9th Fort

9th Fort and Monument, Kaunas - darkometer rating : 8 - The top dark site in the area of Kaunas , Lithuania , hands down. In fact it's three sites in one, as it were. First there's the fort itself, which was used as a prison and during WWII also as a massacre site by the Germans in the Holocaust . Today this part houses a museum about those dark days. Then there's a new modern building featuring a separate museum that is mostly about the Soviet times and Lithuania's struggle for independence. And finally, and visually grandest of it all, there's the fantastically monumental Soviet-era memorial. It's one of the largest and most impressive (in the socialist brutalist kind of way) specimens of its type anywhere in the world. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: The 9th Fort retains it numerical name from the days when it was indeed the ninth part of a series of forts that together formed a whole ring of fortifications around the city of Kaunas . Collectively these were called Fortress Kaunas. Construction of the fortifications began in the late 19th century, the 9th Fort itself was begun in 1902. The work was only finished just before the outbreak of WWI , when the territory of today's Lithuania was part of the Russian empire. In 1915 the fort was indeed the site of a fierce battle between German and Russian forces. The defending Russians held the besieged stronghold for several days but finally succumbed.