Alanta manor

The name of Alanta (Owantha) was first mentioned in historical sources in 1436, when the Grand Duke of Lithuania Žygimantas Kęstutaitis, who received Alanta from his brother Vytautas the Great, gave the manor to Astikas family. In 1581, the ruler Stephen Báthory handed Alanta Manor over to Gabriel Bekes, the commander of the Hungarian army in Lithuania. In 1598, KristupasRadvilaPerkūnas bought the manor. The Radvila family ruled the estate for around 230 years. In 1828, Alanta was bought by the duke Tadeusz Pac Pomarnacki.

In 1853, Pac Pomarnacki family built an exclusive Italian villa-style mansion with a viewing tower. The granite columns for building the manor were shipped from Finland to Klaipėda and from there they were dragged to Alanta by oxen. The palace was rich in stylish furniture, works of art and valuable pottery. Each of the halls was set in a different style: in one the style of Louis XIV prevailed, the other was dominated by the style of Louis XV, the third by Biedermeier style, and there was also a Chinese-style room dedicated to the Far East. The walls of the palace were covered in paintings, family portraits and the portraits of the kings of Poland and Lithuania, as well as carpets. At the end of the 19th century, Alanta Manor had as many as 34 buildings.

Alanta Manor: the 20th century and modern times

During World War I, Tadeusz Pac Pomarnacki emigrated abroad and the manor was plundered. In 1915, as the Germans occupied Alanta, the soldiers of the Kaiser’s Army stayed in the manor. In 1920, the training unit of the independent Lithuanian Army moved into the manor. From 1944 to 1948, the Soviet government liquidated Alanta Manor and established a lower school of agriculture in the palace. Since 2002, it houses Alanta School of Technology and Business. Alanta Manor House, surrounded by a well-groomed park and ponds, houses the art gallery of a painter Vaidotas Žukas.