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Gediminas castle

All Lithuanians know a legend about establishment of Vilnius city. It was the beginning of 14th century when Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas stopped for an overnight near confluence of Neris and Vilnele rivers. That night he dreamt an iron wolf howling on a hill. In the morning his soothsayer Lizdeika explained his dream as a sign for him to build here a city as it will become a well known and widely resounded in all over the World. Gediminas ordered to pour a mound at the same place he slept. On the hill there a castle was built, the predecessor for the nowadays Gediminas castle. According to archeological researches, the hill where Gediminas castle stands nowadays was already inhabited in a Neolithic period. In 11-13th centuries a wooden castle here stood. The same as Vilnius city, it was mentioned in 1323 for the first time. For more than 250 years since 1315, when a dynasty of Gediminaičiai ruled the Grand Duke of Lithuania, the complex of Vilnius castles served as a