Tobacco Factory (now known as Culture Factory)

Lelb Werblowsky’s Tobacco and Cigarette Factory was built on a plot at Bangų Street 7 (former Malūnų Pylimo Street 5) in 1912 and successfully operated until 1939.
In 1945, the territory of Klaipėda Tobacco Factory featured four single-storey barracks for the camp of the German prisoners of war. At one time it contained about 815 prisoners. They used to clean the ruins of the city and each of them used to bring a brick in their hands on their way back. These bricks were used for the administrative premises, located near the street. Once, the camp was closed and the prisoners were taken to an unknown destination. A couple of months later the tobacco factory worked as a prisoner camp again, which was liquidated in the same year.
Klaipėda Tobacco Factory operated in this building from 1954 to 1997. The old tobacco factory was established in the modern-day 5-storey brick rectangular building in the depth of the plot. The single-storey administrative building, built before the war closer to the street was reconstructed numerous times and thus eventually acknowledged as of no value and demolished.
In 1993-1994, Philip Morris international tobacco manufacturing company purchased the state company Klaipėda Cigarette Factory and everything was transferred into the hands of private capital with the goal of increasing sales and earning greater profits.
After the factory was closed, in 2001, the building was transferred to Klaipėda Municipality Administration.
In 2014, after capital renovations, the building became a Culture Factory – a creative business and art incubator.

Compiled in 2018