Jeremy HildrethThere is a Baltic legend of the city Wanetha, a coastal conurbation which was sunk into the sea in retribution for the sins and errors of its citizens. Anybody familiar with this myth would certainly recall it when listening to the tale of Kaliningrad.
Konigsberg, as the city was called until 1946, was founded in 1255 as the seat of the Teutonic Knights, joined the Hanseatic League in 1340, and was the capital of East Prussia from 1878 to 1945; it became an exclave, part of but separated from Germany, after the Treaty of Versailles in 1918.
Konigsberg Castle, circa 1910
...and the "House of the Soviets" which replaced it
The city may once have looked as glamourous as, say, Prague, and been populated by Germans. But it doesn’t look like much of anything now, and is entirely Russian in composition. This is the consequence of British bombs and Brezhnev’s urban planning (Brezhnev wanted Kaliningrad to become a model Soviet city). And the Red Army’s misbehaviour.
The story of the origins of Kaliningrad is well told in Isabel Denny’s The Fall of Hitler’s Fortress City: The Battle for Konigsberg, 1945
The writer Arno Surminski, who was born in East Prussia in 1934, also saw young soldiers in 1945 with rows of watches up each of their arms:
“To these youths from central and Asiatic Russia, watches were a valuable rarity. These lads had experienced nothing but hardship; they had lived off dried bread, slept in barns and march for hundreds of kilometres. They had reached a part of Germany which had barely been touched by the war and the contrast with home was astounding to them.”
Most of these young soldiers were peasants and had never encountered prosperous houses full of furniture, china, clothes and jewellery; they were desperate to get their hands on any booty they could find. Many had never seen a bathroom or lavatory and did not know how to use them and there are stories of young Soviet troops cladding themselves in women’s lacy nightgowns and cavorting around the streets in their finery. Godfrey Lias us, however, noticed that, “In many cases the watches were thrown away or given away when they stopped because the looters did not know they needed winding.”
Unbelievable. And no doubt perfectly normal in wartime, which is one of a handful of ‘interesting times’ I hope to live out my days without being forced (or inspired) to experience firsthand.
In the end, Denny is unwavering. Her conclusion is not exactly that the citizens of Konigsberg deserved what they got (although they were among, or among them were, some of Hitler’s earliest and most devout champions). Rather, her conclusion is that the beyond-the-pale viciousness of Konigsberg’s overrun did not happen without context. As she writes in the 256-page book’s closing paragraph:
The manner in which the people of East Prussia had to flee and the fate of those who stayed behind were a direct result of German conduct during the war. Hitler’s refusal to countenance an orderly evacuation meant that the Germans of East Prussia and the citizens of the once beautiful city of Konigsburg became both his victims and part of his final sacrifice.
However you like to parse responsibility for the situation, the fact is that World War II erased Konigsberg, one of Europe’s most storied and unique cities, from the map entirely. Official records apparently list only 15 pre-war buildings still standing in modern Kaliningrad.
Fake old buildings show how the city used to look.
Kaliningrad's main square.
Oliver and Richard and the ad for the 'Chocolate School of Striptease"
The crew looking contemplative at Kant's tomb.
Oliver and Richard puff the rough Belomorkanal cigarettes.
My "Belomorigami" with the Belomorkanal cardboard filters.
So Kaliningrad is not an eye pleasing city, but it seems — to the casual empiricist — a decent one, and more than halfway prosperous.
The supermarkets were nicer than anything we’d ever seen in Tallinn or Vilnius.
Restaurants had good food and good service; ring a bell and the waitress comes.
One ‘fancy’ restaurant, in one of the old Konigsberg city gates, served the best meal I’ve had in the Baltics. We had it all to ourselves on a Sunday night. And I learned a new Russian word: zakuska. This is the food that accompanies the vodka course, the half-dill pickle slices you pop into your mouth to counteract the taste and fumes of the vodka shot you just downed. (The restaurant is called Solnechnyj Kamenj, in direct translation, “Sunny Stone,” a nickname amber; its address is on Vasilievsky Street, and its phone number is 539-106 or 539-105.)
The nightlife was hard to gauge since our own big night out fell on a Sunday. But even on an off-peak evening, we had options till well past the witching hour.
Planeta nightclub.
The shoe symbol asks for respect for a female driver.
The next day we took our time covering the 40km to the seaside resort town of Svetlogorsk. Like the rest of Kaliningrad Oblast that we’d seen, it impressed me more than anything else for how fully ‘first world’ it was compared to my expectations. Though not a place I’d particularly want to spend a long holiday myself, it was an utterly relaxing and convenient big city weekend getaway. Local visitors looked happy and well kept, and although Oliver’s paella was oddly prepared (it was laced with curry!) it, and most of the other food we had, tasted good.
Svetlogorsk’s seaside promenade.
After a night in Svetlogorsk, we climbed back in the car for the drive up the Curonian Spit, a 98-km long thin, curved sand dune peninsula that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. The Spit was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 because of the human efforts since prehistoric times which have prevented its complete erosion. We were eager to check it out.
Good story. But you’ve seen only a small part of Kaliningrad region. We have so many unique places, so many legends, you cannot imagine. Your route was a standard one.