port of Klaipėda. Its board is known as the ‘brains’ of the first Lithuanian port. The most famous Lithuanian marine engineers worked here during the interwar period. Unfortunately, the building is now dilapidated and has only recently been given the status of an object of special interest. Paul Lindenau shipyard. As many as 55 ships were built here before the Soviet occupation. Interestingly, welding, a technology never seen before in this region, was used here for the first time. Let us visit the nearby smithy, where engineer Michail Nedovidejev will tell us that heated metal is like constellations and space. The smithy has a preserved interwar loom. The Maritime Pilots’ House was fiercely fought over for several years and was finally included in the Register of Cultural Heritage. Juozas Andžejauskas, the captain of the first Lithuanian seagoing ships Jūratė and Kastytis, lived in this house. You will have a unique opportunity to see the attic of the old building, where the maritime pilots of the time looked out over the harbour. After the German occupation of Klaipėda, for more than a year this building remained in the so-called ‘free zone’ in the territory of Lithuania, where our national flag fluttered until the Soviets came. According to the historian Dainius Elertas, the ambition of the Lithuanians to invest in the port surprised the Germans, who wondered why they were investing so much in the port if this region would fall like an apple into the Reich’s hand.

Vytautas the Great Gymnasium. According to historian Prof Vasilijus Safronovas, this is one of the most impressive buildings built in Klaipėda in the interwar period, which was distinguished by the fact that it was a stronghold of Lithuanian culture in the German-influenced Klaipėda city. The Lithuanian Society initiated the construction of the building in order to promote Lithuanian identity. It is said to have been the most expensive Lithuanian school built during the interwar period, and was hailed by the press at the time as the most modern building in the Baltic region. The Immanuel Kant School building is now home to the Lithuanian Maritime Academy. It is one of the few schools built by the Klaipėda City Municipality that emerged as a counter to the Lithuanian Vytautas the Great Gymnasium. Classes were taught in German in this school, and various German symbols can be seen as you wander the school’s corridors. Few people know that the dissident Simonas Kudirka, who unsuccessfully attempted to jump from the Soviet ship to the US Coast Guard ship in the 1980s, was also a student at the Immanuel Kant School. We will visit the workshop of Edvardas Malinauskas, an artist who has lived in Klaipėda for 75 years. The artist will not only tell the story of his family’s life but also show an exhibition of his own paintings.