russia: svetlogorsk and zelenogradsk

Since both Claire and I figured this might be our only trip to Kaliningrad, and the oblast as a whole, we decided to see more than just the capital city. We originally wanted to go to a place called Yantarny, as we would've been able to see an amber mine there. 90% of the world's amber comes from this region, so it seemed like a perfect idea.

It seemed like a perfect idea until we couldn't figure out how to get there using public transport. Argh. This is one of very few times public transport hasn't worked out for me in Russia.

We changed plans, and decided to go to a city called Svetlogorsk. Like the capital city, this city also used to have a different name and belong to a different country. Svetlogorsk was known as Rauschen when it was part of Prussia. The country change happened in 1945, the name change happened in 1947. Svetlogorsk now has a population of a little over 10,000; it is a spa/resort/beach town on the Baltic Sea.

We ended up getting on a bus from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk. The drive was quite nice, but at times moved very slowly, if at all. 

We never figured out what was causing the traffic jam, but the bus ride ended up being about an hour longer than expected. Sigh.

Not only did the bus take longer than expected, everyone was told to get off at a random spot in Svetlogorsk. The place we got off the bus definitely was not a bus station of any kind.

We realized fairly quickly that we had decided to visit the city on it's birthday. As we walked, we saw more and more people out on the streets, more and more vendors along the sides of the roads, and more and more people in random costumes. 

At one point we realized all the people in fancy dress were gathering for the start of a parade.

We found an ice cream stall and decided to have dessert before lunch. Why not?

From the ice cream stall we decided to check out the beach. The path to get there wasn't at all direct, we followed the road through trees as it wound back and forth down the hill; it was quite steep in some places.

As we got to the beach we felt the wind pick up, it was quite chilly. The beach itself was packed with people, though almost no one was in the water. 

I was cold in my dress, I can't imagine wearing a swimsuit and hanging out on a beach.

The boardwalk along the beach was less than impressive, but we walked it anywho. At one point I decided to walk on the sand, and in the water. Claire took my photo, so I could prove I've been in the Baltic Sea.

After venturing for a little while in one direction we turned around and went back to where we started. Conveniently located at the bottom of the steps we'd taken down was a mosaic of a shell. 

Nothing more than art practically made for Instagram, of course I had my picture taken :)

We went back up the windy road, getting back to the main street in town. By this point the parade had gone by, or it had gone another direction, we didn't know or care. We walked toward a building we thought looked peculiar, and found out it was a water tower, or water building, something along those lines. It wasn't open for visiting, but seeing the outside was enough for us. There was ivy growing over the outside, so it was really photogenic.

According to Wikipedia this town has some of the best preserved Prussian architecture from before the war, it wasn't destroyed as much as Kaliningrad was. We enjoyed seeing the buildings in their original form, some of them had been taken care of quite well over the years.

We had one more sight we wanted to see, a miniature model of the city of Kaliningrad back in the day. After wandering some of the back roads of Svetlogorsk, we found it. Very cute, though it could definitely use a good cleaning. Or if someone just took a broom and swept away the dust.

At that point we felt as if we'd seen everything in Svetlogorsk, so we walked to the train station. After the sloooow bus of the morning, we didn't want to deal with that again. We bought tickets for the next train, which was scheduled to depart fairly soon, and boarded the train.

The train was packed. Lots and lots and lots of people, we had to stand for most of the ride.

The next day we decided to take an elektrichka in the morning, and by accident we arrived quite early. 45 minutes early, so we had fun taking photos on the otherwise empty train. 

I was surprised we were allowed to board that early, that the doors were already open. The security part of me wonders about that sort of thing. Oh well.

Our destination for the day was the city of Zelenogradsk (not to be confused with Zelenograd which is a suburb of Moscow.) Another beach/resort town on the Baltic coast, Zelenogradsk has around 13,000 inhabitants; it was known as Cranz when it was part of Prussia.

We arrived to crappy weather. Light rain, wind, rolling dark gray clouds, yuck. At least it wasn't pouring.

Straight from the train station we headed to our first planned sight, it was indoors, thank goodness. The cat museum was located in an old water tower, making it unique both in topic and architecture.

We bought tickets at entry level, then got in the queue for the ridiculously small lift, which took us to the 5^th floor. From there we took the stairs up to the 6^th floor, which gave us access to an observation deck all the way around. Zelenogradsk isn't stunning in any way, but it was nice to look out over the city.

We came back inside, and started looking at the exhibits. Cat everything. Lots of totally useless knick knacks, toys, wall decorations, coat hooks, etc... There were so many items displayed that there was actually very little room to move around. The stairs to go down were circular, along the outer wall of the tower. They were narrow, and lined with more cat items on display, it wasn't an easy walk down.

When we left the museum we walked to another cat sight: a monument to cats!! It spun around, which was fun for a minute or two. The weather was finally getting better, so we chose that spot to have a small picnic.

We walked through the city center, a pedestrian street I think. I'm not entirely sure, because we were the only ones around. I don't know if it was the weather, or the day or the week, or what, but everything was really empty. We found the Lenin statue, took a photo, and kept going.

We found the trail to the boardwalk and beach, it wasn't as obvious as I would've expected. The beach wasn't any great shakes, and the weather wasn't amazing, but there were still people out there. Like Svetlogorsk the day before, there were people on the sand, but not so much in the water. This beach was uglier, I don't think I'd ever want to hang out here, even when the water was a bit warmer.

After walking along the boardwalk for a bit, we decided we'd seen the whole town, there really wasn't much to it. We found an ice cream shop right next to the train station, so we splurged. After that we bought tickets back to Kaliningrad, thankfully the next train left within an hour.

I definitely want to see more of the region around Kaliningrad, but I think I'll skip Svetlogorsk and Zelenogradsk next time.