Šeškinė

Until the middle of the 20th century, there was a village on the territory of the current Šeškinė. Small wooden houses stood by the road to Ukmergė, with individual farmhouses scattered among the hills. Families lived here, owning a few narrow strips of not very fertile land. In the post-war period, even collective farms did not establish themselves here. Between Ukmergės g. and Sudervės g. were the Šeškinė and Ąžuolynė farmsteads. In 1955, the area was incorporated into the city of Vilnius. Wooden houses reminiscent of the village of Šeškinė can still be found today.

These houses were constructed after Šeškinė was incorporated into the city of Vilnius – between 1959–1963.This is also evident from the dates on the houses themselves. In a couple of decades, a residential area of the capital will be built right next door.

We cross Ozo g. and enter Šeškinė. As a residential area of Vilnius, Šeškinė was established in 1977 and is divided into two parts – the eastern and the western – by Ukmergės g. Between 1978 and 1985, a new generation of apartment blocks were built in the district according to the design – a true sensation of Soviet construction – of the architect Kazimieras Balėnas. The 5 and 9-storey buildings, which are connected in sections of several blocks of different heights, sizes, and configurations adapted to the undulating terrain of the area. There are also tower-type apartment blocks of 12 to 16 storeys in monolithic reinforced concrete. Better-planned and more comfortable apartments are the biggest advantage of these blocks of flats in Šeškinė. The architects did away with transitional rooms, instead designing more spacious hallways and larger kitchens. Šeškinė was the first residential area in Vilnius without a gas pipeline and to use electric stoves.

Let’s continue along ‘Saulės alėja’, the name chosen by the community itself in 2019. As you walk along, notice the difference in the decoration of the balconies of the buildings on the left and the right side. Another way of decorating balconies in Šeškinė – concrete ornaments – will be shown later

In autumn 2018, the sculptor and writer Mykolas Sauka (son of the famous painter Šarūnas Sauka) decided to enliven the forest in Šeškinė (for some reason called Viršuliškių Forest Park). Here, he has placed six concrete sculptures as new inhabitants. “These are the very people who walk around this park”, says the artist. Let’s meet them – there’s Eduardas stretching his arms out to the side, Jurgis squatting, Sima putting her feet up and doing the ‘candle’ shoulder stand yoga pose, Linas sitting in contemplation, and Rūta, the mother–to–be, standing. At the end of 2019, they were joined by Maksimas the bodybuilder.

One of the most original building complexes of the late Soviet period – Šeškinė Public Shopping Centre (architects – Gediminas Baravykas, Kęstutis Pempė, Gytis Ramunis, Giedrė Dindienė) – was built in 1985 on the western and eastern sides of Ukmergės Street.

The low red-brick buildings around the semi-enclosed square are reminiscent of the Old Town. The centre of the square was accentuated by a small pool with fountains and a clock tower. Unfortunately, neither the clock tower nor the pool with fountains have survived.

Particular attention has been paid to the accessibility of the complex, with pedestrian routes from the entire district leading to the shopping centre. The shopping centre was awarded the Prize of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1987. The western part of the complex consisted of the ‘Šeškinė’ shopping centre, the building of the apartment maintenance service with a communications department, savings bank, pharmacy, bookshop, market, etc.

The western and eastern sides of Šeškinė centre have different layouts. The western side is of a compact, central type, with all the buildings oriented towards the inner square, while on the eastern side – on the other side of Ukmergės Street – the buildings are arranged in a linear pattern along a kind of inner pedestrian street parallel to Ukmergės Street. Incidentally, this pedestrian street is located on the site of the old Ukmergė road. The eastern part of the street was where a polyclinic, the ‘Širvinta’ supermarket, the ‘Taika’ cinema, and other institutions once stood.

An underpass connects the western and eastern parts of the Šeškinė centre, which is where we will continue our journey.

