Send Gift Baskets to Siauliai, Lithuania

The history of Šiau begins in 1236, and we know about it thanks to a famous battle in Livonian Order chronicles. The city was mentioned as Soule on September 22nd, the same day when the Battle of Saule took place, not too far from Šiau. Šiauliai had been primarily established as a defense post from the raids by Teutonic and Livonian Orders. By the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, however, the raids had ceased and Šiauliai started to develop an agricultural economy. In 1445, the townspeople raised the first wooden church. The current structure was erected in 1625 and is a fraction of its original size.

Šiauliai, an administrative center at the time, was granted Magdeburg city rights in the 16th century and it also became a trading hub. But during “The Deluge” and the Bubonic Plague epidemics (16th-18th centuries), 60% of its population died.

According to historians, it was Antoni Tyzenhaus (1733-1785) who primarily committed himself to the city’s reconstruction after the violent revolt of peasants in 1769. He decided to rebuild the city according to Classical ideas: at first, houses were built randomly in a radial shape, but Tyzenhaus decided to build the city in an orderly rectangular grid. Šiauliai grew to become a well-developed city, with several streets and marketplace squares. King Stanislaw in 1791 confirmed the city’s rights from Šiauliai and granted it a coat of arms with symbols such as a bear, the symbol of Samogitia, the Eye of Providence, and a red bull. You’ve gone for the modern coat of arms, which was based on this version.

Šiauliai, a city in Lithuania, received a new coat of arms after the partitioning of Poland. It became home to several educational and cultural institutions. More than just roads and rail lines, infrastructure across the country was rapidly developing: in 1836-1858 a road connecting Riga and Tilsit was built, and in 1871 a railroad connecting Liepāja with Romney was built. Šiauliai’s position as a crossroads of important merchant routes allowed the city to grow as an industrial center. Folk metropolis Vilnius is already the third biggest city in Lithuania in 1897 with about 16,000 inhabitants. It will change its demographic composition by that time: 56.4% of the inhabitants will be Jewish in 1909. Šiauliai’s leather industry was quite famous. There was a big factory known as Chaim Frenkel that was owned by the Russian Empire.