Mažieji Grūžiai Manor

This manor is located in Pasvalys, the eldership of Vaškai. The mansion was standing in a high place, near the hill Velniakalnis. In all directions, you could see a good panorama of the surrounding land, and all the estate. The relative roots of the former manor’s owners Raden are in the XIII century. Then the barons Rahden lived near Bremen, Saxony, in Germany. In the eighteenth century, these landlords settled in Lithuania. The first owner was Mr. Karl Dietrich von Rahden (Karl Dietrich von Rahden, 1752–1797). Later they also owned the mansions of Pamūšis, Raudonpamūšis and a small mansion of Šaipiai. Four generations of the Rahden family lived in Grūžiai. The last owners were Mr. Edward Leon and Nina Rahden. During World War II, Mr. Edward Leon Rahden fought in different fronts, ultimately he was arrested by the Bolshevik army and detained in many prisons in Siberia. On his return in 1922, the mansion was devastated. Just before the First World War, the great manor house burned down. There remained a smaller building, which became the main family home. On the foundation of the old mansion there was built a small house for guests and a steward. They had to put a lot of hard work to rebuild the manor. Edward's wife Nina turned the neglected areas of land into a park and a cosy garden with alleys and ponds. Before the Second World War, Edward Leon and Nina Rahden moved to Panevėžys. They both died in this town shortly after the war. A descendant of this noble family, the last landlords’ granddaughter Teresa Mary Kinnear, living in Scotland, on the 11th of August 2000 committed her parents – Mrs. Irena Rahden-Jančevskienė and Mr. Tadas Jančevskis last will: she brought to Lithuania the urns with the ashes of their bodies and buried them in the Rahden family cemetery near the village of Grūžiai. Nowadays this place is supervised by a teachers’ family Paužuoliai. In the Soviet times, the manor became the property of a collective farm (a kolkhoz) and some families lived there until 1986. Later, an abandoned barn stood there for a long time. Today, on the manor’s territory you can find only the piles of large stones, wild rose bushes and trees planted by wind.