In this leafy suburb, little-visited by tourists, Antakalnis Cemetery is the final resting place of Lithuanian luminaries and locals lost to war. Brutalist, art-nouveau and modernist headstones give the cemetery, a half-hour walk east of the centre, the feel of an open-air sculpture gallery. Those killed by Soviet special forces on 13 January 1991 are memorialised by a sculpture of the Madonna. A taxi or Bolt service from the train station costs around €6.
Another memorial honours Napoleonic soldiers who died of starvation and injuries in Vilnius while retreating from the Russian army. The remains of 2000 of them were only found in 2002.
Hundreds of Polish soldiers’ graves, including many unknown soldiers, are also located here. Former president Algirdas Brazauskas’s grave is a bit abandoned atop a hill slope, in a newer area of the cemetery.
