The Mythical Beast of Kaunas

is a story-telling project of Kaunas

In 2022, “The Mythical Beast of Kaunas” programme attracted:

visitors

participants

professionals

audience reached by the media

Throughout the centuries, various things happened in Kaunas: 

Vytautas the Great fought the Teutonic order, and later sailed Nemunas to baptise the Samogitians. Hanza merchants sold salt, iron and maybe something stronger. Napoleon and his marauding army ran around Kaunas, and later Russian generals ordered to build here a very interesting by redundant fortress. Then better times arrived, and Kaunas became the temporary capital. A lot of good things happened here: Lithuanian modernism, Esperanto and Lithuanian cinema. 

Everything happened in Kaunas, but all these things disappeared or moved elsewhere. 

What remained in Kaunas all this time then? 

There were always Kaunasians! The Mythical Beast of Kaunas and its story is precisely a story about those Kaunasians. The Beast has been the first and will be the last Kaunasian. What is it like? What’s its story? How and what can be told about Kaunas?

All these things were created by the Mythical Beast platform of the European Capital of Culture.

WWW.KAUNOLEGENDA.LT

In 2022, “The Mythical Beast of Kaunas” programme organized:

events

other activities

The team co-created the Myth of Kaunas with Kaunasians: 

Organised workshops of creative writing;

Developed the online portal www.kaunolegenda.lt ;

Published a book for children about the European Capital of Culture programme “The Great Fairy-Tale Book of the Beast of Kaunas”;

Created new and collected all existing fairy-tales, legends and stories about Kaunas, Kaunasians, the Beast of Kaunas and other interesting things;

Employing cutting-edge technologies, developed an augmented reality tourist route around Kaunas;

Echoed the snoring of the Mythical Beast of Kaunas sleeping under Kaunas Castle;

Announced the open calls for the artists-professionals around the globe to visualize the Beast of Kaunas;

Created the Beast of Kaunas board game, which reveals many secrets about Kaunas;

The most important thing, stories we created together in this platform were used to create THE CONTEMPORARY MYTH OF KAUNAS TRILOGY.

The trilogy was launched with “The Confusion” which shattered the old mindset; the city welcomed spring with “The Confluence”, the most breathtaking weekend in its history; and the European Capital of Culture’s programme will come to a close with “The Contract”.

In 2022, main events programme attracted:

visitors

participants

professional

audience reached by the media

Confusion

Trilogy: Act 1

ARCHIVE
EVENT RECORDING

Confluence

Trilogy: Act 2

ARCHIVE
EVENT RECORDING

Contract

Trilogy: Act 3

ARCHIVE
EVENT RECORDING

Contract

1. Every city is beautiful.  
2. Every city is a city of love.
3. Every city is like Kaunas and Kaunas is like every city.
4. Every city has suffered in the past.
5. Every city wants to be happy in the future.
6. People we know are good people.
7. People we don’t know are good people.
8. People we don’t understand are good people.
9. My freedom depends on the freedom of others.
10. Kaunas is forever. 

WWW.KAUNOLEGENDA.LT ARCHIVE

PROGRAMME CREATED BY: 

Rytis Zemkauskas 

Indrė Aleksandravičiūtė

Renata Bartusevičiūtė  

Appearance of The Kaunas Mythical Beast was created by Darius Petreikis