- Place
- Širvintos Town Eldership, Širvintos District Municipality
- Region
- Aukštaitija
- Type
- public wood-sculpture park and waterfront walking path
- Address
- 47 Kalnalaukio Street, Širvintos
- Coordinates
- 55.04220, 24.96347
- Visit duration
- 30-60 minutes for the sculpture park; 1.5-2 hours with the reservoir bridge, beach, and town centre
- Best time
- in daylight from spring to autumn; early morning or a weekday gives a quieter look at the carvings
Širvintos Moose Trail, Briedžių Takas Wood Sculpture Park
This is a waterfront sculpture park, not a nature trail
Briedžių Takas occupies a green strip on the right bank of Širvintos Reservoir, between the direction of Parko Street and the public bathing area. The official address, 47 Kalnalaukio Street, is useful for navigation but identifies a waterfront reference point rather than a single park gate or guaranteed parking bay. Coordinates 55.042204, 24.963469 are a representative point among the sculptures.
The name can mislead anyone expecting a marked route through kilometres of forest. The municipality gives no separate length because the works stand in a town park beside the shared waterfront path. An approximately 3 km circuit promoted online around the reservoir, often called the Širvintos Sea, is a wider town walk rather than the official length of the sculpture park itself.
VLE describes Širvintos Reservoir as a 52.27 ha water body on the River Širvinta. The Moose Trail occupies only part of one shore. It can be combined with the 181 m pedestrian bridge, beach, and town centre, but these are not a single ticketed complex and the condition of their facilities may differ.
Twenty-eight works do not mean twenty-eight identical standing animals
On 19 July 2026, the municipality's visitor page listed twenty-eight wooden moose sculptures and their inclusion in Lithuania's record list. The count does not consist solely of anatomically realistic animal statues. It includes sculptural benches, ornamented compositions, humorous figures, and works in which antlers or a moose outline become a frame or functional piece of park furniture.
The works are not arranged in museum chronology, so inspect both sides of the path and look for contrasting approaches to carving. Some artists retained the mass of the oak trunk, others turned antlers into a graphic sign, and others joined the moose with a human figure, place-name theme, or seat. Titles and artists are more informative than counting only four-legged silhouettes.
The 2022 works demonstrate that deliberate variety. Kęstutis Norušis's Varžytuvės functions as a moose-shaped photo frame, Adolfas Teresius's Briedžiai dviems and Povilas Malinauskas's Lovers' Bench invite visitors to sit, while Rimantas Zinkevičius's Family is not about one animal. Climb only onto an element clearly designed as a seat or interactive piece, not every sculpture.
The first park marked the centenary of restored statehood
A woodcarving gathering held beside the reservoir from 3 to 8 September 2018 commemorated the centenary of Lithuania's restored statehood. Ten moose figures represented its ten decades. Eight were newly carved, while two figures already at the site were restored.
The first gathering brought together Saulius Lampickas, Adolfas Teresius, Kęstutis Krasauskas, Gintautas Akstinas, Rimantas Zinkevičius, Pranas Petronis, Povilas Malinauskas, and Kęstutis Norušis. They came from different parts of Lithuania and included winners of the Golden Wreath folk-art competition, the Lionginas Šepka Prize, and international wood-sculpture contests.
The name was not imposed in advance. The municipality invited residents to submit ideas, and Briedžių Takas gained the most support. At the 2018 autumn festival, Lina Dambrauskienė, Saulius Simonavičius, and Evelina Butylkinaitė were recognised for proposing it. A temporary carving site thereby acquired a permanent identity as a town park.
Three carving gatherings expanded the park, but dated counts need context
The first two gatherings took place in 2018 and 2019 at the initiative of Kęstutis Norušis. Ten figures followed the first event, and eight new works on the theme of Lithuanian place names brought the total to eighteen in 2019. They included a resting moose, a guitar-playing figure, one looking skyward, and another imagined in flight.
A third gathering in 2022 extended the park farther along the green space. Its closing report names eight new pieces and summarises twenty-six moose sculptures at that point. The later official tourism listing and municipal annual report give twenty-eight. Rather than assigning two works to a particular event without evidence, use twenty-eight as the current catalogue and record count while retaining the dated reports for the construction sequence.
The municipality's current description dates the trail's works collectively to 2016-2022 because two moose that preceded the 2018 park were restored and absorbed into its composition. It calls Kęstutis Norušis and Povilas Malinauskas the park's pioneers, but this is a collective project involving many carvers; one founder's name should never replace the authorship of individual pieces.
The moose is a civic emblem, while the place-name story remains legend
The municipality recounts a story in which moose known as širviai came through the forest to the river, giving the Širvinta its name and, in turn, naming the town. This is a local origin legend, not a linguistic etymology demonstrated beyond doubt. The trail's interactive panel offers this foundation story alongside Lithuanian folktales.
A moose head with branching antlers also appears on the Širvintos coat of arms; the sword between the antlers is explained by the municipality as a symbol of battles against enemies. VLE records that the current arms were approved in 1997. The sculpture park translates this official flat emblem into many materially and stylistically different wooden forms.
The storytelling station and rest area were installed during improvements in 2020, when the ground was levelled and the pedestrian route repaved. Outdoor audio equipment can fall temporarily out of service, so an unresponsive button does not mean the recorded legend never existed; a fault is best reported to the municipality.
Admission is free, but the whole park is not uniformly step-free
On 19 July 2026, the official Briedžių Takas entry published neither a separate ticket nor opening hours. This is an unfenced public waterfront space, although daylight is the safest time to study the carvings. Concerts, carving events, beach season, tree work, or path maintenance may temporarily change normal movement through it.
The principal route repaved in 2020 is more suitable for a wheelchair or pushchair than a woodland track, but no detailed official access audit was found. Some sculptures stand on grass or bare ground beyond the paving, with possible kerbs, gradients, roots, and soft surfaces after rain. Assess an individual route from the main path rather than from one carefully framed photograph.
The municipality has designated Briedžių Takas a smoke-free zone. Outdoor timber ages, checks, and becomes slippery when wet, so supervise children and do not climb on art that was not clearly designed as seating. Allow 30-60 minutes for the park or up to two hours for a wider loop through the bridge, beach, and centre.
