Kandava town

Kandava (pop. 4000) is a small town in Eastern Courland, famous for surviving the wars almost intact.

Market square of Kandava
Market square of Kandava. ©Augustinas Žemaitis.

It offers a glimpse of how a pre-WW1 Latvian town looked like. The main market square is surrounded by old buildings: residential, commercial and an old fire fighter depot. A couple of nearby streets are equally old.

Firefighters depot in the Market square
Firefighters depot in the Market square. ©Augustinas Žemaitis.

Three religions have their houses of worship in Kandava: Lutheran hilltop church, Roman Catholic and Jewish (the Catholic church is however new while the synagogue is closed).

As it was common in the 19th century, the town has a ruined Livonian Order Castle on top of one of its hills. It has been neither completely dismantled for building material, nor rebuilt as happened elsewhere. A model located at the foothill helps re-imagining how the castle looked like when intact.

A model of Kandava Castle under the hill where the ruins of the original one remain
A model of Kandava Castle under the hill where the ruins of the original one remain. ©Augustinas Žemaitis.

Another draw to Kandava is its 1873 stone bridge, the oldest in Latvia.

3 thoughts on “Kandava town”

  1. We are searching for our family roots in your country. In that connection we’ve learned to know that the CLÜVER-family
    came from a big estate called CONOW (in english).
    1) Do you happen to know anything about this family?
    2) Where would it be possible to find such information?
    3) Does the Kandava Town have any connection with the above mentioned CONOW estate?
    4) I’ve read about the RUMENE ESTATE only 4 kilometers from Kandava Town. Could there be any connection between the RUMENE ESTATE and the former CONOW ESTATE?
    We are going to visit Latvia on May 16th, and would be very pleased to resceive your answers to my questions – via e-mail ([email protected]) or teleph. 0047 – 97 73 65 86

    Beste regards
    Hans Edv. Olsen (Norheimsb. 10, 5600 Norheimsund, Norway)

  2. Hello everyone , I’m Angelina Mays.
    Welcome to my website . I started writing in middle school after a creative writing assignment for my English teacher. I did creative writing for several months before I thought about doing something else.
    I had always loved doing non-fiction writing because I’m passionate about learning. When you combine writing ability with a love of learning, dissertation writing only makes sense as a job.
    I’m passionate about helping the students of the future in their school career. When they get too busy, I am there to help.

    Angelina – Professional Academic Writer – How to Teach Students to Write an Essay Team

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sights, Cities, History, Culture and more