Kandava

Kandava grew beside a Curonian hillfort in the Abava valley, in the land of Vanema. A settlement called Candowe appears in a treaty of 1230, and the Livonian Order built a castle here around 1257. By 1312 the castle was the seat of a vogt, administering the former Curonian district. Under Duke Jacob of Courland, workshops around Kandava included a flax-weaving mill and a gunpowder mill. War brought destruction: Swedish troops sacked the castle during the Second Northern War and again in 1703. A plague in 1710 devastated the population. The village slowly recovered, with two schools opened in 1730 and a new church built in 1736.