Vintage Car and Farming Museum “Miķelis”

At the turn of the 20th century and well into the 1950s Latvia was a highly agrarian country – the majority of the population lived in rural areas and supported themselves through farming. Peasant life and work were generally confined to a specific area – the farm. For centuries, an individual farm was the bedrock of traditional Latvian lifestyle and values.

To preserve for future generations historical evidence about a typical Semigallian peasant farm, in 1975, collective farm (kolkhoz) “Uzvara” started building an open-air museum. A residential house, a threshing barn, two granaries, a cattle barn and a smithy were transported to the museum site or built from scratch. The furniture, tableware, clothing and tools placed in the buildings illustrate the living and working conditions of Semigallian peasants and rural artisans during the first half of the 20th century.

The second most important part of the display covers machinery, especially agricultural equipment such as tractors, different land processing machines, threshers, lorries and passenger vehicles.