Buying antiques in Lithuania

If you are looking to combine your holiday with shopping for antiques, Lithuania is perhaps not the best place to go. Specialised antique shops are few and far between, and what they have to offer is usually rather unremarkable. One should think that such an old country also would have loads of old stuff, but this seems not to be the case. To a large extent it is probably due to the many occupations in rather recent history, and the frequent use of deportations by the soviet occupants. At least, that is the explanation given by many locals – that the Russians either stole or destroyed most of what would have been antiques today.




Most of the stuff you will find in Lithuanian antiques
shops is not of Lithuanian origin at all.

This is however only part of the truth. Another explanation is that the strange idea of idolizing old crap has not yet become commonly popular in Lithuania. People there seem still to prefer decorating their homes newer, more flashy interior details, rather than to put grandpas old milk bucket on display. As a consequence, such items are not much valued and are often withering away in barns and outhouses in the countryside. Few people even bother to bring them to market, since such common things rarely can be sold at a good price. After all, the Russians stole all the good stuff, anyway. But then again, they also left some more recent antiques behind, like this one:




Head of Lenin. Such a thing used the be found all over the place.
For instance in schools. There are still a few of the around. 

Such relics of soviet times can still be found in considerable quantities, and with the exception of medals and such, they are usually genuine. As opposed to about 95% of the alleged Nazi Germany antiques that are on sale here.  It seems that many items from everyday life during soviet times have not yet reached the status as collectables, and as a consequence there are very few such items on the market. On the other hand, those that are available are quite often moderately priced.

 

Soviet plate with apporopriate cutlery.
Examples of Items that are not yet regarded as antiques.

Most of what I have seen on sale in Lithuanian antique shops seems to be “leftovers” from western second hand store, most likely sold in bulk at a cheap price. Most of the merchandise in this shop in Urmas, for instance, seems to have originated in Germany:

In other shops, one can find items that seem to have been donated of more or less discarded in other countries, and have no connection to Lithuania whatsoever. How else can for instance this commemorative plate from the Danish Maritime National Guard have found its way into an antique shop in Palanga, if not by way of trash? The value of such an item in Denmark is next to nothing.

 

The official Christmas plates of the Danish Nationa Coastguard.
Unless they were stolen by the KGB during the Cold War, I would hardly say they are antiques.

But there are anyway some treasures to be found, both legal ones and illegal. Even though much of the good stuff is gone, Lithuanian farmers are still plowing Stone Age artifacts up from the soil every year. And a considerable number of them find their way to the back rooms of the antiques shops. For those of us who prefer the righteous path, on the other hand, I recommend buying crafts rather than antiques. After all, the good hand made products of today are the antiques of tomorrow.