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Helmut Petrik from Pelkininkai. Otto von Bismarck's village, the Pelkininkai colony, was officially founded in 1861, where the landless were distributed state plots in the great Rupkalvii marsh for nothing. The land here is generous, potatoes and other vegetables grew well in the peaty soil, so the industrious swamp farmers quickly grew. There are about 10 homesteads left in Žalgiris today. There were about fifty. Some were burnt, others were destroyed little by little by the water. When the water recedes after the floods, the foundations of the old huts are visible. Those who live here are flood resistant. Helmuts Petrikas returned to his hometown in 1998, which he had left in 1975 "with tears", as he says... © Plot: Raimonda Tautvilė Canderienė Camera: Dalia Babaliauskienė © Mažosios Lietuvos televizija