Vilnius Mills

The oldest and most important mill in Vilnius was the Royal (Duke’s) Watermill, which stood in the present-day Barboros Radvilaitės Street (formerly known as the Royal Mill Street) in front of Šiltadaržio g. 5 (formerly known as the Mill Lane). A mill is mentioned here as early as 1515, built by Ulrich Hosius, a Vilnius castellan and wealthy magnate, with the privilege of the ruler. The mill, which had previously belonged to the ruler, was located near the Church of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Bernardino of Siena (Bernardines), but was later relocated to another place because of the noise it caused, which disturbed the monks’ concentration, the vibration caused the walls of the church to crack, and other nuisances. The mill was renovated in the 17th century by the Dutch-origin Renaissance architect Peter Nonhart, who was renowned within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for his work. Until the mid-19th century, the old Vilnia River flowed on the site of Barboros Radvilaitės g. and surrounded the Cathedral Square from the south and west. The mill was equipped with four waterwheels turning ten millstones for grinding. 

When the left branch of the Vilnia started to be sewered (diverted to an underground collector) in the middle of the 19th century, the mill remained standing for some time, but it was not restored and was completely demolished in the same year, after it was severely damaged by the rising water during the spring flood of 1870. The dams that regulated the water level were also demolished and the left branch of the Vilnia with its canals had been completely removed by 1882.

There were several other windmills downstream from the Royal Mill. The Bishop’s Watermill, which turned as many as fourteen millstones, stood near Užupis Bridge. Where Maironio Street now stands, there was once a fork in the river, and the watermill stood on an artificial island between the two branches. It was a huge two-storey building with a broken baroque pediment. The building was badly damaged by a flood in 1782, so the mill was reconstructed at the end of the 18th century by Laurynas Gucevičius, the most famous Lithuanian classicist architect. Between 1864 and 1872, the Bishops’ Mill was demolished and two branches of the Vilnia River were filled in.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the windmill of the Voivoide Mill (later the Oginski family mill) stood here in Paupys; it is marked on the map of Vilnius of 1840. The mill stood by the canal dug in the present Aukštaičių Street (formerly Kopanica).

The ruins of a huge two-storey brick windmill, the so-called Tyzenhaus (later Tyszkiewicz, Jogiches), stood in front of the former building of the ‘Audėjas’ factory and the viaducts of Subačiaus and Drujos streets until 1927. It was a paper and gunpowder mill built in 1590 by a Ruthenian Vilnius resident Lukošius Mamoničius. In the 17th century, the mill belonged to the dukes from the Giedroyc family, and in the 17th – 18th centuries – to the Tyzenhaus family. In 1790, under the stewardship of the Tyszkiewicz family owners, the mill was reconstructed by Augustinas Kosakauskas, one of the pioneers of classicist architecture in Lithuania. The mill building burnt down at the beginning of the 20th century and was never restored. After its demolition, the Vilnia River channel had been filled in by 1935, and Saxon Island, which had been in the branches of the river, disappeared.

Further up the river was the Potocki Watermill, a log, plastered watermill painted by artist Kanuty Rusiecki in 1856. Its former location should be sought somewhere on the slopes of Belmonto Street by the Vilnia River.

Mills were built in the Vilnia River section between Paupys and Belmontas as early as the 16th century: in 1522-1524 the first paper mill in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was founded by a Swiss man whose surname was probably Vernert or Savernart. The mill was established in Leoniškės, roughly at the current location of the Belmontas Stud Farm. In 1585, this paper mill belonged to Lukošius Mamoničius, later to the Dukes of Giedroyc (Giedraitis). It burnt down in 1655 during the war, but was rebuilt a year later and successfully operated in the second half of the 17th century. Another paper mill belonging to the Chodkiewicz family operated in the 17th century in Markučiai, on the left bank of the Vilnia. In the 17th century, there were two more mills in Leoniškės, one of which was a fulling mill for preparing cloth and the other a grist mill to produce flour.

