77-year-old farmer criticises welfare dependency and calls authorities “foolish”

A 77-year-old Lithuanian farmer who has worked his entire life has sharply criticised those living on state benefits, calling government policies “foolish” for enabling dependency, LRT radio programme Ryto garsai reports.

Vytautas Stasys Kleiva, from Pramedžiava in Raseiniai district, still manages his farm daily—keeping six horses and raising cattle on 60 hectares of land—despite his age. “I grew up with horses, and I’ll die with them,” he said, explaining that the animals are both working partners and companions. His grandchildren often visit to ride them, he added with a smile.

Kleiva, who has lived in the same village his whole life, dismissed the idea of retiring on his pension of just over €600 per month. “You can’t survive on a pension,” he stated. Though his health is declining, he continues working, acknowledging he may soon need to scale back.

He has no intention of leaving rural life, calling cities foreign to him. “I was born here, grew up here, and I’ll die here,” he said. Even visits to relatives in urban areas leave him more exhausted than a day’s work at home.

His bond with horses began in childhood. His father, a kolkhoz veterinarian, would take him along on rounds: “He’d put me on the saddlebow, lead the horse to drink, and I’d barely hold on. When the horse bent down, I’d tumble off into the snow,” he recalled, laughing. The connection has lasted a lifetime. “As long as I have the will, I’ll live with them,” he said.

Kleiva worked as a driver during Soviet times and later built his own farm after independence. He described the transition as chaotic but necessary: “Some drank, some worked. Those who worked made it; those who didn’t, drank.” He admitted the shift to self-reliance wasn’t easy for everyone in his village.

Today, he condemns welfare policies that, in his view, discourage work. “The government is foolish—it breeds lazy people with handouts. Healthy people sit around doing nothing,” he said. He claimed some villagers openly admit, “Why should I work if I get benefits?”—a mindset he finds unacceptable.

Despite his criticism of modern policies, Kleiva said he lives as he chooses. “Now you do what you want. No one bosses you around,” he noted, contrasting it with the rigid control of the kolkhoz era, when “all that mattered was party loyalty, not whether a person had a brain.”