It is customary to visit the graves of loved ones on All Saints' Day or during All Saints' Day. However, people often no longer know where one or another distant relative is buried. In Vilnius, it is also possible to discover the graves of your loved ones or famous people virtually - using the Vilnius City Cemetery Register.
Vilnius city municipalities Donatas Gudelis, head of the analysis and modeling department of the Vilniaus planas company, claims that similar systems have long been popular in Western Europe. Now, the burial places of Vilnius citizens can be quickly found at home, which is very convenient for those who are planning their routes to visit cemeteries before Halloween.
"In the past, it was quite difficult to find the graves of relatives or famous people in Vilnius. There are no signs in the cemetery itself. However, after using Vilnius city cemetery register, interesting grave sites can be found easily", says D. Gudelis.
Cemetery tourism is booming
Visiting the graves of famous people in the old Vilnius cemetery has always been popular. Tickets for such excursions are quickly snapped up. According to tour guide Danutė Čornij of the travel agency "Kelionii laikas", who has been accompanying groups of tourists around the cemeteries of various countries since 1982, "dark tourism" has its own niche.
"Such excursions became popular in Lithuania in 2004. People began to travel more, to be interested in the history of their own and other countries, to look for kinship and genealogy links. With groups of tourists, I had to visit old cemeteries in Warsaw, Vienna, and Paris more than once. It is not difficult to find the burial places of famous people there, the signs in the cemeteries often point to such cemeteries," says the guide, who has a lot of travel experience, about cultural differences.
In Vilnius, with groups of Lithuanian and foreign tourists, D. Čornij usually visits the Rasai, Bernardinai, Antakalnis, and Saulė cemeteries. Tourists wants to see the eternal resting places of popular artists, politicians, public representatives. There is increasing interest in the history of cemeteries, decoration, burial customs and traditions.
Historical cemetery of Vilnius
The Rasa cemetery in Vilnius represents several centuries of Lithuanian history. Here you can visit the graves of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Jonas Basanavičiaus, Vincas Mykolaitis-Putin, Jonas and Petros Vileišiai.
The Antakalnis cemetery is visited willingly by Menininkai Kalnelis, where famous Lithuanian writers, actors, painters, musicians rest. Here you will find the resting places of Jurgas Ivanauskaitė, Ričardas Gavel, Donatas Banionis, Vytautas Kernagis, and Virgilijas Noreikas. The grave sites on the artists' hill stand out for their artistic accents.
The Saulė cemetery, located in the other hills of Antakalnis, is attractive with old chapels and elements of neo-Gothic architecture. In them you will find notes not only in Lithuanian, but also in Latin, Polish, Russian, and Belarusian languages. The rich Oginskis and Zavadskis are laid to eternal rest here.
In Užupi Bernardinai cemetery is one of the oldest in Vilnius. Its visitors are interested in the XNUMXth century. memorial tombstones of the classicism era, angel sculptures, old crypts.
Before and now
Written information about burials in the Vilnius city cemeteries used to be stored in paper journals, which were kept by the companies managing the cemeteries.
From 2019 Vilnius city municipality administration together with the company "Vilniaus planas" is inventorying and digitizing the city cemeteries. According to D. Gudel, the digitization of cemeteries requires a considerable amount of time, but at the same time allows you to touch the cultural history of the region.
First, grave sites are identified and their territory measured by drones. Later, tombstones and burial logs are photographed, and their records are digitized and entered into a database. Finally, the information linking process is carried out.
The result of digitization of cemeteries is the Vilnius city cemeteries register. Currently, 16 of the city's largest and most important cemeteries can be explored. Another 15 cemeteries are planned to be digitized this year. Among them are the cemeteries of the ancients, Orthodox, Karaites, and Tatars.
It is important not only for Lithuanians
The Vilnius City Cemetery Register also serves as a register of former residents of Vilnius. Currently, more than 211 thousand are marked in it. graves of individuals. The oldest registered burials date back to the XNUMXth century. (most are in the Old Rasa Cemetery).
"The cemetery register is important in recording and preserving historical memory. Vilnius stands out for its history: many different peoples who professed different religions have always lived here. However, the composition of the population has changed dramatically in the seven post-war decades. According to some historians (for example, Liuds Truskas), less than 5 percent remained in Vilnius after the Second World War. previous inhabitants of the city. Tombstones are disappearing, their inscriptions are fading, so it is very important to inventory the cemetery while we can still identify the inscriptions, carry out photo-fixation of the tombstones", says D. Gudelis.
In the Vilnius city cemetery register, you can search not only the graves of relatives, but also the burial places of famous personalities. Here you can also find important burials for Lithuania's neighbors - Poles and Belarusians. A good example is 1831. and in 1863 rebel graves. In the register, you will also find the graves of important social and cultural figures for all three countries, such as the writer Vladislaus Sirokomlė.
Viniaus city cemetery register accessible not only through personal computers, but also through mobile devices, which can also be used while in the cemetery. Every resident can find an interesting burial in the system, add photos of the grave site and monument, send comments when they do not find the required grave site or discover errors and inaccuracies in the register.
You will find the map here.
