Kaunas District Municipality
Kaunas District
Memorial museum and dendrological park
Obelynės g. 8, Akademija, Kaunas district
54.90350, 23.80510
1.5-2 hours for the house, park, and orchard
May-September, when the arboretum is green and the orchard is in bloom or fruit
Obelynė Homestead, Obelynė, Obelynė Park
Obelynė Homestead: the Naturalist's Home and Arboretum
Obelynė Homestead in Akademija, southwest of Kaunas, is the home where naturalist Tadas Ivanauskas lived and worked in 1920-1970. His own dendrological park, heritage apple orchard, interwar homestead buildings, and the place where he started Lithuania's first fur-animal farm survive here.
It is important not to confuse two sites: Obelynė Homestead near Akademija and the Kaunas Tadas Ivanauskas Zoological Museum in the city center are different places. Both carry the same person's name, but Obelynė is his rural homestead and arboretum, now a memorial museum.
Tadas Ivanauskas, the Father of Lithuanian Nature
Tadas Ivanauskas (1882-1970) was a zoologist, ornithologist, conservation pioneer, and one of the founders of the University of Lithuania in Kaunas, where he long headed the Zoology Department. He created Lithuanian biological terminology and wrote the fundamental work Lietuvos paukščiai, or Lithuania's Birds.
Ivanauskas founded several important nature institutions: Kaunas Zoo, Žuvintas Reserve, and the Ventė Cape Ornithological Station. Kaunas Zoological Museum was named after him in 1970. Obelynė was both his home and a kind of open-air laboratory.
Arboretum: Ginkgo, Dawn Redwoods, and 250 Species
The main treasure of the homestead is the roughly 4 ha dendrological park, with about 250-300 species and forms of trees and shrubs. It is one of the richer dendrological collections in Lithuania, shaped by Ivanauskas over decades as he acclimatized and introduced new plants.
Among the rarities are a ginkgo considered one of the thickest in Lithuania, a dawn redwood planted in 1959, cork oak, and Manchurian walnut. The park was declared a natural monument in 1958, and in 1986 it received republican-level significance.
Apple Orchard and the First Fox Farm
The homestead preserves a historic apple orchard with 22 Western European heritage varieties and more than 150 fruit trees. Among them is the rare Vilhelminis variety; Obelynė is considered the only place in Lithuania where it survives.
In 1929 Ivanauskas founded Lithuania's first fur-animal farm here, raising silver foxes. This was part of his practical interest in nature and farming, also reflected in his books on breeding fur animals.
The Homestead and Museum Today
The homestead buildings are examples of interwar modernism; the protected complex includes the residential house, steward's house, poultry house, barn, cellar, park, and orchard. In 2006 Tadas Ivanauskas' Obelynė Homestead was entered in the Register of Cultural Property as a state-protected object of republican significance.
A memorial museum operated here from 1973, and in 2022, after the residential house was restored, it reopened. Today the homestead is a branch of Kaunas District Museum; during restoration, interwar multicolored wall decoration was revealed, and an information dome and open-air gallery were installed in the park.
Visiting
The museum generally operates Tuesday to Saturday, but different sources do not always agree on exact days, so check by phone or on the museum website before arriving. According to Kaunas District Museum prices during research, one branch ticket cost about 4 EUR for adults and 2 EUR with discount, with payment in cash.
Plan about 1.5-2 hours to see the house, arboretum, and apple orchard. The best time is May to September, when the park is green; the trip combines well with the VMU Botanical Garden in Akademija or Kaunas city museums.
