At the end of the 19th centrury Vilnius, then a part of the Russian empire, was home to over 150 thousand. The majority of the population was Jewish – 40 percent, followed by Poles (30 percent) and Russians (20 percent). Lithuanians comprised mere 2 percent of the city’s population. The gubernia of Vilnius was mostly Byelorussian, numbering more than a half of the total population. Lithuanians comprised almost a fifth of gubernia’s dwellers, 12 percent of the population was Jewish, another 8 – Polish. Given the national composition of the city and the region of Vilnius, some visionaries of Lithuanian statehood even raised an idea of “Northern Switzerland” – not a nation state, but rather a state of nations. However, such ponderings were not popular amidst the committed nation-state builders of the time and after all, Vilnius city and region became part of Poland in 1920, leaving Lithuania primarily Lithuanian, and the idea of “Northern Switzerland” completely irrelevant.