AM I IN RUSSIA? The Most Soviet Building In Lithuania! 🇱🇹

Рет қаралды 4,108

Күн бұрын

When I had a few hours to kill before catching a flight from Vilnius Lithuania I decided to check out the Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports. Built in Brutalist style in 1971, this is probably one of the most impressive Soviet buildings that you can find in the city. Used mainly for sporting events and concerts, the structure also has a mixed political history and is located on the site if an old Jewish cemetery. Abandoned since 2004, this fascinating building awaits decisions to be made about its future.
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Пікірлер: 50

@elordas 2 жыл бұрын

Lithuanian name is older than Russia or soviet union name by thousand of years. Lithuania is not polotsk not novgorod and not kievan rus. Lithuania kept original name since 1009. With all respect to slavic russian people. But lithuania originated from baltic tribe with unique one of the oldest still surviving languages in the world.(Great Soviet leaders tried to erase it.. Lithuanians even had book smugglers who risked their lives to give you a book to read late night under the pillow when nobody sees ) - and yes they've been successful - LABAS

@WendallExplores 2 жыл бұрын

I have read about the book smugglers, truly amazing

@kaspa444 2 жыл бұрын

No, you are not in Russia, you are in Lithuania, this concert hall is an amazing piece of modernist architecture however due to a very traumatic period of Soviet occupation of Lithuania the site holds a lot of negative connotations attached to it, hence its a very complicated matter of historic memory, whether you close your eyes to the collective trauma related to that specific social environment and save the building or you heal, accept the past and move on by either demolishing it or converting it to something else, hope you had a nice time, peace!

@MasOneys.16 Жыл бұрын

Lel....

@eruno_ Жыл бұрын

That building indeed has deep history, first Sąjūdis conference (Lithuanian national liberation movement) was held there

@RainmakerLTU 2 жыл бұрын

He has few hours to kill and he chooses to explore a building condemned to demolish. While in Vilnius alone there are a plethora of waaay interesting things to see. Like dungeons of Cathedral for example or theatre of opera and ballet, which is looking way better and has much more nicer interior. Weird tourist. Wanna see soviet - go to Kaliningrad or Russia itself.

@WendallExplores 2 жыл бұрын

There are many videos about all the typical tourist things to see. Why make another? Just because I filmed the condemned building doesn’t mean I didn’t see the other things too… What’s interesting to one man is different to another, and so on.

@RainmakerLTU 2 жыл бұрын

@@WendallExplores Ok, you got the point. From other hand there is rhetoric question - what is the video meant for - for your archives or wide audience of internet viewers. And a personal note, I doubt many people, living in Vilnius would call this a famous place worth to visit. Especially with all these nasty "graffiti".

@ZhylvisLT 2 жыл бұрын

It seems to me that he is another soviet's relict hunter. There are lots of people in the west who idolize soviet union or even communism as a whole. They do not understand the trauma this idiologgy left us.

@MasOneys.16 Жыл бұрын

@@RainmakerLTU bruh lol....

@bro___ccoli1156 8 ай бұрын

Hes a special bread 😂just look at him n brits they are like that n meny should not be out n about we have people like 60% of uk population locked up becouse they are not mentaly stable but uk is different show n its kinda scary when you go to lil town you feel like you in zombie movie or something

@Tautas1123 2 жыл бұрын

The soviet ghost building "Palace of Concerts and Sports" in the middle of Vilnius is left not demolished/rebuilt as is related to Jews, whose issues are always very delicate and sensitive in Lithuania, because of black history during Nazi occupation. It was planned to build the Vilnius Congress Centre instead of that ghost building. Not able to do so.. and currently, there are plans to build a memorial to the Jews. Why? There was a Jews graveyard that was closed in 1831. Jews experts from Isreal say that during Soviet Union times, the Palace of Concerts and Sports was built in the middle of a former Jews graveyard, so they didn't want any construction in that place.

@vaidasukolovas1302 2 жыл бұрын

U made some strange choices....I hope u done more off camera...

@DJALEXNOWO Жыл бұрын

everybody talking about that building in the Jewish cemetery, but ... Jewish community sold that cemetery to the Russian Empire administration in 1831, and the Polish administration tried to build a stadium on it in 1935 .....

@vickykelsey6343 2 жыл бұрын

I know Wendall’s walking in the scooter lane 🤣

@SV-yf4et Жыл бұрын

It's the ultra ortodox jews from US that don't want the building to be renovated. The Jewish community of Lithuania found an agreement with Vilnius municipality to do the renovation works in respectful manner. BTW you do have this architecture of brutalism in the UK, in fact, brutalism was invented in your country. Barbican is the perfect example.