The widely visited complex of the Belmontas mill and other buildings was created when the eastern part of the Leoniškės manor belonging to Vilnius city was leased to the Frenchman Charles de Vime for 50 years. In 1838-1840, a three-bay, two-three storey watermill of brick and stone with a gabled roof was built, a dam was constructed, and a canal was dug, which branched off from the River Vilnia and flowed through a semi-circular arch of the culvert. The mill is equipped with three waterwheels. The origin of the owner led to the mill being referred to as the French mill. From the 1850s, the mill was leased by the brothers Elemelach and Meyer Kinkulkin. This family owned the mill until its nationalisation in 1940, when it was renamed as ‘State Mill No 2’. In the post-war period, it was still grinding grain for some time, but was eventually abandoned and the canal silted up. The mill building was revived in 2002, when it was converted into a restaurant. The 200-metre-long mill water canal has been restored. To the east of Užupis, in the hills by the Vilnia, Belmontas Tavern was still in operation in the early 19th century, but by the end of the 20th century, the name had already ‘shifted’ eastwards.

No later than the end of the 16th century, two water mills owned by the property magnates of the noble Radziwiłł family were already standing near two ponds in Žvėrynas. For example, in 1673, the inventory of the Radziwiłł’s estate records the obligation of peasants to repair the ponds of the Saltoniškės mill once a year. It is not clear whether the building of the former mill, which stands today, is an old mill that has been reconstructed several times, or a later building dating from the late 18th-19th centuries. In the early 20th century, a French steam boiler was installed in the brick mill, explaining why the mill began to be known as a French mill. It was a three-part building: a two-storey, a single-storey, and a small annex. In the mid-20th century, the mill was reconstructed again: the single-storey part was raised and the arched extension was demolished. Until the Soviet nationalisation, the mill belonged to the Pimenov family who were patrons of the Vilnius-based Old Believers. The mill continued to operate in this building after the Second World War, when it was used as a cereal factory.

In the 1980s, it was proposed to install an ethnographic or technical museum in the mill building. In 2004, the mill was reconstructed and adapted to life as a luxury apartment building.

The wooden mill that used to stand between the two ponds, the distant silhouettes of which are depicted in some of the oldest postcards of Žvėrynas (this place was called Alexandria at the time), disappeared in the 20th century, leaving no further traces of concrete.

This four-storey capped windmill came to Pilaitė from Liepalotai near Lukšiai (Šakiai district) in 2003. It has been carefully restored and has been used for various events since 2006. The windmill was built in Liepalotai in 1923 by Petras Žasetis when he returned to Lithuania after emigrating to America where he made his fortune. The mill operated as intended until 1990 (from 1961 to 1990 the mill was powered by electricity).

The single-storey small windmill is 4.5 metres in height; like its bigger brother, it came to Pilaitė from another part of Lithuania. This early post-war windmill was built in the village of Rimaldiškė in Ignalina district, in the lowlands of the Dysna river. The mill was built by Adolis Romelis on his father’s land, which he received as a reward for his service in the Tsarist army. In 1995, the tiny mill was moved to Pilaitė, carefully restored, and placed near the watermill.

The water resources of the Sudervė stream, which flows into the Neris River in Gariūnai, have been used since olden times: eight ponds were built between the Buivydiškės and Pilaitė manors, and as many as three watermills were in operation there as early as the beginning of the 20th century.

There are records of a watermill in Pilaitė dating back to the 16th century. It is known that the watermill that survives today in Pilaitė was already standing in 1773. The mill was reconstructed in 1826 when the estate was owned by the nobleman Tadeusz Kukiewicz. Further reconstruction of the mill was carried out in 1883 when the manor was under the stewardship of August Gvidon Hugo Bolt von Hogenbach, a German nobleman from Courland. At that time, a water turbine was installed to replace the wooden waterwheel. The mill had an outbuilding and residential quarters. The wooden part of the mill burnt down in 1989 and was restored in 1997. The current appearance of the mill, which is two storeys high with a stone masonry plinth, corresponds to that of the mill at the end of the 19th century. The mill is currently inhabited and part of the premises houses the office of the public institution responsible for preserving and revitalising cultural heritage – ‘Kultūros Paveldo Išsaugojimo Pajėgos’. The ‘Bread Road’ Museum is located in the vicinity, which is adorned with the three mills of Pilaitė.

