In pre-industrial towns, mills were the first facilities to harness wind and water power, enabling more mass production. The power of mills was used to grind grain, saw boards, make paper, crush rock, grind gunpowder, press oil and facilitate or speed up other hard, monotonous tasks. Sometimes they also acted as granaries, regulating the water level of rivers and canals; some were even used for defence purposes.
It is believed that the first windmills in Vilnius date back to the 14th century. The map of Vilnius (1581) in the atlas of maps of the largest cities by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg shows a huge watermill (labelled in German as Die Muln) with several waterwheels, though it is incorrectly marked near the Neris.
The first ‘industrial’ zone in Vilnius, with its many windmills, was created and developed in the 16th and 19th centuries along the flowing River Vilnia, following the entire 12-kilometre-long stretch between the Lower Castle and old Rokantiškės.
Windmills were not common in Vilnius and its surroundings, but there were some isolated ones: two windmills were operational in Verkiai in the 18th century, a windmill in Žvėrynas was mentioned by the doctor Joseph Frank, and a capped Dutch-type windmill can be seen in the hills of Naujininkai behind the Vilnius railway station in a photograph taken by Józef Czechowicz during the second half of the 19th century.
Although most of Vilnius’ historic mills have disappeared, there are still water and windmills in the capital that have been repurposed, something that none of the neighbouring capitals can boast of.
