I first visited this apartment, which could be described as a flat with a million-dollar view at the end of May last year. It was a sunny evening, hinting at a warm summer ahead. Truth be told, as I climbed Owl Hill, I had no idea I was headed to the home of guitarist Rokas Jurkus. At the time, my colleague and I were interviewing Sandra Karnilavičiūtė, the head of the youth program Kylantis Kaunas about how the city is changing and how she fits into it. Sandra mentioned then that she was rarely at home, but her roommate Rokas sometimes even hosts concerts there.
Already that evening I was fascinated by the pump organ illuminated by the setting sun. You won’t find a pump organ in every home, and next to it – a table football. Nearby, on a pedestal, stood a potted plant. Perhaps it was the mischievous evening light that made the panels covering the ‘90s-style archway and kitchen less annoying. I was surprised to see a stove in the living room – after all, this is an apartment building! And finally, Rokas emerged from his room. It took a few more months before I saw him perform on stage. Later, at home, with headphones on, I explored his debut album Mėlyno smėlio piramidės which features works by Arvo Pärt, Dušan Bogdanović, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, and others. Immersed in the blue melancholy, I knew for sure that I would return to that apartment on A. Mackevičius Street with a clear goal: to interview Rokas.
So, it’s the period between the holidays. Before me stands a grey brick apartment building, constructed during the Khrushchev era, around the mid-1960s. It is surrounded by new architecture, interwar period buildings when the street was called Italijos, and the buildings from the older, tsarist era. Nearby are Juozas Zikaras’ House-Museum, the century-old Academy of Arts of Kaunas College – the former Kaunas Art School – and the first Čiurlionis Gallery. At the time, the city allocated this area, then remote and previously used for fortress purposes, to these institutions. Now, living and being here is considered prestigious.
The prestige, albeit a discreet one, lies in the fact that from the apartment windows, you can see the Philharmonic, the Musical Theatre, and other historical buildings of Kaunas. After making some tea, Rokas, photographer Donatas, and I move to the spacious living room, where a sparse, not-at-all-silver, and thus charmingly old-fashioned Christmas tree stands in the middle. The view from the windows isn’t much – perhaps worth only 300k – because, as you may recall, the end of December in Kaunas was blanketed by a layer of fog. We sink into a green, equally unmodern sofa.
Just around Christmas, Rokas managed to raise the desired amount of money from fans, friends, or perhaps even strangers who believed in him, to fund the release of a new album dedicated entirely to Čiurlionis. This marks the first time in the history of performing this composer’s music! The album has already been recorded and will probably be released in the summer of 2025. I look around the living room – the guitar is leaning against the stove in the corner, with a small painting next to it. Rokas started to write down arrangements of Čiurlionis’ works for guitar here a few years ago when he was studying in France, in the city of Lille, which reminded him of home with its student atmosphere. Why here? “If you’re serious about this subject, you find a teacher and go to him,” he explains. “I saw an article on Facebook that a student of Judicaël Perroy had won the GFA competition, which is very highly regarded, and I wondered who the teacher was.” Coincidentally, Perroy had already been invited to the Baltic Guitar Festival in Birštonas, where the Lithuanian, who had already signed up for his camp, met the Frenchman in person. However, he didn’t consider staying in France because his native Kaunas was calling.
“I always knew that I wanted to create in Kaunas and be with the Kaunas community, I just have a better grasp on how life is going here. The cultural and historical contexts of this city are important to me – walking down the street, I seem to be able to understand strangers, something I never felt in France,” says the resident of an apartment on Owl Hill. Having grown up in Dainava and Eiguliai – it would take him ages to get to J. Naujalis music gymnasium – Rokas decided that he wanted to be closer to the center and all the action. Besides, his parents who are originally from Šilutė no longer live in their childhood home either and have settled in Kulautuva.
“It was just a listing. We came, checked it out, and it turned out to be really great. My first roommate, who’s also a musician, said it was too expensive, but we came anyway, and after that, nothing else we looked at seemed good enough,” Rokas, settled on a cushion with the inscription “Milan”, recalls the story of finding the apartment (or rather, two Soviet-era apartments combined into one) more than four years ago. We’re munching on Christmas gingerbreads, with Garbanotas playing in the background. Near the record player is a stack of vinyls, hinting at the dominant musical moods. Closest to us is Nancy Sinatra.
I ask Rokas if it’s true, as Sandra mentioned, that concerts are held here. A few have taken place, with maybe a dozen listeners attending. But it’s more of a spontaneous thing than a tradition. “I think the guitar is a fantastic instrument for such concerts because it doesn’t need accompaniment, you can bring it anywhere, and sound-wise, it’s ideal – it can resonate so delicately,” Rokas says, not ruling out future impromptu performances.
