A Guided Tour: North Town and Verkių Street – Stories from the Battlefield

The first comprehensive Lithuanian publication about the Vilnius surroundings (1958) describes a trip to Verkiai as follows: “To the left stretch the uninteresting Šnipiškės with old, narrow streets and simple houses in gardens and and orchards. To the right is a wide plain, the so-called Battlefield." This referred to the territory of Šiaurės miestelis (North Town)."Military parades and inspections used to take place in this Field. Here, Russian Tsar Peter I inspected his army. Here, too, Napoleon in 1812, before his ill-fated campaign to Moscow, observed his colorful, multinational army." During Soviet times, part of this Field became a large, closed, secret territory, around which new factory buildings and houses arose. Let's look for the remaining traces of this Field: from the times of Napoleon and the Soviet army. Where were the soldiers of Napoleon's army found buried? What does the Christ statue on Kalvarijų Street signify? Did mammoths walk here? And why not? Signs of the Afghan war. The pride of the Soviet micro-district – the banquet hall, what happened there and what is happening there now. Where it's better not to buy apartments and why. The Gates of Evil and two accounting offices. Have you ever wondered why one of the streets in Vilnius's North Town is now called Lakūnų (Pilots') Street? Start: Fr. Br. Laurinavičius Square (intersection of Žalgirio and Kalvarijų streets). End: PC Banginis. Duration: 1.5 hours. Length: 2 km.

Adresas: Broniaus Laurinavičiaus skveras, Kalvarijų gatvė, Vilnius, Vilniaus m. sav., Lietuva