Šiauliai
Šiauliai Region
windmill and miller's homestead museum
Architektų g. 73, LT-78170 Šiauliai
55.92368, 23.26947
1-2 hours
during educational activities, bread-baking sessions, or calendar festivals
Žaliūkiai Windmill, Žaliūkiai Miller's Museum
Žaliūkiai homestead: a windmill in the city
Žaliūkiai Miller's Homestead-Museum is in Šiauliai at Architektų g. 73. It is a rare case where rural technology and a miller's way of life survive at the edge of a large city rather than only in a remote village. It is the only surviving nineteenth-century windmill in Šiauliai and the first grain-processing history museum in Lithuania.
The main object is the cap-type Dutch Žaliūkiai windmill. Official museum sources and the Cultural Heritage Register, unique code 1623, state-protected and regionally significant, date it to about 1875-1880. Today it works with the house and granary as an ethnographic museum space.
The mill's road to becoming a museum
From construction, the mill belonged to the Lithuanian German Danielius family; in the first half of the twentieth century Evaldas Danielius inherited it from his father Gustavas. During the First World War the well-equipped mill even ground flour for the Tsarist army garrison bakery. In 1944 it was nationalized, and grinding stopped in 1957.
In 1967 miller Juozas Užkuraitis repaired it, and a milling exposition opened in 1970. The mill burned in 1987 and was repaired, then restored in 1998 and 2009, with 2009 works supported by Lithuania and Norway through the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. The miller's house was rebuilt in 2010, the homestead opened to visitors in 2011, and in 2022 a granary moved from Medginai village in Joniškis District was rebuilt; open storage was installed there in 2023.
What to see in the exposition
The homestead includes the windmill with authentic grain-milling equipment, a reconstructed miller's house, an ethnographic exposition, and open storage in the granary presenting rural life in North and Central Lithuania. This helps visitors understand the mill not as one impressive building but as a whole system of work and daily life.
Educational activities are central. Žaliūkiai offers bread-baking sessions and calendar-festival programmes such as Užgavėnės, Atvelykis, Kupolinės, Žolinė, and the Autumn Equinox. The museum is alive not only through exhibits but through action; the miller's house is adapted for visitors with reduced mobility.
Why it matters for Šiauliai
In Šiauliai, visitors often first look for urban, industrial, or modern cultural sites, but Žaliūkiai recalls another side of city history. Before urban expansion, suburban homesteads, farm buildings, and mill work existed here.
The Žaliūkiai homestead shows how grain, bread, wind, and craft were connected in everyday life. It is especially valuable for families and school groups because the mill is easy to understand through concrete actions: milling, baking, storage, and homestead layout.
Opening hours and tickets
At research time, official museum information listed opening hours as Tuesday-Friday 10:00-18:00 and Saturday-Sunday 11:00-17:00. Museum schedules can change during holidays and events, so check the official page before travelling.
At research time, the ticket page listed 4 EUR for adults and 2 EUR reduced. Educational activities, tours, and special events may have separate prices, so groups should register in advance.
