Bauska Municipality
Livonian fortress (1443) guarding the Lielupe confluence. Rundāle Palace (Rastrelli, 1736) built for a duke who spent 22 years exiled to Siberia.
Bauska controls the confluence of the Mūsa and Mēmele rivers—the point where they merge into the Lielupe. In 1443, the Livonian Order built a fortress here to guard the Lithuanian border and tax the trade route to Riga. That geographic logic persists: Bauska still sits at a strategic crossing.
The castle evolved through three phases: Livonian Order fortress (1443), Duke of Courland residence (16th century), and finally ruin after the Great Northern War. Today it's the only partially preserved residence of the Courland dukes. But Bauska's greater fame lies 12 km west.
Rundāle Palace is Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli's Baroque masterpiece, built 1736-1768 for Ernst Johann von Biron with funding from Empress Anna Ioannovna. Construction paused entirely while Biron served 22 years of Siberian exile. The palace survived partial burning by retreating Bermontians in 1919 and served as a school until 1978.
Zemgale is called Latvia's "bread basket"—the fertile plains around Bauska produce grain on a scale the rest of the country cannot match. By 2026, agricultural modernization and EU subsidies will determine whether Zemgale remains productive farmland or transitions to something else.