Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports is an indoor arena built in 1971. It was primarily used for volleyball and basketball. In October 1988, the arena was the site of the Inaugural Congress of Sąjūdis, the Reform movement which led Lithuania in achieving independence from the Soviet Union. It was also the site of the public funeral of 13 Lithuanians killed by Soviet troops at the Vilnius Television Tower during the January Events of 1991. In 2004 the arena was deemed unsafe, closed, and abandoned ever since.
Plans to reconstruct the venue received significant opposition from the Jewish community as the site is located on the grounds of Piramónt cemetery, the oldest Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. As if one ruined cemetery was not enough, in 2017 about 1,000 tombstones and tombstone fragments from another Jewish cemetery in Zaretcha (Užupis district) were dumped here. They can be seen behind the fence on the right side of the building, just piled one atop the other. Sadly, it is no longer possible to establish all the names of persons whose tombstones now rest in the wrong cemetery.
