12
June is a national holiday in Russia, called Russia Day. This year it
fell on a Tuesday, so I was able to have a four day weekend from
school. Claire and I took the chance to book flights to Kaliningrad,
the region of Russia that is separated from the mainland.
Kaliningrad
is a state of Russia surrounded by Poland and Lithuania. Centuries
ago (when it was called Konigsberg,) it was part of Prussia, first
part of Poland, then part of Germany. During WW2 the area was heavily
damaged, and many people left and went back to mainland Germany.
Russia sent in soldiers and took over the area, (after a siege,) changing the name of
the city to Kaliningrad in 1946.
Russia
deported many of the remaining Germans, and brought in a bunch of
Russians to settle the state. One would think there might still be a
lot of German culture and architecture left, but that wasn't what we
saw, not for the most part.
I've
wanted to go to Kaliningrad for yonks, but since it is part of
Russia, that made it hard to do. For most people, you have to get a
visa for Russia, and most people have to enter Kaliningrad via
mainland Russia.
Even if there is a direct flight to Kaliningrad from
whereva you are, you have to be Russian (or a few other
nationalities, but not many,) to take it. Since I'm now living in
Russia, it's an easy visit to make.
Our
flight was only a couple hours, yay! We flew on a Friday afternoon,
it was still light when we landed. For whateva reason, a security guy
pulled us aside to ask why we were there. We answered his questions,
he seemed surprised that foreigners would be coming before the World
Cup started (Kaliningrad was another of the host cities,) and that we
lived in Moscow.
We
took a taxi to the flat we'd booked, it was the winner in the battle
of cheap public transport vs. time involved. It was heaps cheaper
than a taxi from the airport from Moscow, of course. Checking in to
the flat was easy, it had been renovated fairly recently and came
with fish.
After
a bit of relaxing and figuring out where to go, we started walking.
The first sight was a monument to cosmonauts, I loved the shape. It
was big, but didn't otherwise look like a typical Soviet monument.
As we
kept walking we realized we were seeing quite a few Spar grocery
stores. We noticed a Spar Express, a Spar Euro, and Spar Gourmet as
well. We couldn't see a difference between all of them, who knows the
reason for the different names?
Close
to one of the Spars we found a monument called Mother Russia. I've
seen other monuments with that name, they've all been far bigger.
This one was considerably smaller, and didn't seem to get much
attention from anyone else on the street.
Our
walking took us to a street with a series of buildings that looked
'German.' Since I lived in Germany years ago, this seemed somewhat
familiar, I'm guessing the whole city had this type of architecture
at some point during history. This ended up being the only place in
Kaliningrad that had this architecture.
We
came to a bridge, crossing Pregolya River. There was an easy
pedestrian area to cross, I had no fear of traffic. We got off the
bridge onto an island, a fairly small island. Visible from all over
the island, is the Konigsberg Cathedral.
The version everyone can see
now is not the original version of the church, as it was burned down
in 1944. Rebuilding only started in 1992.
We
wanted to go in the church, but we arrived too late. Oh well. Around
that point the sun was going down, so we watched the sky change over
the river for a bit, then headed back to our flat.
The
next morning we walked into the city center again, taking a different
route. We found Victory Square easily enough, there is a tall column
(dedicated to 750 years of city existence,) in the middle.
It isn't a
clearly defined square, it's more of an open area. On one side of the
square is the Chapel of the Blessed Prince Peter and Fevronia. (I
feel sorry for anyone named Fevronia, sorry.) It looked new to us,
but who knows. There was a large set of stairs in the front of the
church, the entire exterior was white, with gold domes.
The
inside of the church was awesome. Bright frescoes and a whole lot of
gold everywhere. It wasn't wide, but it was tall. I loved it.
Our
next planned stop was the Amber Museum.
The
Amber Museum is in a former tower/fortress wall. There were two
floors of exhibits, I had no idea so many things could be made of
amber. Useful things and decorative things, and totally useless
things. Amber is 'just' fossilized tree resin. Nearly 90% of the
world's amber comes from the Kaliningrad region.
You can find it in
dark gold, yellow, and green colours. We wanted to see an amber mine
during this trip, but that didn't work out.
By the
time we walked out of the museum, we were ambered out, but were still
glad we'd seen the museum. Not far from the museum was the church of
Alexander Nevsky. It was small, and didn't look very exciting from
the outside, but we really liked the interior. Everything was painted
in bright colours, the iconostasis was shiny gold, and the cupola was
awesome.
We had
to walk quite a way to our next stop, the Bunker Museum.
This is what
remains of the bunkers used in all the fighting of the seige during
WW2. It took us a while to find the entrance of the museum, since it
is set behind the buildings on the street. Since it is in an old
bunker, it is underground, so you can't see it from far away.
The
rooms in the bunker were all off one hallway, each room was set up to
show a different aspect of the seige. We saw photos, a diorama of
German officers surrendering to the Soviets, propaganda posters,
etc... It's a good museum.
We
went looking for something listed as a world clock. We finally found
it, but it was not at all impressive. More impressive than the clock
was the outfit of the lady walking a dog nearby. Hee hee.
Near
the clock was a pond, it looked like you could rent rowboats and
float around for a while. We knew we didn't have time to do so during
this trip, but thought it looked fun for a return visit. From there
we walked back to the cathedral, determined to go in. When we got
there we discovered there was an entry fee, and several tickets to
choose from.
It wasn't immediately obvious to us which one was the
old church, so we walked out. It shouldn't be that confusing to visit
a church.
Around
the back side of the church was a tomb of world interest: that of
Immanuel Kant. The German philosopher was from and lived in
Kaliningrad.
We
walked across another bridge near the back side of the bridge,
heading toward a part of town known as the fishing village. Waaaaay
back in the day, this part of town really was a fishing village. Now
it's just a long row of 'German' looking buildings, filled with
restaurants, cafes, and souvenir shops.
It's photogenic, but not much
else.
More
walking brought us to yet another bridge, this one called King's
Bridge. As we crossed, we noticed a group taking wedding photos. I
must admit, I'm not a fan of any of the bridesmaids' dresses I've
seen in Russia. Ick.
We
found a huge fountain not too far away, it was full of local citizens
playing in the water. I guess you could call it a local splash pad?
It looked fun, if we'd brought the right clothes, or at least dry
clothes for later.
All
that walking brought us back to the first bridge we'd walked, going
over the river to the island. We followed it backward this time, all
the way to a tram stop. The tram going home didn't take long, and was
cheap. Have I mentioned how much I love public transportation?
After
arriving back at the train station (from Svetlogorsk,) the next
evening, we visited two statues. One was of Mikhail Kalinin, a
Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet Politician. This is the guy after
whom the city and oblast is now named.
The second statue was Vladimir
Ilyich Lenin, a guy I've mentioned a few times previously.
We
laughed as we walked past a pizza place on the way to the tram stop
to get home. The place was called Obama Pizza, and had the slogan
"yes, we eat."
After
returning mid afternoon from Zelenogradsk the next day, we walked
into the city center again. Claire was still looking for an amber
piece of jewelry, so we stopped into every store we saw. Eventually
she found something she liked. I got lucky and found a ring I liked
in the first store we visited.
We
found a big war memorial on one riverbank, it was Soviet big, which
is what I typically expect in a war memorial in this country.
We
went to bed early that night, since we had to be up early in the
morning. Our landlord called a taxi for us at 0630, the ride back to
the airport was quick and easy. We got back to Moscow around noon,
into terrible weather, yuck.
I
would love to return to the Kaliningrad region, to see more of the
city and more of the entire area.
