Vytautas the Great War Museum
Lithuania's national military museum, with the Lituanica aircraft and a carillon tower over the memorial garden.
Founded in 1921 in a former tsarist riding hall, the museum moved in 1936 into a purpose-built modernist block on Unity Square designed by Vladimiras Dubeneckis with Karolis Reisonas. Its displays run from prehistoric weapons and the armour of Lithuanian winged hussars through the wars of independence to the partisan resistance of 1944 to 1953. Firearms, artillery, uniforms, banners and archaeological finds fill galleries arranged in broad chronological sequence.
The best known exhibit is the wreckage of the Lituanica, the Bellanca monoplane in which Steponas Darius and Stasys Girenas crossed the Atlantic in 1933 before crashing in Pomerania. Outside, the museum garden holds busts of Lithuanian cultural figures and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, while the tower carries a carillon of dozens of bells whose regular concerts carry across the centre of Kaunas. A separate site on K. Barsausko Street shows heavy military equipment.
Highlights
- Wreckage of the Lituanica, flown across the Atlantic in 1933
- Armour and weapons of Lithuanian winged hussars
- Memorial garden with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
- Carillon in the museum tower, heard across central Kaunas
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