The book, which was released in mid-April 2024, is intended to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 26th year of biologists of the then Faculty of Natural Sciences of Vilnius University.
The memoirs, fragments of diaries and letters, and photographs from 1967–1972 provide an invaluable insight into the events experienced, convey the environment, atmosphere and worldview of that period. The book also contains brief information about the Faculty as well as prominent professors who taught biologists there in 1967–1972.
In the excerpts from the diaries, letters and memories written by Violeta Pileckaitė-Ivinskienė, the chronicle of the life of the 1967–1969 year comes to life: forgotten names and surnames, study episodes, the daily routine of the first two study summer practises, the discoveries of the students' independent research, the people they met, the student life, the beauty of places visited and ethnographic villages, the treasures of biological diversity, the romance of students hiking as well as the environment and atmosphere of that period is revealed: photos taken in the soviet times display clothes, shoes, children's strollers or bicycles, toys, hairstyles and "makeup", gray cracked asphalt of courtyards, decrepit sidewalks, puddles in courtyards after the rain, buses, trolleybuses, cars, blackened, soot-covered walls of houses...
The thematic photo album at the end of the book contains more than 1000 photos, capturing the life of the 26th year of biologists - daily studies, summer internships, forced labor in collective farms, military service in the Soviet army, and episodes of meetings organized after graduation.
The book is available in the National Martynas Mažvydas Library of Lithuania and the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.
