Lietuvos Jūrų Muziejus / Lithuanian Sea Museum
MUSEUM ACTIVITIES
Get to know the mysterious water world!
With this resounding slogan, the Lithuanian Sea Museum invites visitors to visit the continuously enriched and carefully cherished expositions of marine nature and history, and to attend dolphin shows and various special occasions and events.
The Lithuanian Sea Museum is a republican museum, a state budget institution under the authority of the Ministry of Culture. The Museum is situated in Kopgalis, the northernmost end of the range of dunes of the Curonian Spit, where the Curonian Spit peninsula, stretching for 98 km, ends and Klaipėda Seaport gate opens up. In the late 19th century, the Nerija fort was constructed in Kopgalis, which was almost entirely demolished during World War II. In 1979, the Nerija fort was restored and adapted for the needs of the Museum.
The Museum collects, keeps, explores, preserves, restores and promotes museum valuables reflecting the history of navigation of Lithuania and the diversity of marine nature. Diverse expositions are arranged using the state-of-art technologies and modern ways of conveying information. Thus multifunctional educational and research activities are developed more actively.
Expositions in halls, pools and outdoors
The Lithuanian Sea Museum was opened in the reconstructed Nerija fort in 1979. Aquaria with Lithuanian freshwater fish, fish species from the Baltic Sea and tropical seas were constructed and the exposition of marine nature was created.
The Lithuanian Sea Museum occupies the area of approximately 13 hectares. Outdoor pools for penguins, Baltic grey seals and Steller sea lions were equipped next to the central redoubt. The exposition of the history of navigation of Lithuania is housed in the posterns and casemates under the ramparts; while the collection of ancient and modern anchors is displayed on ramparts, earlier served for gun emplacements. In total, the collections of the Lithuanian Sea Museum contain more than 88 thousand exhibits. The most abundant collection is that of marine fauna and includes the following exhibits: mollusc shells, corals, crustaceans, echinoderms, sea birds, fish and mammals. Besides, the collections of the Museum include a variety of geological, archaeological, ethnographic, numismatic, cartographic, technical, writing and philatelic exhibits. In the meantime, the Lithuanian Sea Museum is under reconstruction, but visitors are welcome to the Dolphinarium, the ethnographic fisherman's homestead and the grounds of old fishing vessels.
In 1994, the Dolphinarium of the Lithuanian Sea Museum was opened - the only one of such kind on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Black Sea bottlenose dolphins, that belong to the class of mammals, the suborder of toothed whales, live there. The Dolphonarium invites visitors to attend entertaining educational shows and to get to know one of the most intellectual marine mammals. Since 2001, the dolphin assisted therapy is being offered in the Dolphinarium of the Lithuanian Sea Museum. It is a very special project involving interaction of dolphins and children facing various health problems.
The Lithuanian Sea Museum is proud of its sailing exhibit - a boat of the kurėnas type, built in 2001 which participates in ethno-cultural expeditions annually arranged in Lithuania and abroad.
The reconstructed Dolphinarium
bd_24_0.jpgThe Dolphinarium was built more than twenty years ago. In 2010, the Dolphinarium was closed for reconstruction and the dolphins were taken to the Attica Zoological Park in Greece.