Description
This is the largest island in the Zarasai district, covering 46.6 ha. It is best known for the contemporary Baltic culture and alternative music festival “Mėnuo Juodaragis”, held here every year for several decades. The cosy, almost wild island amazes with its expressive, wooded yet open landscape, mighty century-old trees, meadow hollows, several springs and an intoxicating sense of unspoilt nature. The surroundings of Lake Duburys are very old. Historical sources show that in the mid-16th century at least four manors stood around the lake, belonging to the Buivydas, Jasienskis and Piotrovskis families and the Giedraitis princes. At the beginning of the 19th century, the island in Lake Duburys and the nearby village of Duburaitis were acquired by Antanas Aloyzas Šeikus (1779–1858) and his wife Viktorija Ivaškevičiūtė. On the island they established a folwark called Sala, or Astravas (Polish: Ostrów). A manor house was built here of fieldstone, which is why the place was nicknamed with a word common at the time – Murovanka. Until 1940 the Duburys island and folwark belonged to Jadvyga Šeikienė (elsewhere Šeikutė). At that time there was no bridge to the island, so people crossed by raft. Only in the second half of the 20th century was an embankment built and a road laid at the narrowest point of the lake. The island has a bathing area and rest areas, so you can camp here even in autumn. Photos by Marius Semaška
