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Chornaya Padina, a tiny village in the Russian steppes, was a birthplace of dr. Joseph Kazickas. His family together with many more were exiled from Lithuania following the Insurrection of 1863. He spent only first 4 years of his life there, but stayed deeply committed to this place for the rest of his life.
In 2001 dr. Joseph Kazickas returned to Chornaya Padina with his wife and four children where some individuals of Lithuanian descent still reside there. He was overfilled with emotions walking the roads where his ancestors built their lives far away from their beloved Lithuania. The following year he built a red brick chapel there and named it 'St. Katerina Chapel" in memory of his mother. J. Kazickas later wrote in his autobiography "I feel I fulfilled something for my parents. They would have been very happy that I went there to see where they were born, where they worked so hard and sweated in the fields on those long, hot summer days and where their relatives had died. Perhaps my children will go back one day and say a prayer in the little chapel for me and for all those who were not so fortunate to make it back to their beloved homeland, Lithuania, like I did with such joy and gratitude."
When Joseph Kazickas passed away in 2014, his daughter Jurate, together with her daughter Kristina and sister-in-law Lucy, brought a handful of her father's ashes back to Chornaya Padina. Jurate and her brothers continue their father's commitment to this tiny village and help its people. Throughout the years dr. J. P. Kazickas and family brought computers and printers for Chornaya Padina school and last year family financed the renovation of school's roof. Currently school has twenty eight students and ten children in the preschool in the same building. According to school's director Elena Gilis, if the school is alive, the village is alive.
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