Eleja is a
village
A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...
in the
Eleja Parish of
Jelgava Municipality
Jelgava Municipality () is a Administrative divisions of Latvia, municipality in Zemgale, Latvia. Its administrative center is Jelgava, although it is extraterritorial as the city is a separate municipality of its own.
The municipality was formed ...
in the
Semigallia
Semigallia is one of the Historical Latvian Lands located to the south of the Daugava and to the north of the Saule region of Samogitia. The territory is split between Latvia and Lithuania, previously inhabited by the Semigallian Baltic tri ...
region of
Latvia
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
. Located 27 km south from
Jelgava
Jelgava () is a state city in central Latvia. It is located about southwest of Riga. It is the largest town in the Semigallia region of Latvia. Jelgava was the capital of the united Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (1578–1795) and was the ad ...
it spreads along the
A8 highway crossroads with the regional P103 road.
Meitene railroad station, located in the village, is no longer used for passenger service. The actual village of Meitene is a couple of kilometers south, right on the Latvia-Lithuania border.
History
During the 16th century the Eleja manor was established by the
Eleja river. Owned first by Georg von Tiesenhausen from the
Tyzenhaus family and later by Ulrich von Baehr (''Bähr'') in 1753 it was purchased by Count
Johann Friedrich von Medem. Medem family owned it until the
land reform of 1920.
Between the 1806 and 1810 a grand new
Eleja manor house was built here, which was burned down by the retreating Russian army in July 1915 and further demolished during the 1920-30s. Some efforts at renovating the manor house building complex and the arched stone fence started in 2015.
During the German military occupation the
Jelgava–Meitene Railway was built through here, with a
narrow-gauge railroad
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curv ...
connection between Meitene and
Bauska
Bauska () is a town in its Bauska Municipality, eponymous municipality, found in the Zemgale region of southern Latvia.
Bauska is located from the Latvian capital Riga, 62 km (38.5 mi) from Jelgava and from the Lithuanian border on t ...
built in 1916. During this time a new village named ''Vilkudārzs'' (Wolf's garden) started growing here. On 1932 the place was given the rights of village and on 1936 given its present name – Eleja.
From 1949 until 1956 it was the administrative center of the Eleja district. On February 21, 1950 it was named a worker's village; on 1961 elevated to the level of
urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement, abbreviated: ; , abbreviated: ; ; ; ; . is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the So ...
, which it lost after 1990 territorial reform when Eleja and the surrounding Eleja country territory was united in a single parish. From 2009 included in the Jelgava municipality.
Despite all the territorial changes, Eleja still is the center of the local area where the local administration, high school, kindergarten, library and community center are located.
Latraps, one of Latvia's largest farmers co-operatives, has a production site here.
Processing station of all agricultural products in Eleja
/ref>
External links
Eleja manor and park
Eleja parish website
References
{{Jelgava Municipality
Villages in Semigallia
Populated places in Jelgava Municipality