Enjoy peace and quiet at the summer house of Rainis and Aspazija, which is surrounded by pine trees. The poets loved to spend their summers there. Visitors can tour the summer house and the upper floor of the garden house where the poets lived. The focus is on the love between the two poets in the exhibition “Me and You.”
Rainis bought the summer house in Majori in the autumn of 1926, and the poets spent their summers working and relaxing there from 1927 until 1929. A newspaper wrote that “the street is very little. One end is at the paved Jomas Street, while the other is in the dunes, with a couple of hundred metres between them. There are large trees on both sides.” Rainis and Aspazija loved to go swimming early in the morning and taking a stroll during the sunset each evening. Rainis wrote his final plays, “Love Stronger than Death” (Mīla stiprāka par nāvi) and “The Witch of Rīga” (Rīgas ragana), as well as many poems there. Aspazija spent her summers working on the poetry collection When Asters Arrive” (Asteru laikā). The summer house was where Rainis died.
The museum offers a look at restored rooms of the summer house and the upper floor of the garden house. The exhibition “Me and You” features the links between the poets and their most important works. The exhibition begins with the first meeting between the poets and ends with Rainis’ death. This represents the horizonal aspect of life and the vertical aspect of creativity. A man and a woman. Power and beauty, and above all of that ˗ love.
The museum merges three wooden buildings that are typical of Jūrmala. One is devoted to exhibition halls where concerts, readings, exhibitions and conferences are regularly held so as to inform visitors about the cultural heritage of Rainis and Aspazija. Visitors can also learn about the work of contemprorary artists and writers.
The Rainis and Aspazija Summer House was restored and adapted to museum needs by the State Joint-Stock Company State Real Estates, and the Association of Memorial Museums. Financing came from the European Economic Area programme Conservation and Revitalisation of Cultural And Natural Heritage.
