Šiauliai is one of those cities that hardly anyone has on their list, yet it is the keeper of one of the most moving places in all of Europe: the Hill of Crosses. Lithuania's fourth-largest city, right in the north of the country, is industrial, practical and without great tourist pretensions, but it works as the perfect gateway to that mound covered by more than a hundred thousand crosses, which became a symbol of the faith and resistance of an entire people.
The city itself holds surprises for anyone who stops a while. Its pedestrian street, Vilniaus gatvė, was one of the first pedestrian zones in the Soviet Union. In its central square, a huge sundial crowned by the golden statue of an archer is a reminder that Šiauliai is also called 'the city of the sun' (Saulė means sun in Lithuanian). And its themed museums —the Bicycle, Chocolate, Cat and Photography museums— give it a quirky, unpretentious air that breaks with the solemnity of the Baltic north.
This guide takes a practical look at Šiauliai: how to get there from Vilnius or the coast, what to see in the city, and above all how to plan your visit to the Hill of Crosses, which almost everyone combines on the same trip. It is a destination you can see in a short time but that leaves a mark that is hard to forget, above all because of that forest of crosses that keeps growing, cross by cross, as it has for almost two centuries.
Founded as a settlement linked to the Battle of Saule in 1236 —when the Samogitian tribes and those of neighbouring lands defeated the Livonian Brothers of the Sword—, Šiauliai grew up alongside the trade routes of northern Lithuania. For centuries it was an agricultural and crafts centre; in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it industrialised with tanneries and factories, and became an important railway junction. It suffered enormous destruction in both world wars: much of the centre was flattened in 1944. In the Soviet era it was rebuilt as an industrial city and hosted a large military air base (Zokniai, now the airport). But its great symbol lies on the outskirts: the Hill of Crosses, which during the Soviet occupation became a silent, stubborn act of national and religious resistance, razed several times by the authorities and always rebuilt by the people. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Northern Lithuania, land of the old Battle of the Sun and of the Hill of Crosses: a mound covered in more than a hundred thousand crosses that the Soviets razed again and again, and that the people rebuilt night after night.
Read the history of The north: Šiauliai and the Hill of Crosses →They depart from Kaunas, 121 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Šiauliai owes its place in history to a battle fought long before the city existed. On 22 September 1236, somewhere in the lands of what is now northern Lithuania, the Samogitian tribes, helped by warriors from the neighbouring Semigallian lands, wiped out the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. This Christian military order was trying to subdue the Baltic peoples and convert them by force. In that clash, known as the Battle of the Sun (Saulės mūšis), the order's own master, Volkwin, fell along with dozens of knights. The defeat was so catastrophic that the remnants of the order had to merge with the Teutonic Order the following year.
The Latin name of the battle, 'ad Saulam' or 'apud Sauven', has traditionally been linked to Šiauliai, whose root is associated with the Lithuanian word 'saulė' (sun). That is why the city is known as 'the city of the sun', a nickname it celebrates today with its sundial square and its golden archer. The first written mention of the settlement of Šiauliai itself comes much later, though: it appears in documents from 1524.
Whatever scholars conclude about the exact site of the battle, what remained was a powerful symbol. The Battle of the Sun was one of the great victories of the Baltic peoples against the Northern Crusades, and for decades it held back the advance of the military orders into Samogitia, the last pagan region of Europe. That fighting spirit, a habit of resisting outside power, echoes strangely through the city's later history, and above all through the story of its Hill of Crosses.
Under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Šiauliai grew as an agricultural centre in the north. It was granted town status in 1589. In the 18th century it became the heart of a large royal economic estate, the so-called 'Šiauliai economies': state treasury lands worked by local peasants. Its status as a royal town left its mark. In 1769 one of the largest peasant revolts in the country's history broke out here, when the serfs of the economies rose up against their burdens and the abuses of the administration.
In 1791, in the final years of the Commonwealth, Šiauliai received Magdeburg town rights and its own coat of arms: a red bear, an Eye of Providence and a cross, symbols that are still in use. Shortly afterwards, with the partitions of Poland-Lithuania, the city was absorbed into the Russian Empire, which would rule it for more than a century. That was when it became a key point on the trade routes between Riga and the interior and, above all, a railway hub.
The arrival of the railway in 1871, with the line linking Liepāja (in present-day Latvia) to Romny, transformed Šiauliai. It went from farming town to industrial city. Tanneries, leather and shoe factories, mills and workshops opened, and the leather industry made the city famous. By the early 20th century, Šiauliai was one of the most dynamic towns in the north-west of the empire. Its mixed population included Lithuanians, a large Jewish community, Poles, Russians and Germans.
