Address
132 Veiveriu St, LT-46337, Kaunas.
Tel.: +370-37-295547, +370-37-390357.
Fax +370-37-295547.
E-mail: lam@lam.lt.
Internet: http://www.lam.lt.
Opening times
Monday to Saturday 9.00–17.00.
Museum’s
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”.
Museum’s
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: Darius village, LT-96292, Klaipeda
region.
Tel. +370-46-319767.
Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9.00–17.00.
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 Girenas Birthplace
Address: Vytogala, LT-75241, Silale region.
Tel.: +370-449-46626, +370-449-46798.
Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9.00–17.00.
A memorial exposition in the
Vytogala village, the birthplace of Stasys Girenas (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.
Museum’s
history fragments
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 Veiveriu St. 132 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.
Other
news about the Museum
Founder of the museum
– Ministry
of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.
Head of the museum – Remigijus Jankauskas.
Vytogala
– the native village of aviator S. Girenas
Vytogala is the native village of
Stasys Girenas (1893-1933), an aviator and transatlantic flight pioneer.
Stasys Girenas and Steponas Darius, both born in Zemaitija, 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.
