Well, who’s here to talk? Would you like to hear from an old sailor about the decorations of Smiltyne? Since you have already stopped by my boat exhibit, I will try not to go too far, but I make no promises. As my mother used to say, “Don’t give Antanelis something to eat, give him something to talk about”;

Well, who’s here to talk? Would you like to hear from an old sailor about the decorations of Smiltyne? Since you have already stopped by my boat exhibit, I will try not to go too far, but I make no promises. As my mother used to say, “Don’t give Antanelis something to eat, give him something to talk about”;

And indeed, I love to eat, but I love to talk about my love – boats – even more. Look at the three handsome men standing here… Did you know that in the Baltic Sea, Lithuanian fishermen used Finnish boats fifty years ago? They were used to pay the Soviet Union for war losses.

Our daily routine as seafarers was slave labour and prison life. Many people don’t understand why young men chose this kind of work, but those around us don’t know – when we seamen returned from the sea, our wages seemed to be so high… We didn’t pay for anything when we lived on board! It is an open secret that sailors would smuggle in contraband items from across the seas – jeans, corduroy shirts, chewing gum, anti-Soviet literature – and, eh… when they came back, they would be greeted with open arms by their relatives … I don’t know whether it was because we came back alive, because we missed them, or because of the goodies we brought back.

I’ve got a conversation. A lyrical digression, I suppose.

The three historical legacies that stand before you are Dubingiai, the tri-boat PTB-7167, and Kolyma. The largest, the only surviving and unique Bologna-type vessel of this type – Dubingiai. This medium-sized fishing trawler was moved to the old fishing boat yard almost 40 years ago, when it was pulled straight out of the water by the 1,000-tonne floating crane Stanislav Yudin, which had come to Klaipėda from Kaliningrad to get cleaned up before a voyage to the Far East.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Dubingiai belonged to the Lithuanian fishing fleet, which, unfortunately, no longer exists; It was not built like the others – in Germany, but here, in Lithuania, in Klaipėda, at the “Baltijos” shipyard. Fishermen were proud of their catches. He has even set a record for the Oceanic Fleet Base by catching even 30 tons of fish! It was used for trawling and driftnet fishing, and was also equipped for purse seine fishing;

If you have a minute, get inside – visit the “Long Voyage” exhibition about the Soviet era, where you can see the everyday life of a fisherman like me.

Next to it is a PTB-7167 trawler, which was used for trawling at sea. Built in the German Democratic Republic, the ship was used by Klaipėda fishermen to find their catches in the Baltic Sea. This one, when I was still a youngster, was brought to the Old Fishing Vessels of the Lithuanian Maritime Museum in 1978, and it still seems like yesterday…

And last, but not least, and the only one of its kind to survive, the small fishing trawler “Kolyma”, with a metal frame and a wooden hull. It was used for trawling in our beloved Baltic Sea, with a crew of eleven – slightly more than the last triboat. The Kolyma was one of the ships supplied to the Soviet Union as reparations by Finland, which had lost the war.

OK, that’s enough for now… And finally, do you know the unwritten rule for sailors? Whistling is strictly forbidden when on board, as it can attract not only unfavourable winds, but also disasters!

Didn’t you waste your time listening to me here? I must admit, it’s a pleasure to meet you, so I hope the feeling is mutual. And now I have to go, so see you later, man, or good winds!