The Sky of Vilnius (lunch on the Milky Way)

I am on the "Milky Way", turning over the city, 160 meters up in the sky, this restaurant on the top of the television tower still looks very much like it should have been in 1981, when it was inaugurated, with a rotating platform that allows me to see all the city while sitting at the dining table. In 1981 this should have been the symbol of future and prosperity for the Soviet Republic of Lithuania. Futuristic dream, like the cosmonauts.

Below the city as a whole. The communist blocs also should not have looked differently in 1981 (perhaps a bit cleaner). Then the green. Vilnius is a city full of green... And then the old town, with the many beautiful churches, the hill where apparently Gediminas the Gran Duke dream (back in 1320 c.a.) about an iron wolf, built a castle, almost failed to sacrifice a young beautiful virgin and eventually married her.

A bit further, i can see the self-proclaimed Independent Republic of Uzupio, which sits on the banks of the Vilnia River, was the pre-war home of Russians and Jews and the post-war haunt of petty criminals and prostitutes. In the past few years, Uzupio has cultivated a reputation for bohemian free-spiritedness that inevitably inspired the overly generous tag "the Montmartre of Vilnius". While developers and (among which the former mayor of Vilnius) and tour groups have clearly discovered the neighborhood, with clear signs of advanced gentrification, there are still plenty of roof-less, wall-less pre-war brick buildings that give a taste of the Soviet approach to urban development.

On the other side of the river, the post-modern town is booming. I am not sure, from the milky way perspective, if the new architectural style is much better of the grey modernism of the Soviet time, in terms of facilities for sure the new building are outstanding, but they seem equally standardised on the format of the glass and steel towers.

The turnable platform comes back at the same panoramic spot, 45 minutes later after a soup and a tartare of salmon. The music system is also playing again to the same song I was listening when I arrived (the Lithuanian version of "Un'estate al Mare" di Giuni Russo - funnily the Italian release is from 1982, just a year after the Milky Way was inaugurated) and with that music in my hears I leave the sky of Vilnius, and end this trip in time and space, full of mixed feelings, a bit confused and faster than I expected (back to the ground in 40 seconds with the speedy elevator).

(from Wikipedia)

The Vilnius TV Tower (Lithuanian: Vilniaus televizijos bokštas) is a 326.5 metre-high (1071 ft) building in the Karoliniškės microdistrict of Vilnius, Lithuania. It is the tallest building in Lithuania, and is occupied by the SC Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre (Lithuanian: AB Lietuvos radijo ir televizijos centras)

The building was designed by V. Obydovas, the engineering section was designed by K. Balėnas. The construction of the tower started on May 31, 1974, and the tower was completed on December 30, 1980. The weight of the whole structure is estimated at 25,000--30,000 tonnes. The structure is composed of a concrete base, a 190 m long hollow reinforced concrete pipe, a reinforced concrete saucer, and a 136 m long steel spike. Radio transmitters are housed in the lower part of the concrete tower with antennas attached to the steel spike. The TV tower played a major role in the events of January 13, 1991, when 14 unarmed civilians lost their lives and 700 were injured opposing the Soviet military seizure of the tower.