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Blankenfeldes manor

Blankenfeldes Muiza (or Blankenfelde Manor, in English) is a manor on the Latvian - Lithuanian border, in Vilce Rural Commune, Jelgava District, the region of Zemgale in Latvia. It was first mentioned in chronicles in the late 1680s, and after some time it gained the fame as a unlucky, haunted place.

Through years the manor went from hand to hand and changed several owners, until finally it came in the kin of Hahn's possession, where it remained till the reforms in the 1920s, when the Germans were demanded to return in Germany.

Hahn's family chronicles let the historians know why people thought this place haunted.

Official status

Today, Blankenfelde Manor is a historical and cultural monument, having the Blue flag. However, unofficially, it is also the capital of all ghosts and is said to be the most terribly haunted place in the Baltic region. It is also a popular excursion place, where people go in winter to experience real manor life and a taste of baron's supper by candlelight.

History

What is remarkably interesting is that the owners of Blankenfelde Manor change in very short periods of time--roughly 10 to 40 years, though usually the manor was in the possession of one family for at least hundred of years. It is not entirely clear why the previous masters leave so quickly, as it is hard to trace all the names of the masters who have owned Blankenfelde Manor.

The manor has seen good times and bad. It has been renovated a few times; the present elegant Baroque-style manor house was built in place of the earlier one in 1743, while the present landscape English park was crafted in the middle of the nineteenth century. The exiled French king, Louis XVIII, dwelt in Blankenfelde from 1804 to 1805. Later after 1920 the manor served a a nursing home for elderly people. After the Baltic region was occupied by the USSR, the manor was also used as an asylum and regained its name and meaning as a manor only after year 1990.

Ghosts

Blankenfelde Manor does not carry the title of the most terribly haunted place in the Baltic for nothing. Historians only know about the reports on ghost only starting with years, when Hahn family became the manor's owners, yet it is almost sure that the haunting didn't start with this year.

The manor is said to have about three ghosts living in it: a man, a woman and a manikin or dwarf.

The ghost stories of Blankenfelde Manor is far more terrible than any other in Baltic region. Now we know them because of the family chronicle, that is considered to be true among the people.

First of all, there is a room in the manor. Its doors are now shut to anyone who might dare to go in, because this room is the place where two tragedies connected with Blankenfelde Manor's ghosts have taken place:

  1. The first tale goes, that the new owner of the manor was not a man to believe in ghosts and paranormal entities. He hired a beautiful young governess for his children, and gave her the room in the first floor, though every servant in the manor advised him not to do that, the rumors were going round the manor, that the room was haunted. The man only laughed and didn't change his mind. The governess went to bed, but in the middle of the night someone woke her up, she was pushed out of the bed and a figure appeared in front of her, a figure of a tall man. When the ghost disappeared, the governess started to scream and cry. In came the baron and the baroness and the old housekeeper, they saw the governess sitting in the corner curled up, and the girls beautiful, long black hair had turned white. There was nothing more to do, the girl had lost her mind in fear.
  2. The next evening, wishing to show that the room had nothing to do with the girl's madness, that she had already carried this illness in her, the baron and his friends stayed in the room. There were four of them - two soldiers, a forester and the baron himself. They took wine and cards with them and went into the room. After midnight, the baron went to bed, feeling dizzy and sleepy, the rest of the gang was left at the table. And then the Ghost appeared again. He said: I told you that those will die, who dare to enter this room! And this is the night when you will lose your heads! He cut the two soldiers heads off, the baron was wakened up in his bed and went mad seeing what happened. The next morning his wife opened the rooms door only to find two dead soldiers, the forester in the bed and her husband sitting in the same corner where the governess had been sitting the previous night.

This is how it goes in the chronicle and ghost stories about the manor. There are several other things as well:

The ghost of a woman is walking with mild steps in the hallways at evening, the manor's staff believe it is the countess Elisabeth, who comes to pay a visit to her only daughter, who died when she was very young and is buried in the cemetery near the manor. The manor staff has an interesting habit - when they hear the woman closing in, they open the doors and say loudly: Guten nacht, grossmutter Elizabeth!, and then the steps disappear. And sometimes heavy, strong steps are heard in the hallways, making the staff think there is also a male ghost in the castle, though they are not sure whether it is the same one who killed the two soldiers and made the baron and the governess lose their minds.

It is also believed to be the ghost of the small Marquise de Vise (Visa ), who had died in the age of 245(!) and had the habit to watch over young people after some ball or grand party, and, if they had started to behave more freely or the way he didn't like it, he had clasped his small hands and said: Shoo, shoo! It's not the time yet! The granddaughters of the Hahn family believe that he is still haunting in the Blankenfelde Manor, and he probably might be, because from time to time the guest receive uninvited help with things like getting an apple from table, when the fruit raises up in the air and comes forward, and sometimes on rare cases people can also see him.

While the manor was a nursing home and an asylum, there were also more common things like the so-called "death-watch ticking" on the windows or doors when somebody died.

Another theory exists, that the ghosts are nor the baroness, nor the little marquise, but evil spirits, that some of the previous owners have called from the world of the dead in their time to receive help in this world's business.

References

  • Neparastās lietas, documentary by Aigar Neimanis, Andris Gauja