Piromontas

The ‘Delfinas’ apartment building with commercial premises is one of the early examples of new, international architecture in Vilnius. 

The building inherited its name from its predecessor, the ‘Delfinas’ wellness complex, which was equipped with a swimming pool and saunas and once stood on this site. After it was demolished, a new 44-metre-high 120-apartment building with 120 flats was erected on the site in 2003-2005, designed by the architects Kęstutis Pempė, Lilijana Jančytė, and Egle Kirdulienė.

The glazed building was an unambiguous testimony to the entry of modern Western architecture into the post-Soviet space. The architects tried to create a neutral background for the historic building, the Raduškevičius Palace, which is closer to the waterfront and therefore chose a greenish shade for the glazing. However, the project is often viewed negatively for its rather cluttered nature and disregard for the inhabitants’ expectations, with no landscaping around the building and no space for children’s playgrounds.  

Despite the criticism, the community living there tries to think positively; they refer to themselves as “dolphins” and are keen to get involved in community activities. 

The community even has its own logo, a dolphin with a window crown. The collection of over 3,600 dolphins and dolphin-related souvenirs amassed by Aušra Šaltenytė from Vilnius has been included in the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ in recognition of the largest display, pod, herd, or school of dolphin memorabilia!

This 12-storey building was one of the city’s first skyscrapers, and in 1973 it housed the then Ministry of Reclamation and Water Management. 

In the 1960s, a project was drawn up for the development of the current A. Juozapavičiaus and Rinktinės Streets. Five 13-storey buildings for officials, planners, and sportspeople were to be constructed adjacent to them. Later, however, it was decided that the project was too ambitious, so its scope was reduced. Eventually, the decision was taken to construct three buildings with 12, 10, and 8 storeys, respectively. In the end, only two of them – the 12-storey building at Juozapavičiaus g. 9 and the eight-storey building in the same style at Juozapavičiaus g. 11 – were completed. 

The 12-storey building was conceived by the architect Vladimir Oleinichenko, who was already a renowned architect at the time. His 1965 design and construction of the current Supreme Court (Gynėjų g. 6) was widely praised for its modern, contemporary form. 

The administrative buildings under construction in the 1960s and ’70s took on the features of the international architectural style and functionalism. The government of the time was concerned with creating the illusion of democracy, so architects followed the Western example: the frame structures and the abundant glass panels gave a sense of luxury. 

After the restoration of independence, the building housed the Bank of Lithuania for a while and now serves as the premises of various companies. 

The brick chapel hidden behind the multi-storey buildings is an 18th-century Catholic cemetery chapel, which has been rented out to the Armenian community since 2006 when it was established as the only Armenian church in Vilnius.  

It is believed that the site once belonged to St. Teresa’s Church, which stood on this embankment. It was built in the 17th century and was overseen by the Carmelite monks, who also maintained St Teresa’s Church at the Gates of Dawn. The church was located close to the riverbank and was damaged several times due to the constant flooding of the Neris; this eventually led to its demolition. 

At the end of the 18th century, the site was transferred to the parish of the Church of the Archangel Raphael and a cemetery was established there. Not only were the burials there associated with the parish of St. Raphael the Archangel, but also with other parishes and churches. The first victims of cholera in Lithuania were buried there when the epidemic reached these lands in 1831. It is known that relatives of Dr August Ludwik Bécu are buried here. 

In 1812, after the transfer of the site from the parish of St. Raphael the Archangel to another church, the cemetery was neglected and unused for some time, and only a few tombstones had been preserved by the early 20th century. However, the chapel in the cemetery was renovated in 1903. During the Second World War, three soldiers of the Polish Home Army were buried here, as evidenced by the three crosses in front of the chapel. 

The cemetery was closed during the Soviet era when construction began on the right bank, and the only relic of the cemetery is the chapel. In the first decade of independence, it was converted into a workshop and later rented to the Armenian community; it is now considered the smallest functioning church in Lithuania. 

The large shop windows still remain today, giving a glimpse of the building’s past. During the Soviet era, in the 1960s, the ground floor of the apartment block was the branch of a specialised currency shop. 

The currency shops sold deficit and import goods: foodstuffs, clothes, household appliances, and even ‘Volga’ cars. However, the range of goods available in the currency shop was not available to everyone, as these goods were sold only with foreign money or with a special “alternative currency” created during the Soviet era – cheques issued by Vneshkombank and Vneshposyltorg.

