Molėtai District Municipality
Aukštaitija
lake-fishing ethnography museum, branch of Molėtai Region Museum
Muziejaus g. 7, Mindūnai, Molėtai District
55.23190, 25.56280
45-60 minutes
spring to autumn; February for the Winter Fishing Festival
Mindūnai Fishing Museum, Fishing Museum
Lake Fishing Museum: the only one of its kind in Lithuania
The Lake Fishing Museum in Mindūnai, Labanoras Regional Park, is the only Lithuanian museum devoted to traditional lake fishing. Its exhibition is set in a reconstructed nineteenth-century fisherman's homestead with a wooden dwelling and granary, making the setting part of the visit.
The museum stores about 870 exhibits showing how people of the Aukštaitija lake region fished from the nineteenth century to the present. It is a good place to understand the life of a lake-country fisherman.
From school museum to regional branch
The museum was founded in 1988 as a school fishing museum, created with pupils by history teacher Virginija Mackonienė, who collected exhibits from surrounding villages. Later it became a branch of Molėtai Region Museum.
Around 2013 the exhibition moved to a reconstructed fisherman's homestead, and in 2014 the Molėtai Region Traditional Crafts Centre opened in the complex, supporting fishing-related crafts such as net-making, weaving, and culinary heritage.
What you see: from fifteenth-century dugouts to eel traps
The oldest exhibits are fifteenth-century dugout boats raised from lake bottoms. The most impressive is an approximately 4 m long dugout from Lake Peršokšna, a rare find of such age.
The exhibition includes old hooks, floats and rods, traditional nets, eel-catching devices, and fishing tools such as venteris and bradinys. Flax and hemp fibre, once used to make nets, is also displayed separately.
Hunting museum and events
Next to it is a separate exhibition: Antanas Truskauskas Hunting and Nature Museum, with about 120 taxidermy specimens collected by the hunter from four continents. The two exhibitions are in the same complex but have separate names.
Since 1995 the museum yard has hosted the annual Winter Fishing Festival, held on the third Saturday of February and demonstrating archaic fishing with hand nets. It is an example of living tradition.
Visiting
During research, the museum was open Tuesday-Sunday 9:00-17:00, with the last Wednesday of the month as a cleaning day. The ticket cost about 2 EUR; check the official museum page for current prices and hours.
Allow 45-60 minutes for both exhibitions. The museum combines well with Mindūnai Observation Tower, the Lithuanian Museum of Ethnocosmology, and the observatory in Kulionys.
