Recently, Kaliningrad acquired a new bridge over the river Pregel.

Well, it’s not exactly new, it’s one of the ancient bridges of Konigsberg. Just that it’s taken Russians sixty odd years to re-instate it following war damage.

Kaliningraders are so surprised and delighted to actually get a piece of useful infrastructure that the bridge has become a [...]]]>

Recently, Kaliningrad acquired a new bridge over the river Pregel.

Well, it’s not exactly new, it’s one of the ancient bridges of Konigsberg. Just that it’s taken Russians sixty odd years to re-instate it following war damage.

Kaliningraders are so surprised and delighted to actually get a piece of useful infrastructure that the bridge has become a kind of walkabout, pramwheeling, social buzzpoint. There are just two small aesthetic problems.

Either way you cross the nicely restored bridge, the view is hideous.

In one direction, the neo repro-Prussian gatehouse is monstered by a building of scant architectural merit. Cross in the opposite direction and you have a view of Kaliningrad’s part-condemned ‘Leaning Tower Block of Pregel’. Photo opps are strictly sideways here.

Sideways, one way. The people with cameras are pointing at the centre’s most photogenic view: the restored (Kant’s) cathedral and the new ‘Fish Village’, a row of reproduction German warehouses. This is the picture you’ll see on most travel guides.

Fish village is a good copy of the old Konigsberg but they’ve made no concessions on the opposite bank, where there’s a brand new apartment block.

That’s so typical of Russians. Find an unblotted landscape and they’ll pour concrete all over it.