An effort to capture the essence of Vilnius in a shortlist* would be doomed without mentioning the constant state of upheaval that the city is in. All over town, all the time, old buildings are being renovated, new buildings constructed, old buildings torn down, new buildings left derelict; and old piles of rubble restored to their former glory. Apart from the Herculean task of upgrading the city’s vast stock of Soviet apartment blocks to modern standards, there seems to be no method to the process. In natural reserves, cutting-edge architecture is deployed; old historical monuments are torn down despite the protests of fired-up conservationists; monuments to contemporary consumer culture are left to wither as new shopping malls mushroom alongside them; Vilnius’ nouveaux-riche spend their money on mansions with swimming pools and tennis courts. This makes it difficult to capture any permanence in the city. Try to free-frame the city, and you’ll find that months later, a landmark has gone up, or been torn down; scaffolding enveloping one building as soon as it comes off another.
* What is “Dozen to go? To wrap up the blog, I have picked out a dozen of the things during my year in Vilnius that I am most likely to carry with me in my memories of the place. They are in no particular order, and in any event any effort to rank them would amount to comparing apples with oranges.
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