When we travel around Vilnius today, we rarely think that many places - micro-districts, today furnished with sophisticated buildings or apartment buildings with less expressive architecture, were once villages with different names. It would seem quite normal that walking through one of the microdistricts on the outskirts of the city, you will eventually come to single farms, rural settlements. It is interesting that Vilnius Skansen is nothing but a village in the very center of the city.
Skansen, also called Shanghai by the people of Vilnius, is the current streets of S. Fin, Giedraičiai, Šilutė, Krakuva, Daugėliškis, Širvintos, Saracėnai, Kalvarijės. Walking through the streets of Skansen, you can see 1880-1930. built folk-type wooden houses, in some places preserved ancient pavement or large-leaved and small-leaved linden trees protected by heritage conservationists.
An open-air museum or an open-air museum in the general sense, this territory of the Šnipiškii microdistrict can only be partially called. Unlike in Rumšiškės, there are not only empty buildings to satisfy the curiosity of interested people. For the people who live here, this is their home, where their daily life takes place. Šnipiškii microdistrict in the 8th century. in the second half, there was still a street village on the outskirts of the city, but as the city expanded and construction took place in the XNUMXth - XNUMXth centuries. the landscape of the area gradually began to change. Since many of the old residents remained to live in their homestead plots along the streets, as is typical of street villages, the new constructions mainly took place around them. For this reason, today the Šnipiškii micro-district receives a lot of attention in the media, emphasizing the contrast between dilapidated trees and skyscrapers, which can be seen most clearly when walking down Krakuvas street. In historiography, there is not much knowledge about Vilnius Šnipiškii Skansen, and the daily life here is best presented by Jūratė Samulionytė's documentary film "Šanchai banzai". After visiting the XNUMX-hectare area of Šnipiškii protected by the Department of Cultural Heritage, you will feel like you are in the XNUMXth century. in the town, where the XNUMXth - XNUMXth centuries stand out next to the trees. brick buildings that once housed the main administrative offices. Although you can find short articles in the press that provide information about Šnipiškii Skansen, it cannot replace the experience of a live visit, which often helps to better understand the difficult side of society's social life...
Information prepared by: Vilius Šadauskas, VilniusGO.lt
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