- SUCH both the first-year students of LBTU and the weavers of the Jelgava linen combine could look “before distribution” in the sixties, when minis came into fashion in Latvia as well. Of course, nowadays the young women in the photo are wives, grandmothers or even great-grandmothers.
ILLUSTRATIVE PHOTO
When in the middle of March, together with Jānis Viduci from Ozolnieki, an active member of the politically repressed association “Staburadze”, we wrote the article “On my mother’s order – home from Siberia”, we involuntarily talked about the sad stories of Jelgava students. “Nerātnie studentu kāti” – that’s the name of the collection of memories, which was published in Jelgava in 2009 in honor of the 70th anniversary of LBTU. Undoubtedly, student mischief was also an expression of national resistance during the captivity. It seems that the upcoming April 1st day is very suitable to remind about them and, perhaps, to prepare the second, expanded edition of “Naughty Student Stories”.
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The following is from the story of Jānis Vidučs, a 1965 graduate of the LLA Hydromelioration Faculty.
Did not divide the girls
When the session is over, it should be noted. The hydromeliorators guys had gone to the restaurant and when they returned to the dormitories, they saw that one guy from the “mehu” (Faculty of Agricultural Mechanization) had come to visit our daughters. How can this happen to our daughters! Let’s beat him! The culprit ran along the corridor of the third floor to the end – it was approximately at the place where there is a bus stop on Lenina Street (the bus stop installed later on Lielas Street is located more towards the Anna Church). The fugitive tore open the window of the corridor and warned: “Don’t come near! I’ll jump out!” My classmate Mikus Juhnievičs said: “If you want, jump with it!” I wasn’t there and I don’t know exactly how everything happened. Maybe Mikus stabbed the mech in the arm or pushed him anyway. But there is no doubt that the “mechu” guy fell from the third floor to the pavement. They took him to the hospital and then, thinking that the student was dead, put him in the morgue. In the morning he goes to make a section, looks – alive. “Mika was expelled from the university, but from that time there was a saying in the course that for a real student, the path in life leads far from the morgue,” said Jānis Viducis.
He was not present in the conflict situation described, but what the experienced man told seems to be true. He met the guy who fell out of the window ten years ago safe and sound in the Jelgava region at the “Melnās bumba” (an old pub on the side of the Lithuanian highway – ed.). Only the name has been forgotten. On the other hand, Mikus Juhņevičs returned to the university and obtained a diploma by studying in absentia. No one was tried because everyone was drunk. It should be noted that the current Jelgava hospital chief physician Solveiga Ābola does not comment on this case, and unfortunately there is no contemporary to ask if it really happened.
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A shout out the window
Jānis Viducis remembers that there was a case that threatened to lead to a trial or big trouble, when a student shouted out the window of the reclamation workers’ dormitory: “Long live Chombe!” It was session time then. In addition, the cry was heard when the delegation from Moscow, representing Patrice Lumumba University of Friendship of Peoples, passed by the dormitory. Probably, the cry from the dormitory window was not related to deep sympathies for the reactionary politician of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Moisi Chombi, who supports the Belgian colonizers, or equally well for his opponent – the independence fighter Patrice Lumumba. However, the antipathy of the hydromelioration guys towards what comes from Moscow, which symbolizes the power of occupation, is completely understandable. And if there was (and still is) such a Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, then Jelgava students also had the slogan: “Long live Chombe!”
- AFRICA the reactionary politician Moise Čombe was not sympathetic, unfortunately Čombe was also liked by a Latvian teacher at that time. Today, Tshombe’s name is also mentioned in connection with the Swedish UN Secretary General Daag Hammarskjöld, who died in a plane crash in Africa in September 1961, who flew to meet the influential Tshombe. Independent and very independent in his judgments, D. Hammarskjöld wanted the African countries that had managed to free themselves from the colonial yoke to become truly independent. In 1961, he was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA.ORG
A massive investigation took place at that time. The students were called to the office and interrogated. “Did you see the delegation?” “Yes, I saw it.” “But who shouted: ‘Long live Chombe!’ There was no answer. The interrogation lasted until a wave of dissatisfaction arose: “We have an exam tomorrow! You have to learn!” The representatives of the administration and Chekists (KDK) did not get the denominator either. It can be added that Čombe’s name was quite well known in Latvia in the 60s as palama, for example, a teacher.
“Distribution” was free
Jūlijs Lekūzis (1938–2019) was among Jānis’s study partners and later painter (private student of Alfej Bromult). In 1962, he was expelled from full-time studies at the Faculty of Hydromelioration for behavior inappropriate for a Soviet student. However, Julius did not give up, he completed his studies in absentia in 1964. Julijs Lekūzis was also a great dancer. In Jelgava, he has danced in the folk dance group “Jaunība”, in the dance group of the Faculty of Hydromelioration and Forestry, but for the longest time – in the folk dance group “Dancis” and also “Sendancis” of the University of Latvia. Jānis Viducis says that it was under the influence of his performing arts talent that Lekūzis stood out among the students by dressing up as a woman in the dormitories in the evenings after school and “sitting up” to men on what is now Mātera and Lielas Streets (at that time Andreja Upīša and Lenina Streets). Lekuzis had beautiful curly hair, and it worked out quite convincingly.
