Tūla, though primarily covering the Old Town of Vilnius with the adjacent Užupis neighborhood where the two protagonists of the novel live, is an exceedingly topographical in its description of the place. As a result of having centered the plot of the novel in and around this marginal neigbourhood, Kunčinas narrates the rest of the city from the perspective of liminal urban sites, such as the cemetery, psychiatric hospital and prison, creating a counternarrative geography of Vilnius by challenging the officially sanctioned Soviet vision of the city. A significant narrative role is given to natural features of the city: the rivers of Neris and Vilnia and the hilly, woodsy area engulfing Užupis. The Vilnia especially serves as the real and imaginary border, separating Užupis from the rest of the city by delineating the neigbourhood’s nonconformist and socially dissenting urban characteristics. In addition, a watchfully mapped out ecclesiastical (church-building) geography of Vilnius gives the novel a degree of “imaginative freedom,” setting up a narrative view of the city that goes against the grain. Numerous churches mentioned in the novel, for instance, force the male protagonist to raise his eyes in search for the higher – celestial – meanings of life. Its fixed topography adds a new layer to the symbolic and shifting rendition of the place. The emotional maze of the novel is condensed by Kunčinas through a masterful depiction of several panoramic views of the city.
The novel includes four “narrative itineraries” of Vilnius, all of them leading to Užupis.