have no idea about, but people from my generation are tough and that’s a fact.
I grew up in 2000s Šiauliai – a city which was unofficially known for its black metal subculture
I grew a city which had many faces and was also unofficially known for its black metal subculture. At some point in time, we had a so-called national black metal front there. There were a lot of metalheads who would listen to black metal rather than death thrash or heavy metal for some reason. I don’t have a good answer why – maybe because Šiauliai was a very peculiar city. Maybe because Šiauliai was situated in the North of Lithuania. Maybe because it was just some random set of circumstances that occurred back then: Šiauliai was know for black metal, not only “marozai” and “semečki” in Pietinis.
I grew up influenced by the goth subculture the most, but up to this day I don’t know who I was: whether a goth or a metalhead. Not that it really matters. Petty kids in Pietinis would call me Buffy the Vampire Slayer to mock me. It stung, but I wanted to be different, and I wanted to look different. And I thought that I was different from the bottom of my heart. So I did dress up as a goth. I had red hair at some point. I had black hair, then I had red hair again. I dressed in black, read dark poetry and attended gigs. I played the piano, wrote and painted. Life was tough, but it was interesting at the same time.
I listened to all kinds of black metal legends, ranging from “Burzum” to “Emperor”, to “Gorgoroth”, to “Darkspace” – you name it. At some point me and some local metalheads move on to the depressive, suicidal black metal, then to atmospheric black metal and so on. These were the good old days where I would spend our afternoons in the cemetery or behind the Faculty of Arts in the city center and just hang out with people who were similar to me. We would go to metal gigs all the time. This is why we had people coming from many different places to Šiauliai, to “Kilkim Žaibu” festival in particular, which still takes place even today after all these years. When I was a teenager, it was hosted near Šiauliai, near Joniškis. It’s a small town close to Šiauliai and there was this beautiful place called “Plūgo broliai” And maybe the place remains today. But the fact is that the festival was held back there until it moved over to Varniai and then later to Ukmergė, to Antanas Smetona manor. It was also held somewhere in Žiemgala, although don’t recall where exactly.
So there I was, listening to all kinds of black metal shit. And not only that, I also did play a lot of good old gothic rock such as “Bauhaus”, “The Sisters of Mercy”, “The Cure”, “The Smiths”, “Kino”, etc…
Back in the 2000, being a part of a subculture actually meant something. It was an to ability to express yourself, to show your deeper philosophical side.
How did it all start? How did I discover this scene? Well, back in the 2000, being a part of a subculture actually meant something. It was an to ability to express yourself, to show your deeper philosophical side, I would say. Of course, all the teenagers wanted to revolt. They wanted to rebel. And I was a rebel. In essence, I guess I just wanted to do things that triggered my parents and irritated them. I wanted to irritate the hell out of them, and the same time I wanted to be left alone at peace. I was a misunderstood person because my parents thought that I was a Satanist, although that was a complete bullshit. I would attend religious classes at school on my own accord! Well, back in the day, when I was a student, you had to choose between ethics and a class of religious studies. And I deliberately chose religious studies and took them all the years to the 11th grade, and only in the 12th grade I switched to ethical studies. I actually liked those religious studies because we would discuss the meaning of life with the teacher. There was a piano in the class and she would allow me to play there. I think that we had a lot of interesting conversations, and I couldn’t have those conversations anywhere else. Going to a therapist was unheard of back then, and I didn’t even know what that meant. I only discovered therapy in my twenties.
What about the music? I was maybe 12 or 13 years old when I turned on the TV. I guess it was either “MTV” or “Viva” channel, if I remember correctly. I saw a beautiful frozen lake. I saw very handsome young man with a smokey eyeshadow and a smudged black eyeliner. He was wearing a black cap and had such a mesmerizing look, such a mesmerizing smile. I had an instant crush on him. And the music that he sang, and his voice – all of it made a huge impression to me.
