Nida (town)
Encyclopedia
Resort town
A resort town, sometimes called a resort city or resort destination, is a town or area where tourism or vacationing is a primary component of the local culture and economy...
in Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, located on the Curonian Spit
Curonian Spit
The Curonian Spit is a 98 km long, thin, curved sand-dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea coast. Its southern portion lies within Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia and its northern within southwestern Lithuania...
. It has 1,650 residents and is the administrative center of the Neringa municipality
Neringa municipality
Neringa municipality or Neringa is a municipality in westernmost Lithuania, in the Curonian Spit. In terms of population, it is the smallest municipality of the country. Until the Lithuanian municipality reform, it was known as Neringa city, although there was never a true city there...
. Nida Airport
Nida Airport
Nida Airport is a small regional airport, opened in 1967, located in Nida, in the western part of Lithuania, near the Baltic Sea and Klaipėda. It was one of the first airports in western Lithuania....
is located in the town. Nida is the westernmost point of Lithuania and the Baltic States
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
.
History
First mentioned by Teutonic Order in macher colony documents in 1429 and 1497, the settlement was originally 5 km south of today's position near the Hohe Düne (high dune) at Grabscher Haken (Old Prussian grabis = hill). The fishing village became part of the Duchy of Prussia in 1525 and the Kingdom of PrussiaKingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
in 1701.
Continuously threatened by sand drifts, the village was moved away from the dune to today's position in the 1730s.
In 1874 a lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
on Urbas hill was built, later destroyed in the war and rebuilt in 1945 and 1953.
In the beginning of 20th century, Nidden became famous as a colony of German expressionists
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
(). Artists such as Max Pechstein
Max Pechstein
Hermann Max Pechstein was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of Die Brücke group.-Life and career:...
, Alfred Lichtwark, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of Die Brücke.-Life and work:...
, and Alfred Partikel
Alfred Partikel
- Biography :Partikel was born in Goldap, East Prussia and grew up in Szittkehmen. He attended school in Insterburg and studied at the academy of arts in Königsberg in 1905-07. In 1908 he moved to Munich and in 1910 to Weimar to study at the Weimar school of arts....
visited Nidden. Painters from Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
such as Julius Freymuth and Eduard Bischoff stayed in the area, as did poets like Ernst Wiechert
Ernst Wiechert
Ernst Wiechert was a German teacher, poet and writer.-Biography:Wiechert was born in Kleinort near Sensburg , East Prussia.He was one of the most widely read novelists in Germany during the 1930s...
and Carl Zuckmayer
Carl Zuckmayer
Carl Zuckmayer was a German writer and playwright.-Biography:Born in Nackenheim in Rheinhessen, he was four years old when his family moved to Mainz. With the outbreak of World War I, he finished school with a facilitated "emergency"-Abitur and volunteered for military service...
. Other guests included Ernst Kirchner, Ernst Mollenhauer, Franz Domscheit, and Herrmann Wirth. The painters usually took accommodations at the Herman Blode hotel, and left some of their works with him.
Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning writer Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
lived in Nidden during the summers of 1930–32. Part of Joseph and His Brothers
Joseph and His Brothers
Joseph and His Brothers is a four-part novel by Thomas Mann, written over the course of 16 years. Mann retells the familiar stories of Genesis, from Jacob to Joseph , setting it in the historical context of the Amarna Period...
(Joseph und seine Brüder) was written here. Mann's summer cottage survived and in the Soviet era hosted a library open in summer only, with residential quarters of the visiting librarian posted from Klaipėda
Klaipeda
Klaipėda is a city in Lithuania situated at the mouth of the Nemunas River where it flows into the Baltic Sea. It is the third largest city in Lithuania and the capital of Klaipėda County....
upstairs and public areas downstairs. It is presently a culture center dedicated to the writer, with a memorial exhibition.
The town is known for Nidden Kurenwimpel, ornate carved flags peculiar to local families resident on the Curonian Spit. The flags, replicas of which can be seen around Nida, feature animal and human figures as pictogram
Pictogram
A pictograph, also called pictogram or pictogramme is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearance.Pictography is a...
s reminiscent of a pagan writing tradition. At the local cemetery, examples of krikštas (pl. krikštai), pagan burial markers in place of tombstones, can still be seen today.
In 1939 the town had 736 inhabitants.
Nidden became nearly uninhabited, like all of the Curonian Spit, as a result of the evacuation of East Prussia
Evacuation of East Prussia
The evacuation of East Prussia refers to the evacuation of the German civilian population and military personnel in East Prussia and the Klaipėda region between 20 January, and March 1945, as part of the evacuation of German civilians towards the end of World War II...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. As Nida, the town was returned to the Lithuanian SFSR within the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
by the 1945 Potsdam Agreement
Potsdam Agreement
The Potsdam Agreement was the Allied plan of tripartite military occupation and reconstruction of Germany—referring to the German Reich with its pre-war 1937 borders including the former eastern territories—and the entire European Theatre of War territory...
, and today (since 1990) is part of independent Lithuania.
Nida was a little-visited fishing village in the post-war period. Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
and Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
went to Nida during their stay in Lithuania in summer 1965. In the 1970s, together with three other villages of Neringa municipality
Neringa municipality
Neringa municipality or Neringa is a municipality in westernmost Lithuania, in the Curonian Spit. In terms of population, it is the smallest municipality of the country. Until the Lithuanian municipality reform, it was known as Neringa city, although there was never a true city there...
(Juodkrantė
Juodkrante
Juodkrantė with permanent population of about 720 people is a quiet Lithuanian seaside resort village located on the Curonian Spit. A part of Neringa municipality, Juodkrantė is the second largest settlement on Lithuania's part of the spit...
, Preila and Pervalka), it was reserved as an invitation-only holiday resort with controlled entry regime and accommodation reserved almost exclusively for the Communist party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
nomenklatura
Nomenklatura
The nomenklatura were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the...
and senior government and industry elite. Thanks to the very strict planning regulations, a ban on any industrial development and more generous municipal subsidies, it remained an unspoilt and clean territory. Today, the number of visitors is kept small by a low number of available hotel rooms (as new developments are limitited, and are usually permitted only on already existing old buildings foundations), relatively high accommodation prices, ferry tolls and entry pass costs.
Tourism
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Lithuanians
Lithuanians are the Baltic ethnic group native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,765,600 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language...
, Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, Latvians
Latvians
Latvians or Letts are the indigenous Baltic people of Latvia.-History:Latvians occasionally refer to themselves by the ancient name of Latvji, which may have originated from the word Latve which is a name of the river that presumably flowed through what is now eastern Latvia...
, and Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
. It is characterized by low-key entertainment and a distinct family focus. However during recent years it become a decent point of interest for fine electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
music and modern art shows at an eclectic forest retreat.
Since 2000, a jazz festival has been organised every year. A local radio station Neringa FM streams live beats over FM and online. There are also interesting places to see nearby, including some of the highest sand dunes in Europe, a large sundial
Sundial
A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from its style onto a surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, often a thin rod or a...
(now partially destroyed by storm), fisherman's ethnographic
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
museum, gallery-museum of amber
Amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin , which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Amber is used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents...
, neo-Gothic church (built in 1888). There is also a camping site.
Nida's beach participates in the Blue Flag Programme
Blue Flag beach
The Blue Flag is a certification by the Foundation for Environmental Education that a beach or marina meets its stringent standards.The Blue Flag is a trademark owned by FEE which is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation consisting of 65 organisations in 60 member countries in Europe,...
.