The former manor house in Auļukalns turns from an abandoned ramshackle building into a creative environment for art, music and joint work. It is also a perfect place for delicious homemade bread!
The owners of the manor, Inita Šalkovska and Mikus Čavarts, are passionate about music and art. Creative events and workshops are regularly held at the manor. The following opportunities are available if you apply for a visit in advance: a walking trail along the terraces of the manor and a tour of the building, a demonstration of folk music instruments, participation in the preparation and baking of bread dough and its tasting, a sense of rhythm lesson with and without various percussion instruments, a drum circle, a movement activity for health with the elements of qigong and martial arts wushu. Read more about Inita and Miks in the "Human Stories" section.
Through the help of local residents, money was donated in 2020 for the restoration of the bread fire oven, where various types of bread are currently baked. You can order home-baked rye bread, sweet and sour wheat bread and buckwheat bread with various spreads - hemp closure, herb butter or garlic pesto. Please apply in advance. Bread soup, pizza with local vegetables, vegetable soup, fermented fireweed tea and cranberry syrup are available.
The place is perfect for visitors of different generations.
The beginning of the manor dates back to 1787, when the first buildings of the Gatarts manor were built and the Jaundrustu and Auļi manors were furnished at the same time. When the manor was divided during the agrarian reform, in 1920-1935 a four-class Drustu 1st grade primary school (6 years of education) operated in the manor house. In order to build a new school building in Drusto, the manor had to be sold. It was bought by the artist, cartoonist Jānis Rība with his wife Emma, gathering intelligent friends around him. Mikus Chavarts bought the manor from his heirs.
In the mid-1980s, it was planned to build the Auļukalna manor complex as the center of the first district of the Soviet farm "Drusti". The restoration and further use project included a hotel, a cinema hall, a post office, apartments, summer rooms for volunteers and a fireplace hall. "The care and preservation of historical and architectural monuments is an important task. However, it is no less important to find the application of these monuments that meets today's needs," wrote the Cēsis district newspaper "Padomju Druva" in 1984.
The project "Searching for the treasures of Drustu" has just been implemented in the manor. “Boarding house in Auļukalns palace", the purpose and tasks of which are related to the promotion of cultural, artistic and historical values of Drustu parish in the 1930s, as well as getting to know Drustu artists and their works up to the present day in various genres of art and music; also the clean-up and improvement of Auļukalns manor park. The idea of the project is based on the motifs of Anšlavs Eglītis novel "Pansija pilī", because similar cultural events, art and everyday life are related to the time when the sculptor, painter and cartoonist Jānis Rība lived in the Auļukalns manor with his wife Emma (1936 – 1941.)
The place is available at any time of the year by prior arrangement.
