Medininkai is a village in Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

, located 26 km (16.2 mi) from Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

 and 2 km (1.2 mi) from the Lithuanian–Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

ian border. According to the 2001 census, the village had 508 residents. Medininkai is the administrative center of an eldership. According to a 2010 eldership report, it had 1374 residents, of whom 92,3% were Polish, 3.2% Lithuanian, and 2.9% Russian.

The village is situated on the Medininkai Highland, near the highest points of Lithuania – the Juozapinė Hill

Juozapine Hill

Juozapinė Hill is a hill located near Vilnius, formerly regarded as the highest point in Lithuania. Its elevation is 292,7 meters ; its latitude and longitude are 54.4667/25.5667. The status of the highest elevation in Lithuania is now being attributed to Aukštojas Hill...

 and Aukštojas Hill

Aukštojas Hill

Aukštojas Hill is the highest point in all of Lithuania; it is located in the Medininkai Highlands, Migūnai forestry, approximately southeast of the capital city of Vilnius. Its elevation was measured in 2004 at 293.84 metres by specialists at the Institute of Geodesy at Vilnius Gediminas...

. The village is famous for the ruins of the Medininkai Castle

Medininkai Castle

Medininkai Castle , a medieval castle in Vilnius district, Lithuania, was built in the late 13th century or the first quarter of the 14th century. The defensive perimeter of the castle was 6.5 hectares; it is the largest enclosure type castle in Lithuania....

. On July 31, 1991, Medininkai border post was attacked

Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts

Several Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts occurred in 1991, after Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990. As a Soviet republic, the Lithuanian SSR did not have a state border with customs or checkpoints...

 by the Soviet OMON

OMON

OMOH is a generic name for the system of special units of militsiya within the Russian and earlier the Soviet MVD...

 forces. Seven Lithuanian customs officers were shot, while Tomas Šernas

Tomas Šernas

Tomas Šernas was a Lithuanian customs officer and the only survivor of the Medininkai Massacre on July 31, 1991. He survived the point-blank shot to his head, but became disabled...

barely survived.