Naujoji Vilnia

Since ancient times, water-powered industries have been located along the Vilnia River – traces of them can be found in Užupis, Paplauja, Pūčkoriai, and Belmontas, and Kučuriškės is no exception. This place is special not only because a large pond formed by a dam has been preserved, but also because of its exceptional history. The company that operated in Kučuriškės is considered to be the oldest factory in Lithuania. In 1823, the paper workshop was founded by Vaitiekus Puslovskis, a wealthy industrialist of that time. In 1844, the company acquired an English paper roll machine, after which it is considered to have evolved from a workshop into a real factory. The tradition of paper-making in this place was very long-lasting, even until 2001. A walk around the site reveals a colonnaded administration building, a rustic factory building with a tall chimney, and, for the more observant, a stone engraved with the date 1820 on one of the walls.

Although there is no tangible historical knowledge of the cemetery, the old cemetery of Naujoji Vilnia is worth a visit. Burials from the late 19th and early 20th centuries can be found here, including those of the Mozer family, which had a great influence on Naujoji Vilnia. Although they are not ornate, perhaps the most interesting are the crosses made of railway tracks. There is a variety of them, both Catholic and Orthodox. It’s proof that the town grew because of the railway!

At the end of the 19th century, Novovileisk, which was growing rapidly, still had no adequate houses of worship, so the spiritual needs of the inhabitants were met by the so-called ‘Orthodox church wagons’. These were mobile chapels installed in the carriages and moved with the trains to the more remote areas of the Russian Empire. It is estimated that by the beginning of the 20th century, there were already over 2,000 Orthodox Christians living in the town, so in 1903 the construction of a place of worship began. As the town’s workers were poor, things were slow. It was decided to temporarily build a wooden Orthodox church, which was consecrated in 1908, and a Russian pro-gymnasium was established. In 1914, the parish received money from St. Petersburg for the construction of a new brick Orthodox church, and the foundation stones were laid the same year. By the time the Germans entered the area in 1915, the brick house of worship had already grown solidly, but was not yet completed. During the war, the brick church was demolished and its bricks were used to build a gunpowder factory. No trace of this brick church remains, apart from a grassy knoll. The Orthodox have not built a new temple in Naujoji Vilnia in 100 years, so the wooden Orthodox Church of Saints Peter and Paul, which was once only a temporary church, continues to serve as the main spiritual centre of this denomination. It is the only wooden Orthodox church in Vilnius.

There are two Catholic churches in Vilnius dedicated to Saint Casimir in Vilnius, one at the Town Hall and the other in Naujoji Vilnia. Why did this happen? The answer is simple – when the church was built, Novovileisk was still a separate town, so the overlapping names were not considered  as an issue. In 1906, the Governor General of Vilnius allowed the construction of the Catholic church, and in 1908-1911, work was already underway on the project by the prolific engineer A. Filipovičius-Dubovikas, although the project was simplified for reasons of economy and modified by S. Houvalt. The faithful had to wait until 1924-1928 for the final installation of the necessary liturgical attributes (altars, organs, paintings). The neo-Gothic yellow brick structure is clearly visible from numerous vantage points in Naujoji Vilnia, and the churchyard also offers stunning views.

In response to the growing demand for agricultural machinery, the ‘Neris’ agricultural machinery factory was established in 1957 on the site of the former furniture factory. It produced threshing machines, grass flour production units, feed pelleting and pressing machines, hay cleaners, beet row thinners, and many other machines. Between 1985 and 1990, 25 railway wagons of production rolled out of Naujoji Vilnia every day – it was the largest factory with a railway siding in the district. The bulky machinery was exported to far-flung places, reaching Cuba, Mongolia, and Africa. In the 1980s, about 2000 people worked at the ‘Neris’ plant. After the restoration of independence, the industrial giant, which had not adapted to the changes, went bankrupt. Perhaps the most impressive structure is the robust mini-castle on the site of the former factory, which used to house the administration and later the engineering services in the days when the ‘Neris’ company was operational. However, the ‘castlelet’ itself came into being at the beginning of the 20th century with the construction of the ‘Sofija’ paper mill, founded by a merchant from Kharkiv – Ch. Sinelnikov.

