Vilnius, capital of the State of Lithuania for more than 600 years, was, until the First World War, a city of a province in Russia, which had occupied the country in 1795. Photographs from the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century present an image of a developing and changing city. Vilnius expanded and began to include suburban villages and estates. The urban centre was planned and built along a scheme characteristic of cities belonging to the Russian empire. One and two storey structures, which had predominated until the end of the 19th century, were replaced by two and three storey residential and public buildings. The new constructions merged into the general architectural context of the city, but did not surpass the best examples of traditional Vilnius architecture, nor did they overpower its original beauty. 

The photographs in this exhibition are witness to the fact that Russian rule consistently and rapidly undertook to implant the Orthodox faith in Vilnius. It was mostly Orthodox churches which were being built and reconstructed: Piatnickaya, St. Nicholas, Znamenskoya, Virgin Mother of God, and the Alexander Nevski chapel in St. George Square. Catholic houses of worship were either closed or converted to Orthodox churches. The Church of St. Casimir became the St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, and the Franciscan Church was closed; in 1872 its oldest section (a Gothic belfry) was completely torn down. Only in these photographs can one still see the Church of St. Joseph of the Convent of the Barefoot Carmelite Nuns (closed in 1865 and razed to the ground in 1878), or the Chapel of Christ, famous for its miracles, which once stood in Šnipiškės.

In any event, the city carried on its own daily routine, varied by the developments and innovations of that period. In the summer of 1860, the first train arrived to disrupt the town's solemnity, and a year later it had a railway station; the photographic eye did not miss the building of a rail tunnel in Paneriai, two reconstructions of the Green Bridge, or that of the old bridge in Žvėrynas. Photographs preserved the image of tiny shops, and of stone paved main streets with wooden sidewalks and gas (later kerosene) lights. 

Even if it was no longer reminiscent of the majesty of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as in bygone centuries the Cathedral Square remained the most important plaza in Vilnius. In 1886 a portion of it was converted to a boulevard, while the surrounding castles of  Lithuanian rulers disintegrated, or were in fact destroyed. Soon after, in 1904, a monument to Russian Czarina Catherine II, one of the partitioners of Poland-Lithuania Commonvelth, was erected there. The former Napoleon Square and its playing fountain disappeared. In 1893 the fountain was torn down, and replaced by a sadly infamous monument to Governor-General M.N.Muravjov, who suppressed the 1863 uprising against Russia, and was thus known as "the hangman". The Town Hall Square changed as well: it was planted with trees, fenced, and renamed Theatre Square. At the end of the century, a park was established in the territory of the former castles, and the once famous Botanical Gardens of the Vilnius University were restructured.

Unfortunately, 19th century Vilnius had lost its most important accent, the Vilnius University. Founded in 1579, for two and a half centuries it had focused not only the intellectual and cultural life of Lithuania, but that of a broader European region as well. Only the buildings are recognizable in photographs from the end of the 19th century: the University itself was closed by Russian czarist authorities in 1832, after which time it housed a variety of institutions, the Vilnius Public Library and Museum, an archive, and a gymnasium.

Photographs have preserved the majestic monuments and wonderful natural landscapes of the city of Vilnius. Their brief titles, clarifying only certain of the city's historical characteristics connect these images with the colourful and distinctive reality of those bygone days.