- Place
- Kaunas District Municipality
- Region
- Kauno Marios Regional Park
- Type
- shoreline wooden-sculpture memorial to flooded villages
- Address
- Samylai Bay, Šlienava, Kaunas District
- Coordinates
- 54.85945, 24.11508
- Visit duration
- 30-60 minutes; longer for audio and a shore walk
- Best time
- daylight and calm water, when the composition is clearest
Rising from the Water Small Sculpture Park, Lithuanian Atlantis
Memory of villages flooded by the reservoir
When the Nemunas was dammed and the Kaunas Reservoir formed in 1959, people, buildings, and cemeteries were moved out of the inundation zone. The installation communicates that history through inhabitants and domestic symbols rather than a table of numbers.
The sculptures deliberately occupy the waterline. Water level, waves, mist, and season alter how far the figures seem to emerge, so the work is never experienced in exactly the same way.
The 2020 sculptures on the water
In 2020, chainsaw artists led by woodcarver Raimondas Uždravis created the first part. A rising church tower and inhabitants turn an abstract reservoir bed into an imagined lived settlement.
The team included Uždravis, Algirdas Vaištaras, Saulius Jocius, Algirdas Jasilionis, and Gintautas Tručinskas. Samylai Culture Centre ran the project, supported by Kaunas District Municipality and the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
The speaking old woman added in 2021
Six figures and objects were added in 2021. The central new work is an old woman seated on shore, inviting visitors to sit and hear what the reservoir conceals.
Sound gives displaced memory a voice. Quiet listening lets the account work with the actual bay rather than as an isolated museum recording.
Anelė's voice and an authentic song from the reservoir bed
The official project introduces the old woman as Anelė from Dubravai village. A linked recording lets visitors hear her story, while the project's digital map uses a red line to show today's expanse of water and how the former settlements relate to the present shore.
The project also presents a wedding departure song recorded by Anastazija Kučinskienė-Belazaraitė, who was born in Šilėnai in 1921. The song belongs to the singing tradition of Kaunas District villages flooded by the reservoir, now entered in Lithuania's Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The memorial therefore joins sculpture, testimony, and living song heritage.
Visiting the Samylai Bay composition
The outdoor site is presented as year-round, yet timber, shoreline, and audio equipment are affected by water, weather, and maintenance.
Do not enter the water or climb on figures. View from shore, consider the whole composition, and extend the subject through reservoir history or Rumšiškės museum.
