Despite its many shortcomings, the arrival of a museum dedicated to Kaunas is a welcome addition indeed. However, what should be a fascinating collection of exhibits celebrating the rich cultural and ethnic history of the city from its founding up until 1940 is in reality just three small rooms, mostly labelled in Lithuanian only, that is, more or less, completely baffling. In their defence, what the museum does choose to display, including some wonderful old photographs and a fine collection of items from the city’s Golden Age between the wars, is enlightening, but it’s what’s missing that you notice more than what’s actually there. Commendable but equally bewildering, upstairs is an exhibition dedicated to Vincentas Sladkevičius (1920-2000), Archbishop of Kaunas from 1989 until 1996 and a Cardinal from 1988, whose many personal possessions, furniture and other effects can be found in two small rooms.
[...]

Add your comment

This bizarre museum owes its existence to the eccentric Antanas Žmuidzinavičius (1876-1966) who collected over 2,000 depictions of devils from all over the world. There are wood carvings, soft toys and loads of references to the devilish influence of music and alcohol. Of particular interest are the Hitler and Stalin devils, doing the dance of death over a helpless Lithuania. Dating from Soviet times, Stalin wasn't in fact depicted as a devil, he just happens to look that way.
[...]

Add your comment

One of the city’s lesser known museums, this fascinating look into the world of Lithuanian education is divided into three main areas of schooling, namely the 19th century, between the wars and a combined exhibit looking at education under the Soviets and Lithuanian schools abroad during the same period. Truly revolutionary for a Lithuanian museum, as well as the usual collection of recreated classrooms, globes and pioneer uniforms are a series of drawers and cupboards designed to be opened by visitors and revealing all manner of surprises. Essentially designed for children, and not featuring much information in English, the museum is still worth a visit, although the help of a translator to get the full story is highly recommended.
[...]

Add your comment

A small collection celebrating some of the country's greatest sporting achievements in a musty attic, including such rarities as Soviet table tennis balls to one of the torches used at the opening ceremony of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.
[...]

Add your comment

Designed to illustrate the often spooky history of the development of Lithuanian medicine, this extraordinary museum contains all manner of things from perfectly preserved apothecary shops to jars full of dried herbs. Apparently, the dissolved hair of the Roman Goddess of Love, Venus, a sample of which they claim to possess, is an excellent elixir to keep women looking young and pretty. Among the other more ghoulish exhibits are the ground-up heads of corpses which apparently take the edge off epilepsy.
[...]

Add your comment

Painter, composer, mystic and depressive are some of the adjectives that have been used to describe the nation's favourite painter and composer. During his short lifetime, Čiurlionis (1875-1911) penned the first Lithuanian symphony, Miške (In The Forest, 1901), painted prolifically and even found time to get married and have a daughter. Many claim that Čiurlionis was the inventor of abstract art as opposed to Kandinsky as the history books dictate. The museum features many of his original paintings and offers the chance to sit in a small lecture theatre and listen to his music.
[...]

Add your comment

The last of the defensive forts built in and around Kaunas to protect the westernmost point of the Russian Empire, work began on the Ninth Fort in 1902 and was completed on the eve of WWI. In 1924 it was turned into a prison, serving this purpose under the Lithuanians, Soviets, Nazis (who used it a [...]

Add your comment

Named after the famed Lithuanian zoologist and biologist Tadas Ivanauskas (1882- 1971), find three magnificent if slightly old-fashioned floors containing no less than 172,696 former living things at the last count, among them display cases full of beautiful butterflies, large, frightening snakes plus some rather vacant-looking monkeys and penguins. The museum continues to ignore the fact that there are plenty of visitors to Kaunas who don’t speak Lithuanian or Russian, although if you’re looking for something to keep children amused for a while this won’t really matter.
[...]

Add your comment