Kristina Sadauskienė (Lithuania)

Kristina Sadauskienė was one of the participants in the Tartu UNESCO City of Literature Nordic-Baltic Residency Programme, supported by the Nordic Culture Point. She was the inaugural guest of the programme, residing in Tartu at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. Kristina works as a media and public relations specialist at the Klaipėda Drama Theatre and is also a tour guide and writer. She has published two city guides, one for Klaipėda and one for Biržai. Now back in Tartu, she is leading a tour that shares her unique perspective of the city. It should also be mentioned that it was one of her ideas that inspired the creation of the “Tartu Revisited” walking tours project featuring five walks with previous writers-in-residence.

Kristina Sadauskienė describes her tour “Tartu: rewritten” as follows: 

“An hour-long walk through central Tartu. Starting point – near the Kassitoome. Ending point – not clarified. Despite the guide’s claim that everything is true, she is not to be completely trusted.

I got enfolded in Tartu of huge snow drifts, of deep silence, of white. Of unknown surfaces. There was mystery and comfort in the unknown world around me. And some-things (or some-ones) rustling in the house walls. I was an alien, someone without any relations, without knowledge about the place. So I just indulged. Without any history books or shame: What is this thing? Why is this thing? Where are the nice dudes? And where is the sea? Some great things revealed themselves during the two months. Some remained blissfully hidden. I share what picture and meaning I (re)constructed of Tartu while I’ve been here. I guess it clashes wildly with an official historical, geographical or geological truth of the town. To make it acceptable, we can always claim it is an exercise of imagination”