Visaginas

We will try to fill this gap. Different information about our town will be placed on this web site.

Visaginas is located on the north-east of Lithuania. This part of Lithuania is famous by its beautiful landscape - hills all covered with forests and numerous lakes are the real paradise for tourists. The frontiers of three republics - Lithuania, Latvia and Belorussia lie not far from the town. Also the biggest Lithuanian lake, Driukshai, is located nearby.

The nearest to Visaginas towns are Ignalina - 43 km far, Zarasai - 43 km, Daugaupils (Latvia) - 63 km, Utena - 67 km, Vilnus - 150 km.

Important railroad line connecting St-Petersburg and Warsaw crosses Visaginas area. A highway connects Visaginas with Vilnius, Utena and Daugaupils.

Our town was founded in 1975th as a town-satellite for the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. Visaginas grew fast and nowadays it consists of three districts which occupy 896 hectares.

By 1990 the town population reached 33 thousands and for today it is rather stable.

One of the distinguished features of Visaginas is the age of its population. In comparison with the neighbouring towns and cities fairly many young and middle aged people live in here, they make the working part of the population.

Another feature of Visaginas is quite a sizeable percentage of people having the trade and higher education. There are many children and teenagers in the town. They study in five secondary schools, one gymnasia, two private schools and one polytechnic school. Visaginas is widely known in Lithuania by its high educational level.

The visaginners are interested in science, sports and culture. The town has two sport schools and eleven sport clubs, where highly qualified and experienced coaches condition the sportsmen. The highest results were achieved in acrobatics, rowing and Greek-Roman wrestling. There are silver and bronze winners of the European and world-wide championships among our sportsmen.

50 social organisations are registered in our town.

Our town distinguishes by the fact that it was built as INPP satellite. Due to this nearly no other industry either food or processing one was developed in Visaginas.

Another favourable feature of the town is the industrial construction base which was founded for and which dealt with INPP construction. But, alas, it is poorly used nowadays.

1083 different companies are registered in Visaginas. Most of them are the private ones. No doubt, Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant is the most considerable town enterprise.

About 5 thousand employees work here. NPP has two units(reactors). The first one went into service in December 1983 and the second one - in August of 1987.

Some other rather big enterprises are located in Visaginas. They are Visatex ltd (sewing factory), Visagino duona ltd (bakehouse), Vilstata, (civil enterprise), Visagino tiekimas ir statyba (civil enterprise), Evikonas ltd (civil enterprise).

The trading system of the town is rather comprehensively developed here. 96 shops, four restaurants, seventeen cafes, six bars are always ready to propose their services to Visaginas inhabitants. . The guests of our town may stay in the ten-stored hotel, located in the centre of the town.

Also there are two markets in Visaginas, which turn to be the ``shopping centres'' for nearest towns and villages.

Visaginas possess very advanced modern mass media and communications. Level of the telephone communication extension is one of the highest in the republic.

All largest Lithuanian commercial radio stations transmit their programs to the town. There is a retransmitter in the town. The town is covered by a local cable television net.

Rather long time ago the Visaginners started using the World Wide Web. And it is not a surprise today. Town-wide Local Area Network TTS has got very popular recently. For a low price it provides the inhabitants with a special possibility to use the World Wide Web without any limits.

For many people Visaginas became a new homeland they are proud of.