Fragments of my 25 years in and with Lithuania 1990 – 2015 AAGE MYHRE, OBSERVATORIE TERRASSE 18A, 0270 OSLO, NORWAY. TEL: +47 90 22 00 27. EMAIL: aage.myhre@gmail.com
When Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis in 1990 chose Norway as his very first destination for an 'official visit' to the West, I was among a handful of Norwegians who arranged it all. Later in 1990 l came to Lithuania several times, and in January 1991 I visited Landsbergis in the country's Parliament, surrounded by Soviet troops. My main role those days was to bring in and coordinate international media in order to get broadest possible coverage of the Soviet atrocities against the Baltic States. Those events marked the beginning of my now 25-year relationship with Lithuania.
1990 – 1995
WITH PRESIDENT VYTAUTAS LANDSBERGIS inside the Lithuanian Parliament in January 1991, with Soviet troops surrounding the building.
WITH THE MAYOR and DEPUTY MAYOR OF VILNIUS, January ‘91, inviting to cooperation, whereupon Oslo became Vilnius' first sister city in the West.
MY VERY FIRST TASK in Lithuania was to establish a satellite telephone station – ergo more independency of Moscow.
NUKES: In 1992 I informed the US Congress that dirty Soviet nukes had gone astray. The bombs were found and 2 years later flown to safety in Tennessee.
In 1990 I introduced STATOIL to the Baltic States
Inn 1993-1995 I built a Lithuanian factory for a U.S. lumber company.
EGLE: I met my present wife already during my first visit to Lithuania in 1990. In February 1992 we married in the fabulous St. Peter & Paul Cathedral in Vilnius.
VILNIUS
In the early 1990s I worked intensely behind the scenes for the unique Vilnius Old Town to be included into UNSECOs World Heritage Site. We succeeded!
DOMINIKONU STREET 5, VILNIUS: My very first project (1992-1995) in the city’s amazing Old Town was to restore an old building ruin into an exclusive retail and office building. Local building materials were still of Soviet quality, so I imported all products from Norway. Lithuanian architects, manufacturers, developers and other professionals flocked to the project to learn about modern building technology/methods…
1996 – 2000 OLD TOWN HOTEL: This to be an active, leading architect and urban developer for Vilnius Old Town was like a life mission for me over the years 1992-2012. I have behind me countless individual projects, entire city blocks and many initiatives with the aim to create and maintain the city’s life and vitality. The team of professionals who worked with the Old Town for the last 25 years has every reason to be proud of what they have achieved! The photo shows a project I did in 1995-1996, a cozy courtyard hotel right in the Historic Centre. CITY LIFE: After having completed my Master's Degree (M.Sc. of Architecture at the Norwegian Technical University, 1980), I went to Strasbourg, France to study "Architectural Psychology", with emphasis on urban development. There I learned, among other things, that a truly good city centre is defined be being full of life and activities, not just a collection of buildings and streets. With this backdrop I started in the 1990s Vilnius’ first real, lively summer restaurants, with live music organized by the well-known music Professor Donatas Katkus and his Summer Music Festival. Vilnius started vibrating, and still does !!
Here in the Vilnius Old Town I designed and built many individual projects over several years; and I was also responsible for detail plans and other types of area planning. The Old Town is now a good place to live!
THIS WAS THE CANTEEN OF AN OLD SOVIET FACTORY: In less than one year we turned the building into a modern office building, awarded as the "Best Renovation Project" by Lithuania's biggest newspaper for the year 1997. THE AID TRUCKS TO LITHUANIA - that I over many years organised together with good people in Norway - supported hospitals, orphanages and families in need.
LIETUVOS DRAUDIMA: My renovation and painting of the facades of Lithuania's state insurance company mid-1990s became an important step for the beautification of Vilnius. DAUGHTER CASSANDRA WAS BORN IN 1997
2001 – 2005
"HEALING ARCHITECTURE" is a subject I've focused a lot on during my working life, not least in Lithuania. Because architecture can, in many good ways, contribute to help people in difficult life situations.
VIC VILNIUS INTERNATIONAL CLUB In 2001 I started "Vilnius International Club", which for years was the most important meeting place for the international community in the city and the country.
BŪKIME KARTU (LET’S BE TOGETHER) In 2002 I challenged all ambassadors to Lithuania to lead this unique, annual charity event for children from orphanages. Close to 2,000 children have so far taken part. Next event takes place in May 2016!
U.S. Ambassador’s Residence in Vilnius, Lithuania. My company’s design and construction, 2002-2004.