Only tourists could use foreign currency for payments in such shops, and citizens of the USSR had only one option – to pay by cheque. However, cheques were only issued to those who worked abroad (e.g. sailors, consulate workers) and received their salaries in foreign currency rather than roubles. The “alternative currency” was introduced because monetary transactions in foreign currencies were forbidden for USSR citizens in the Soviet Union.  

Those who wanted to buy deficit goods and had no legal means of obtaining a cheque usually bought cheques on the black market. This was both unsafe (as illegal purchases and such sales were punishable by criminal prosecution) and expensive, as cheques were double or even triple their real value. However, the demand for scarce goods was greater, which gave rise not only to illegal sellers of cheques but also to counterfeiters. 

When the first central power station was built in Vilnius, a residential building was erected next to it to accommodate the power station workers. The building, like the power station, belonged to Vilnius City Municipality for a long time until it was nationalised. 

It was not easy to get a room in this building – the workers had to earn their place on the waiting list by applying and making a convincing case for themselves as prospective tenants. Rooms in this building were given to those who lived far away from the power plant so that the employees could reach their workplace cheaply and quickly. However, it was not only the power plant that rented rooms in the building but also other employees of the City of Vilnius, such as bus drivers. 

Those who received the rooms tried to keep them in any way they could. For example, a document from 1940 has survived to this day with an official request written by a power plant employee who wished to be excused from paying the rent due to difficult financial circumstances or at least to have the payment of the debt for the room deferred. 

The building has a retrospective architectural form. This means that historical elements (orders) were avoided on the exterior. It has been given a new twist by simplified geometric forms. Rustic techniques were used to decorate the upper semi-circular windows. Around the window opening, square rusticated stones are imitated, which, together with the semi-circular window, are reminiscent of the rising morning sun. Perhaps this subtle decoration is symbolic of the power station’s function of lighting up the city?

The new business district ‘Business Stadium’ is located on the corner of Rinktinės and Šeimyniškių Streets, after the demolition of the former Žalgirio Stadium in 2016-2017. 

It can be said that sport on the right bank dates back to the 19th century when the Russian Imperial Army was stationed there. Exercises and training sessions were held in the area to improve the physical fitness of the soldiers. Later, a stadium was built here – the first stadium with spectator stands was built between the wars on the initiative of the Polish military. Back then, it already played host to football matches, as well as men’s and women’s athletics competitions attended by Józef Pilsudski himself. The local newspapers of the time encouraged people to visit the ‘Stadion na Pióromoncie’ (‘Piromont’ Stadium in Polish).

After the war, the stadium was badly damaged, and the Soviet authorities decided to reconstruct it. After the work was completed, it was renamed ‘Spartako Stadium’ after the name of the Vilnius football team at the time – when ‘Spartak’ team was renamed ‘Žalgiris’ a year later, the name of the stadium was changed to ‘Žalgirio Stadium’. The stadium was subsequently closed down due to its poor condition and failure to meet FIFA standards. 

It has now been replaced by a new business district. This complex of several buildings consists of ample office space, as well as restaurants, shops, sports, and beauty centres. One of the buildings houses the ‘Business Stadium Gallery’ – an art gallery established in cooperation with the Lithuanian Artists’ Union. 

The main attraction of the development is the pedestrian promenade between the buildings decorated with unique cascading fountains where water flows at different speeds. The sounds of the fountains and the landscaping – designed by the renowned American landscape architect Martha Schwartz – can transport those visiting this promenade from the middle of the city to more natural surroundings, allowing inhabitants some respite from the hustle and bustle of city life. 

The Piromontas Colony is one of the most popular architectural landmarks of the former district. It consists of several different types of dwellings built at the end of the 19th century on the initiative of Józef Montwiłł, an influential Vilnius businessman and banker. Both Piromontas and the other colonies by Juozas Montvila were built on the model of Western factory workers’ housing estates. 

The Montwiłł residential colonies were the first examples of complex spatial planning in Vilnius. The Piromontas quarter comprised a water supply system, a small square, streets, and a garden. The designs also included outbuildings and even a laundry next to the residential buildings. In the courtyard, on the corner of Slucko and Šeimyniškių Streets, one can still find evidence of the well that once stood there, hidden in the bushes behind a fence. 

The first building of this colony was designed by the architect Władysław Stypułkowski and consisted of a long two-storey block following the street line, made up of small sections. Later, another architect, August Klein, began work on the colony. 

Klein’s designs were more ornate and luxurious, with cottages decorated with ornamental and decorative wooden details. On the one hand, the wooden elements were intended to give a local character, as wooden architecture is a significant part of the landscape and heritage in Lithuania. On the other hand, they imitated the architecture of Zakopane (a famous Polish spa resort town), examples of which can be found in Vilnius and the surrounding area. 

