Saločiai (Salaty) Manor

This manor (Salaty) was purchased by the family of landlords Radziwill in the Biržai Duchy and territorially detached from this Duchy. The earliest mention of this manor is in 1514. In 1589, Mrs. Elizabeth Komajevska Stanislavova Naruševičiova mortaged Saločiai for 120000 pennies to a supervisor of Vilnius Mr. Jonas Dominykas Pacas, and in 1590, this holding was mortaged for the same amount of money to Mr. K. Radziwill. In 1601, Mr. Jurgis Komorowski, who had a half of the Saločiai estate, transferred it to Mr. K. Radvila Perkūnas. In the second part of the seventeenth century, Mr. B. Radziwill probably intended to connect Saločiai with all the Duchy of Biržai. This would indicate purchase acts of Lukianai lands, in the fields Smardonė. The Saločiai manor owned two large mansions: the mansion of Mr. Jonas Skrockis, who was a land holder from Biržai, (by the River Mūša) and the mansion of Kiemėnai. The Saločiai manor centre is located in Pasvalys district, the eldership of Saločiai in the village Saločiai. The mansion with its farm buildings was located on the valley of the River Mūša to the east, on the southern side of the stream Bėrė, which is an affluent of the River Mūša. It was the holding of the family Medemai immigrated from Livonia in the eighteenth century. In the beginning, they owned the entire town with a church, a Jewish house of prayer and an almshouse. In 1863, Baron Eugene von Haren owned the manor. In 1925, the manor was divided in individual parcels. Nowadays you can see only the mansion’s basement, which houses a group of local hunters. The 3 hectare park, situated in Saločiai town, belongs to the Saločiai municipality. There you can see an embankment on which the Medem family cemetery from the XVIII to the XIX centuries used to be, and the remains of the mansion foundations. In the landscape park there are 10 local species of trees. The 30 meters high small-leaved lime-trees (Tilia cordata) are the oldest and the most impressive. The 32 years old elm’s trunk has a diameter of 1.45 meters, you hardly find in Lithuania more such elms. There are seven types of introduced plants in the park, but only Mongolian Poplar and Grey Poplar are trees.