Laisvės Alėja (literally Liberty Boulevard or Liberty Avenue) is a prominent
pedestrian street
Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian-only use and in whi ...
in the city of
Kaunas,
Lithuania. It stretches between the
St. Michael the Archangel's Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
-style
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
to the Central Post Office and
Tadas Ivanauskas Zoological Museum, around the Kaunas
Old Town, the oldest section of Kaunas. For a long time it was the main commercial district of Kaunas.
Stretching for , Laisvės Alėja is the longest pedestrian street in
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...
.
s cannot travel along Laisvės Alėja, but can cross it at
intersections with other
streets where motor traffic is permitted. The
boulevard
A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway.
Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls.
In American usage, boulevards may ...
is separated into two walkways by a
median strip
The median strip, central reservation, roadway median, or traffic median is the reserved area that separates opposing lanes of traffic on divided roadways such as divided highways, dual carriageways, freeways, and motorways. The term also a ...
lined with
linden trees.
Both
Kaunas State Musical Theatre
The Kaunas State Musical Theatre is a musical theatre in Kaunas, Lithuania. It was established on November 27, 1940, in the former State Theatre hall adjoining the Laisvės Alėja. For some time, it mostly presented operettas.
The building
The ...
and
Kaunas State Drama Theatre are located along the street, as well as the
Kaunas Red Cross Hospital.
History
Much of the construction around Laisvės Alėja originally took place during the latter half of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th century. At the time,
Kaunas Fortress was also being constructed around the city. As a result all the buildings were limited to a height of 2–3 floors, with a few exceptions such as St. Michael the Archangel's church, built in 1895.
In 1982, Laisvės Alėja was reconstructed according to plans of
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
s V. Palauskas and V. Paleckienė, and completely transformed into pedestrian area (as it was planned as early as 1953).
Image gallery
Image:KaunasLaisves aleja.jpg
File:Centras, Kaunas, Lithuania - panoramio - VietovesLt.jpg
Image:Kauno soboras. 2007-04-06.jpg, St. Michael the Archangel's church (Sobor)
Image:Laisves aleja 2006 06 25.JPG, Laisvės Alėja with St. Michael the Archangel's church in the background
Image:Kaunas-Liberty Avenue Fountain.jpg, A fountain in the Avenue
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laisves aleja
Streets in Kaunas
Pedestrian malls