Ziras – Culture and Local History

Ziras has a clear cultural focal point: the Ziru tautas nams, the parish cultural centre. Adding to the cultural picture is the Ziru parish local history exhibition in “Strazdiņi”; Ausekļu Park is also in Ziras.

Cultural Sites and History

The Ziru tautas nams preserves the cultural traditions and values of its locality. The Ziru Library has been part of Ziras’s cultural centre since the new people’s house was built in 1989. This connection gives local cultural history a specific point of reference in time. The Ziru parish local history exhibition in “Strazdiņi” presents evidence from different periods of life in the parish, including objects from the Soviet era. For travellers who want to explore regional history through specific objects, the exhibition offers a distinctive focus, bringing together a broad span of time and a named historical period.

Visitors can also take part in creative workshops at the exhibition. If you would like to include a workshop in your stay, ask in advance about a suitable date.

Events and Local Cuisine

Events also offer specific insights into local culture and cuisine. At the mushroom festival in Ziras, visitors could buy traditional mushroom soup from the Ziru parish in 2024. A mushroom festival was announced as an outdoor event at the Ziru tautas nams for 13 September 2025. Thus, the 2024 event focused on a culinary connection, while the 2025 announcement highlighted the outdoor format.

Another hands-on event was the birdhouse workshop on 10 November 2024 in the Ziru manor park, where participants were invited to make a birdhouse for tits. Unlike the mushroom festival, this event focused on practical construction. This makes it easy to distinguish different interests when planning a trip: regional cuisine and a craft workshop. When planning a future festival visit, the event year matters: the examples mentioned are dated 2024 and 2025. Check current dates for your travel year before making specific plans to attend a mushroom festival or workshop.

Nature Across the Wider Landscape

The natural setting covers a broader geographical area than the cultural sites. Užavas lejtece Nature Park lies in the Ventava Plain of the coastal lowland and extends across Užava and Ziras parishes. It was established to protect migrating and nesting birds. This creates a clear difference in scale when choosing a travel theme: the cultural theme is linked to traditions, the library and the exhibition in the parish, while the nature park represents landscape conservation across two parishes. If you would like to focus your stay more on nature or cultural history, you can take this wider geographical scale into account when looking for accommodation in Ziras.

Discover more destinations: Lielirbe, Liepene, Usma, Vendzavas, Dzirnavas, Zūras, Pasiekste, Jūrkalne.

For the broader travel overview: Ventspils.