Tendencies of transformations in rural landscape of the former collective farm villages of Lithuania

The process of agricultural collectivization and formation of collective farm villages1 started in 1948. There was started an intensive expropriation of land, the intensification of mechanization as well as concentration of the production of agricultural commodities; there was initiated the development of the villages for the newly organized collective farms. During the Soviet period, all villages were classified according to the number of the population in the villages, spheres of control, social and production potential (Bielinskis F., Stanevičius St.). Within the development of new large farming centres, the classification of new villages was introduced according to the functions and administrative division. (The Administrative Territorial... of the Republic of the Soviet Lithuania ..., 1972). The central and secondary villages developed as the derivative structures of the collective farming system or as the principal urban formations. The process of collectivization itself in rural areas together with the industrialization in towns had to serve the increase of economy in the Soviet Union. Afterwards, all the processes related to collectivization significantly slowed down and finally in the nineties of the previous century, were doomed to fail together with the collapse of the Soviet Union