You wouldn't believe how many rumors and legends of all kinds were floating around a few decades ago about the tallest building in Lithuania at the time - the capital's television tower. It's true, not about the one that stands today in Karoliniškės in Vilnius, but about the old one that stood 63 years ago on S. Konarskios street. The structure has long since been dismantled, but the dismantling that once took place has become a unique operation.
The first television tower built in the XNUMXs changed the city's panorama, aroused the curiosity of Vilnius residents and even became the basis of various legends.
There were people who said that a person fell during the installation of the tower, although in fact, the construction worker, who had been working on the ropes with a wadding in the morning, threw off his clothes during the day when the sun was hot and fell from a great height, causing many rumors and rumors.
For three decades, the tower was the tallest building in Lithuania: its height with the antenna reached 192 meters, and its weight was 350 tons. Since at that time the builders of the country did not have the experience of high-rises, the tower was installed by builders from Leningrad at that time.
When in 1981 A new, even higher tower started operating in Karoliniškės, the old one had been lying unused for several years.
It is true that the building, which was the main highlight of the city's panorama for three decades, scared Lithuanian radio and television workers and those living nearby with its potentially damaging effects. There were rumors that pigeons were dying due to electromagnetic waves emitted by the tower.
The announcer Undinė Nasvytytė remembers in the book "About the stage, radio and love": "That tower, the feeder, appears to marinize us. One day, a Japanese delegation arrived at LRT. Every Japanese person had a Geiger counter that showed the amount of radiation. I remember I came to work, I was making a door in the field, and the Japanese came pouring out of the building! Almost knocked me over. It turns out that their lights started flashing in the building."
Alfredas Pliadis, a sports editorial journalist at the time, shared similar memories in the media, saying that the dismantling of the tower was the silent joy of a large collective of Lithuanian radio and television employees.
in 1985 in September, the dismantling of the tower began. At first, the Mi-10K helicopter-crane performed a unique operation - seven times lifting the structures of the upper part of the tower.
Each time, the helicopter had to lift parts of metal structures of increasing mass. The helicopter took off after refueling for only one flight from S. Konarskis Street to the waiting area near Neris, near the current "Litexpo" of the exhibition hall.
The information was prepared according to the book "Lietuvos Televizija 1957-2017. The facts. Developers. Shows".
