The excellent ‘In Your Pocket’ guide wrote of Svetlogorsk: ‘The whole experience is still decidedly Russian. Savour it before it becomes another generic seaside resort.’
This was written before the Schengen curtain went up around Kaliningrad. These days, Svetlogorsk is in scant danger of euro-isation. The main visitors are Moscow property developers and day trippers from Kaliningrad. So you’ll still get dill with everything and a strong whiff of barbecues in the Baltic breeze.
A sunny Sunday is normally the cue for Kaliningraders to head for the coast.
Svetlogorsk is actually two places, imaginatively called Svetlogorsk 1 and 2, which roughly equate to ‘ville’ and ‘plage’. Svetlogorsk 1 is the old spa centre, with lakeside sanatoria. The old wooden station (1900) here is the real deal, but in Svetlogorsk 2 you’ll set down from the elektrische at the new, repro-Prussian terminal.
First stop on the promenade is the sundial. It’s said to be the largest in Europe and a Soviet miracle from the 1970s. Originally it was Friedrich-Wilhelm IV who ordered the resort to be prettified, though it’s unlikely he had this in mind. It’s also a least a quarter of an hour out.
There are many stalls in Svetlogorsk but only really two kinds of souvenirs. The majority are trinkets from the local amber mines. Other stalls sell pottery with both German and Russian motifs: Konigsberg and Kaliningrad, or Rauschen and Svetlogorsk. They appear as if self-twinning towns.
In its heyday, Rauschen had 3,000 closed beach cabins for changing. In Svetlogorsk you just take your underpants and some vodka.
After the beach, it’s a wander around the cafes to Russian romances.
Svetlogorsk has its luxe hotels of course but to enjoy it Russian style you can’t do better than rent a cabin in the old Pioneer camp. (Old Pioneers welcome.) For more about Svetlogorsk, click the ‘Svetlogorsk’ tag.
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