10 Most Interesting Industrial Heritage Sites in Vilnius

Production has been kept up in Vilnius at all times. The workshops of goldsmiths and weavers started the history of Vilnius craftsmen’s workshops that lasted for almost 400 years. The cradle of Vilnius industry was the Vilnia River whose waters turned the wheels of the water mills and paper workshops since the 15th century. As many as 13 paper workshops became established in the city before the 19th century. In the late 19th century factories and chimneys started to rise, houses were rented for the workers, entire industrial zones were created and Vilnius became an industrial centre of Lithuania. The railway built in 1860 had a great significance to the growth of the city and industry. The unique water supply system installed as early as the 16th century was modernised at the end of the 19th century. In 1903, after the first thermoelectric power station was built, electricity replaced gas lighting. The famous engineer, public and political activist, supporter of the national rebirth Petras Vileišis is considered to be the initiator of national industry. He sought to strengthen Lithuania’s welfare through science, education, economic progress and industry. Large plants of machine tools, machinery, and computer engineering emerged in Vilnius that was industrialised during the soviet era. Workers that were flooding the city were accommodated in the first prefabricated housing blocks that grew into entire new residential districts of Vilnius. The industrial epoch in Vilnius is almost a 200-year history of the city growing modern.