A sea museum in... Gražutė Regional Park!

Vida Žilinskienė, the extremely lovable and passionate founder of the Sea Museum

Our dear volunteer colleagues Sabrina (from Germany) and Rocio (from Spain) do their EVS in Gražutė Regional Park. This large protected area is definitely not as wellknown as Aukštaitija National Park can be, and Sabi and Rocio sometimes almost never see visitors for a week or so, even in summer time. And yet, there is some kind of totally unique place thousands of visitors would love to go to. If only they knew...

It is actually difficult in Lithuania to be further away from the sea than where... the sea museum is located!

 This place is full of unbelievable treasures that open their beautiful secrets to visitors. For 30 years, Vida Žilinskienė has collected or has been offered corals, shells, fossils of all kinds. She used to work at school, and the geography programme was very wide (pupils had to know all seas in the Soviet Union, all the world's oceans, and of course, what used to live in those waters). So when travelling, the teacher was actually already collecting the future exhibits of her Sea museum. Then, wherever she would go, she would bring something interesting for herself. When the first 300 exhibits were collected, the collection was included in the list of places of interest of the district.

More in Salakas than in Klaipėda

The teacher was very surprised when a young family who claimed that they had seen much more in Sea museum in Salakas than in the real Sea museum in Klaipėda. Vida Žilinskienė could hardly believe it : 30 000 exhibits are estimated to be in Klaipėda and she has hardly more than 2000. It turned out that the visitors saw a sea fox in Salakas sea museum, which they couldn‘t see in Klaipėda. The sea fox was brought by one of Vida Žilinskienė's relatives, a sailor (nearly all corals and fish were also brought by him).

Vida Žilinskienė is always happy with visitors, and she welcomes them with such obvious passion, immense pleasure and beautiful smile that she makes the visit even more enjoyable. She is a kind companion, an excellent expert of her collection as well as an active citizen of Salakas. 

In the same building, visitors may have a look at Salakas ethnographical and Gražutė Regional Park exhibitions too. With Salakas ethnographical exhibition, you learn about the way people used to live during the whole XXth century. You can get to know some beautiful festivals of Salakas area, as well as old crafts and famous local people.