Page 266 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Estonia Latvia & Lithuania

264  LITHU ANIA REGION B Y REGION

Exploring Modern Kaunas However, the main focus of
the museum is the re-creation
Stretching eastwards from the Old Town is Kaunas’s of the story of the doomed
modernized New Town. The process of its expansion began in transatlantic flight of the
the 19th century, and today it is the hub of commercial and Lituanica in July 1933. The pilots,
cultural life in the city. The museums and other sites are found Steponas Darius and Stasys
Girėnas, died in the crash, but
around the heart of modern Kaunas in Laisvės (Freedom) the distance covered (6,411 km/
Avenue. This broad, leafy, pedestrianized boulevard is lined 3,984 miles) was the second-
with shops, pavement cafés, restaurants and bars, and is the longest flight ever recorded. The
place local people come to stroll and mingle. plane’s wreckage is on display.
E Devils Museum
R Church of the V Putvinskio 64. Tel (37) 221 587.
Resurrection Open 10am–5pm Tue–Sun. & 8
Žemaičių 31. Tel (37) 229 222. 5 6pm - =
Mon–Fri; 9:30am, 11am, 12:30pm Sun. This museum’s fine collection of
With a 70-m (230-ft) steeple, this representations of devils, demons
church was built in 1918 to mark and witches from Lithuania and
Lithuanian independence. After around the world, was brought
World War II, the Soviets turned it together by avid collector
into a radio factory. With indepen- Antanas Žmuidzinavičius (1876–
dence regained, the factory was 1966). A sculpture of the horned
evicted. After reconstruc tion the fig ures of Hitler and Stalin fight-
church was consecrated on ing over Lithuania in a pit of
Christmas Day 2004. bones is grim, but most of the
Laisvės Avenue leading to the Church devils are shown as playful,
of St Michael E M K Čiurlionis Art musi cal and frequently drunk.
Museum
P Laisvės Avenue V Putvinskio 55. Tel (37) 229 475. E Ninth Fort
At the eastern end of this Open 11am–5pm Tue–Sun (to Žemaičių 73. Tel (37) 377 750.
boulevard are the blue-silver 7pm Thu). & 8 ∑ ciurlionis.lt Open 10am–6pm Thu–Mon.
onion domes of the Church of Housing virtually all of Čiurlionis’s 8 ∑ 9fortomuziejus.lt
St Michael. Originally Russian paintings, this museum also The ninth in a series of
Orthodox when it was built in covers the deve lop ment of art in forti fications constructed by
the early 1890s, it was later Lithuania. With 335,000 exhibits, Tsarist Russia to protect its
converted to serve the Lithuanian it holds Lithuania’s biggest art western borders was built in the
army. A monu ment by the park collection, but there is only room early 20th century, only
outside the Music Theatre at to display a fraction of the pieces. to become a prison in 1924.
Laisvės 4 marks the spot where Artifacts from other cultures During World War II, it was used
Romas Kalanta, a Lithuanian include some oddly juxtaposed for incarce ration and exterm-
student, set fire to himself on pieces from Ancient Egypt. ination by the Nazis. The fort
14 May 1972 in protest against also housed Soviet political
Soviet rule. His suicide sparked E Vytautas the Great prisoners. Part of a farm after the
student protests, which were War Museum war, it opened as a “museum to
ruthlessly suppressed. Donelaičio 64. Tel (37) 320 939. the victims of Fascism” in 1958.
Open 11am–5pm Tue–Sun. & 8 The renovation in 2015 has
E Mykolas Žilinskas Lithuania’s national war museum resulted in expanded displays
Art Gallery exhibits weapons that the on the Nazi and Soviet occupa-
Nepriklausomybės 12. Tel (37) 222 853. country has used to defend itself. tions and the history of the fort.
Open 11am–5pm Tue–Sun. & 8
An exile who had fled from
Kaunas to West Berlin in advance
of the Soviets in 1940, Mykolas
Žilinskas (1904–92) later built a
valuable art collec tion, which he
donated to Kaunas in the 1970s.
Besides canvases and porcelain
from the 16th to the 20th
centuries, inclu ding The Crucifixion
by Rubens and some early Soviet
avant-garde art, there are also
pre-war paintings and sculp tures
by Baltic artists. Artillery on show at the Vytautas the Great War Museum
For hotels and restaurants in this region see pp305–306 and pp328–30

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