The underground kingdom of Vilnius Town Hall covers about a thousand square meters. Only a small part, barely 300 square meters, has been explored and opened to visitors. The dark walls, nearly half a thousand years old, along with every stone and every walled-up opening, hide many legends, secrets, and blood-curdling real stories.

Only one road leads to the Vilnius Town Hall dungeons, and only one leads back. It is hard to believe today that a terrifying network of torture, dark loneliness, and punishment once spread throughout this magnificent, columned building.

Criminals were kept chained in the lower Vilnius prison, which operated in the basements of the Town Hall. It is believed that some of the most widespread punishments of medieval Europe, which are difficult to comprehend today, were applied here—such as tearing out tongues, cutting off ears, and chopping off fingers.

Stasys Samalavičius, in his book “Vilnius Town Hall,” states that numerous historical sources from the 17th and 18th centuries recount the existence of a prison set up in the tower and basements of the town hall. The fourth paragraph of the 1647 statute of the Vilnius Butchers’ Guild stipulates that a butcher should not be imprisoned for debts alongside criminals; instead, he must serve time in an “honorable” prison where members of other guilds and sedentary townspeople are held.

To prevent prisoners from escaping, guards would chain serious criminals with iron shackles. The expenses allocated for these chains are noted in documents from 1663, 1667, 1670, and subsequent years.

Samalavičius notes that hygiene was little regarded in the prisons of that time, evidenced by the fact that in 1670, 13 gold pieces were paid for cleaning the three prisons of the town hall and removing 30 carts of manure.

During the reconstruction of the town hall in 1845, new cellars were excavated, and the layout of the central part of the cellar was altered. A narrow and high room was established under the stairs of the town hall, where in 1938, the main Vilnius electrical substation was installed, supplying electricity to the entire Old Town. In the same year, the Polish authorities established a hiding place in the cellar.

The systematic study of the town hall’s cellars began after the restoration of independence. The first official architectural research, conducted in 1995–1996, was led by architect Idalija Bėčienė. Later, the town hall was explored in 2012 and 2014 by a team of archaeologists led by Roberts Žukovkis and Linas Girlevičius.