@matthewmallinson4934 Жыл бұрын

Love the content Wendell always interesting too me thanks man

@WendallExplores Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the support Matthew

@mantaskreivys5459 6 ай бұрын

We were skateboarding here in 1984-1985. And interesting, tha author said word "skateboarding". It is interesting building

@dansharpe2364 8 ай бұрын

Just letting you know that after hearing your plea on one of your Cornwall videos (which I discovered via Wandering Turnip) for viewers to also watch your overseas material I am doing just that, and it's really good stuff.Hope to see new foreign travel vids in the future.

@RobNorthampton Жыл бұрын

It was an interesting wander. I normally love all kinds of architecture but as large and imposing as that theatre is, it doesn't fit with the rest of the architecture you passed by. If they did demolish it, it would take a lot of tipper trucks to get rid of it!

@WendallExplores Жыл бұрын

The Lithuanians, in general, are not a fan!

@TravellingTorunn 2 жыл бұрын

Very interesting video and informatiom. Great to see places I have never visited 👍🏻👏😊

@WendallExplores 2 жыл бұрын

Very different to the SW Coast Path Torunn 🤣

@lavisegal 2 жыл бұрын

In 1972 I attended a swimming class in this building's swimming pool

@WendallExplores 2 жыл бұрын

Truly epic swimming must have been had!

@clives344 2 жыл бұрын

If this building was in Grimsby those Glass windows would have a brick though them a long time ago…never mind being Russian in origin😃

@WendallExplores 2 жыл бұрын

We have many examples of brutalist architecture that blight our towns and cities in the UK, but they are not shrouded in such powerful history

@drumstick74 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for showing that structure. It is intimidating but also bold and unique at the same time...I wouldn't call brutalist architecture beautiful, but I don't think it's supposed to, and it fits the communist USSR era. PS: Why not put on a pair of sneakers?😄 I wouldn't be able to walk such distances in flip flops, and you never know what you step on.🦶

@dainiusm5436 Жыл бұрын

👍👍👍

@xfoolsgoldx 2 жыл бұрын

👍

@MrBlaugeist 2 жыл бұрын

Looks like Camborne in the 70s 😀

@WendallExplores 2 жыл бұрын

I found it amazing to see

@clives344 2 жыл бұрын

So far in the latest of Wendalls videos abroad i have been impressed with how neat the towns have been. Amazing architecture…wide roads no jams … peaceful.

@TheValerijus61 2 жыл бұрын

👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌

@modestasurbelis 2 жыл бұрын

Dude, this building was always forbidden from inside access as far as I can remember and it has nothing to do with it being dangerous. we just simply don't use it. We might use it but we might demolish it after the recent start of the Ukrainian genocide. It's 100% safe and you probs have just a bit of misinformation.

@WendallExplores 2 жыл бұрын

It looked pretty crumbling to me. Shame there wasn’t an obvious way in, without breaking in.

@amberandgold Жыл бұрын

@@WendallExplores What crumbles is only finishing layer. Such kind of materials always crumble after some time, all soviet buildings look crumbling. It's enough to cover facades with glass, steel and plastic and everybody start pointing to such renovated soviet buildings saying how modern this country is becoming... LOL.... As for the roof - you just had a chance to see the weakest part of any soviet building, the roof. All roofs in soviet times were constantly being repaired, mostly unsuccessfully LOL... Now you seen how average soviet roof looks like... The only danger related to this building is that the angle of its spectator seating is slightly too steep and doesn't meet the modern standard. With joining EU this became important so because of that, namely in 2004, the original building's function was discontinued, building was sold, the new owners had plans to convert it to something else but failed. So by that aspect of not meeting modern standard (and this is spectator safety related standard) the building sometimes is called, in short, unsafe. You could come across that. Or, say, some misleading info or something, written by somebody who simplified everything too much...

@mikewright7407 2 жыл бұрын

Something quite appealing about Soviet era architecture. The effort needed to make such structures is impressive!

@WendallExplores 2 жыл бұрын

They didn’t mess about!

@mikewright7407 2 жыл бұрын

@@WendallExplores Theres a few urban explorers I follow in IG that explore loads of places like this and gain entry...some of the stuff left behind is incredible!

@ZhylvisLT 2 жыл бұрын

What effort? They just needed as much concrete as they can get.

@mikewright7407 2 жыл бұрын

@@ZhylvisLT have you ever tried in-situe moulding of concrete? to do it at this level still takes some serious effort and engineering to do so.

@amberandgold Жыл бұрын

@@mikewright7407 Well, in-situe moulding was used quite frequently during soviet times, concrete was the material that was used in every ocassion and everywhere, this was nothing special. Problem was other materials, especially for the finishing purposes. They were simply absent. Scarcity. The real novelty in that building was its cable-stayed roof structure. Real novelty in that time in this region. But it's difficult to appreciate by just looking to the building. And no need. Btw, there is more interesting example nearby - cast-in-situ arches of the bridge that Wendall was walking. They were moulded in horizontal position right on the river bank, then rised up and installed where they are now. On this video at 2:53