Seaside Open-Air Museum

The Seaside Open-Air Museum in Ventspils is one of the most conspicuous sights in the city. It is a whole village with houses, shops, sheds and barns available for visiting.

The museum was founded in 1954 in order to preserve traditions of old fishing villages, prevalent in Latvia in the past. Today it is the only museum that maintained all folk traditions and the lifestyle of fishing villages.

The museum occupies an area of four hectares and numbers plenty of different collections. For instance, there are over a hundred kinds of anchors alone: all of them were parts of sea vessels from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The biggest anchors even form a trail called Anchor Trail. Looks very impressive and formidable. Interestingly, you can touch every anchor and feel the coldness of metal.

In the imitated fishermen village, every house and barn is equipped with furniture; some even have fish in places where local Latvians dried it traditionally. Cradles carved out of solid wood, roughly knitted beds, creaking doors, wooden dishes create a persistent feeling of being in the 19th century. The village, by the way, does not have artificial lighting. So, if you want to see everything exposed, start your journey in the morning. A great number of little things keeps your attention for a long time and make an unforgettable impression.

You should pay particular attention to fishing boats used by peasants to navigate the sea. Now they seem tiny; it’s hard to believe that having such a boat in the family was considered happiness. Sometimes they were treated better than children because boats made it possible to fish and therefore put food on the table.