The main city of Lithuania is one of the smallest capitals in Europe. The city is located at the confluence of the Vilnia and Vilija rivers, in the very south-east of the country - the border with Belarus is just a short walk away. Interestingly, Vilnius is the only European capital where 100% of water supply is provided by underground sources.
The population of Vilnius is about 600 thousand people (more than 60% of them are Lithuanians, many Poles and Russians). The inhabitants of the city understand and speak Russian, but it is better to repeat English before traveling.
Once upon a time on the place of modern Vilnius there were noisy forests - birds and animals in them were visibly invisible. Prince Gedimin, the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, liked to hunt in these parts. On one of these trips, Gedimin slept in the forest, and he had a wonderful dream - as if he was hunting a giant wolf in iron armor, shooting arrows one after another, but he could not kill it!
Gedimin woke up and asked the old priest to interpret the magic dream. The elder was brief: here, on a mountain at the mouth of the Vilna River, he ordered Gedimin to build a castle as impregnable and formidable as the iron wolf he had seen in his dream. The ruler obeyed the old man - so hundreds of years ago the city of Vilnius appeared. By the way, tourists can still climb the legendary Gedimin's Mountain and see the ruins of the Upper Castle.
