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Kaliningrad

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Coordinates: 54°43′N 20°30′E / 54.717°N 20.500°E / 54.717; 20.500
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For other uses, see [[:the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia]].
Kaliningrad
Flag of Kaliningrad
Flag
Coat of arms of Kaliningrad
Coat of arms
Location of Kaliningrad
Map
Kaliningrad is located in Russia
Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad
Location of Kaliningrad
Coordinates: 54°43′N 20°30′E / 54.717°N 20.500°E / 54.717; 20.500
CountryRussia
Federal subjectKaliningrad Oblast
Founded1255 (Julian)Edit this on Wikidata[1]
Elevation
5 m (16 ft)
Time zoneUTC+2 (MSK–1 Edit this on Wikidata[2])
Postal code(s)[3]
236000Edit this on Wikidata
OKTMO ID27701000001

Kaliningrad (Russian: Калининград, Prussian:Twānksta, Lithuanian: Karaliaučius, German: Königsberg, Polish: Królewiec) is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. The territory, the northern part of the former East Prussia, borders on NATO and EU members Poland and Lithuania, and is geographically separated from the rest of Russia.

Originally named Königsberg, the Prussian and German town had been founded in 1255, and was then largely destroyed during World War II. Its ruins were occupied by the Soviet Army in 1945 and it was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 in honour of Mikhail Kalinin. The former Russian name was Kyonisberg (Кёнисберг).

At the 2002 Census, its population was 430,003, an increase from the 401,280 recorded in the 1989 Census. Its ethnic composition is 77.9% Russians, 8.0% Belarusians, 7.3% Ukrainians, 1.9% Lithuanians,[4] 0.6% Germans and 0.5% Poles.[5]

History

As Königsberg

Main article: Königsberg

The castle of Königsberg was built in 1255 by the Teutonic Knights as a tribute to King Ottokar II of Bohemia, who had led a campaign against pagan Sambians. The town became a member of the Hanseatic League, then in 1457 headquarters of the Teutonic Order, and seat of the secular Duchy of Prussia in 1525. Königsberg became a centre of education when the Albertina University was founded by Duke Albert of Prussia in 1544. By the act of coronation in Königsberg in 1701, Prince-elector Frederick III of Brandenburg became Frederick I, King in Prussia. After World War I, the creation of the Polish Corridor cut off East Prussia and Königsberg from the rest of Weimar Germany.

File:Kb 1949 450.jpg
What remained of Königsberg City Centre in 1949.
File:AfterwarKaliningrad .jpg
King's castle in 1950s

In the bombing of Königsberg in World War II in 1944, the town suffered heavy damage from British air attacks and burned for several days. The historic city center, including Altstadt, Löbenicht and Kneiphof, was completely destroyed: the cathedral, the castle, all the churches of the old city, the old and the new universities and the old shipping quarter were destroyed. The Battle of Königsberg raged all through February and March 1945. The city was bombed and shelled continuously. On April 9 the German military commander surrendered the remnants of his forces. About 50,000 residents (compared to Königsberg's population on January 1, 1940 of 372,270) remained in the ruins of the devastated city. The remaining German population was expelled from 1945–48.

The city is famous in the history of mathematics in connection with the famous Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem. The solution of this problem by Leonard Euler was the beginning of the branch of mathematics known as graph theory, and the first example of methods which were to form the mathematical discipline of Topology.

Soviet Union

Map of Kaliningrad Oblast in the historical Northeastern Prussia
The "House of the Soviets", built on the former site of Königsberg Castle.
The 2006 finished Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

At the end of World War II in 1945, the city became part of the Soviet Union pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement (as part of the Russian SFSR) as agreed upon by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference:

VI. CITY OF KOENIGSBERG AND THE ADJACENT AREA
The Conference examined a proposal by the Soviet Government that pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement the section of the western frontier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which is adjacent to the Baltic Sea should pass from a point on the eastern shore of the Bay of Danzig to the east, north of Braunsberg and Goldap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the Polish Republic and East Prussia.

The Conference has agreed in principle to the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the city of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it as described above, subject to expert examination of the actual frontier.

The President of the United States and the British Prime Minister have declared that they will support the proposal of the Conference at the forthcoming peace settlement.[6]

Koenigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 after the death of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Mikhail Kalinin, one of the original Bolsheviks. The German population was expelled and the city was repopulated with Russian citizens. German was replaced by Russian as the language of everyday life. The city was rebuilt, and went through industrialisation and modernisation. As the westernmost territory of the USSR, the Kaliningrad Oblast became a strategically important area during the Cold War. The Soviet Baltic Fleet was headquartered in the city in the 1950s. Because of its strategic importance, Kaliningrad was closed to foreign visitors.