I was Editor-in-Chief for the English-language publications in Lithuania during the first decade of the 2000s.
DAUGHTER CORNELIA WAS BORN IN 2003
REMEMBERING JANUARY ’91 – 14 YEARS AFTER In 2005 Professor Vytautas Landsbergis and I met to reminisce at the still existing remains of the barricades of January 1991. He and I had been together at these barricades and inside the Parliament (Seimas) also 14 years earlier, and we reflected now on the dramatic events of those days and over what had happened with our dear Lithuania since then.
2006 – 2010 LITHUANIAN – SANSKRIT: I had for many years heard of potential relationship between Old Sanskrit and Lithuanian language, so in 2006 I went over to Mumbai and Delhi to figure this out. Professor Chandra Lokesh (1928 - ) gave me astonishing information... LITHUANIAN – JEWISH RECONCILIATION: Over the past 25 years I've been behind a large number of measures aimed at promoting reconciliation between Lithuania and its once prominent Jewish population, the Litvaks. LITHUANIA – SOUTH AFRICA: 90% of all Jews in SA are Litvaks – and I met many of them during visits to SA over the years when I coordinated the country's interests in Lithuania in cooperation with their Embassy in Copenhagen.
2007 award for my solidarity in 1990-91 and contribution to bilateral cooperation.
At the beginning of the millennium, I led a group who planned a new-town for around 20,000 people in Vilnius Region. The financial crisis in 2008 stopped the plans.
In 2006 I bought this 2,000 m2 building in Vilnius centre with the goal to create a "Vilnius International House" that would become a permanent international meeting point in Vilnius, but the financial crisis in 2008 stopped these plans.
A FISH FACTORY IN KLAIPEDA: The office building I in 2009 designed for this Bornholm fish processing plant is shaped as a wheelhouse, with blue glass and a terrace in front, undeniably reminiscent of a ship bridge.
2011 – 2015
www.VilNews.com I have for 14 years now been Chief Editor for the publication VilNews that in 2001 was started as a message leaf and communication platform for Vilnius International Club. We went online in 2010 and got in a short time hundreds of thousands of readers in 183 countries around the world. Many have characterized VilNews as the most important meeting place between Lithuania and the country's vast Diaspora across the globe.
CRISIS CENTRE FOR WOMEN, KLAIPEDA: Over the years 2009-2012 I led the works of planning and building a "Crisis Centre for Women" in Klaipeda. The centre has now emerged as a leading European beacon in the fight against violence against women, and was proclaimed Lithuania's best EU project for year 2013. I NO LONGER LIVE IN LITHUANIA – BUT CAN I STILL CONTRIBUTE? * I have over the last five years, as usual behind the scenes, been contributing to the best of Lithuania by trying to influence certain important cases and decisions. Among other things, I have directly addressed and met Norwegian political leaders at the highest level to support the LNG terminal in Klaipeda, (including regular deliveries of natural gas from Northern Norway), as well as the electrical subsea cable between Sweden and Lithuania (NordBalt). * I am also in the initial phase of forming joint ventures with Lithuanian companies in the construction sector and I am starting to coordinate Lithuanian entities already established in Norway, with the aim to contribute to higher professionalism and more jobs at a high level. Our first construction projects have already started. * May be there is more Lithuania could need from a person with detailed knowledge of both domestic and international systems, and with a truly large network throughout the Globe – within politics, diplomacy, culture and business? WHAT SHOULD I SAY TO MY DAUGHTERS? * My two daughters Cassandra (18) and Cornelia (13) were both born in Vilnius and lived there until we moved to Oslo in autumn 2013. Skilled, great, wise girls who both speak three languages fluently; doing well at school and elsewhere. Cassandra has already started bachelor studies in politics, economics and philosophy at the University of Tromsø. Both are 50/50 Norwegian-Lithuanian. Will Lithuania do anything to maintain contact with them and the many thousands of other young Lithuanians who now live scattered around the world? PROFESSOR IRENA VEISAITE * Dr. Irena Veisaite (87) is one of my dearest friends in life; something we both got further confirmed when she now in September visited me here in Oslo. For me Irena is the wisest, most prominent representative of Lithuania in the world. She is the Jew (Litvak) who miraculously survived the Holocaust when she at age 14 managed to escape from the ghetto in Kaunas, and later was taken care of by various Lithuanian families. "Love is so much more important than hatred," is the main phrase of this proud lady. I wish her good example would become the guiding light for anyone who cares about Lithuania.