As you climb the hill, you will see a shrine to the Baltic Way commemorating the events of relating to the revival of independence of Lithuania. The shrine is inscribed with three dates: 23 August 1939, 29 October 1939, and 23 August 1989. The first is the date of the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the second signifies the return of Vilnius and the Vilnius region to Lithuania, and the third date is when the ‘Baltic Way’ took place.

On 23 August 1989, at the beginning of the independence movement, people formed a human chain stretching from Tallinn to Vilnius, which passed along Ukmergės Street in Šeškinė. This peaceful protest known as the ‘Baltic Way’ was organised by the Lithuanian Sąjūdis and the Latvian and Estonian People‘s Fronts.

A decorative metal sculpture entitled ‘Splendorum vitae’ (Latin for ‘Splendour of Life’) was erected in 2005 at the entrance to a clinic. The author is the sculptor Kunotas Vildžiūnas, the son of the famous sculptor Vladas Vildžiūnas, who continues the family tradition. K. Vildžiūnas is also known as the author of the sculptures hanging under the bridges crossing the Neris.

The shopping centre and its surroundings have recently changed a lot. A new extension has been built on the site of the main entrance, and the fountains at the entrance to the store have now gone. Local residents still remember bathing in these fountains in the summer and catching fish that had been released by someone else. The shop was famous for its melt-in-your-mouth doughnuts, fried chicken and, later, ‘Pinguin’ ice cream. It was one of the first shops in Vilnius where it was possible to put goods in a trolley in a western way.

The building where the LNK TV studios are currently based is the former ‘Taika’ cinema. The cinema was open from 1986 to 1993 and had two auditoriums with 200 and 600 seats (architect – Giedrė Teresėlė Dindienė). It showed a lot of children’s films, as there were many kindergartens and schools in the vicinity. Later on, a video arcade was opened (it is said that the most popular films were those starring Van Damme). At weekends, there were discos from 9pm.

In 1992-1993, the building was privatised; the cinema closed and the building was abandoned. In 2000, it was rented out to a furniture store. In 2002–2004 it was renovated according to the project of architects Rolandas Palekas, Alma Palekienė, and Gintaras Čaikauskas. The adjacent scarlet 6-storey LNK administration building has become a new accent of the building – like a periscope emerging from behind a hill.

Few neighbourhoods in Vilnius can boast such a large number of educational institutions – if you wanted to count the number of schools and kindergartens in Šeškinė, you wouldn’t be able to count them on just two hands. In front of you is Vilnius Žygimantas Augustas Progymnasium. Built in 1982, it received its current name in 1999.The building’s interesting shapes are like a continuation of the red brick style beyond the centre of Šeškinė. Another school was built to the same design a year later in Elektrėnai in 1983 (Elektrėnai Versmės Gymnasium).

There’s a whole mountain range ahead of us! In winter, children swarm on these slopes and parents can watch them from their living room or kitchen window. Take a look around and see how many windows are looking at you right now. And look out for the concrete balcony ornaments – the third style of balcony decoration in Šeškinė. These are also the toboggans on which children were often first introduced to sledging or skiing. As the youngsters grew up and gained experience and courage, the more serious slopes of the nearby Šeškinė Ozos Hill awaited them.

The Šeškinė Esker (Os) (‘Ozas’ in Lithuanian) is interesting from a natural and geological point of view. This 1160-metre-long ridge, formed by melting glaciers around 16-18,000 years ago from various deposits in a large glacial crevasse. As water flowed through it, it carried and laid down coarser rock particles, then filled in the finer sediments. Almost all of the Ozas is made up of gravel and shingle, with boulders of various sizes interspersed between the layers. The Ozas ends with a small lake of thermokarst origin, Lake Šeškiukas. In the first half of the 20th century, the Šeškinė Esker was significantly damaged. The local population used to like to dig for gravel and sand here. During the Second World War, the surface of the oasis was riddled with dugouts and trenches, and in the post-war years, mines and bombs found in the city from the war years were exploded here, and old tyres were burnt. Finally, in 1964, the Šeškinė Esker was declared a geological natural monument.