Description
Today only a few manor sites with surviving manor houses remain in the Zarasai district. One of them is the 16th-century Kamariškės manor, located in a secluded natural corner at the very edge of the district, right by the Latvian border. The place is perhaps first mentioned in historical sources in 1583 as a folwark of the Suviekas manor, belonging to Martynas Komorovskis and his wife Beata Kmitaitė, whose property he acquired as a dowry after their wedding. Komorovskis named the place after himself (Polish: Komoryszki). Later Kamariškės was owned by many noble families, and in 1901 the manor was bought by Baron Heinrich Wilhelm von Richter from Courland. According to the recollections of contemporaries, he was a wealthy and generous man who paid his workers well, held feasts (especially at Midsummer) and loved dogs and horses, and the manor was famous for the “Karvutė” caramel sweets made there. During the Second World War the manor was looted and ravaged; a collective farm was established here and new settlers were housed. Apart from the walls of the buildings, nothing remained in Kamariškės to recall the old days. In 2019, the abandoned Kamariškės manor was acquired by the team of the public institution “Inovatorių slėnis” (Innovators' Valley), known for its social innovations, which began bringing it back to life. After winning a project funded by Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, and with the help of sponsors, specialists and volunteers, they managed to tidy up and open the manor park, abandoned for many years, clean the ponds and the areas around the main manor buildings, and repair and protect the manor's outbuildings. Once the manor is restored, the plan is to open it to the public, with innovative creative spaces, an art and sound recording studio, an events hall, and slow-living and co-working spaces where people can escape from everything, unwind, rest, create and connect with nature and cultural heritage. Due to ongoing construction work, the manor buildings can be visited only by prior arrangement, but everyone is welcome to take a walk around the manor grounds being restored.
