Qualla: Raudonė Castle

Raudonė Castle: Introduction

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Ypsilonatshared at wts wikivoyage, Public domain. An old Teutonic castle called Bayersburg II once stood on this bluff above the Nemunas, the setting of an East Prussian legend known as The White Maiden of the Bayersburg, a ghost story still told in the region. By the late sixteenth century the castle was gone. King Sigismund II Augustus had given the royal manor to a Prussian merchant named Krispin Kirschenstein, who built a Renaissance house on top of the old foundations and added a 110-foot cylindrical tower to the grounds. That tower is still there. Three centuries of owners later, including a Russian prince and his great-niece who married a wine merchant from Madeira, the building has become an art gallery and a public observation deck. From the top of the cylindrical tower the Nemunas stretches in both directions, and on a clear day you can see the legend's geography: forest, river, the kind of bluffs that produce ghost stories.

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Ypsilonatshared at wts wikivoyage | Public domain

Raudonė Castle: Sigismund Augustus's Gift

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fczarnowski, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sigismund II Augustus gave Raudonė as a royal manor to Kirschenstein in the late sixteenth century, an unusual transaction that placed Lithuanian crown land in the hands of a German-speaking Prussian merchant. Kirschenstein built a Renaissance manor with the tall cylindrical towe...

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Image: Fczarnowski | CC BY-SA 3.0

Raudonė Castle: Prince Zubov's Romantic Castle

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit lt:User:Dirgela, CC BY 2.5. In the early nineteenth century, the estate was acquired by Prince Platon Zubov, a Russian aristocrat who had been the last favorite of Catherine the Great. The Zubov family transformed the building yet again, this time in the Neo-Gothic taste sweeping European country houses. Th...

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Image: lt:User:Dirgela | CC BY 2.5

Raudonė Castle: Sophia Waxell, the Last Owner

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gytismenomyletojas, CC BY-SA 3.0. From 1898 to 1937, the castle belonged to Sophia Waxell, granddaughter of Sophia von Pirch-Kaiserov who had been Platon Zubov's niece. Sophia Waxell married José Carlos de Faria e Castro, a wine merchant from Madeira, an alliance that brought a Portuguese-Atlantic family connecti...

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Image: Gytismenomyletojas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Raudonė Castle: The Gediminas Oak and the Observation Tower

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gytismenomyletojas, CC BY-SA 3.0. An old park surrounds the castle today, planted with rare specimens: silver fir, Swiss pine, grey walnut, a linden with nine trunks, and the Gediminas Oak. Local legend says the great fourteenth-century Grand Duke Gediminas once had lunch under this oak, on his way somewhere alon...

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Image: Gytismenomyletojas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Raudonė Castle: Two Castles, One Family Name Confusion

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hugo.arg, CC BY-SA 3.0. Travelers in this part of Lithuania often confuse Raudonė Castle with Raudondvaris Castle further upstream near Kaunas. The names sound nearly identical (raudonas means red in Lithuanian), but the buildings are different and so are the families. Raudondvaris belonged to the Tyszk...

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Image: Hugo.arg | CC BY-SA 3.0