Near Vilnius Sereykishkes park, at the foot of Castle and Cross, is an old park, which today do not even know many residents of Vilnius. According to the historian V.Drema, Sereykishkes area was named by the name of the owner, who had an estate here - Sereyki. The property is on an island, surrounded on both sides of the river Vilnia - the old and the new riverbed, and with a third party - a channel dug for the royal mill. Subsequently, the site of the channel was built Central Park alley Sereyeishkes.

Botanical Garden Zh.E.Zhelibera (Eng. Botanical Gardens JE Zhelibera) at the Medical University of Vilnius in the 18th century occupied an area of ​​only 300 square meters. Commission of National Education has decided that the garden is outdated and must be expanded.

In 1787, it was acquired for the purpose of land in Sereykishkes. Once these lands belonged to the genus Alexandrovich. Historians claim that this place is the early part of the castle business. It housed the royal gardens and the royal stables, from 1515, there were royal mill and the first paper mill in the city.

In the 18th century in this place were many residential buildings, but by the 18th century the area came into disrepair and became a kind of a dump where garbage brought from all over the city. The dilapidated wooden houses lived homeless. Three once-beautiful ponds filled with frogs, river bank covered with dense thickets, where going to the urban poor for swimming and debauchery. The area was a stone house, which also fell into neglect. Its littered with debris, it was stolen or burned all the windows and doors, furnaces, and even floors.

In 1798 he returned from Vienna, Professor of Botany SB Yundzill. He lived in a stone house, which was hastily repaired and took over the leadership of the university botanical garden.

Work began with site clearance, removal of debris, demolition of the remains of buildings, uprooting dead trees. To perform this work it took almost a year. By the autumn of 1799 the site was cleared, it was marked future garden and designated future avenues. In the spring the area was enclosed by a high fence, and Professor transplanted here all the vegetable garden exhibits of the former university. They were only about 200 species.

In 1801 the garden was extended to the new land, which was donated to the University of Vilnius resident T.Vavzhetskim.

In April of 1806 it began the construction of greenhouses and two high treybhauzov, ie greenhouses for the cultivation of tropical plants. Greenhouses have to be installed on piles because the ground was swampy. The bulk of the material was found here: it was demolished dilapidated royal castle, and were collected 40 thousand bricks.

They worked quickly, and by the next summer have been completed and a greenhouse for the home gardener and maintenance staff. During this time, in many ways enriched population of garden plants. So in 1808 he took a greenhouse for the winter collection of rare plants Countess Potocki, provided that all appeared duplicates will botanical garden.

Already in 1802, the garden had about 1072 species of plants, and in 1824 the garden was already 6565 species. In 1832, the university was closed and the garden was transferred to the Medical-Surgical Academy, which also was closed in 1841. Some of the plants were transferred to other universities, the other was either sold or destroyed and the garden fell into neglect.

In 1871 on the territory of the garden it was built a summer theater, which enjoyed great success with the citizens. In 1892, the garden had already been arranged partly electrified zoo. But the zoo operated here long. At the beginning of the 20th century converted into a sports park and a sports park renamed them. Zheligovskaya.

Today, the park remained the old tennis courts, a historic building, which houses the Lithuanian Folk Culture Centre and a former noble club, in which it has diplomatic representation of the European Union.