“There are few houses like ours left in Vilnius,” smiles Anatolijus Brakerovas, who lives in one of the wooden house apartments on Paperiaus Street.
Her neighbor Zita Aleinikova admitted that she is counting down the months until spring, when the construction of water and sewage networks will begin. Residents of the house who are retired, disabled or unemployed cannot pay them. For this you have asked the municipality for help for many years.
Residents will only have to prepare a project and the municipality has already transferred the money for water supply to the account of the Verkių būstas company.
Used to pickle cucumbers
A. Brakerov pointed to the stairs along which residents fetch water from the nameless stream. The man did not complain much: he himself has lived for almost half a century and always drinks a lot of water, even unboiled. Neither he nor his neighbors ever got sick.
“In the past, not only neighbors, but also people who lived further away came for water and pickled cucumbers. They were very tasty,” the old man recalled.
The stream doesn’t freeze even in the coldest winter, just shovel snow off the stairs. According to Z. Aleinikova, it is worse to wash using water from a nearby pond. This stinks.
Grouped by several buildings
Why haven’t the residents of a house with five apartments dug a well yet? “Nobody cared. Water always flowed nearby, it never ran out,” explained A. Brakerov. It is true that residents go to their relatives and friends after taking a shower.
The house on Paper Street was built after the war. Its old inhabitants told A. Brakerov that near Ozhkiniai there was a settlement of Poles who moved here between the wars. After the war they were allowed to return to their homeland, so many houses remained empty. After they were dismantled and moved, the fifth house was built on Paperiaus street, the inhabitants of which worked in the nearby cardboard factory.
At the beginning of independence, it was planned to build not only water supply, but also centralized heating networks from the factory. However, the factory was closed and no one cared about the residents’ problems anymore.
It does not allow the cultivation of onions
Z. Aleinikova was happy that at least now the municipality is paying attention to the requests, because before the residents received no government aid, only bans.
“Here we bought pavers, we paved the yard ourselves so as not to bring dirt home. Nobody helped. We thought about growing carrots and onions near the house, fencing off a piece of land – it’s impossible.
Firewood stores are also not allowed. How are we supposed to live?” the woman complained.
She is disappointed that the gardens and woodsheds have not been found for several decades, and now she is concerned.
You will not be able to accumulate money
According to Iljos Karužis, head of the Municipality’s Energy Department, when considering the issue of water supply, the fact that all the residents of the house are socially assisted people was taken into account.
Their applications were considered for two years. It turned out that the residents of the 5th house on Paperiaus street will not be able to accumulate the necessary funds for at least a few more years.
In the past, residents have repeatedly asked the company “Vilniaus vandenys” to build water and sewage networks.
Take advantage of the opportunity
The company “Vilniaus vandenys” has recently completed the more than 15 million project of renewal of water management infrastructure and development of networks, for the implementation of which half of the total funds are allocated from the funds of the European Union.
Although the company built nearly 28 kilometers of new water supply and over 30 kilometers of sewer networks during the project, residents are in no hurry to connect to the new infrastructure.
After the construction of the new water sector infrastructure, 3,080 residents were able to connect to the new water networks and 3,412 to the sewage networks.
New networks were built in Antakalni, Salininkai, New Vilnia, Rasas and Šnipiškės.
According to Deputy Mayor Valdas Benkunskas, although the city is expanding and residents are being offered the opportunity to connect to new centralized networks, a significant number of residents are still not taking advantage of these opportunities.
“As the city expands, the infrastructure of our city also increases, residents have the opportunity not only to simplify their daily lives, but also to look responsibly at solutions that respect nature.” We encourage residents to connect to centralized networks without delay, as well as actively use the support provided by the city when connecting to them,” said V. Benkunskas.
Since residents who want to connect to centralized networks have to build branch lines leading from their property to the networks, the municipality provides special support for this.
In the past two years, the company has completed network development projects: the total length of the networks has reached 36.6 kilometers of water supply networks and 47.5 kilometers of sewage collection networks.