Like so many towns in northern and eastern Lithuania, Šiauliai had a vibrant Jewish life for centuries. In the early 20th century, Jews made up almost half of the city's population and were central to its commerce, crafts and industry. Many of the tanneries and leather factories were Jewish-owned, and the city had synagogues, schools, a Yiddish press and a rich cultural life.
The First World War had already dealt the community a heavy blow. In 1915 the Russian army, suspecting disloyalty, deported much of the Jewish population to the interior of the empire, and fighting and fires destroyed much of the city. Many returned later, and in the interwar period, in independent Lithuania, Jewish life flourished again.
The final blow came with the Nazi occupation. After the German invasion of 1941, the Jews of Šiauliai were confined to a ghetto and subjected to forced labour. In a series of 'actions' and deportations, almost all of them were murdered. Of a community of thousands, only a handful survived. Among other things, the Šiauliai ghetto is remembered for the diaries that some of its inhabitants managed to leave behind as testimony. The community's destruction was part of the murder of around 90% of Lithuania's Jews, one of the highest proportions anywhere in Europe. It erased a whole dimension of the city for ever, one recalled today in memorials and in the work of historians.
Few Lithuanian cities suffered as much in the 20th century as Šiauliai. The First World War left much of the centre in ruins and drove a large part of the population away. Lithuania declared independence in 1918, and in the interwar period the city was rebuilt and enjoyed a golden age. It became the country's second or third city, with leather, footwear and confectionery industries, higher education, newspapers and a vibrant cultural life.
The Second World War was even more devastating. With the Soviet occupation of 1940, the German invasion of 1941 and the Soviet reconquest of 1944, the city was caught between two fronts. In the summer of 1944, during the fighting between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, around 80% of the buildings in Šiauliai were destroyed. The city you see today is largely a post-war reconstruction, which explains why its centre lacks the historic grandeur of Vilnius or Kaunas.
Under Soviet rule, Šiauliai was rebuilt as a socialist industrial city, with large factories, housing estates of apartment blocks and a major military air base at Zokniai, on the outskirts. That base, one of the largest in the Baltic region, made Šiauliai a strategic point in the Soviet military system. Today the same airfield is home to the civilian airport and to a base for NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission. Soviet reconstruction also brought the pedestrianisation of Vilniaus Street in 1975, one of the first pedestrian streets in the whole USSR.
No history of Šiauliai is complete without its great symbol, which strictly speaking lies outside the city: the Hill of Crosses (Kryžių kalnas), about 12 km to the north. The tradition of planting crosses on the mound goes back at least to the 1830s, after the failed 1831 uprising against the Russian Empire. Families who could not recover the bodies of their dead began leaving crosses in their memory. Over time it became a place of pilgrimage and an expression of Lithuanian Catholic and national identity.
During the Soviet occupation, when religion was suppressed, the Hill became an act of peaceful, stubborn resistance. The authorities bulldozed it at least three times between 1961 and 1975, burned and buried the crosses, and even considered flooding the area. But each time, at night and in secret, people came back and planted new crosses. That silent tug of war between an atheist state and a people who refused to give up their faith made the Hill one of the most powerful symbols of Lithuanian resistance to Sovietisation.
Pope John Paul II visited in 1993, celebrated Mass beside the Hill and declared it a place of hope, peace and sacrifice, which brought it worldwide attention. Today there are estimated to be more than a hundred thousand crosses, and the number keeps growing. For Šiauliai, this hill on the outskirts is both its biggest tourist attraction and the heart of its historical meaning. Here the old fighting spirit of the Battle of the Sun, the memory of the 19th-century uprisings and the resistance of the 20th century come together in a forest of crosses that never stops growing.
Today Šiauliai is Lithuania's fourth-largest city, with around 100,000 inhabitants, and a university and industrial centre for the north of the country. After independence was restored in 1990-1991, it went through the same hard transition as the rest of Lithuania, from the Soviet system to a market economy. Old factories closed and many people emigrated, but new industries, shops and services also arrived.
The city has leaned into its identity as 'the city of the sun'. Its sundial square with the golden archer, opened in the 1980s, has become its emblem. Its quirky themed museums (Bicycle, Photography, Radio and Television, Chocolate, Cat) give it an unpretentious, original feel that sets it apart from other Baltic cities. Pedestrianised Vilniaus Street is still the heart of everyday life.
For travellers, Šiauliai is above all the natural base for visiting the Hill of Crosses, and many stop here on the way from Vilnius to the coast or from Vilnius to Riga. Those who stay a while find an honest city without big crowds that tells the story of northern Lithuania in its own way. It is a story of the Baltic Crusades and the leather industry, of the communities that lived here and vanished, of the wars that flattened the city, and of the silent resistance that grew a forest of crosses at its gates.
