Strange phone sculptures

Scattered across town, Vilnius is adorned by these strange-looking sculptures of phones. Some are encased in an egg-shaped cover, like this one, and others are in little shrines, particularly in public parks. I can only imagine that it’s some kind of pagan heritage thing to do with a communication god called “Teo” (which is written on the phone thing). Joking aside, it is amazing that some of these public payphones still exist. I have not seen the cards for sale anywhere, and the latest reference I could find on telecom incumbent Teo’s annual reports dates from 2009, when they said that 1838 payphones were still up nd running, down from 2440 the year before. In 2012, meanwhile, regulator RRT said that 98 percent of respondents to a survey did not use payphones, and 10 of the 17 people that did said the number of phones available was completely sufficient. They may not be in use, in an age of ubiquitous mobile handsets, but their presence on the streets triggers interesting questions from kids, who of course have no clue as to why you’d stick a phone on a string, and then leave it outside in the rain.