History | kaliningrad

Rural Decay

Goodness knows where Igor Yakimov found this old footage. The voice over says: ‘Ost Preussen ist das Deutsche Pferdeland‘ . . . For 200 years indeed it was. King Friedrich Wilhelm 1 had a stud here and bred the famous ‘Trakhener‘ horse. At one time it employed over 3,000 people.

When the Red Army advanced, the [...]

The Rise And Fall Of Prussia

Here’s 500 years of history in about four minutes. Technology is so cool. Although it’s fun to watch the shaded areas, one tends to forget that these represent people. Thanks to Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, almost 17 million people were dispossessed when the map of Europe was redrawn at the Potsdam conference. Not only Germans, [...]

No Such Place As Kaliningrad

Before the war, East Prussia was home to over two million people. The last of the few thousand survivors were all expelled by 1948.

The first Russian settlers of the new Kaliningrad Oblast arrived to eerie, half-empty houses in an alien landscape. Among the tiled German villas with steep gables, the Baltic sand and pines, there [...]

From Russia To Prussia

Kaliningrad isn’t quite like any other city in Russia. That’s because it isn’t in Russia at all. Until 1945, Kaliningrad was the Prussian port of Konigsberg.

Stalin won the territory in all that crude border shuffling that went on after WW2. Poland was pushed to the left and Konigsberg became the western boundary of the Soviet [...]

More Tragic Than The Titanic

This is the Wilhelm Gustloff, all set to sail on an exotic cruise from Hamburg. It was built during the golden age of luxury liners, a floating showcase of shining brass, polished mahogany, pampering cabin staff and Captain’s Table cuisine.

During wartime it was pressed into service as a hospital ship. On its last voyage it [...]

No Legal Right

Konigsberg was overrun by the Red Army 1945. And any encyclo today will tell you it’s been part of Russia ever since. But as Raymond A. Smith points out, Russia has never held any formal legal title to the Oblast at all.

At the end of the war, Germany was being given away by the Allies [...]

Back To The Future

There are plans in Kaliningrad to rebuild the old Prussian castle.

Firebombed by the RAF in 1944, it was then levelled in 1969 to build the ill-conceived ‘House Of Soviets‘. Known locally is the ‘Monster’, this concrete egg-box has never been quite finished or occupied. Finally the blot on the landscape has to go.

Alexander Bahzin thinks [...]