Some glimpses from the history of the town

Klaipeda is the oldest city in Lithuania first mentioned in historical sources under the name of Memelburg in 1252. At that time the territory, presumably a fishermen's settlement, was occupied by the Livonian Order that built the first wooden castle in the confluence of the Dane river and the Curonian lagoon.

The town grew around the castle. At that time the present Old Town territory and the castle site looked quite different. In the mouth of the river the Dane valley was about 800 m in width, and the river itself ran along the old bed where Didzioji Vandens Street is located now. In the place of present Theatre Square the stream of the river split into several branches and beds thus forming low sandy islands.

Klaipeda is the oldest town on the territory of Lithuania that was granted Lübeck self-government rights already in 1258.

 Dane port and the Old Town

In the 13-19^th c.c. Klaipeda port was situated on the Dane river. In the 16-17^th c.c. it fitted into the section of the river between the present Birzos and Pilies bridges. Up till the 18^th century construction of buildings in the vicinity of the castle was prohibited.

As we can see in the oldest picture of the town dated 1535, already in the 16^th century the shore of the river was occupied by all kinds of warehouses. In the beginning of the 17^th century Zveju Street consisted of brick living houses and warehouses.

The first detailed town layout scheme dated 1630 shows that the land under this warehouse was still unoccupied. We can see the old Dane bed and a pond there. Supposedly, in the middle of the 17^th century the pond was filled with earth and the territory used for construction.

An attempt was made to concentrate warehouses on one spot, closer to the water. A decree of the 17^th century requires that all the warehouses are built by the river and not in the town quarters. Public warehouses were also built by Zveju Street and by the river. Some sources allow to assert that already in the 17^th century a public weighter was functioning which must have been located on the left shore of the Dane, at the present Birzos Bridge. In 1657 Klaipeda was granted the privilege of free trade and shipping. New warehouses were built by the Dane.

In the map of Klaipeda region drawn in the middle of the 17^th century we can see a one-storied warehouse situated at the Birzos Bridge, 5 more warehouses are standing side by side, ends to the river, in the place of present buildings on Zveju Str. 4 and 4a.

After the Swedes occupied Prussia in 1678, in order to defend Klaipeda fortress, the commandant of the fortress ordered to burn down the suburbs, but the fire spread all over the town and it had to be rebuilt anew.

Although Klaipeda suffered greatly from the epidemic of plague in the beginning of the 18^th century (1736 people died of plague in the town and adjacent region in 1709), the town grew and strengthened developing from a small provincial town to an important centre of the Baltic region. If in 1711 - 1743 only 30 vessels called Klaipeda per year, in 1749 the number leaped up to 110. At that time the first major municipal works were carried out in the port. In 1740 cleaning of the river mouth started, the river bed was dredged up to 3.1 m.  But the attempts to remove the stones brought by the Poles from Gdansk and buried in the river mouth were not successful, so many foreign vessels were damaged by hitting them. In 1749 - 1759 moles were constructed to protect the river mouth from sand.

In 1753 the first public warehouse was built in the place where the warehouses on Zveju Str. 4 and 4a are located. The town weighter was located at the bridge. Judging by such professions as weighers, measurers, sack carriers' foremen, administrators, barrel masters (the goods were mainly transported in barrels) mentioned in the documents, in the second half of the 18th century the importance of public warehouses was growing.

In the 18^th century a decree was issued again for fire safety purposes requiring to build warehouses only by the Dane and only with their ends towards the river. Such way of construction enabled to build more warehouses and made it easier to lift the goods to upper floors because the lifting winch was mounted on the top of the pediment. At variance from other European ports where warehouses  were built on the quays very densely, fitting them to one another, in Klaipeda of the 18^th century they were built in such a way that enough space was left in-between for carts arriving from the Old Town to the river. Such style of building formed after the fire of 1757 when during the attack of the Russian army the town was burned down again. While the left shore of the Dane was occupied by warehouses, the right shore was rented out to merchants who built their own warehouses, sawmills and shipbuilding yards.

Relying upon the town layout scheme and a list of house owners dated 1768, we can discuss the warehouse quarters on Zveju Street more precisely. The scheme includes the warehouses and a fenced-in storage and sorting house. These institutions controlling export and import of goods were separated from the town by a fence with two gates.

In 1768 large areas on Dane shores were owned by the influential merchant H.Roerdansz. He was the owner of the territory between the present Drama Theatre and the Dane bordering to Vezeju and Pasiuntiniu streets. Heinrich Roerdansz (1724 - 1774) was a son of Klaipeda merchant engaged in timber exports. Apart from that property, H.Roerdansz also had a warehouse in Kurpiu Street, a living house and a brewery in Thomas Street. H.Roerdansz also owned the ferry across the Dane that was located at the present Pilies Bridge.

After his death in 1774 these territories were purchased by other owners. In the beginning of the 19^th century descendants of the family moved out from Klaipeda. The land plot on the left shore of the Dane obviously became municipal property and a special storage building called "The New Weighter" was built here. It was used for storage, sorting and preparing for export agricultural products which constituted up to 70 - 90 % of all exports transported via Klaipeda port in the 17^th and beginning of the 18th century. Flax, linseed and hempseed products made the biggest part among them. Import mainly consisted of luxury and consumer goods such as salt, tobacco, strong beverages and other colonial goods.

From 1808 management of Klaipeda port was entrusted to the local merchants corporation which took care not only of the trade, but also of the technical equipment of the port. Earlier the port had been owned by the state.

