Rumšiškes
Encyclopedia
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...
n town (population 1,700), situated 20 km (12.4 mi) east of Kaunas
Kaunas
Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...
on the northern bank of Kaunas Reservoir. Southern part of the town (including the birthplace of Lithuanian poet Jonas Aistis) is now under the waters of the artificial lake. The 18th century St. Michael Archangel church of Rumšiškės (rebuilt in 19th century) was saved and moved to its present place in 1958, when the reservoir
Reservoir
A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...
was created.
History
Rumšiškės was first mentioned in the 14th century. In 1940–1941, a Soviet concentration camp was created in a nearby village of Pravieniškės. After 1941 the camp was used by the NazisNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
. Around 700 Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...
were murdered by the Nazis near Rumšiškės 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...
. http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Rumsiskes/
The old Rumšiškės was flooded by the Kaunas Lagoon, an artificial lake created by a dam built at Kaunas in the 1950s.
Open air ethnographic museum
Today, Rumšiškės is best known for its excellent open-air ethnographicEthnography
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 (established in 1966 and opened in 1974), one of the largest in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
The open-air museum in Rumšiškės displays the heritage of Lithuanian rural life in a vast collection of authentic resurrected buildings where the Lithuanian people lived and worked. The total area of 175 ha (432 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
) contains 140 buildings from the 18th–19th century with the restored original interiors and surroundings. This museum was established to help to preserve and research the former ways of living.
The buildings of this museum are exposed as farmsteads and all of them together represent the main ethnographic regions of Lithuania: Aukštaitija
Aukštaitija
Aukštaitija is the name of one of five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. The name comes from the relatively high elevation of the region, particularly the eastern parts.-Geography:...
, Samogitia
Samogitia
Samogitia is one of the five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. It is located in northwestern Lithuania. Its largest city is Šiauliai/Šiaulē. The region has a long and distinct cultural history, reflected in the existence of the Samogitian dialect...
, Dzūkija
Dzukija
Dzūkija or Dainava is one of five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. Dzūkija is a cultural region defined by traditional lifestyles and dialects of the local Lithuanian population and has never been defined as a political or administrative unit...
and Suvalkija
Suvalkija
Suvalkija or Sudovia is the smallest of the five cultural regions of Lithuania. Its unofficial capital is Marijampolė. People from Suvalkija are called suvalkiečiai or suvalkietis . It is located south of the Neman River, in the former territory of Vilkaviškis bishopric...
. The open-air museum stores the most valuable examples of Lithuanian farmsteads.
The territory of the museum is a very popular place where ethnographic festivals are celebrated and folk song and dance concerts are held. This museum is very easy to reach since it is located 18 km (11 mi) to the east of Kaunas near the Kaunas-Vilnius highway. Rumšiškės belongs to the Kaunas Reservoir Regional Park.
The museum was featured in the reality show The Amazing Race 12
The Amazing Race 12
The Amazing Race 12 is the twelfth installment of winning reality television show The Amazing Race.The 12th season premiered on November 4, 2007 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. It took the timeslot of the canceled CBS series Viva Laughlin. The finale aired on January 20, 2008 at 8 p.m...
in 2007.