The Baltics – Day 7: Kaunas and Trakai
On my last full day in Lithuania and the Baltic states, I saw my friend Diana, and together we made a trip to Lithuania’s second largest city Kaunas. The modern history of Kaunas is quite interesting, as it briefly became the country’s capital during the interwar period. During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921, Vilnius frequently changed hands between the Poles and the Russians. In 1920, the Soviets awarded the captured city to Lithuania, but Polish President Józef Piłsudski secretly ordered a mutiny to annex Vilnius. Kaunas, which had been Lithuania’s provisional capital during the unrest after WWI, thus remained its capital for twenty years until its return to Lithuania in 1939 by the USSR – which proceeded to annex Lithuania in the following year.