Hill of Crosses

The Hill of Crosses, near the city of Šiauliai in northern Lithuania, is a small mound covered with an estimated 100,000 crosses, crucifixes, and statues of saints, ranging from massive carved wooden crosses to tiny crosses left by individual pilgrims, accumulated in layers since at least the mid-19th century. The site's origins are linked to the failed anti-Russian uprisings of 1831 and 1863, after which families of the dead — unable to recover or formally bury bodies exiled or killed by Tsarist authorities — are said to have begun placing symbolic crosses at the hill in their memory.

During the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, the hill became a powerful symbol of Lithuanian national and religious identity in defiance of state atheism, and Soviet authorities bulldozed the site at least three times, in 1961, 1973, and 1975, reportedly burning the wooden crosses, burying the metal ones, and at one point proposing to flood the area by damming a nearby river. Each time, Lithuanians returned — often at night, in secret, despite the risk of arrest — to plant new crosses, and the hill regrew faster than authorities could clear it. Pope John Paul II visited the site in 1993, two years after Lithuania regained independence, declaring it a place of hope, peace, love, and sacrifice, and the practice of leaving crosses continues today, with the hill's population of crosses estimated to roughly double every decade.