W8J8+CM Meškonys, Vilnius District Municipality, Lithuania
Among the three restored points of the Struve Arc in Lithuania, the most significant is the "Meškonis" point, as it is part of the modern Lithuanian satellite coordinate system. The point was established in 1817 and was included in the first triangulation network of the Lithuanian region (Vilnius province), created by Karl Tenner and used in the measurements of the Struve Geodetic Service. The point was marked with stones that were tied together and placed in a mound. In 1930, Polish surveyors updated the marking of this point with concrete blocks. In Lithuania, work related to the preservation of the Struve Geodetic Arc points began in 1994, when Lithuania joined the UNESCO initiative. As part of the inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2006, a granite pillar was installed at the point, surrounded by a concrete fence with an information board nearby.
Unfortunately, in Lithuania, the points of the Struve Geodetic Arc are neglected. Although a dirt road reaches the point itself, the UNESCO obelisk is overgrown with weeds, and the geodetic point is marked by a rusty sewer manhole cover.
The Struve Arc, once known as the "Russian" and later the "Russo-Scandinavian Meridian Arc," is one of UNESCO's World Heritage monuments. The arc consists of 265 triangulation points, where measurements were conducted from 1816 to 1852, allowing the precise determination of the Earth's size and shape.
Reference points of this triangulation network were marked in various ways on the terrain: hollows carved into rocks, iron crosses, stone pyramids, or specially installed obelisks. Often, they were marked with sandstone bricks laid at the bottom of a pit; sometimes it was a granite cube with a cavity filled with lead, placed in a pit with cobblestones.
During the project work to include the Struve Arc in the UNESCO list, which lasted 8 years, special search and geodetic works were carried out in each country to locate the original points. All information from all the Struve Arc countries was collected, structured, and standardized.
Not all of the original points were found during the special search and geodetic works carried out in recent years with active cooperation from scientists of the interested countries, and many of them were found to be heavily damaged. Therefore, only the best-preserved points—34 in total—were included in the World Heritage site.
Sources:
http://www.gototrip.com/publications/geodezicheskaya-duga-struve
https://tropter.com/en/lithuania/meskonys/struve-geodetic-point-in-meskonys