The merchants were obliged to take care of the port condition and to maintain the necessary water depth in the channel. In 1814 uplifting of the stones from the Dane bottom started. Special pyramid-shaped scaffolds were erected for that purpose with a wooden platform floating among them. On the top of the scaffolds ropes were fastened on pulleys. The stones were lifted up to the water surface with the help of wedges driven into the holes, afterwards they were hoisted on the wooden platform with the help of a horse power. In 1814 - 1816 the river mouth was successfully cleaned.

As the town treasury was nearly empty, like in past years, the municipality increased various taxes and toughened the control of import of goods into the town. The main sources of income were the town weighter and the herring sorting warehouse (built on the left shore of the Dane in the beginning of the 19^th century) that stood in the vicinity of the warehouses on Zveju Str. 4 and 4a.

In 1826 the ferry across the Dane was replaced by a new bridge that connected the New Market opened in the area between the theatre and the castle around 1820 with the rapidly developing northern part of the town. In the beginning it was a wooden movable bridge with a 11.6 m span named after prince Karl, son of Wilhelm III. In 1877 - 1878 the bridge was reconstructed. In the same year the Birzos Bridge was also replaced with a new metal structure resting on massive supports with 14.9 m spans in-between. After the tram line was laid in the beginning of the 20^th century, the Karl Bridge was also replaced by a metal one. It was uplifted with the help of an electric motor.

Warehouses

According to the town layout scheme of 1809 (copy of 1817) the area on the Dane shore where the warehouses under investigation are standing now was occupied by flax weighter and the storage house with a large yard. Next to the flax warehouse there was a building for sprayers and other fire extinguishing means. Comparing with the layout scheme of1768, the flax weighter and the storage house are in the same place, the herring sorting warehouse is marked in the neighbourhood. The scheme of 1840 already shows some changes: a big Royal Warehouse is standing on the former yard, the shore area is divided into more regular quarters, slips are installed on the quay. The territory of the warehouses under investigation is divided into several privately owned land plots. It is known that one of those sites was occupied by the warehouse named "The White Swan", and on the opposite side of Zveju Street there was a hotel "At the White Swan". In the same quarter one could find the famous pub "At the Golden Ship" owned by Reglickas. Several land plots with warehouses and living houses belonged to Svederskas, owner of a trade and shipping company, and to the Simpsons, representatives of a timber sales company of British origin.

On October 4, 1854 a fire broke in Vite district on the shore of the bay. Carried by the north-western wind, the fire rapidly reached the river and spread onto the other shore. It caught the Svederskis warehouses, afterwards sprang over to the herring warehouse, the flax scales and the theatre thus devastating nearly all the left shore and the bigger part of the Old Town. A couple of ships berthed in the Dane were saved by drilling holes in the bottoms and sinking them.

The first building reconstructed after the fire was the flax weighter rebuilt in the old place already in 1856. The huge edifice occupying 4450 sq. m consisted of several buildings surrounding a large square yard that could be entered through two gates. The building was decorated with an emblem hoisted on the roof - a stylised sheaf of flax. It was the largest and the most valuable building in the town bringing the most substantial income. In the beginning it was used only for storage of flax and was never short of customers because the citizens were not allowed to store flax and hemp on the upper floors of their houses. During World War I flax trade ceased, so the town rented the warehouse out to several merchants and companies. It was used for storage of grain, fertilizers, construction materials. During World War II the building was damaged and later on completely demolished.

More than a decade after the fire, in 1861-1871, the present warehouses were built on Zveju Str. 4 and 4a. Before that the area was occupied by temporary wooden sheds. Now it is difficult to establish the owners of these warehouses. They passed over from one ownership to another, were rented, belonged to various companies and shareholders. Since the buildings were of commercial purpose, they had no numbers an thus were not included into any address books. The letters "DHB" on the door of the warehouse on Zveju Str. 4a must stand for "Deutsche Handels Betriebe" (German Trade Enterprise). Most probably the warehouse was built by this company. From the tax payers' list of 1938 we know that the land taxes for the sites under the warehouses were paid by the trade department of the town magistrate. So the warehouses belonged to the town and were rented out. It is also known that in 1921-1929 this warehouse was rented by Klaipeda Agricultural Trade Company engaged in the trade of grain, fodder, fertilisers and other agricultural goods.

In the beginning of the 20^th century the warehouse on Zveju Str. 4 belonged to N.Bloch and was used for storage of herring. In the 40-es it was rented by P.Schulz, owner of a flax products import-export business.

In the first half of the 20^th century the warehouse on Zveju Str.4a was called "Germania-Speicher" (Germany Warehouse). Allegedly, because of their architectural similarity, in the second half of the 19^th century the two warehouses were called "the Two Brothers". Giving names to warehouses in Klaipeda is an ancient tradition.  In 18^th - 19^th c.c. warehouses with the names: Hermes, Leopard, Three Roofs, the Great Warehouse, the Karl Warehouse, the Green Warehouse, etc., existed in the town. As a rule, they all had their own emblems.

During World War II the town weighter was burnt down, and the neighbouring warehouse on Zveju Str. 4a was seriously damaged. After the war the buildings passed over to the "Zagotszerno" organization and the River Shipping. The third floor of the warehouse on Zveju Str. 4a was taken apart. During construction of the new bridge across the Dane, a temporary passageway was laid at Zveju Str. 4a. Later on the warehouses were used by various trade organisations. The warehouse on Zveju Str. 4 was used for storage of school supplies and the one on Zveju Str. 4a - for storage of strong drinks.

The architecture of the two buildings reveals neo-gothic tendencies popular in the second half of the 19^th century.

 In the 21^st millennium

Reconstruction of the warehouse on Zveju Str. 4a started in the end of 2001. On August 1, 2002 the brewery restaurant "Memel" opened in the renovated building. On December 20, 2002 the restaurant started selling to its customers the "Memel" beer of its own make.

Such is the history of this building.