Exploring Vilnius’ communist past & learning about the history of Lithuania inside the Soviet Union. These were dark but fascinating days, I’ll take you to the important places where history was made!
🇱🇹 🇱🇻 🇪🇪 See all of my videos from this trip here → bit.ly/InTheBaltics
In between the cobbled streets of the old town and the glass skyscrapers of the new are a number of landmarks and structures left over from the days of the Soviet Union. Having a keen interest in Lithuania's era in the USSR I decided to take a walking tour and visit some of the places still touched by Soviet rule, including Communist built shopping centres, sports arenas, monuments, buildings and parks.
Lithuania was absorbed into the Soviet Union between 1940-1941 and 1944-1990 and was known as the Lithuanian SSR, or Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.
I started the day at the Museum of Genocide Victims which has since been renamed to the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights (Okupacijų ir laisvės kovų muziejus) which tells the story of how Lithuania came to be occupied and the high price ordinary Lithuanians paid during that period of time. It also documents the freedom fighters and historical events that paved the way for Lithuanians to be free again.
Later I walked past the Frank Zappa Monument, a reminder of musicians and other things that were banned during Soviet times and visited the spot where a few decades earlier the million strong Baltic Chain started from. As the communist walking tour continued we visited old concrete shopping malls, a closed down planetarium and a formerly bugged hotel where foreign visitors would stay.
Perhaps the highlight though was spending some time at the abandoned Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports, something I refer to in the video as a stadium (it definitely looks like one). The enormous concrete structure sits empty in a prime spot overlooking the river and is a contender for the most prominent symbol left over from the Soviet years. It’s a remarkable structure built almost entirely of concrete - it was easy to imagine this place buzzing on event days!
My final stop was the Three Crosses Monument high up on a hill overlooking Vilnius. There I relaxed for a bit and admired a beautiful sunset over the city I’d spent the day exploring.
Chapters
📖 00:00 Intro
📖 00:46 Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights
📖 03:01 Soviet History in Lithuania
📖 03:16 Frank Zappa Monument
📖 03:39 The Baltic Chain
📖 04:47 KGB Spy Hotel in Vilnius
📖 05:18 Soviet Shopping Mall & Planetarium
📖 06:17 Vilnius Palace of Culture and Sports
📖 10:35 Sunset at the Hill of the 3 Crosses
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Soundtrack
🎵 Gray Matter by Smartface
🎵 Whun by Twelwe
🎵 Strange Fantasy by Chaxti
🎵 Pictures of a Floating World by Chaxti
🎵
🎵 Music by Epidemic Sound. Get a FREE month here → bit.ly/2LB53FZ