Except for the surrounding high-rise apartments in the town of Druskininkai, this could be a scene from Lithuania's ancient past.


Yanina Stroyonova and a half-dozen other babushki are gathered around a campfire tending their kettles and steadily feeding kindling onto the low-burning fire.


"My mother taught me how to make one of these a very long time ago", she said of the mud and iron campfire stove. "But I never thought I would need to use it again".


An acute energy shortage has gripped Lithuania, the result of Russia's demand for hard currency for oil and gas. Though I had already spent several days in Lithuania talking with people in coats huddled over electric heaters, their breath visible even indoors, I kept hearing about the far more serious plight of several remote villages such as Druskininkai where gas had been turned off for nearly two months and people were cooking over campfires.


As I approached the charming village, 150 kilometers from Vilnius near the Polish and Belorussian borders, I began to see the trails of smoke in the sky. I followed one of these to the courtyard of a typical Soviet apartment ghetto where I met Stroyonova and the other women of the nearby high-rises who were cooking on their little open stove. As I approached, Stroyonova and another woman were on opposite ends of a saw, cutting kindling.


The motley crew, dressed in felt boots, scarves, sweaters and peasant coats, talked constantly, stopping only to lift the lid from one of their pots or to feed another stick onto the fire. Meanwhile business people carrying briefcases, and smartly dressed young women filed by. Many shook their heads in disbelief as they passed.


"The young people think it's funny", said Stroyonova, who built her stove from parts scrounged from the construction site next door. The ingenious device is made of bricks with an iron plate on top and a chimney for ventilation. The entire apparatus is then encased in mud.


"They think I should just buy an electric hot plate", she went on. "But they cost 3, 000 rubles Where am I going to get that kind of money? "


In Druskininkai, a tourist town popular for its beautiful pine forests and many small lakes, heat is now switched on for just two hours a day. There is no gas for stoves. The hospital cannot perform procedures like blood transfusions because of the low temperature. Schools are so cold that the children wear coats all day.


"Look at the face of Lithuania", scoffed Anya Vocheleniya, her voice hoarse from a cold she claims to have caught as a result of her heat being turned off. "The people are cold. The people are hungry. The people


have had enough".