- Place
- Šakiai District Municipality
- Region
- Suvalkija
- Type
- automatic 24-bell civic carillon suspended over a public-square fountain
- Address
- V. Kudirkos Street, Šakiai city square, Šakiai
- Coordinates
- 54.95332, 23.04785
- Visit duration
- 20-40 minutes to inspect the installation; allow longer if waiting for a confirmed sounding
- Best time
- in daylight year-round; during the warm season for the fountain, after checking the sound and QR service before travelling
Šakių miesto karilionas, Šakiai Carillon, Šakiai Fountain Carillon, Sakiai City Carillon
A freestanding automatic civic instrument, not church bells
The exact name is Šakiai City Carillon. It stands in the central square beside V. Kudirkos Street, where the official tourism record places the fountain-and-bell structure at 54.953319, 23.047847. As the square is open and the installation has no single doorway, this is honestly classified as a site point rather than an entrance or a parking location.
These are not the bells of a neighbouring church, a remnant of an old belfry, or an instrument concealed in a tower. The bells hang over a low circular fountain inside their own copper-clad steel ring. Visuotinė Lietuvių enciklopedija calls it the Šakiai automatic carillon and distinguishes it from the separate 36-bell automatic carillon in the water tower at Gelgaudiškis Manor.
Municipal and tourism pages still call Šakiai the third carillon in Lithuania. That description makes sense in the chronology of its June 2015 launch, when the older Kaunas and Klaipėda instruments preceded it and other 2015 projects followed on separate dates. VLE's present list contains five Lithuanian carillons, so 'the third in Lithuania' should not be read as the country's current total.
A 2014-2015 project: a ten-metre ring and 500 fountain jets
The Šakiai District Municipality investment report identifies a discrete project titled the installation of the Šakiai city-square fountain. It ran in 2014-2015 and is valued there at EUR 96,717. That figure belongs to the specific fountain project and should not be confused with the larger cost of the whole first stage of square renewal reported at the time.
The report describes a structure ten metres wide: a fountain with 500 jets and a copper-clad steel ring carrying 24 bells of different sizes. Architect Šarūnas Kiaunė and structural engineer Mindaugas Kasiulevičius designed the structure, while Vitas Girdauskas is named as project manager. Royal Eijsbouts cast the bells in the Netherlands, and composer-carillonneur Giedrius Kuprevičius supervised the carillon's development.
The completion of the first renewed section of the square and its musical focal point was presented publicly on 26 June 2015; VLE more simply dates the Šakiai carillon from 2015. Dates important to the town are marked on the bells, but the checked official pages do not publish a complete catalogue of all 24 inscriptions, so they should not be reconstructed from hearsay or barely legible photographs.
The QR code selects an automatic programme; it does not let visitors play the bells
A carillon may be keyboard-operated or automatic. VLE explains that automatic carillons have no keyboard and places the Šakiai instrument in that category. There is consequently no public carillonneur's cabin, baton keyboard, or pedalboard for a visitor to use, and nobody should touch, swing, or strike the bells hanging over the water.
Scanning the on-site QR code opens a melody-selection and online-payment flow. The visitor sends an order to the automatic controller rather than performing music in real time. Rules visible on 19 July 2026 priced one melody at EUR 1, used Paysera for payment, and said the piece would sound immediately or in order if other requests were waiting.
Programmed music is separate from clock striking. The official description promises music at the beginning, middle, and end of the working day but gives no dependable clock times for those three programmes. It separately says the bells strike the hour count on every even-numbered hour. The page does not explain how that count is treated after twelve o'clock, so a visitor guide should not invent a precise number of strikes.
An 08:00-22:00 window is published, but the official pages conflict on availability
On 19 July 2026, the dedicated municipality-owned carillon site said that the mechanism operates from 08:00 to 22:00. This is a service window for the carillon, not a gate schedule for the civic square and not a promise that the fountain runs throughout those hours. The same rules warn that a melody may be delayed by a queue, malfunction, weather, or another unforeseen condition, with a refund promised if technical failure prevents performance.
At the same time, the official Šakiai Tourism and Business Centre retained a notice headed 'Šakiai City Carillon is temporarily not working', explaining that sound was unavailable because of technical obstacles. It shows only '1 August', without a year, and no dependable publication year was found in the page metadata. The public record therefore cannot support either a definite claim that the carillon is silent in 2026 or a guarantee that it works simply because the order site loads.
Before making a special trip for sound, open the dedicated carillon site, check whether the repertoire and payment information appear active, and if necessary call +370 627 30504, the number displayed there. Use the QR and payment flow only on site when operation is audible or explicitly confirmed; a loading webpage does not prove that the physical mechanism will perform the order.
How to inspect the fountain, bells, and square
Allow 20-40 minutes for the structure itself. From the sides of the square, the tilted ring, gradation of bell sizes, and suspended rows are easy to read; closer views reveal the town dates on individual bells. The fountain jets, clock strikes, and musical programmes are separate technical functions, so a dry or seasonally switched-off fountain does not by itself establish whether the bells can sound, or vice versa.
Stay outside the basin edge, do not climb on the ring, and do not try to reach the bells. Paving near the jets can be wet and slippery, while the sound is often easier to assess from the open square than directly below the bells. In photographs, include the full oval structure: a tight bell detail alone does not explain why Šakiai differs from a tower carillon.
The official carillon page labels the attraction fully adapted for disabled visitors, and its approaches lie in a hard-surfaced public square. No detailed 2026 access audit was published, however: the QR and Paysera flow with assistive technology, tactile interpretation, exact resting-place dimensions, and the experience for a visitor with hearing loss remain unverified. Discuss specific mobility, sight, hearing, or digital-payment needs with the tourism centre, and park only where signs permit on surrounding streets.
