- Place
- Klaipėda City Municipality
- Region
- Klaipėda
- Type
- 600-kilogram bronze sculpture by Arūnas Sakalauskas, unveiled in 2017 for Klaipėda's early motor club and traveller Antanas Poška
- Address
- Junction of Pilies, Sukilėlių, and Daržų Streets, Klaipėda
- Coordinates
- 55.70558, 21.13353
- Visit duration
- 10-20 minutes; about 1 hour with Klaipėda Old Town and the castle site
- Best time
- in daylight, when the motorcycle details, rider's gesture, and plinth inscriptions are easiest to see
M.S.C Memelland, Antanas Poška Monument, Antanas Poška Sculpture, Monument to Lithuanian Motorcycling History
Where the monument stands and what you actually see
The monument occupies the southwestern edge of Klaipėda Old Town at the junction of Pilies, Sukilėlių, and Daržų Streets, coordinates 55.705577, 21.133529. Its Maps listing uses the short name M.S.C Memelland, so searching only for Antanas Poška may produce a different point. This is an outdoor artwork beside the pavement, not an exhibit inside a museum or behind gates.
A bearded traveller with green bronze patina sits astride an early motorcycle, one hand on the handlebar and the other raised in a broad greeting. The front wheel, large circular headlamp, travel luggage, and folds of a long garment form one sculptural mass. Walk around the front and both sides to see how the motorcycle also supports the rider's figure.
The composition used approximately 600 kilograms of bronze, while its low, broad plinth contains about 30 tonnes of stone. Inscriptions on the base explain the dedication, but the work is not merely a precise replica of one historic motorcycle. It functions as a shared emblem of travel, technology, and freedom, linking Poška with the earlier club that occupied this exact site.
M.S.C. Memelland in 1925 and the important nuance in the word first
Klaipėda was then known as Memel, and the club's German name was Memellaendischer Automobil und Motorrad Club. Its earliest publicly cited traces appear in local newspapers from 1925. It brought together enthusiasts of cars and motor cycles and organised races whose engine noise drew spectators in the interwar port city.
The location is not decorative or arbitrary. The club's headquarters stood here, associated in sources with the former address Grabenstrasse 7, but the building has not survived. The monument therefore acts as a site marker, restoring a vanished function to a street corner where the surrounding fabric no longer reveals it.
Introductions to the monument often call M.S.C. Memelland Lithuania's first automobile and motorcycle club. The more exact description is the earliest known club of this type documented in Klaipėda's 1925 press. The national Lithuanian Motorcycle Club was formally founded in Kaunas on 11 June 1928, so the two dates and organisations should not be treated as one legal event.
Why Antanas Poška is the traveller on the motorcycle
Antanas Poška, whose surname was Paškevičius until 1929, was born in 1903 and became a traveller, anthropologist, journalist, and one of Lithuania's earliest Esperantists. In 1928 he rode a motorcycle around the Baltic Sea. That achievement directly explains the vehicle in the monument and Poška's choice as a symbol for Lithuanian travellers and motorcyclists.
In autumn 1929, Poška and journalist Matas Šalčius left Kaunas for India across Europe, Africa, and Asia. They parted in Iran, and after a long illness Poška continued alone, reaching India in 1931. The motorcycle was essential to the expedition's beginning, but mechanical failure meant that he did not ride it for every kilometre to India.
Travel diaries and reports sent to the press later formed the basis of the multi-volume From the Baltic to Bengal series. In India, Poška studied anthropology, joined research expeditions, examined local peoples, and explored links between Lithuanian and Sanskrit. The figure consequently commemorates more than a sporting first: it presents travel as a method of learning and scholarship.
From Aurimas Mockus's idea to the 2017 unveiling
Klaipėda motorcyclist and traveller Aurimas Mockus initiated the monument after becoming interested in Lithuanian motorcycling history and the lost clubhouse. Researchers helped identify the historic address, and the privately supported project developed for roughly five years before its public unveiling.
Mockus defined the central image: an early motorcycle, Poška in the saddle, and a raised palm greeting passers-by. Arūnas Sakalauskas created the bronze sculpture, while Vaidotas Dapkevičius and Vladas Balsys worked on the architectural setting. In the sculptor's treatment, machine details and the human body become a single public artwork rather than a restored vehicle.
The monument was unveiled on 22 July 2017 to the sound of motorcycle engines. Its date and authorship are documented, whereas the luck story began at that ceremony: Mockus invited travellers to leave journey tokens on a metal wheel and said that rubbing the motorcycle's headlamp would bring good fortune. This is a modern ritual born with the artwork, not an old belief from Memel's club era.
Free access, care for the bronze, and a 4.8 rating
The sculpture is free to view at any time because the open street site has no gate, ticket office, or separate operating schedule. Daylight best reveals the face, front-wheel tread, and plinth text. The work is illuminated after dark, but visitors should use marked crossings around the busy Pilies and Sukilėlių streets.
A city pavement reaches the monument, and the surface around the low circular base is firm and level. The whole composition is visible without stepping onto the plinth, so there is no reason to climb on the motorcycle. Although touching the headlamp was proposed at the unveiling, repeated contact polishes patina and increases wear; photographing and observing without touching is kinder to the bronze.
Theatre Square is about a five-minute walk away, while the castle site and swing bridge are closer still. The monument works as a short stop on an independent Old Town route, but its significance emerges only when both stories are read: the club's and Poška's. In July 2026, the M.S.C Memelland Google Maps listing showed 4.8 out of 5 from 49 reviews.