The band was “HIM” and the singer was Ville Valo. The particular song in the video was “The Funeral of Hearts”. And I just loved it.. Even now, when I remember that moment, I feel shivers running all over my body, because that experience was so mystical, so surreal to me. I didn’t know anything about the gothic scene back then when I saw that video. He just impressed me so much. Who knew that I would actually interview Ville in my thirties? Well, I am proud to say that I did!
A few years later, or maybe a year later, when I was 14, I started to notice people at school which looked different, which wore combat shoes: “Doctor Marten’s” and “Steels”, to be exact. Steel’s was the most popular shoe brand back then. At some point I saw a guy who was going to the musical school that I attended. The guy had long hair, a guitar, and he was dressed up all in black, and it made a huge impression on me. I was so curious. And there was a guy at school who was actually a metal head and had long hair, and I don’t know what happened to me, but I always had crushes on on beautiful guys, handsome guys with long hair back then.
There was something so rebellious, so raw about guys with the long hair. No wonder why I liked them so much. Somehow I got introduced to the guy that I saw in the musical school (he happens to be the vocalist of the dark cabaret band “Dancing Crow“) . He gave me some CDs and introduced me to “Kino”, “Sisters of Mercy”, “Bauhaus” and “The Cure”. Then I changed my style completely. It bothered my parents so much. I think I loved the fact they hated it so much. They would lecture me. At the same time, I guess I wanted the attention. I actually wanted the attention all the time. I still do, but not as desperately as when I was a teenager.
I realized that is a big part of my persona. I wanted and still want to be noticed. I want to be seen. I wanted to be heard, and I wanted to be remembered not only by my looks, but by the things that I do. I wasn’t very talented or particularly good at anything. However, I could play the piano. I finished the musical school, and I did play in a band “Atilsis” for a very brief period of time.
When I was in the university and no longer lived in Šiauliai, “The Doors” had a tremendous influence on me. I had a huge crush on on Jim Morrison back then. I loved his poetry and believed that he was a lot more than just a drunk, although he was a drunk and a drug addict, but I thought that it was just a masquerade. I thought that he was actually a poet. A very good and misunderstood poet who went down into the downward spiral and it just destroyed him. He just burned.
I think that poets. have the “je ne sais quoi”. They have something profound, something deep, something in their soul. I guess that’s the essence of all true artists. They can express their pain, their deepest emotions through writing, be it in a poem or in a sonnet or in prose. And I guess the same applies to other means of art.
Another passion I had since I was little was reading and writing. I remember reading books from the very, very young age. All the librarians knew me by my name. I was always bringing home a huge pile of books, and I liked to write. I would participate in creative writing contests, and I still love writing to this day.
The act of writing brings me into a state of flow where I completely loose the track of time It’s almost a transcendental state. I don’t know how to explain it, but if you have ever experienced that, you know what I’m talking about. It’s that creative state where the words are flowing like a river and nothing in the worlds seems to be able to to stop you. I guess that triggers the same, um, specific regions of your of your brain. Uh, I don’t know that that much about the brain.
The act of writing brings me into a state of flow where I completely loose the track of time It’s almost a transcendental state.
I had a boyfriend back then who could paint and draw very well back then and. Well, I think it was a natural thing that he was a metalhead and liked “Pink Floyd”. When you live in a relatively small city and when you’re from Pietinis, you’re just bound to meet people who are similar to you, people from the same subculture.
I think that growing up in the 2000s Šiauliai was a profound experience. I have no doubt that people from my generation experienced similar things in different parts of Lithuania and not even Lithuania. I guess this was a widespread thing. And this is what I actually feel somewhat nostalgic over, because back then, being a part of a subculture actually meant something. The rest of the populiation was just plain boring “fyfos” and “morozai”. There were all kind of wars between different subcultures, and it was exciting, but also rough. Definitely not for the faint of heart.
Deviant Generation 