Citizens of Vilnius now face the dilemma of keeping the city's subterranean cultural heritage intact while the traffic destroys the quality of life on the ground here and now, or of digging up part of its past to make way for its present. To hear the opponents tell it, there's more at stake here than foreign investment.
A similar project initialed by the Soviet government 23 years ago instigated a wave of protests and was shelved almost a decade before perestroika.
The Soviet municipal government attempted to introduce underground lots back in 1978. Father of Lithuanian independence leader Vytautas Landsbergis, architect Vytautas Zemkalnis, began a letter campaign to stop the destruction of Vilnius Old Town. Artists, writers and others formed a united front against the project.
The same sense of patriotism is evident under the arguments against the current plan to introduce underground garages. Opponents say the plan will destroy the nature of the Old Town forever and ruin its 400-year traditional role as an inhabited urban center.
Lithuanian state monument protection commission specialist Juozas Lapinskas says he is worried that the traditional role of the city would change because of the garages and the city's growth plan. "For 400 years Vilnius was a center for human habitation, and now they're trying to change it into a business center. What value do the streets of Old Town hold? Their value lies in their 400 years of history and formation," he said.
Under discussion are 10 underground garages to be built over the next five years in and around the Vilnius Old Town. The company plans to build two garages every year until the project is complete.
Plans for the garages currently include four sites within the Old Town, a UNESCO world cultural heritage site since 1994; under the old town hall, Odminu Square including a stretch of Gedimino Street (Vilnius' main thoroughfare); under the historic palace of Radviliai and in Sareikisku Park near the Church of St. Anne and the Vilna River. The remaining parking garages would border the historic Old Town beneath the Pergales theater, along Pamenkalnio Street, under Lukiskiu Square, the opera house, along Pylimo Street and outside the Gates of Dawn near the Vilnius rail and bus stations.
The Norwegian company is getting exclusive rights to administer the territories above their garages for up to 13 years under the contract. The company is planning to invest 180 million litas ($45 million) in the city.
Proponents say the winding streets of the Old Town, built to carry pedestrians and horse carts in centuries gone by, are now filled to capacity with traffic, pedestrians and the inevitable conflicts that arise from too many cars in a small area. They say underground garages would do much to relieve congested streets and solve the problem of parking on sidewalks.
"The opponents say the project will destroy historical and cultural values. What values? We don't know what's down there," said Laimonas Tapinas, the author of a number of books and the former head of the Lithuanian journalists' ethics commission. "The opponents say it will destroy the Old Town's 'aura.' What aura?" Tapinas asked.
Tapinas is worried the Norwegian partners in the deal might be getting cold feet after two years of negotiations.
On March 1, various Vilnius residents, including engineers, artists, architects, urban planners, environmentalists and others, met at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences to discuss the city's contract with the Norwegian company and adopted a formal statement of their opposition to the plan.
They said infrastructure and landscape values would be the first to suffer, and that open and green spaces, already at a premium in the urban environment, would disappear. The group also felt pollution would increase as a result of the garages and said a protected underground historic river network would be destroyed.
The garages will destroy forever the possibility of recreating the historical system of rivers and reservoirs that once surrounded the Vilnius castle's territory, Lapinskas said.
He stressed that no one has addressed the issue of underground water. While the Norwegian company can build watertight underground structures, the ancient system of rivers and creeks that once protected Lithuania's grand dukes still flow under the streets and buildings of the Old Town.
"If you build a barrier in the path of flowing water, the water will have to find somewhere else to flow. That means it will undermine the foundations of other historical buildings," Lapinskas said.
The opposition group's statement said the city's plans violate the European Convention for the Protection of Archeological Heritage Sites of Europe of 1992, which requires archeological remains be preserved in situ. The group said underground parking garages are not a suitable place for the exposition of artifacts.
Tapinas objected. "Teams of archeologists will survey everything before construction begins. That's written in the contract," he explained.
If they do find anything, Tapinas maintained, all work has to halt on the site.
The opposition group said public hearings by the Vilnius municipality's development department into the impact of the plan were inadequate. They said participants at the public hearing held on Nov. 10 at the Vilnius city hall weren't given a chance to read the terms of the agreement and also didn't get a chance to read the project's environmental impact statement. They said subsequent public hearing events and public relations events organized by the company were shams.
The statement issued by the Academy of Sciences forum also claimed parking problems would only increase once the garages were constructed.
Lapinskas agreed. "First of all, the plan disrupts the historical zoning plan of Vilnius. The new city plan re-draws the historical borders of the Old Town and surrounding neighborhoods in central Vilnius. Vilnius developed a system of streets as a consequence of the castle at its center. The walled Old Town was a buffer zone against invaders and later a place where the highest members of society dwelt. Vilnius is based on the castle and a system of protective rivers and walls. The plan ignores this fact and changes the very nature of the city," Lapinskas said.
The Old Town has an area of 400 hectares, compared to Vilnius' total area of 39,219 hectares.
The president of the Pilis Society, Lithuanian-American engineer and Vilnius property owner Edmundas Kulikauskas, said the forum was attended by about 120 concerned citizens.
"We're not against the garages. The city's master plan calls for building garages, but since last fall they began introducing new garages into the plan in the Old Town," Kulikauskas told The Baltic Times.
"The garages would destroy the historical character of the Old Town," he said.
Kulikauskas owns property adjacent to Odminu Square. He was behind efforts to stop the construction of a hotel there several years ago, claiming it would destroy archeological remains at the site. Extended excavating by specialists revealed nothing more than some old logs and left an open pit in the very heart of the Old Town.
Asked whether the parking garages would increase or decrease his property values, Kulikauskas said: "Maybe in the short term property values would go up, but in the long term I think they would fall."
Kulikauskas said a broad base of residents oppose the project for a variety of reasons, and that its only supporters seem to be municipal employees and now a certain faction of archeologists.
"This means they'll have the chance to work and make new discoveries. We're all for archeology, but not in this way," he said.
The Lithuanian Parliament's education, science and cultural committee held hearings into the issue on March 21. They heard testimony from the state monument protection commission, the protection of cultural values department, the Vilnius municipality, the investors and MPs but failed to pass any resolution on the matter pending an official finding by the protection of cultural values department.
The Lithuanian national UNESCO commission sent a request to UNESCO headquarters in March to send a qualified expert to assess the situation. A copy of the statement adopted by the forum at the Academy of Sciences building was also sent to UNESCO headquarters.
The secretary general of the Lithuanian national UNESCO commission, Dr. Leonarda Jekentaite-Kuzmickiene, said her office staff is struggling with the problem of the underground garages.
"We decided not to make any decision until an expert arrives to examine the issues involved," she said.
"If we don't take an interest in our heritage, if we don't protect it, why should anyone else care?" Lapinskas asked. He and others opposing the project repeated the same concern: if Vilnius Old Town loses its authenticity and becomes a commercial center, it loses its main value as a destination for tourists and Lithuanians alike.
Tapinas was more optimistic. "We don't know what's down there. Nobody has money to do archeological digs. If there is something there, this is an opportunity to find out," he said.
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