:''"Lazdynai" is also an old name of

Krasnoznamensk, Kaliningrad Oblast Krasnoznamensk (russian: Краснозна́менск, lit. ''Red Banner Town''; german: Lasdehnen (1734-1938), ' (1938-1946); lt, Lazdynai; pl, Lasdeny) is a town and the administrative center of Krasnoznamensky District in Kaliningrad Obla ...

, Russia

Lazdynai ( lt, Lazdynų seniūnija, Lazdynai) is an eldership of

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

, situated on the right bank of the

Neris River The river Neris () or Viliya ( be, Ві́лія, pl, Wilia ) rises in northern Belarus. It flows westward, passing through Vilnius (Lithuania's capital) and in the south-centre of that country it flows into the Nemunas (Neman), at Kaunas, a ...

. It covers a area of and has a population of 31,097 (according to the 2011 census). The word means "

hazel The hazel (''Corylus'') is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K. (1999). ...

bushes" in Lithuanian.

History

Since the 1950s, the

Baltic states The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, ...

experienced fast population growth and faced housing shortages. When Soviet leader

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

put forth his program of fast residential construction, based on

prefabricated Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is u ...

panel building Panel buildings may refer to buildings of one of the following types: *Built of structural insulated panels *Built of pre-fabricated concrete blocks, named differently in various countries. *Large Panel System building, often called Plattenbau ...

s dubbed ''

khrushchovka A ''khrushchevka'' ( rus, хрущёвка, khrushchëvka, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfkə), also known by the derogatory nickname ''khrushchoba'' ( rus, хрущоба, khrushchoba, t=khru-slum), is a type of low-cost, concrete- paneled or brick three- to ...

s'', it threatened the integrity of the well-preserved historical style of Vilnius. A group of architects struggled against the intrusion of ''khrushchovkas'' into the historical city center. Eventually they were awarded with the project to build a

satellite city Satellite cities or satellite towns are smaller municipalities that are adjacent to a principal city which is the core of a metropolitan area. They differ from mere suburbs, subdivisions and especially bedroom communities in that they have mun ...

outside Vilnius. The chosen area was close to a Polish village of Leszczyniaki or Lazdynai in Lithuanian, situated southeast of old Vilnius.Both names, Leszczyniaki and Lazdynai apparently derive from the word for " hazelnut tree": Polish '' leszczyna'' and Lithuanian '' lazdynas''. In Polish the term ''leszczyniak'' (singular for "leszczyniaki") also means "a person from

Leszno Leszno (german: Lissa, 1800–1918 ''Lissa in Posen'') is a historic city in western Poland, within the Greater Poland Voivodeship. It is the seventh-largest city in the province with an estimated population of 62,200, as of 2021. Previously, it ...

Leszno Voivodeship Leszno Voivodeship () was a unit of administrative division and local government in Poland from 1975 to 1998, superseded by Greater Poland Voivodeship. Its capital city was Leszno. Major cities and towns (population in 1995) * Leszno (61,300) * ...

", see, e.g., the usag
here
. The architects decided to go against the Soviet architectural style and based their design on study of the architecture of

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. Initially the authorities monitored the project with suspicion, but eventually it was accepted, and in 1974 the leading figures of the Lazdynai project (architects

Vytautas Čekanauskas Vytautas Edmundas Čekanauskas (13 May 1930, Šiauliai – 7 July 2010, Vilnius) was a Lithuanian architect, professor of the Vilnius Academy of Art. In 1974 he, together with colleagues, was awarded the Lenin Prize in architecture for the de ...

, Vytautas Brėdikis,

Vytautas Balčiūnas Vytautas (c. 135027 October 1430), also known as Vytautas the Great ( Lithuanian: ', be, Вітаўт, ''Vitaŭt'', pl, Witold Kiejstutowicz, ''Witold Aleksander'' or ''Witold Wielki'' Ruthenian: ''Vitovt'', Latin: ''Alexander Vitoldus'', O ...

, and Gediminas Valiuškis and engineers Algimantas Kleinotas and Vincentas Šileika) were awarded the Lenin Prize in architecture.Becker, Sven (November 23, 2005)
"The architectural battleground for Lithuanian independence"

The Baltic Times ''The Baltic Times'' is an independent monthly newspaper that covers the latest political, economic, business, and cultural events in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The paper was formed from a merger in 1996 of the ''Baltic Independent'' and '' ...

Notes

References

{{Vilnius elderates Neighbourhoods of Vilnius

History

See also

Notes

References