Two classical watermills, one of which is seen in a watercolour by Franciszek Smuglewicz with a grand columned portico (an open porch with columns) and a triangular pediment were built in the late 18th century. It was designed by Laurynas Gucevičius in Verkiai. The two surviving Verkiai mill buildings were built a little later on, in the 19th century.

The white-plastered, three-storey mill at the confluence of the Verkė and Neris rivers was built in the second half of the 19th century. The base pedestal of the building is made of stone, and the mill is covered with a gabled tiled roof. The mill operated as intended until 1975 (after the First World War, the mills were powered by electricity). It was destroyed by fire in 1984 and is no longer in use but was renovated in 1986, and between 1995 and 1997. In 1999, a restaurant was established in the reconstructed mill. The interior preserves the grindstones, the mill’s metal transmission, wooden structures, and the balcony built next to the water cascade.

Another former mill can be found a little further away from the mill where the restaurant is now located. The two-storey plastered building is older and dates back to the first half of the 19th century. In 1887, the mill was equipped with a water lifting station (pumping station), which supplied water to the Verkiai Palace auxiliary outbuildings for staff working there and the water tower on the hill. The remains of the waterwheel have been preserved inside the building.

Kairėnai Manor, which has at various stages belonged to the Kiszka, Sapieha, Tyzenhaus, and Łopaciński families and other noblemen, has been famous since the 16th century.  The banks of the Veržuva, Dvarčionė, Upelė (Kairėnė) rivers and the spring-fed Kairėnai territory with its ponds have been harnessed for watermills since ancient times. In the 18th century, Kairėnai had a papermill where the highest quality paper was often bought by the Vilnius University Printing House. The waters of the Veržuva River, north of the present-day Kairėnai, powered the grindstones of the mills, and in the 19th century, the high-quality flour produced in Kairėnai was particularly appreciated in Vilnius.

This two-storey brick mill building constructed in a Romanticism-style in the mid-19th century has survived to the present day. The imposing mill, with its stone walls and brick ornamental decoration, attracts the eye from afar. The building was formerly a distillery and was converted into a steam mill at the end of the 19th century. The interior is distinguished by wooden architectural details restored in the 21st century. The ground floor of the mill now houses a restaurant and the first floor houses the Vilnius University Botanical Garden Information Centre with a library and facilities for various events (conferences, seminars, exhibitions).

This mill is well worth ‘crossing’ the Vilnius city border for, so head out into Vilnius district! Once belonging to the most important persons of the state – the Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Albertas Goštautas, Duchess Barbara Radziwiłł, King Sigismund Augustus, Vilnius Voivoide Mikołaj Radziwiłł ‘the Red’, and other noblemen – the manor of Liubavas, which was restored after the restoration of the independence of the Republic of Lithuania in 1990 by the sculptor, active public, and cultural figure Gintaras Karosas, is one of the pearls of the heritage of the Vilnius region.

One of the buildings of the Liubavas Manor ensemble is worthy of particular attention – the two-storey mill building standing today was built in 1902 in the Romanticism style; its carved stone masonry work with pebble inlays inside and the red-brick trims demonstrate the high-quality workmanship of the craftsmen. Incidentally, the first mills on the estate date back to the 16th century.

The production part of the mill was used for both grinding grain and sawing wooden boards (there were also living quarters inside). All the original technological equipment has been perfectly preserved; in 2012, the Liubavas Manor Mill was conferred the prestigious Europa Nostra award for its meticulous restoration work; the prize recognises the best-managed heritage sites in Europe. The mill is fully operational, including a hundred-year-old water turbine: visitors to the museum can see demonstrations of flour production, wood and metal cutting, fulling, and other processes. The museum is open in the warm season from 15 April to 31 October.