At the end of the 19th century, industrial capitalists from the West were particularly drawn to Novovileika because of its attractiveness. Arnold and Karl Moser were an example of such entrepreneurship; they came from the Swiss canton of St. Gallen and set up a knitwear factory on the site of 49 Pramonės g. This industry is a long-standing tradition in the above-mentioned Swiss region. The Mozer factory in Naujoji Vilnia employed around 1,200 people. The owners themselves were distinguished citizens: Arnold was considered a privileged citizen of the Russian Empire – he spoke Russian and Polish, while his brother Karl was the chairman of the Novovilisk Council and later the town’s mayor. After the Second World War, the former Mozer property became the state-owned ‘Spalio 40-mečio’ Machine Tool Factory, which manufactured machine tools for the production of gears. Walking around the relatively large site, it is easy to identify which industrial buildings belonged to the Mozer-era factory and which belonged to the Soviet era.

The parts of Naujoji Vilnia on opposite sides of the river are as different from each other as night and day. The northern part is dominated by detached houses stubbornly climbing the steep hills, while the southern part is mostly mid-Soviet era blocks of flats, comfortably arranged on a flat plateau. These buildings once housed many of the workers who worked in the factories of Naujoji Vilnia, which experienced a new wave of industrialisation during the Soviet era.

In the late19th century, the Russian Empire decided to build large district psychiatric hospitals, one of which was planned in Naujoji Vilnia. In 1903, the hospital was officially opened and received its first patients. The complex had 1,000 beds for the five governorates of Vilnius, Kaunas, Minsk, Vitebsk, and Grodno. A garden and an orchard of just over a hectare were set up next to the hospital, where the patients worked (this is the area between the river and the hospital, now built up with residential houses). The First World War led to the evacuation of the hospital and a long period of military rule. Between the wars, the hospital buildings were used by the Polish army, then by Soviet troops, for three years during the Second World War by the Nazis, who set up a prisoner-of-war camp (the prisoner-of-war cemetery is located a little to the east of the hospital), and then the Soviet army returned after the war. During the war, some of the blocks were damaged, the south-eastern blocks were not rebuilt, and the complex lost its original shape – from a bird’s-eye view, it used to resemble a Russian double-headed eagle. In 1961, the psychiatric hospital resumed operations. It was used to house those who did not want to serve in the Soviet army, and it was joked that the Artists’ and Writers’ Unions also had their own ‘wards’. The hospital’s courtyard is decorated with a decorative sculpture by Vaclovas Krutinis, symbolising a man reborn after treatment.

When Vilnius became part of Poland in the interwar period, the buildings of the psychiatric hospital were converted into barracks for the 13th Vilnius Uhlans Regiment. It was decided that a new church should be built to serve the large number of soldiers, as Šv. Kazimiero Church in the town was too far away. Construction work on the garrison church, which was to be named after St Stanislaus Kostka, was started in 1938, but the church never opened, and although the exterior was almost finished, the interior could not be completed. In the post-war period, the building belonged to the psychiatric hospital, but was used as a shop, wine storage, workshop, and even a shooting range. In 2002, the hospital handed over the church to the Vilnius Archdiocese, and the parish was given the title of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace. In 2005, the church was consecrated and for the first time since it was built, it was able to fulfil its original purpose.

In 1959, the ‘Draugystė’ (Friendship) cinema was built in the centre of Naujoji Vilnia. Its design is typical, and identical cinemas were built at the same time in many cities of the USSR, including the ‘Tėvynė’ (in Vilnius, Kalvarijų g.), ‘Draugystė’ (in Ukmergė), ‘Aurora’ (in Klaipėda). In 1992, the ‘Draugystė’ fell on hard times: unable to cover its expenses, the cinema asked for the heating to be disconnected. For some time, it continued to host occasional screenings, but sporadically and gradually, other tenants appeared and the land was acquired by Rimi, Iki, and finally, in 2007, Maxima. Although the crisis put the plans to open a supermarket here on hold, work started in the summer of 2011, and the store was officially opened in May 2012. When the cinema was converted into a supermarket, the rear part of the building was demolished, while the front part was retained. Inside, some of the former interior and columns remain, making it one of Vilnius’ most original shopping centres.