In 1957 an agreement was signed and later came into force which delimited the boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union. (Full text:[7] ), for other issues of the frontier delimitation see.[8]

Russian Federation

Kaliningrad is the only Russian Baltic Sea port that is ice-free all year around and hence plays an important role in maintenance of the Baltic Fleet.

Due to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Kaliningrad Oblast became an exclave, geographically separated from the rest of Russia. This isolation from the rest of Russia became even more pronounced politically when Poland and Lithuania became members of NATO and subsequently the European Union in 2004. All military and civilian land links between the region and the rest of Russia have to pass through members of NATO and the EU. Special travel arrangements for the territory's inhabitants have been made through the Facilitated Transit Document (FTD) and Facilitated Rail Transit Document (FRTD).[9][10]

Today, there is some debate about changing the name of the city back to "Königsberg" in the same way that several other Russian cities have reverted to their pre-Soviet names, e.g. St. Petersburg and Tver, which were known in the Soviet era as Leningrad and Kalinin, respectively. "Kyonig" (a shortened Russian form of "Königsberg") is often used in advertisements for tourism companies in the region. Another possibility would be to give it a Russian name similar to other historic Slavic names, such as "Korolevets".[citation needed]

In July 2007, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov declared that if US-controlled missile defense systems were deployed in Poland, then nuclear weapons might be deployed in Kaliningrad. On 5 November 2008, Russian leader Dimitry Medvedev said that installing missiles in Kaliningrad was almost a certainty.[11] These plans were suspended, however, in January 2009.[12]

Geography

Kaliningrad is located at the mouth of the navigable Pregolya River/Pregel River, which empties into the Vistula Lagoon, an inlet of the Baltic Sea.

Sea vessels can access Gdańsk Bay/Bay of Danzig and the Baltic Sea by way of the Vistula Lagoon and the Strait of Baltiysk.

Until circa 1900 ships drawing more than Template:M to ft of water could not pass the bar and come into town, so that larger vessels had to anchor at Pillau (now Baltiysk), where merchandise was moved onto smaller vessels. In 1901 a ship canal between Königsberg and Pillau was completed at a cost of 13 million German marks which enabled vessels of a Template:M to ft draught to moor alongside the town. (See also Ports of the Baltic Sea.)

Khrabrovo Airport is located Template:Km to mi north of Kaliningrad, and has a few scheduled/charter services to several destinations throughout Europe. There is the smaller Kaliningrad Devau Airport for general aviation. Kaliningrad is also home to Kaliningrad Chkalovsk naval air base.

City districts

The city is divided into five city districts, called raions.

City raion
(Gorodskoy raion) 		Russian name Inhabitants
1 January 2006 		Notes
Baltiyskiy (Baltic raion) Балтийский 67.461  
Moskovskiy (Moscow raion) Московский 83.389
Leningradskiy (Leningrad raion) Ленинградский 150.757 named after Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, Russia
Oktyabrskiy (October raion) Октябрьский 43.239 named after the October revolution
Tsentralnyy (Central raion) Центральный 78.805 lies to the northwest of the historical city centre

Climate

Climate data for Kaliningrad (1971 - 2000)
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Source: Pogoda.ru.net[13]

Cityscape

Museums

Museum of History and Arts (former city hall)
The Königsberg Cathedral

Kaliningrad has many museums. A few examples are the Immanuel Kant museum on the Kneiphof island, the Museum of History and Arts, which still has parts of the so-called Prussia collection of local archaeological findings, and the Kaliningrad Amber Museum, which is situated in the Dohna tower near the Rossgarten Gate. The city also has an art gallery with eight exhibition rooms.

The Museum of the World's Oceans is located on the former research vessel Wityaz on the shore of the Pregel river. The museum displays the newest technologies on sea research and also shows the diversity of the flora and fauna of the world's oceans. An anchored Foxtrot-class submarine next to the museum, the B-413, hosts an exhibit about the Russian submarine fleet.

Theatre

Main city's theater

The Kaliningrad Philharmonic Orchestra is accommodated in the former Catholic Church of the Holy Family of Königsberg, built in 1907. The church was destroyed during World War II, but rebuilt afterwards. The building, which has noted acoustics, functions as an organ hall since re-opening in 1980.

