Lituanica
Six thousand kilometres over the Atlantic before the crash.
U.S. Army National Guard photo by Spc. Andres Nunez — Public domain · U.S. Army National Guard photo by Spc. Andres Nunez — Public domain · U.S. Army National Guard photo by Spc. Andres Nunez — Public domain · Rob Oo from NL — CC BY 4.0
Two Lithuanian pilots who emigrated to America and in 1933 attempted a non-stop Atlantic crossing in their homeland's honour; their plane crashed in Germany for reasons never settled — and they became the symbol of national ambition, their faces on the ten-litas note for decades.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
Lithuania's military museum and a symbol of its interwar independence: founded in 1921 after the first independence and named for Grand Duke Vytautas, its present building (1936) is a landmark of Kaunas modernism — with a garden of statues of the nation's figures before it and a carillon tower that plays the anthem on the hour. Its display runs from medieval weapons and knights' armour to the wars of the twentieth century and the resistance against the Soviets. Its most famous exhibit is not a weapon: the wreck of Lituanica, the aircraft in which the Lithuanian-American pilots Darius and Girėnas tried to cross the Atlantic non-stop from New York to Kaunas in 1933 — they flew 6,411 kilometres and crashed in Germany six hundred short of arriving. The pilots became a national legend, their faces on Lithuanian currency for decades, and the wreck is displayed here as a relic. The other wing is the Čiurlionis art museum — the two buildings adjoin, on separate tickets.
Six thousand kilometres over the Atlantic before the crash.
The nation's figures before a modernist front.
K. Donelaičio g. 64, Kaunas