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- FOR THE EXCELLENT MELIORATOR, the painter and dancer Jūlijas Lekūzis had beautiful curly hair in his youth. That’s why, as Jānis Viducis remembers, Jūlijs was quite convincingly able to disguise himself as a woman and tie himself to the jelgavniks who were walking past the student dormitories on Lenina Street.
PHOTO: DANCIS.LV
It is very likely that Jūlijs went dancing with his fellow students to the Jelgava Flax Combine Club, which was located in “Villa Medem”. Shortly before the closing of the dance night, you could get there for free. The guys then said that they were going “for distribution”. Namely, the girl you asked to dance, because soon you have to accompany her to her place of life (the dormitories of the Jelgava flax plant, which were built in the seventies and whose current address is on Polkveža Oskars Kalpak Street 9, were called the Pentagon, but that’s another story). Jānis Viducis remembers that after the “Villa Medem” balls there could be a fight with the Jelgavniks, who considered the workers of the flax plant to be the new Jelgavniks. For example, a Russian ruble metal coin was attached to the sidewalk in front of the dormitories. Of course, a passerby tried to pick it up. It should be noted that in the winter of 2023, Jānis Āboliņš (b. 1964), a later graduate of the hydromelioration specialty and also the keeper of student stories, actually found a lost wedding ring near these dormitories (currently they are not inhabited). Its owner has not yet been found.
When Lielupe is not allowed to swim across
Adding to the collection of articles “Naughty stories of students”, of course, you have to think about how to expand the transition from events with Jelgava students to events at other universities. At the first moment, it seems that the colorful activities of rural students experienced in Jelgava combined with curiosity and desire for education is something unique and unrepeatable. However, it is not at all. In other words, naughty stories can also be found in other memories of university graduates, their discovery probably requires more work. Perhaps the story of the naked run around Jelgava Castle on August 27, 2004, which was sent by socially active engineer Eduards Grigorjev in 2009, which is very valuable from the point of view of the compiler (it was published in the first edition of “Stories of Naughty Students”) . A short recap. On that day, Eduard turns twenty years old and he and his friend Ivar are at the castle. Both of them perfectly understand that after drinking beer, they should not swim across Lielupe. Then they decide to run around the castle naked. It works. No judge notices this. However, a car full of girls pulls into the parking lot behind the castle, who, upon seeing the two naked runners, excitedly shout: “All respect!” In the end, the result is that Eduard and Ivar will have something to tell their grandchildren.
“Physmats” are not afraid to walk on thin ice
Here, this could be the right place to post the story of Rita Kovalevskas, a 1972 graduate of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Latvia, that such bald races in the 1960s and 1970s. at the turn of the year, it was also held occasionally in Riga, in the area of student dormitories of the University of Latvia near the “Teika” cinema. Today, the dormitories on Burtnieku and Tālivalža streets are closed. Not only the student residences have changed, but also the style of entertainment – the “Argo” cafe no longer operates near the former dormitories, the “Teika” cinema, which was built in 1937, was closed in the early 1990s. However, from the 60s-70s at the turn of the year, Rita Kovalevska remembers the sound: “Shūp, shhūp, shhūp…” That’s how the steps of a student sounded – dressed only in such loud shoes (therefore – naked), he ran around the student dormitory in the dark of the evening.
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The students of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Latvia developed a big “mischief” 12 years ago, when a so-called language referendum was proposed in Latvia and the question was asked whether the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia could be amended and the Russian language given the status of the state language. “Fizmati” wrote “Against” with dark peat on the Daugava ice in front of the Salu bridge. 74.80% of the voters also voted “against”, but the turnout was 70.73% at the time (in the 2021 municipal elections in Jelgava, it was 29.59%, and in Jelgava county – 29.07% – CVK data).
It is true that students have written on the Daugava ice with peat in the past. For example, in 2010: “I want to stay!” This was how anger was expressed about insufficient funding for higher education and science in Latvia. “We love our land, our country, that’s why we want to stay here. However, it is not easy to decide on such a choice at the moment. Social guarantees have become low. Science has found itself in a difficult situation,” said Maira Indrikova, head of the Public Relations Working Group of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, organizer of the campaign.
Such writing is, of course, audacious. River currents are usually faster and the ice thinner near the bridges.
The project is co-financed by the Media Support Fund from the funds of the Latvian state budget. “Zemgale News” is responsible for the content SIF_MAF2023
