Goodbye Kaliningrad!

I love this! I’ve long been fascinated by the history of Königsberg/Kaliningrad (now Królewiec). Maybe it will be possible to visit in my lifetime. Thank you for posting the article.

@samatudd - I'm also quite interested in the history of this region, currently reading about it in the book "Poland: The First Thousand Years". I'd love to visit also, Königsberg, the lifelong home of Immanuel Kant, has such a storied past. I can only imagine there are plenty of Teutonic ruins to explore in the surrounding area.

Love this so much! I always thought I'd go to St. Petersburg. The way things are going, maybe Malbork is the closest I'll ever get to Russia. Thanks for posting, Carlos.

@Carlos - and now I’ve added “Poland: The First Thousand Years" to my reading list. Thank you!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_Königsberg

The BBC's 2007 travel documentary "Michael Palin's New Europe" has a short 12 minutes on Kaliningrad. Palin discussed independence with his local fixer. She's a hardcore loyalist, at least on camera.

starting at about 48:00 here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5ohp3l

I understand that the Kaliningrad enclave is highly militarized. In the remote likelihood of a breakup of the Russian Federation, it would likely become another Transnistria, which was a part of Moldova, a former Soviet Republic. I hate to think how many nukes might be there!

Yes, thanks for posting this interesting article....

I'm planning to visit Riga, Tallinn, Krakow, and some others, but I always thought the trip would begin in St. Petersburg and end in Kyiv. It brings the people of those places to mind often and I listen to academics discussing the most innovative ideas and I can't believe we still live in a world that solves things with... war.

Despite the seriousness, it can be gratifying to see a bully experience "fury" over the insult.

We got close enough to Kaliningrad when we were walking along the beach in Nida, Lithuania to pick up a Cyrillic cellphone signal. That’s when we turned around! No interest in an inadvertent border crossing! I loved Nida and highly recommend it as a destination in Lithuania.

We also got a Cyrillic signal in Narva, Estonia. Russia is right across a not too large river. I loved Narva with it’s castle right opposite the castle on the Russian side of the river. Narva is almost entirely Russian speaking and very different from Tallinn. Super interesting.

As a russki, I can assure you that the polish move did raise some eyebrows, but is far from having us hopping mad :-)
We're generally not thrilled about constant changes of place names, but, as long as it does not affect our own language - it's more of a cultural curiosity. The locals sometimes refer to Kaliningrad as "K-grad" or "Konig" - I bet something important must happen geopolitically to make them call it Krolewiec :-)

But yeah, go Prussia!

Interesting that a name change can make a huge difference. Russians themselves have changed city names … what was Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad, and now Volgograd.

St. Petersburg (I’d wanted to see the Hermitage but that seems unlikely now) was Leningrad until relatively recently.

Actions can have consequences!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65545636.amp. Yup, didn't care. Laughed it off.

James, the topic started off with that bbc link :-)

I'm guessing that the residents there are neither impressed nor intimidated by this bit of bravado.

Fascinating how this topic has sprung back to life!

Perhaps Prigozhin will soon make Königsberg his own banana republic, after all he seems to be a big fan of German opera.