The city's theater still located in the former Königsberg theater, which was opened in 1910. The building was rebuilt after the war using earlier plans for the theater and opened in 1960. The colonnade in front af the entrance was modeled after the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

The regionally famous Kaliningrad puppet theatre has had its seat since 1975 in the Queen Louise Remembrance Church. This neo-romatic church, designed by architect Fritz Heitmann, was built in 1901.

Architecture

King's Gate
Brandenburg Gate
Gate of the Friedrichsburg Castle
The former Königsberg Stock Exchange

The pre-war city centre (Altstadt and Kneiphof) currently consists of parks, broad avenues, a square on the site of the former Königsberg Castle, and only two buildings: the House of the Soviets ("Dom Sovyetov"), roughly on the site of the former Castle, and the restored Königsberg Cathedral on the Kneiphof island (now "Kant island"). Immanuel Kant's grave is situated next to the Cathedral. The new city centre is concentrated around Victory Square. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, consecrated in 2005, is located on that square.

Also worth seeing are the former Stock Exchange, the surviving churches, and the remaining city gates. In anti-clockwise order these gates are: the Sackheim Gate (German: Sackheimer Tor), King's Gate (German: Königstor), Rossgarten Gate (German: Rossgärter Tor), Attack Gate (German: Ausfallstor), Railway Gate (German: Eisenbahntor), Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor), and Friedland Gate (German: Friedländer Tor). Apart from the already mentioned Dohna tower, which houses the Amber museum, the Wranger tower also remains as a reminder of the former Königsberg city walls. Only the gate of the former Friedrichsburg Castle remains.

Monuments

The Kant statue.
Monument for the 1200 Guardsmen.

Notable monuments include the statue of Immanuel Kant in front of the Immanuel Kant State University of Russia. The statue was made by famous sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch and unveiled in 1864. The statue was destroyed in 1945, but was remolded in 1992 on the initiative of Marion Dönhoff. Also worth seeing is the Cosmonaut monument, which honors the Kaliningrad cosmonauts Alexei Leonov, Yuri Romanenko and Alexander Viktorenko. Other statues and monuments include the statue for count Albrecht, the statue for Friedrich Schiller, the statue for tsar Peter the Great, the "Mother Russia" monument, and the Monument for the 1200 Guardsmen, remembering the Battle of Königsberg.

Parks

The Kaliningrad Zoo was opened as the Königsberg Zoo in 1896. The collection, which extends over 16.5 ha, comprises 315 species with a total of 2264 individual animals (as of 2005). The Kaliningrad zoo is also an arboretum.

Lower Pond

Centrally located in the city is Lower Pond (Russian: Нижний пруд), an artificial lake. Lower Pond is surrounded by a promenade, and the area is popular for recreation, especially in summer.

Culture

Music

The modern city and region of Kaliningrad is home to the Kaliningrad Regional Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestra, the Lik male chamber choir and the Garmonika Russian music ensemble,[14] as well as the Kaliningrad Chamber Orchestra.[15]

Cuisine

Rosgarten gate - now a restaurant

Kaliningrad has its own vodka and beer brands, Stari Konigsberg and Ostmark respectively. Since the early 1990s many new restaurants have opened in the city. These restaurants offer culinary specialities of former East Prussia, like Königsberger Klopse, but also many fish and salad dishes, Italian pizza and sushi, which is as popular in Kaliningrad as in the rest of Russia. Königsberger Fleck, a bovine tripe soup and yet another culinary speciality from former Königsberg, no longer belongs to the eating culture of Kaliningrad.

The people of Kaliningrad generally imported their respective culinary traditions to the region when they settled in the area after 1945. Borshch and okroshka are very popular, like in the rest of Russia.

Transport

Kaliningrad central railway station
A Kaliningrad tram

Kaliningrad's airport is located near Khrabrovo. The airport mainly connects Kaliningrad to other Russian cities, but also offers flights to cities in Western Europe and Israel. In Baltiysk one can take a ferry to Saint Petersburg, Copenhagen, Riga, and Kiel. Kaliningrad's international train station is Kaliningrad Passazhirskiy, which in German times was known as Königsberg Hauptbahnhof. Trains depart in the directions of Malbork, Berlin, Baltiysk, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Minsk, Kharkiv, Anapa, and Bagrationovsk. A unique feature of the Kaliningrad railway is that the track in the direction of Berlin has a normal gauge, instead of the common Russian broad gauge.

Regional trains depart from Kaliningrad Severnyy, the former Königsberg Nordbahnhof, which is situated on Victory Square, the current city centre. Trains depart to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk and also once a day to Sovetsk.

In 1881 the Königsberg tramway was opened, and it still functions to this day. In 1975 a trolleybus system was also introduced.

