Nidos istorija

NIda History

Grobstas Horn for the first time was mentioned in 1366. There is a suggestion that it was the very first settlement on the Spit. Locations named Noyken or Noyden were described in the Teutonic chronicles in 385. Though it sounds like Nida, this hypothesis was rejected recently.

True facts about Nida appeared in 1429 and 1437, when the Nida Inn was mentioned. The village was located not far from the sea, about 2-km south from present Nida. The iinnkeeper received privileges from the Magdeburg Rights in 1529. The innkeeper and 18 fishermen families, 3 part-time fishermen and one lodger family lived in Nida in 1541. And then sand attacks started. Due to this reason fewer and fewer families stayed in Nida. Twenty-two occupied farmsteads were in Nida from 1542 until 1554. Only 9 of them were left in 1588. The innkeeper, 5 fishermen families and tree lodger families lived in Nida in 1589 and 1590. Soon sand covered aall arable land. Only the innkeeper and 8 fishermen remained in the village in 1595. The plague came to Nida in 1603 and devastated it till 1606. People finally deserted this settlement. Only the innkeeper and two fishermen families were rrecorded in 1614. Sand buried the other 22 huts. The village consisted of some 3 or 5 farmsteads from 1619 until 1712. In the period between 1673 and 1676 the old Nida settlement was totally buried under the sand. People moved to the new place closer to the lagoon, about 500 metres from the Death Valley. In the beginning of the 18th century sand covered this place also.

About 1732 some inhabitants of old Nida moved to the new place, where present Nida is located. Here was the post station (brought from Kuncai that was also buried by sand) and school (opened in 1743). The number of inhabitants started to grow.

Fifteen „live“ farmsteads were described in 1784. But the permanent fforest clearing and cattle grazing caused further sand invasion. Sand became Nida’s silent enemy again. Some Nida citizens running from sand moved to the north and established Skruzdyne settlement. In the beginning of the 19th century two owners of the Nida post station, father and son Gotlib David and Georg David Kuwerts, started resistance to the sand. They constructed barriers and planted trees along the post road and near the village. Thanks to them, Nida didn’t have to move another ttime.

The number of inhabitants reached 232 in 1820. Thirty-one farmsteads were occupied in Nida in 1825. The post station and the new school building were there also. Five families from the buried Naujieji Nagliai village established the Purvyne settlement next to Nida in 1830. Number of inhabitants gives the best reflection of growth of Nida: 235 inhabitants in 1830, 355 – in 1846, 515 – in 1871, 701 – in 1895 and 803 – in 1905.

The prayer house was set up in the building of the former post station in 1835.

Nida parish was approved in 1849.

A large fire devastated Nida in 1869 – 29 homesteads burned. Only the church and school building remained.

The Nida lighthouse was erected on the forested Urbas Hill in 1874. When the old wooden church building deteriorated, by the initiative of preacher and support of the local community the new Neogothic red brick church was constructed in Nida in 1888.

The new school opened in 1925. In 1933 Nida obtained the city rights. The same year the gliding school started operating. A military resort was opened in 1935.

Before 1945, Nida settlement was divided into Skruzdine (Skruzdin), Purvyne (Purwin), Ragas – Inkaras aat the harbour (Haken oder Ancker) and main Nida village (Hauptdorf) that extended from Jurate Hotel to the church. Remains of these old parts can be seen today in the present Nida street network.

Vacationers and holidaymakers discovered Nida as a destination site in the second half of the 19th century. Many new hotels, restaurants and guesthouses were built in Nida in the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Seeking to meet tourist needs, many native citizens of Nida rebuilt their houses.

Nida from the bird’s flight

1650 inhabitants live in Nida today. The headquarters of Neringa local government are located there