In Aukštieji Šančiai, very close to Kaunas city centre, hides a hillfort known not only as Šančiai Hillfort but also as Aukštapilis. The Aukštieji Šančiai oak grove that surrounds it, on the upper terrace of the right bank of the Nemunas, is the smaller surviving part of the oak forest that once encircled Kaunas. You will find the hillfort by driving from K. Baršausko Street, just before you reach the military cemetery. As early as 1924, the hillfort was vividly described by Domas Šidlauskas, who formulated the foundations of the Aesti faith: "Probably nobody knows that there is a hillfort on the very doorstep of Kaunas, in Aukštieji Šančiai. Although the spot is very beautiful and people walk past on all sides, covered by oaks, firs and hornbeams it catches nobody's eye." The hillfort dates from the beginning of the 2nd millennium; its steep slopes, overgrown with thinned-out deciduous trees, reach 30 m in height. Its small plateau, only 4.5 m long and 8 m wide, is rectangular and elongated. At its western edge there is a rampart 1.5 m high and 15 m long. Members of the ancient Baltic religious community Romuva set up a sacred site next to the hillfort, and in 2013 an altar was built on the area in front of it. Baltic festivals are celebrated and various rites are performed here. Going deeper into the oak grove, you will also find the Perkūnas oak, marked by lightning. Around it, members of the Romuva community have laid out a palaeo-astronomical calendar – a circle of stones 14 m in diameter, divided into 12 sectors. In 2003 the remains of German prisoners of war from the Second World War were found in the oak grove near the hillfort. They were later exhumed and reburied in the nearby Aukštieji Šančiai military cemetery. After visiting the hillfort, stop by the cemetery too – it was founded back in 1891, outside the then city limits of Kaunas, for soldiers of the Russian army's Kaunas garrison. Over time, seven burial sections took shape in the cemetery, where Russian, German and Lithuanian soldiers are buried. The rows of graves in the second Lithuanian soldiers' plot reproduce the pattern of the Columns of Gediminas.