Lithuania: The Hill of Crosses and Europe's Last Pagan Nation
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The Hill of Crosses is a pilgrimage site in northern Lithuania where crosses have been planted by Lithuanians for centuries — estimates now put the number at over 100,000. The tradition began as an act of mourning and resistance: after uprisings against Russian rule in the 19th century, Lithuanians planted crosses to commemorate those who died. The Soviet authorities bulldozed the hill three times. Each time, new crosses appeared overnight. The hill could not be erased because the act of planting a cross there carried too much meaning.
Lithuania was the last European country to convert to Christianity, accepting baptism in 1387 — more than a thousand years after the religion spread across the rest of the continent. Before Christianity, Lithuanian culture was deeply rooted in a polytheistic tradition centred on oak trees, thunder gods, and sacred fires maintained by dedicated priests. The persistence of folk traditions, seasonal celebrations, and relationships with the natural world that predate Christianity — still evident in Lithuanian village culture — reflects how recently and incompletely the pre-Christian world was replaced rather than erased.
Amber is Lithuania's most iconic natural product — the fossilised resin of ancient trees washed up on Baltic shores, containing insects and plant material preserved for millions of years. The Baltic coast produces 90 percent of the world's amber supply. Lithuanian amber jewellery has been traded across Europe since the Neolithic period. The amber road that connected the Baltic to the Mediterranean was one of the ancient world's most important trade routes, and Lithuania sat at its northern end.
