- Place
- Alytus, Alytus City Municipality
- Region
- Dzūkija
- Type
- 5.54-hectare geometric city park laid out in a natural pine wood in 1930-1931, with a 50-metre sun circle, six radial paths, historic rose garden, fountain, and summer stage
- Address
- S. Dariaus ir S. Girėno Street, Alytus
- Coordinates
- 54.39418, 24.04743
- Visit duration
- 45-75 minutes for the park, fountain, and memorial features; 1.5-2 hours during a concert or together with Freedom Angel Square
- Best time
- May through September for roses and summer-stage events; early spring or autumn reveals the tree structure and six-ray plan most clearly
Alytaus miesto sodas, Alytus City Park, Alytus Municipal Garden
The 5.54-hectare garden is an open public space, though fountain works and events may alter the normal route
Alytus City Garden occupies the centre of the city between Pulko, Birutės, and S. Dariaus ir S. Girėno streets. Freedom Angel Square is the easiest landmark, while the garden's coordinates are 54.394178, 24.047430. The municipality gives an area of 5.54 hectares, almost exactly matching the 55,590 square metres defined by the Register of Cultural Property. There are no gates or admission fee: this is a free public park.
The terrain is level and the principal paths are paved, making the centre manageable with a wheelchair or pushchair. Tree roots, wet leaves, and temporary event infrastructure can nevertheless complicate individual sections. During a concert, the stage and its immediate approaches may follow event-specific rules even though the wider garden remains public.
The new summer stage opened on 21 November 2025 and was already hosting events in 2026. Further renewal covering the fountain, paths, lighting, benches, cycle stands, drinking-water point, and roses is officially scheduled through 2028; by 13 July 2026 the municipality had not announced completion of the historically modelled fountain. Check the city website before a fountain-specific journey for current water operation and temporary closures.
Work beginning in 1930 and a founding date of 1931 describe successive moments in the same park's creation
Development began in 1930 within roughly five hectares of natural pine woodland, as mayor and agronomist Zigmas Jakulis rallied the city around a representative green space. Municipal engineer Stasys Taškūnas produced the plan, while gardener Jonas Faitušas, who had studied horticulture in Frankfurt, directed its planting character. Official descriptions conventionally date the City Garden to 1931, when the layout had assumed the form of a park.
The years 1930 and 1931 are therefore complementary: the first marks the start of work, the second the chronology of the established garden. Forestry-school director Antanas Rukuiža also contributed, while architect-engineer Vytautas Trečiokas later designed its fountain and stage. This was not a woodland that simply evolved into a park, but a collaboration among specialists for a modernising regional centre.
At its heart is a circular square 50 metres in diameter, understood as a sun, with six straight paths spreading out like rays. Cross paths, two square resting places, a rectangular dance area, and Freedom Angel Square complete the composition. The geometric framework proved so important that the cultural-property record protects the circle, its six directions, the path alignments, and the level topography individually.
Avenues, roses, and three named oaks form a living archive of the interwar garden
The cultural-property record protects more than lines on a plan. It identifies the eastern birch avenue, western horse-chestnut avenue, and the maple-and-ash approach from Birutės Street, together with grouped and linear planting of conifers and deciduous trees. Elms, horse chestnuts, birches, and poplars once articulated different edges, while a band of white-flowering viburnum marked the centre.
The garden became known for Jonas Faitušas's rose beds and aquatic plants. Roses later flourished under Stasys Marcinkevičius, the gardener here from 1958 to 1980 who earned the nickname king of roses. The municipality counts more than thirty original tree and shrub species and around twelve rose varieties. Surviving rarities include a European yew, Japanese magnolia, and sessile oaks.
Three named oaks allow visitors to read twentieth-century Lithuanian history in living bark. The Antanas Smetona Oak was planted in 1930, the Baltic Unity Oak in 1933, and opera singer Kipras Petrauskas's Oak in 1939; a red oak followed in 1958. These are not loose folklore identifications: their locations and commemorative significance appear in the official cultural-property description.
The fountain's 1936 and 1939 dates come from different records, and today's basin is not the original
The Register of Cultural Property dates Vytautas Trečiokas's circular concrete fountain to 1936, while a contemporary newspaper located by Alytus Municipality announced its completion in May 1939. The most responsible reading is that design or an early stage may belong to 1936 and documented completion to 1939. Without a fuller primary record, neither date should be used simply to erase the other.
The original fountain was a low white circular pool with a central island bearing six white spheres, one tall central jet, and six smaller jets. It initially drew from its own well; water lilies and other aquatic plants grew in the basin, joined by red and yellow fish. The composition harmonised with the central sun and roses, making the fountain the nucleus of the geometric plan rather than an incidental ornament.
The historic basin did not survive reconstruction in 1997-1999. A higher fountain clad in polished grey granite, with more nozzles and decorative spheres, replaced it. The current municipal project intends to recover the low interwar composition from iconographic evidence. Until that work is completed and officially accepted, visitors may encounter the later granite basin, a dry fountain, or a temporary construction area.
The Freedom Angel, wartime damage, and Soviet-era awards show how the garden's meanings changed
The Freedom Angel beside the garden was first erected in 1929 from a work by sculptor Antanas Aleksandravičius. The statue fell in 1933 and was restored in 1937, but Soviet authorities removed the monument in 1951 and substituted an obelisk. The present version was unveiled in 1991, with the figure recreated by Jonas Meškelevičius and reliefs by Jonas Blažaitis.
The park suffered severe wartime damage in 1944, and a bomb exploding beside the stage left a major crater. Revival proceeded gradually after the war: the fountain was operating again by summer 1946, planting was repaired, and the garden became a natural monument in 1958. Its enclosing fence came down in 1961, when it was recognised as the republic's best-maintained park, followed by an all-Union cultural award in 1962.
Those Soviet-era distinctions testify to horticultural skill and maintenance, but do not obscure the coerced rewriting of the memorial setting. The park entered the Register as cultural property of regional significance on 20 January 1999, with architectural, historical, landscape, and planting values protected. The Freedom Angel and commemorative oaks now restore the interwar Lithuanian narrative to the space.
The new stage continues an old dance-ground tradition beneath century-old pines
The City Garden stage and dance floor already formed an active public venue between the wars. The city council allocated 750 litas for a new stage in 1938 and raised payment for performances by the Uhlan Regiment orchestra in 1939. Alytus residents later called the rectangular dance ground plaščiadkė, a local borrowing from Russian, while an outdoor refreshment stand nicknamed Grybas operated nearby in the 1960s.
The stage opened in 2025 with a new surface and canopy, storage, bar area, and movable seating. Its designers placed the building so it would not hide the old pines. Construction cost €465,000 including VAT, with European Union funds covering 85 per cent. By 2026 it was hosting a season opening, concerts, and the city festival, confirming that the garden remains more than a quiet dendrological site.
For a peaceful visit, come outside event times and walk from the Freedom Angel through the central sun, fountain, named oaks, and avenues. To experience its living function, choose an officially advertised free concert and separately check its time and seating rules. On 13 July 2026, the exact Google Maps listing named Alytus City Park averaged 4.7 out of 5 from more than 1,500 reviews. It clears the 4.5 threshold, although the figure changes with new reviews.
