Kaliningrad

(12-13 September)
After a cheery entry into Kaliningrad from a friendly border guard ("welcome to Russia!"), we set off to find somewhere to spend the night. Little did we realise that our two Lonely Planet books were worse than useless. Prices had doubled, so we wouldn't recognise a bargain, and Svetlogorsk is no pretty wee village to spend the night. There is no camping, or even a beach. It's not far from a beach, but still, you can get these things right...

So we ended up back in Kaliningrad city, at the Hotel Kaliningrad. For an ex-Soviet hotel it was actually very nice. It did face onto the worst monstrosity the Soviets built after their arrival:


This was built on the site of an amazing 12th century Prussian castle, that was badly damaged in the war. Rather than repair it, they replaced with something hideous instead that has never even been used! They later discovered it was built on hollow ground - tunnels that had once connected the castle to the cathedral.

Konigsberg, as it was before the Soviets grabbed it after WWII, was one of the finest cities in Europe by all accounts. The old pictures show an amazing place with stunning buildings and a vibrant city life. Most of the buildings were destroyed in the Soviet assault in 1945 - which could have been largely avoided but the Nazi commander refused to surrender until the Red Army was knocking at the bunker door.

We went to the bunker, which Hitler had used for a lot of his planning earlier in the war. The details of the assault and damage to the city were all somewhat depressing. Similarly depressing was the ethnic cleansing the Russians then carried out - from an almost purely German population there are now virtually no people of Germanic descent living there. People either fled or were carted off to Siberia.

On a brighter note, since the fall of Communism, the city has started to be re-built. The Cathedral, which sat damaged for half a century, is being resurrected:


The cathedral also has the tomb of Emmanuel Kant and his museum. After 15 years it is still under-going work, but is well on the way to recovery.

In the last few years the city has enjoyed much better times economically, which has also allowed some new buildings that are not concrete tower-blocks. Here´s the new Orthodox cathedral (also not finished):


The main thing that Kaliningrad is famous for is amber - it produces 90% of the world´s supply. The Amber Museum was impressive with its works of the fossilised sap.

We had another good drive around the Kaliningrad region as we attempted to leave. We hadn't learnt not to trust our guide book and followed their recommendation to cross to Lithuania via the (apparently) very picturesque Curonian Spit. However the Russians make it prohibitively expensive to take a car that way, so we were diverted back to the main route, only getting slightly lost on the way. Joanna's cyrrillic reading is improving though.