As we – apparently noisily – move toward the bedroom area, a new roommate of Rokas’s steps out of one of the rooms. It turns out I already know Akvilė – she used to work at the box office of the Romuva cinema I often visit. The interview spontaneously turns into a discussion about Paolo Sorrentino’s new film, which Rokas has already seen but none of us have. We stand between the pump organ and the foosball table, and the atmosphere feels just like being at bar Kultūra, except it’s brightly lit.
Behind Rokas is a cabinet with books, magazines, and all kinds of household items. It turns out that this is a giveaway where you can take whatever you want. It is yet another element that is more characteristic of a public space than a home. But the loudest statement that this apartment is more than just a place to eat and sleep comes from an ironic installation about fortune (yes, it uses Fortūna candies), which you can scoop up by the bucketful.
On the pump organ which was manufactured in 19th-century France and originally found in a classified ad by Rokas’s first roommate, who restored it despite it being advertised as mere decoration, there rests sheet music of Jacob Collier who recently visited Lithuania. We start talking about what Rokas considers to be a good musician. “To me it’s important when a person not only plays well but also makes their own music and does it interestingly. When I was studying, performance and composition were quite strictly separated, and only later did I admit to myself that creativity is important, and I should be more in tune with its aspects” he says. “I’m very happy that Collier was brought to Lithuania, and I was able to see him and to make sure that he’s only human,” Rokas laughs. I can testify that Rokas is open to different sounds because I met him at the Manifestas festival in the summer, listening to punktò.
The musician, who celebrated his 25th birthday last year, finds the environment where he performs increasingly important. When asked about his most memorable public performance to date, Rokas answers without hesitation: the courtyard of the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art during the exhibition Kryžių Lietuva. “It was sacred – the hanging crosses, their shadows falling…”
Rokas spends most of his time with his guitar alone, usually in the bedroom, especially at night. “[playing] Something gentle.” He enjoys Erik Satie and the Baroque period. And many, many others. Recently, “Ne me quitte pas” has been playing in the bedroom. Check YouTube to hear the voice of the song’s Belgian author, Jacques Brel, accompanied by piano, while I upload the snippet from the Rokas blitz performance on the Kaunas Full of Culture Instagram page.
“It all started with my parents’ impulse – they enrolled me in music school,” Rokas recalls the beginning of his relationship with the guitar. The instrument was already at home, and his father played it a little. “Maybe it was his unfulfilled dream – but I’m just speculating. Now I understand how incredibly lucky I was. Music is my life, and classical guitar unlocks several more levels. It’s both my meditation and my prayer. If I play less, I feel like my well-being deteriorates.”
As soon as he returned from France, Rokas started to work in schools, but after getting a job at the theater, he put a pause on his pedagogical career. He says that although there were many charming aspects to that environment, he wasn’t particularly interested in teaching the basics. But he did receive a compliment from a student who said that she wanted to be… a guitar teacher when she grew up.
We’re standing again by the pump organ in the shared space of the apartment, which you can enter from all the rooms – it is not a corridor, but almost a square. Next to Collier’s music sheet, there’s a small painting by Mantas Valentukonis, depicting a pink elephant. Not the one painted by Vytenis Jakas, which Rokas sees on his way to work at the theater, coming down one of the many stairs in Žaliakalnis, but the one that once lived in the Courtyard Gallery, founded by Jakas. The painting was brought home by Akvilė, who is studying art history and criticism.
“I must have learned from Jonas Mekas that you shouldn’t throw things away, but now I’m angry at him for making my house a garbage dump,” the guitarist says when asked what the dried flowers hanging here and there or resting in vases – he doesn’t necessarily remember how they came to be – mean in his house. The dining table under the dried carnations has turned into an exhibition space, with three small-format paintings on display. Another exhibition of photographs is on the chimney of the stove. Here, Polaroids are glued together, most of them taken right here at Rokas’ home. I realize I got too deep into this “let’s prove that this apartment is not just an apartment” game. So, we go back to the kitchen, but here too everything seems staged – in a good sense.
“I brought those from Garliava,” says Akvilė, introducing the pumpkins lined up on the windowsill. Next to them is a bouquet of pussy willows. It’s a very warm holiday season, and if it weren’t for the Christmas tree in the living room, you’d think it was already March.
And what are those gardens of Eden mentioned in the title? That was the name of the exhibition on historical Lithuanian green spaces in art and documentary, which ran at the Kaunas Picture Gallery from September 16 to October 19, 1999. Rokas was born on October 5 of the same year. “I picked it up in Žilinskas Gallery. They were written off; we were allowed to take them.” Another poster announcing the 1999 Art Deco exhibition in Kaunas is in the corridor. The same hangs in Kultūra and I suddenly remember it was also hanging in my room when I was still in school.