The right bank of the Neris has been a suburb of Vilnius for centuries, which is why different armies used to march here before attacking or occupying Vilnius. In the early 18th century, during the Great Northern War, it was here that the ranks of Tsar Peter the Great of Russia gathered, and later Napoleon’s guards. 

In 1831, when the Russian imperial authorities decided to build a fortress in the centre of the city, they occupied the territories of the Lower and Upper Castle and part of the right bank of the Neris. A fortification with ramparts and ditches was built on the site of the Sports Palace. Around that time, the area was known as a military zone, and barracks, warehouses, stables, and other military buildings were gradually built nearby. 

Most of the military buildings closer to the riverbank have not survived, but the three buildings of the former military complex, Šeimyniškių g. 21 and 23 and Raitininkų g. 2, have stood the test of time and are valuable not only historically but also architecturally. 

The most authentic building survives at Raitininkų g. 2. It reflects the typical architecture of late 19th century barracks, being a long two-storey building. In addition to sleeping quarters, such barracks, which were built all over the Russian Empire, provided a kitchen, a dining room, an office, and a prison cell. 

The other two surviving buildings were constructed on a similar principle, but they have changed considerably since then. However, a closer look at the windows on the first and second floors of all three buildings reveals that they have the same shape. 

The building at Šeimyniškių g. 23 has been converted for use as a hotel. It used to be adjacent to a hangar built in the Soviet era (today, it has been replaced by an apartment block). Both buildings were owned by the former basketball player Šarūnas Marčiulionis, whose initiative in 1992 led to the opening of the first private hotel in the country, aptly called the ‘Šarūnas’, as well as the establishment of the first private basketball academy. Incidentally, it was here that the entourage of Pope John Paul II stayed in 1993. The owners of the hotel took care of their welfare in advance by creating a chapel for them in one of the rooms on the first floor.  

The building at Šeimyniškių g. 21 today houses the school ‘Saulės gojus’. It dates back to 2004 when Lithuania’s first bilingual kindergarten of the same name was established here, which later became a school, while the kindergarten was moved to another location. 

The sculpture ‘Bench and Pillar’ by the artist Antanas Šnaras, which decorates the children’s playground on Raitininkų Street, was erected in 2007, at the same time as the blocks of flats that surround it. 

The architects Gintaras Čaikauskas, Virginija Venckūnienė, Judita Striukienė, and Paulius Petkus (‘Architektūros linija’), who designed the buildings, invited the sculptor A. Šnaras, who was already known as a creator of sculptures for public spaces, to collaborate. 

Šnaras’s sculptures are mostly made of granite. The artist likes to experiment with materials, and in his sculpture, they take on new shapes and characteristics; he has made sculptures out of granite, including a bench, a ladder, a fence, and even letters. 

Valued for its strength and hardness, granite loses its essential qualities in his work. The same feeling prevails when looking at the sculpture Bench and Pillar: the stones in the pillar look light – as if it should not be difficult to lift them to that height. On the other hand, the sculpture has a lot of tension in it – every time you look up, it seems as if the ‘tower’ of stones, or the pillar, is about to fall. Perhaps that is why people still do not pluck up the courage to perch on this bench? 

The old Jewish cemetery was first mentioned as being located in this area as far back as the 16th century. Until the 19th century, it was the only Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, which is why the burials were so densely concentrated here. Due to the lack of burial places, the Tsarist authorities made the decision to close the cemetery in 1817. Still, the decision was not implemented until 1831, when the construction of a fortress began, which took over part of the Jewish cemetery. The last burial occurred in the cemetery in the same year, which continued to be visited for a long time despite its closure. 

The cemetery was the resting place of both ordinary people and famous rabbis. Among those interred here was the Vilna Gaon Elias ben Solomon Zalman, whose grave was visited by thousands of people. Count Valentin Potocki, known to Jews as the ‘Ger Tzedek’, who had converted from Catholicism to Judaism, was convicted by a Catholic Ecclesiastical Court and publicly burned in Cathedral Square. 

Despite the construction that took place on the site during both the Tsarist Russian and Polish occupations and the wars that devastated the city, part of the old cemetery with its unique tombstones survived until the middle of the 20th century. In 1948, during the Soviet occupation, the authorities decided to liquidate the cemetery, and the Sports Palace was later built on the same site. During the liquidation, some of the deceased’s tombstones and remains were moved to and interred in another cemetery; however, some remained underground. To this day, the Jewish community still urges that the site be respected. 

The monument, designed by Jaunutis Makariūnas, was erected on 23 September 1993 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto.