Talsi District Museum

Introductory Words on  Us

Our Address:
19 K. Mīlenbaha Street, Talsi, LV – 3201
Phone: / fax 63222770, mob. tel. 29102628
e - mail: talsu.muzejs@apollo.lv

The Museum is open:
Tuesday -  Sunday 10:00 a. m. - 05:00 p.m.

Sales Desk: 
Tuesday  -  Sunday 10:00 a.m.  -  05:00 p.m.

Cafeteria:
Mon 10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Tue  10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Wed 10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Thu  10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Fri    10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sat   10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sun  10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Talsi District Museum is located on the top of  the  Tiguļi Hill – the  tallest hill out of the Talsi Town nine hillocks.   It was founded in 1923. Currently  the work of the  Museum is organized in its corresponding sections – the section of General collections, sections of History, Fine Art and Nature.
The building of the Museum is  surrounded by the Talsi Dendrology  Park with the area of 5.6 hectares and visitors can see round 300 species of woody plants there.
At the central entrance the Museum stuff has had planned and planted the Sun of Talsi – a carpet of live and blooming flowers and bushes for the avisitors’ eye-sight delight.
In 2006 a new building was finished and now the Museum has  a separate house with  modern museum collection storage   rooms and an Exhibition hall, where every month  a new exhibition is displayed.
In 2008 the Red House  - (previous garage of landlord Fircks) -  was renovated and the museum photo lab started its activities there.

There is parking place at the  Museum and at the entrance of the Exhibition Hall – a  bicycle rack.
The Museum  Art Shop and the local Café   provide their services to their visitors.
The Museum offers its visitors several permanent exhibitions.
Every month two new art exhibitions, many other shows, those of history, the displays of the museum collection’s inventory and  those of the Natural Division, are shown to public.

Permanent Exhibitions


"Tīcs Dzintarkalns and Ansis Dreimanis"

In fact, this exposition, rich in documents, is adedication to two persons:
-  Teodors Dzintarkalns (1874 – 1937) - the former lecturer of the State Talsi Gymnasium and the founder of this history museum. The artifacts, displayed in these expositions, are a small part of those, which were collected by T. Dzintarkalns;
- Ansis Dreimanis (1881 – 1968) was the headmaster of State Talsi Gymnasium till the autumn of 1944 and in exile he was the first headmaster of the Latvian Gymnasium in Minster.

"Walking Through Talsi”

The exhibition takes visitors through the historic events in the town in and around the end of the 19th century - the beginning 20th century. It displays the people and events from the distance of 200 years of the gone past, when a small number of German craftsmen, Jewish trades-folk and Latvian landless peasants lived on tiny land-plots, rented from local German landlords. It shows also the drastic events of the century shift with the armed uprising of 1905, the following repressions of the punitive expeditions, which were memorialized in the poem “Talsi Court” by J.Rainis.

"Antiquities and Testimonies"

The artifacts of the exposition inform visitors on the proto-history and the Ancient times of our district, starting from the period of 4.500 years BC. It presents the unique burial types – Norman graves, named – “Devil Boats” - and the ancient Cours cremation graves from the 13th – 15th centuries, unknown in other parts of Latvia, as well as stone stocks-in-trade, happened on separately. Besides the display of artifacts can be seen from the Vilkumuižas Lake and those from the archaeological digging expeditions to Talsi and Sabile castle-sites.

"Talsi Regional Museum's Collection of Paintings. Selection"

The exhibited 20 works make art lovers familiar with a less known Talsi Regional Museum's collection of paintings, and the most valuable part of the collection entered the Museum during the period of World War II. It was possible due to the grant of the renewed Cultural Foundation 3.000 Reichmark donation of Talsi Town Administration and the prior 9 000 Reichmark gift of Talsi Region Administration in 1944   to the planned Talsi City Museum, and it allowed the Museum to buy works of art from artists J. Tīdemanis, K. Ubāns, F. Milts, K. Neilis, L. Liberts, U. Skulme, K. Miesnieks, J. Rikmanis, M. Rozentāls and J. Matisons - together 13 works of art. In the selection visitors can also see the paintings of excellent Talsu artists – the old masters - F. Fībigs (1885-1953), Ž. Sūniņš (1904 -1993) and J. Sprinģis (1907 - 2004).
The artifacts of the exposition inform visitors on the proto-history and the Ancient times of our district, starting from the period of 4.500 years BC. It presents the unique burial types – Norman graves, named – “Devil Boats” - and the ancient Cours cremation graves from the 13th – 15th centuries, unknown in other parts of Latvia, as well as stone stocks-in-trade, happened on separately. Besides the display of artifacts can be seen from the Vilkumuižas Lake and those from the archaeological digging expeditions to Talsi and Sabile castle-sites.

"Natural Diversity of Talsi District"

This display provides a vast information on the places in Talsi District, which are included in the European Union's Protected Areas Network. It displays the information on the biotopes and the species of the wild plants and animals living there.

History of Museum

More than a hundred years ago this land belonged to Nurmuiža Baron Fircks and the rented Tiguļi - Upsejas farms and their   fields were located on it.
By the end of the 19th century  Okte Baron Fircks bought this land-plot from  Nurmuiža landlord Fircks and the new owner -  Georg von Fircks (Baron von Fircks) -  granted a lease of other land-plot to the Tiguļi farmer, close to Talsi, and he ordered to tear down the existing buildings  and to  built his detached house, named "Villa Hochheim.” The cottage was built as a one-storey building in the neo-classical style as a summer cottage with a high-aisle basement and a gable roof. At the same time with the construction of the building, the Baron ordered to erect a landscape park, using the hilly terrain, a pond and a panoramic view towards Talsi. A part of tree seedlings were imported from Germany, the other part of them were sent from Salaspils well-known nursery garden of Šochs.
Today this area is the Talsi Dendrological Park. 
The Baron's family dwellt here until the twenties of the 20th century, then they repatriated back to Germany, and then the land and buildings were passed over to the Ministry of Education to open a school of secondary education.
Talsi State Secondary School was opened here, at 19 K.Mīlenbaha Street, in 1923 and later the school acquired the status of the gymnasium. In the same year the Museum of Talsi State Secondary School was opened here.
Following the appeal of to the Latvian Ethnographic Museum to establish  regional museums all across Latvia and collect of materials on the nation's history, local history enthusiasts, led by teacher Teodors Dzintarkalns, willingly joined this action,  recruiting  teachers, students and the public, and  to 1928 they had already collected 8,500 different items.
In 1924 the Talsi branch of the Latvian Society of Antiquity Studies was opened and it took a very active participation in the Museum activities.
Ansis Dreimanis (1882 – 1968), the previous headmaster of the Gymnasium, wrote in his memories, that Teodors Dzintarkalns (1974 – 1937):
“… collected old tools, clothing, decorations and books of the far-away gone years and he arranged a local museum at school. It became a rather popular institution and many excursionists arrived here to visit it.”
Teodors Dzintarkalns considered the opening of the Museum as one of the most important events in Talsi after World War I.
During the World War II archives and the biggest part of the collections were lost forever - either they had  been sent  to Germany or plundered  and destroyed here on the spot.
The remaining items, following the initiative of the  Department of EC of Latvian SSR and that of  at the Riga Museum of History, were distributed to local museums – Talsi District History Museum, located 2 Baznīcas Square, and Talsi District Fine Art Museum, located at 1 Fabrikas Street.
In September of 1945 both museums merged together under the name Talsi History and Art Museum and it was removed to   7 Rose Street to the nationalized residential and office of Vilis Kaijgars, the lawyer of Talsi Town, who was deported to Siberia.
During the subsequent years the museum changed its name several times:
- temporarily it was Talsi History Museum, arranging separate exhibitions, thereafter it was Talsi Regional Research Museum, opened  in 1948, to visitors with its first history and art exhibition; in later years - Local History Museum in Talsi, the local Branch of Tukums Local Research Museum  (1963 - 1966), then  the Talsi Museum of Regional Studies and Art (1966 - 1996), in 1996 the Museum acquired its present name.
Staying  at Rožu Street 7, the Museum activities were widely known, due the key developing actions of its directors, namely, - of  Jānis Znotiņš (1949 - 1960), who arranged the research work on the professional level, and opening  regular exhibitions and displays, slightly covered by the  minimum of the Soviet ideological flag, and of Anna Rasa (1968 - 1994), when the real collections of the Museum were   created, regular  research expeditions were organized round Talsi District rural areas,  and  the regular and ambitious Arts Days (1983 – 1989) were organized.
Since 1994 Mirdza Jonele has been leading the Museum as its director.
On December 21, 1996 Talsi District Museum returned back to its historical whereabouts of 19 K.Mīlenbaha Street.