Trakų Vokė

In 2015, the country’s second weather radar started operating in Trakų Vokė. It quickly detects the phases of precipitation – rain, hail, snow, and sleet. Such data is processed quickly and allows warnings of dangerous meteorological phenomena to be issued.

The radar tower is 29 metres high and has a dome half a metre in diameter. The football-shaped dome protects the special antenna and the electromagnetic transmitter from external interference. The radar scans the atmosphere with a radius of up to 250 km.

This neo-Gothic gate is older than the palace itself. It is a legacy of the former Dombroswki estate (the design of this gate, dating from 1841, has survived). In Soviet times, the gate looked much more modest, as the pavement was ‘raised’ by about 70-80 cm during the asphalting of the path, and part of the gate was underground. It was even necessary to bend down to enter through the side arches. Now the pavement has been lowered to its current height, and the gates look majestic again.

To the left of the gate is a small gatekeeper’s house. If you look closely, you will find the Tyszkiewicz coat of arms – a crescent moon with a six-pointed star rising above it. 

The chapel-mausoleum of the Holy Virgin Mary was built in 1856. The neo-Gothic building was made of red brick until the 1920s and was plastered in white between the wars. The chapel is decorated with four statues of saints. Under the chapel, there is a crypt and sarcophagi containing the remains of the Tyszkiewicz family. 

The sarcophagi were desecrated during the Soviet era, and the premises were turned into a warehouse. After Lithuania regained its independence, the chapel was restored and is now used for worship.

The experimental base of the Institute of Agriculture and Soil of the Academy of Sciences was opened in 1953 in Trakų Vokė. In 1956, it was reorganised into the Research Institute of Agriculture.

Many plant varieties were developed here, including five potato varieties. The buildings of the Institute drastically ‘encroached’ on the park territory during the Soviet era. After Lithuania regained its independence, some of them were demolished. 

The building now houses the Vokė branch of the Lithuanian Centre of Agrarian and Forestry Sciences.

One of the businesses of the Tyszkiewicz Counts was breeding and selling horses. Jan Witold Tyszkiewicz was very fond of horses and interested in horse breeding. This can be easily seen in the modern neo-baroque stables. On the ground floor, there were horse stalls, a ménage, and a carriage yard. The second floor was home to the stable keepers and their families.

A blacksmith worked in the manor’s blacksmith’s forge; his main duties were shoeing horses and maintaining their hooves. 

The stables bred rare breeds of horses, but the Count did not sell these horses to the Tsarist Russian army.

This round building is the forerunner of modern refrigerators. During the winter, large blocks of ice cut from the ponds were brought to the icehouse, piled in a deep pit, and covered with straw. The ice would remain there until late spring. 

The ice house is the only building on the estate outside its grounds. 

Did you know that Vokė Manor was famous for Tyszkiewicz’s so-called ‘swirled’ ice cream? There were all kinds of ice creams in different flavours: melon, strawberry, raspberry, lemon, orange, pineapple, and coffee…

You are at the iconic ceremonial white gate – neoclassical in style and built at the end of the 19th century. Like the Red Gate, there is a small house for the caretaker nearby.

Turn around and look the other way. If you were coming from Lentvaris, this linden-tree avenue would lead you straight to the Trakų Vokė Manor. Enter through the gate and follow the impressive avenue of lime trees towards the manor. 

When walking along the avenue lined with linden trees, don’t miss the 9-metre-high water tower on your left. It used to house two water tanks, which were fed by massive cast-iron pipes from a spring. The tower supplied water to the palace, fountain, gardens, and stables.

The water tower had a clock and a bell, which rang to announce the start, end, and breaks of work. At the bottom of the tower, there was a place of worship for servants and workers. Count Tyszkiewicz had the idea to create this room after hearing a story about a Tartar shrine that had previously stood on the site. The roof of the water tower, therefore, took on Tatar features.

This wooden building constructed on stone foundations was the manor caretaker’s house. It was distinguished by an open porch supported by four wooden pillars and a triangular pediment. 

The groundsman or estate manager was the most important person on the estate after the Count. His salary was enormous – as much as 700 roubles a year. In those days, this was a lot of money; for reference, a cow cost about 50 roubles.

In the interwar period, this building was a rectory, and in the Soviet era, it was a crèche-kindergarten. 

At the northern end of the palace is the kitchen and laundry building, which was built alongside the palace. In the 19th century, kitchens were typically built in separate buildings to avoid fire hazards and the smell of cooking. The kitchen is connected to the manor house by an underground tunnel. From the kitchen, the food was transported in large closed containers to the dining room, where it was placed in dishes suitable for the dining room table. The skylights in the tunnel can be seen from outside.

The palace was built in 1880 and designed by the famous Italian architect Leandro Marconi from Warsaw. When the Tyszkiewicz family was planning the construction of the palace, the Royal Palace on the Isle (Palac Łazienkowski) was being built in Warsaw. The Counts were distant relatives of Stanislaw August Poniatowski, so they did not hesitate to build a palace with architectural forms similar to the royal palace. The building has a unique open relationship with its surroundings and the landscape, with almost all ground floor rooms opening onto the outside and terraces. Natural daylight from the many windows adds to the sense of lightness. The large and unbroken window planes were a modern and innovative solution for the time. The interior of the palace was also resplendent with luxury: the walls were decorated with valuable paintings and tapestries, while the rooms were warmed by marble fireplaces and lit by crystal chandeliers.

After suffering severe damage during the wars and the Soviet occupation, the palace is now undergoing a rebirth. 

Invited by Count Tyszkiewicz, the famous French landscape architect Eduard Francois André and his son René reconstructed the old abandoned park from 1898 to 1900.

E. F. André was a world-renowned landscape architect who designed gardens and parks in Paris, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, England, Latin America, and elsewhere. In addition to Trakų Vokė, he worked on three other estates of the Tyszkiewicz Counts in Lentvaris, Užutrakis, and Palanga.

The territory of the park of Trakų Vokė Manor covers about 22 hectares (ha). The park has a memorial plaque commemorating the opening of the park. A marble hexagonal card table, a semi-circular observation deck with a balustrade, and a spring with cascades are also preserved.

In 1881-1885, according to the project of Mykolas Kazimieras Girdvainis, a famous pioneer of fishery in Lithuania, three connected ponds were built, covering an area of 3 ha. They were used for the cultivation of lavaret, trout, and vendace (the European cisco). The trout from Trakų Vokė was famous throughout the region and often won awards at agricultural exhibitions. Orders were received not only from Vilnius but also from Warsaw and St Petersburg. Both fresh fish and preserved caviar travelled by train to distant cities and brought the estate a considerable income.

The first railway bridge over the Vokė River was built at the end of 1861 during the construction of the St Petersburg-Warsaw railway line. It was blown up during both World Wars and rebuilt after the end of the wars. It was renovated in 2006.

You are at the second-highest railway bridge in Lithuania (25.2 m high). Only Lyduvėnų Bridge (42 m) is higher. 

The railway bridge is best viewed in all its beauty from the adjacent suspension bridge, otherwise known as the Monkey Bridge. Now that you are already here, you can also admire the Vokė River flowing underneath you, the same one that gave its name to Trakų Vokė.