Aukštieji Šančiai Cemetery

Kaunas


Beloved Lithuanian pilots Steponas Darius and Stanislovas Girėnas died on 15 July 1933, just 650km short of completing the longest nonstop transatlantic flight at the time. Two days after the duo set off from New York, 25,000 people gathered at Kaunas airport for their triumphant return. They never arrived. Their orange plane Lituanica crashed in Germany. After being embalmed, then hidden during Soviet occupation, the bodies came to rest here in 1964.


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