Žemaitkiemis Manor, which was established nearly 500 years ago, is a unique creative residency of Lithuanian artists. Mindaugas Šventoraitis who purchased the manor in 1999 cleaned it from the content left by the Soviet livestock farm and the drunkards of the reborn Lithuanian village.
M.Šventoraitis is restoring the unique but devastated manor as a solid centre of the city art and culture in the countryside. Buildings are being restored, the surroundings are tidied up according to the iconographical material, and the manor has been attracting artists and admirers of their works since 2000.
Žemaitkiemis Manor is open to various cultural events: Pažaislis Music Festival, international inter-disciplinary art symposiums, evenings of elite cinema, scientific conferences, meetings of folk music ensembles, exhibitions, Žemaitkiemis Midsummer Eve coinciding with symposiums, etc.
During the summer season, the manor is visited by a large number of people from Lithuania and abroad – they are always met with pleasure, and the collection of ancient equipment as well as exhibitions open at that time are presented benevolently to visitors.
The organisers of Pažaislis Music Festival have chosen the manor purposefully – it is located in a strategically good place (near the motorway Vilnius – Klaipėda), has the concert hall of good acoustics with 800 seats, which has been constructed along with the stage and good lighting, in the old stack-yard of the manor.
Moreover, an exhibition and conference hall of 100 seats has been furnished with modern video projection equipment, the manor has premises for symposiums and for lodging participants of plain-airs. The spaces of the manor territory, which include the pond and the old channel of the Nevėžis river, are used for creative projects as well.
Plain-air of the Assumption Feast. Kites at Žemaitkiemis (Babtynas) Manor in 2006
