A military garrison was built in the approximate location of the modern "Šiaurės miestelis" ("North Town", that is, north of Old Vilnius) section of Žirmūnai by the Russian Empire during the 19th century. This area went on to be used as a garrison by a number of armies: Napoleon's Grande Armée in 1812, Tsarist for the rest of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century (see: the 27th infantry division's camp in the map of 1904), the Bolsheviks during World War I, the Polish army in the inter-war period, and the Red Army from the 1950s to 1992.