Eighth Fort: A Russian Imperial Military Fort in Kaunas
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Lithuania
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Russian
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page6 sections
History
Eighth Fort, also known as Linkuva, is a former military fort in Kaunas, Lithuania, built by the Russian Empire in 1889–1890 as part of the late nineteenth-century Kaunas Fortress. It was intended to close a defensive gap on the city’s northwest approach after the first seven forts had failed to form a complete ring around Kaunas.
Construction and military role
Work began in 1889, after the earlier forts of Kaunas Fortress had been designed and constructed, and the fort was completed in 1890. Its position did not include the highest point in the surrounding area, however, and a new fort, Ninth Fort, replaced it in the defensive system four years later. Eighth Fort therefore served mainly as barracks before later being used as an armoury, a military facility for storing weapons and ammunition.
War damage and later history
During the First World War, the fort’s garrison detonated the ammunition still held in storage before retreating. The blast severely damaged the fort and its drainage system, leaving much of the structure flooded. Since the interwar period, local residents have used the surrounding earthworks and slopes as a community garden.
In 2002, Eighth Fort was added to the Lithuanian Register of Cultural Property. In the twenty-first century, it was also designated a protected area for bat hibernation under the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats, an international framework for protecting European bat populations and important hibernation sites. In 2018, residents and other stakeholders formalized the gardens as Šilainių Sodai, or Šilainiai Gardens, to preserve the community garden’s living history within the former military site.
Remains
Concrete fortification
Eighth Fort was built from concrete and covered with soil, unlike the earlier forts of Kaunas Fortress, which were constructed in red brick. It was the first element of the fortress complex to use concrete and the first fort in the system to receive electric power. Electricity came from an oil-powered generator. The fort is now abandoned and semi-flooded, with the First World War explosion having damaged the drainage system and contributed to the continuing flooding of much of the structure.
Earthworks and community gardens
The earthworks and slopes leading to the fort contain garden plots where vegetables are grown. Native and cultivated trees, including oak, birch, apple, and plum, also grow across these areas. The gardens form part of the site’s continuing community use, linking the surviving military landscape with the interwar and later history of local cultivation.
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