Jeremy HildrethTag Archives: Russia
Perm-36: Party in the Gulag
I went with Oliver. I always go with Oliver, in Russia at least. Three of the four trips — grand adventures, really — I’ve been on in Russia have been shared with Oliver. First, in 2001, it was St. Petersburg. Last year it was Kaliningrad. This time it was Perm, a top-ten Russian city I’d [...]
Dispatch from Kaliningrad 3: The Curonian Spit
Read Part 1. Read Part 2. You’d think you’d know it if you were on a mile-wide strip of sand with water on both sides. But the Curonian Spit is so heavily forested that you cannot see anything but trees when you drive along the main road. The Spit is a geographical anomaly: it’s narrowness [...]
Dispatch from Kaliningrad 2: Konigsberg transmogrified
Read Part 1. There 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, [...]
Dispatch from Kaliningrad 1: The bridge to Tilsit
Stuck at the Russian border for 6 hours.
Tourist Friendliness 101
One hundred and fifty euros for a Russian visa. Nearly six hours waiting to cross the border at Sovetsk/Tilsit. And 134km from there to the city of Kaliningrad/Königsberg. Königsberg Cathedral is the jewel of what precious little is left here of German architecture — the site the official tourist brochure says to visit first and [...]
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