Economy

In 1996 Kaliningrad was designated a Special Economic Zone. Manufacturers based there get tax and customs duty breaks on the goods they send back to Russia. Although corruption was an early deterrent, that policy means the region is now a manufacturing hub. One in three televisions in Russia is made in Kaliningrad, and it is home to Hummer and BMW car plants. Now Kaliningrad's major industries are manufacturing, shipping, fishing and amber products. Moscow has declared it will turn the region into "the Russian Hong Kong".[16]

The European Commission provides funds for business projects under its special programme for Kaliningrad. The region has begun to see increasing trade with the countries of the EU as well as increasing economic growth and rising industrial output. With an average GDP growth of more than 10% per year for three years to 2007, Kaliningrad is growing faster than any other region in Russia, even outstripping the success of its EU neighbours.[17]

Military

Baltic fleet headquarters

Kaliningrad Oblast used to be the most heavily militarized area of the Russian Federation, and the density of military infrastructure was the highest in Europe. It was the headquarters of the former Soviet Baltic Military District. Kaliningrad also functions as the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet, circled by Chernyakhovsk (air base), Donskoye (air base) and Kaliningrad Chkalovsk (naval air base).

Since 1991 there have been rumors that the Russians have transferred numerous tactical nuclear warheads to the exclave.[18]

Sports

Kaliningrad is home to the football club FC Baltika Kaliningrad, which plays in the Russian First Division.

Notable residents

See also: List of people from Königsberg
Writers
Athletes
Cosmonauts
Others

International relations

Twin towns - Sister cities

Kaliningrad is twinned with:[19]

See also

References

  1. ^ https://books.google.de/books?id=-4AOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&hl=da#v=onepage&q&f=false. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ "Об исчислении времени". Официальный интернет-портал правовой информации (in Russian). 3 June 2011. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  3. ^ Почта России. Информационно-вычислительный центр ОАСУ РПО. (Russian Post). Поиск объектов почтовой связи (Postal Objects Search) (in Russian)
  4. ^ Kaliningrad Oblast
  5. ^ Learn Russian in Russia
  6. ^ "THE POTSDAM DECLARATION". Retrieved 2009-04-02.
  7. ^ "Russia (USSR) / Poland Treaty (with annexed maps) concerning the Demarcation of the Existing Soviet-Polish State Frontier in the Sector Adjoining the Baltic Sea 5 March 1957" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-04-02.
  8. ^ "Maritime boundary delimitation agreements and other material". Retrieved 2009-04-02.
  9. ^ Transit from/to Kaliningrad Region, www.euro.lt
  10. ^ Council Regulation (EC) No 693/2003, eur-lex.europa.eu
  11. ^ "Medvedev Says Russia to Deploy Missiles Near Poland" Associated Press via Yahoo News[dead link]
  12. ^ "Russia scraps plans to deploy nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad" The Guardian
  13. ^ "Pogoda.ru.net" (in Russian). Retrieved September 8 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  14. ^ "Russia's Daily Online". Kommersant. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
  15. ^ Classics Today.com - Your Online Guide to Classical Music
  16. ^ 'Kaliningrad erases stains of past' 16 October 2006
  17. ^ 'Regions and territories: Kaliningrad' 18 December 2007
  18. ^ Bill Gertz, "Russia Transfers Nuclear Arms to Baltics," Washington Times, 3 January 2001, p. 1.
  19. ^ a b c "Kaliningrad - Partner Cities". © 2000-2006 Kaliningrad City Hall. Retrieved 2008-12-08.
  20. ^ "Gdańsk Official Website: 'Miasta partnerskie'" (in Polish & English). © 2009 Urząd Miejski w Gdańsku. Retrieved 2009-07-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  21. ^ "Twin Cities". The City of Łódź Office. File:Uk flag.gif (in English and Polish) © 2007 UMŁ. Retrieved 2008-10-23.
  22. ^ "Malmö stads vänortssamarbete" (in Swedish). © 2004-2009 Malmö stad, 205 80 Malmö, Organisationsnummer: 212000-1124. Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  23. ^ "Biogas - on the "peaceful" purposes". Press service city hall. Retrieved 2003-12-29.[dead link]
  24. ^ "Groningen - Partner Cities". © 2008 Gemeente Groningen, Kreupelstraat 1,9712 HW Groningen. Retrieved 2008-12-08.
  25. ^ "Ireland and Russia build a stragic partnership". Retrieved 2008-12-08.
  26. ^ Kaliningrad information
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