Lithuanian Aviation Museum

Contacts
Address: Veiverių g. 132, LT-46338, Kaunas.
Tel.: (+370 ~ 37) 29 55 47, (+370 ~ 37) 39 03 57.
Fax (+370 ~ 37) 29 55 47.
E-mail: aviacijos.muziejus@gmail.com
http://www.lam.lt
Director – Remigijus Jankauskas.

Information for Visitor

Opening hours:
Monday to Saturday 9–17.

Admission:
Adults – 4 Lt;
Pupils, students, pensioners – 2 Lt.

Guided tours:
charge – 10 Lt.

Collections
Stocks of the museum contain 18 000 displays of different fields of technology (2007). The major part of them are monuments of the history of aviation of Lithuania. 40 flying machines are among them.
After signing an agreement on co-operation with the militarized fire-prevention unit of Kaunas on March 4, 1997, displays representing the history of fire fighting in Lithuania started being collected as well.
18 000 publications are stored in the library of the museum (2007).

Exposition

“Lithuanian Aviation from birth to nowadays”
The visitors are shown 220 photographs reflecting development of the Lithuanian aviation from its birth to nowadays. In the center of hall the collection displays propellers of first airplanes of the air club and of the Lithuanian military aviation including ANBO designed by gen. A. Gustaitis.
You may see 4 flying apparatus in the exposition. Beside them are lined aviation engines used in various periods. In the halls are demonstrated models of airplanes, flyers, gliders and helicopters of various times.

Cultural, educational activity
The museum’s publishing house “Steel Wings” publishes literature on the history of Lithuanian aviation.
Publishing house of the museum “Plieno sparnai” (Steel wings) has published 6 booklets of chronicles of the museum, aviators’ memoirs, monographs, ethnographic studies) majority of which are on the history of the aviation of Lithuania.
The museum corresponds and exchanges publications with aviation museums, historians, and editorial offices of periodicals in different countries of the world.
At the end of 1999 the album of photographs kept at the Museum was published under the name “Lithuanian Military Aviation in years from 1919 to 1940”.

Departments
Department of the History of Aviation;
Department of Protection and Registration of the Stock;
Department of Memorial Expositions;
Department of Public Relations and Publication.

Branch Museums

Birthplace of Steponas Darius
Address: Dariaus kaimas, Judrėnų seniūnija, LT-96292 Klaipėdos rajonas.
Tel. (+370 ~ 46) 31 97 67.
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 9–17.
A memorial exhibition in the Rubiskes farmstead (now the Darius village) where Steponas Darius (Steponas Jucevicius) was born 1896 and spent his childhood. He graduated from the Kaunas military school and served in Lithuanian war aviation.
In 1927 he left for the USA where he came to an agreement with Stasys Girenas to fly to Lithuania across the Atlantic. With donations from American Lithuanians they bought an aeroplane which they named the “Lituanica”, reconstructed it and in 1933 left New York for Lithuania. After crossing the Atlantic, “Lithuania” crashed in a forest near Soldin (now Mysliborz, Poland) and they perished. According to the precision of their flight they were first in the world, the second according to the long distance flying record of that time and the forth according to the time spent in the area.

Stasys Girėnas Birthplace
Address: Vytogala, Upynos seniūnija, LT-75241 Šilalės rajonas.
Tel.: (+370 ~ 449) 46 626, (+370 ~ 449) 46 798.
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 9–17.
A memorial exposition in the Vytogala village, the birthplace of Stasys Girėnas (Stanislovas Girskis, 1893–1933). He served in the US airborne squadron, attended a flying school and became an experienced pilot.
In 1927 he met Steponas Darius, they together prepared to fly the “Lituanica”, crossed the Atlantic in 1933 and perished near Soldin.
The aviators are buried in Kaunas.

History of the Museum
The Lithuanian Aviation Museum formerly known as the Lithuanian Technical Museum was founded on February 19, 1990, on the base of the Vytautas the Great Military Museum section of Technical History. It acquired its present name on February 1, 1995.
Its director is Algis Lapinskas. The museum is within the jurisdiction of the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and its located in Kaunas, Lithuania at the Darius and Girenas airfield, which has been in operation since 1915.
The museum was started establishing in 1982 when a senior research worker was employed by Kaunas State Museum of History. He was charged to collect articles of the history of technology.
In 1983 a sector of the history of technology was established in the museum, in 1985 it was reorganized into a division.
In 1985-1987 the division of the history of technology organized 3 conferences on the history of technology in Lithuania, printed theses of reports.
In 1989-1990 the division took over a part of displays of the Museum of Sport Aviation which had functioned in Kaunas in 1983-1989.
On March 21, 1990 buildings owned by the United Aviation Crew of Kaunas in 132 Veiverių St. were transmitted to the division of the history of technology.
On February 19, 1990 on the basis of the division of the history of technology of Vytautas Magnus Military Museum Lithuanian Museum of Technology was established by order of the Minister of Culture.
On March 6, 1991 a publishing house “Plieno sparnai” (Steel wings) was registered.
In summer 1991 the museum took over transatlantic pilots’ S. Darius and S. Girenas homesteads in Klaipeda and Silale regions restored by Lithuanian Cultural Foundation and veterans of aviation.
On February 2, 1995 the museum was named Lithuanian Aviation Museum.
Founder of the museum – Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.

Vytogala
Vytogala is the native village of Stasys Girėnas (1893–1933), an aviator and transatlantic flight pioneer.
Stasys Girėnas and Steponas Darius, both born in Žemaitija, met in the USA, where they had the idea of flying non-stop from new York to Kaunas, then the capital of Lithuania.
On 15 July 1933 they left new York, but were killed in a crash in strange circumstances only 650 kilometers short of Kaunas, on the territory of nazi Germany (now Soldin, Poland).
The distance (6411-km) they flew was the world’s second longest distance non-stop. They crossed the Atlantic under adverse conditions. With only primitive navigation equipment, they flew very precisely. In the history of aviation their flight ranks among the most precise by navigation standards.
Girenas was the 16th child in a poor farmer’s family. Orphaned in their childhood, he and his brother immigrated to the USA where he became a qualified pilot.
His parents’ house has been restored and is now a museum. One-end houses an exhibition devoted to the pilot and his village; in the other is a rich ethnographic exhibition.