It would not be wrong to say that the railway directly helped Naujoji Vilnia to grow. In 1871-1873, the existing St Petersburg-Warsaw line was cut across by the new Liepaja-Romny (Libau-Romenskaya) line, which was supposed to connect Ukrainian grain farms with Liepaja, the southernmost port on the Baltic Sea of the Russian Empire. The branch of the railway at Novovileisk made it an important railway junction: in 1872, a Class II brick station was built here, with elongated passenger house, a warehouse, and a steam locomotive depot. Most of the administrative and residential buildings from the second half of the 19th century remain on both sides of the tracks. The present station building was built in the 1970s during the electrification of the railway, while the old passenger facilities were located between the platforms, surrounded by the railway tracks on both the north and the south side. In 1991, the monument ‘Prarastoji karta’, which was made out of railway tracks, was erected in the station square in memory of the lost generation of exiles. Next to it is a steam locomotive and a cattle wagon similar to those used for deporting people. Naujoji Vilnia was the last stop for deportees in what is now Lithuania.

In 1878, industrialists from Berlin set up a nail manufacturing company in the growing industrial town. In 1884, Emil Possehl (1850-1919), a German merchant and the richest man in Lübeck at the time, bought the factory and extensively expanded it. The factory was equipped with its own 0.10-verst railway siding (still extant), 60 Austrian specialists were invited, and the production of modern scythes began. Raw materials were supplied by Possehl’s steelworks in Sweden. In 1900, these scythes were exhibited and received positively at the Paris World Exhibition. In 1905, the factory employed as many as 450 workers, and by the time of the First World War, it had achieved an impressive output of 3 million scythes per year. It is sometimes said to have been the largest scythe factory in the world. In 1948, the Soviet authorities reorganised the former factory into a dyeing machine factory (known locally as ‘pokraske’), adding many new extensions and shifting the Vilnia River southwards. Not only the ‘pokraske’, but also the water tower of Possehl’s scythe factory, administrative and industrial buildings have been preserved on the site. In 2020, ‘Dūmų Fabrikas’ (Smoke Factory) , a brewery for Sakiškės beer, and a 1200 m2 exhibition space opened on the site. ‘Dūmų Fabrikas’ organises excursions, tastings, and exhibitions. Occasionally, even chartered trains enter the area along the tracks built by E. Possehl.

Let’s finish the journey as if turning the wheel of history and getting in touch with the deepest roots of the place – the site of Rokantiškių Castle. On this steep hill, 35-40 metres in height, once stood an old castle, which, according to legend, was built in the 12th century through the efforts of Duke Alšis. However, there is a lack of historical data to support this dating of the castle; later and more reliable sources indicate that the castle was ruled by the Goštautas family, Bona Sforca, Sigismund Augustus, and the Pacas family from the 16th century onwards. In fact, archaeological investigations and the discovery of the remains of buildings, bricks, rood and stove tiles, and cobblestones dating from the 16th and 18th centuries support the fact that there was a palace at the top of the hill. The castle was truly magnificent, visited by the highest officials of the time who would have gone hunting in the surrounding forests. In the middle of the 17th century, during the Muscovite army’s campaign against Lithuania, the castle was destroyed by fire, and over time the burnt out remains decayed and became covered by a forest. The remains of the castle are now preserved underground and marked with red paving stones. Note the origin of the name of the village to the south, Strielčiukai. It refers to the castle defenders who once inhabited the village (deriving from the word ‘shooter’, Russian: стрелок, Polish: strzelec).