“Tadenava” was the homestead where Rainis spent his childhood. Games allow people to sense the elements which shaped Rainis during his earliest years. There is true joy in terms of nurturing the sun in a cradle, helping the child to fly to the ravens of Glass Mountain and calculating the cost of the homestead in the room of Rainis’ father.
Jānis Pliekšāns or Rainis was born on September 11, 1865, in the bathhouse of the Varslavāni homestead. His father, Krišjānis Pliekšāns, had built the Tadenava semi-manor, and that is where Rainis spent the first three-and-a-half years of his life. The museum includes the mansion of the semi-manor and a shed which were built in the 1860s. There is also the home of the living house Dāboliņi, which was built in the 1920s along with a bathhouse and a cellar.
The mansion of the Pliekšāns family offers an interactive game which helps each visitor to use interactive games to learn about Rainis’ literary heritage. This also helps people to come up with images and a desire to interpret them. The exhibition includes scenes from Rainis’ childhood. Father Krišjānis, mother Dārta and sister Līze called Rainis Žaniņš when he was a child and they lived in Tadenava. The sun motif was important and present for Žaniņš and Rainis during his creative life, and this is a special role at the museum. The sun crosses the sky each day, and it is a guide for visitors to the museum. It will shine into the room of the father, where the family tree of the Pliekšāns family is growing. He calculated numbers, wrote and read, took care of the homestead and thought about the future of his children. The sun would also peek into the room of his mother, where she nurtured her children and saved handicrafts in a dowry chest. The sun would lead little Jānis Pliekšāns through his childhood home and schools and then all the way to Rīga.
A visit to Tadenava will help to learn about Rainis and his literary contributions. This will be an emotional and informative adventure for all generations.
In addition to games, the museum offers very popular bird days in the autumn and the spring, bringing together families for creative workshops. The museum gathers together writers and creative people so that there are concerts and conversations about achievements in Rainis’ childhood home.
The Rainis Museum “Tadenava” 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.
