Author's Tour: Šiaurės miestelis and Verkių Street – Stories from the Battlefield

The first comprehensive Lithuanian publication about the surroundings of Vilnius (1958) describes a trip to Verkiai: "On the left stretch the uninteresting Šnipiškės with old narrow streets and simple houses in gardens and orchards. On the right – a wide plain, the so-called Field of War." This referred to the territory of Šiaurės miestelis. "In this Field, military parades and inspections used to take place. 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 search for the remaining traces of this Field: from the times of Napoleon and the Soviet army. Where were the buried soldiers of Napoleon's army found? What does Christ 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 departments. Have you ever wondered why one of the streets in Vilnius's Šiaurės miestelis is now called Lakūnų (Pilots') Street? Start: Rev. Br. Laurinavičius Square (intersection of Žalgirio and Kalvarijų streets). End: PC Banginis (Shopping Center Banginis). Duration: 1.5 hours. Length: 2 km.

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