 Later he was elected as a delegate to the Great Seimas of Vilnius.He was arrested and imprisoned in the Panevėžys Prison, but escaped and with the help of Felicija Bortkevičienė fled abroad.Between 1906 and 1919, he lived first in Finland, then in Liège (Belgium) from 1908, where he completed his studies and received a diploma in mining engineering from the Technical University and another one from the Electrotechnical Institute, then he worked on the railroad in Serbia.