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Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 23rd, 2006, 08:34 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
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Posts: n/a
Default Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town

Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town

Once famous for brutalist Soviet architecture and soaring Aids rates,
this tiny enclave is emerging as Putin's answer to Hong Kong
Stephen Castle reports
Published: 23 March 2006

Once it was a home of philosophy, a European capital and a centre of
Baltic prosperity. These days those who have heard of Kaliningrad
associate it with drugs, prostitution and the Russian Aids epidemic.

Jutting out into the Baltic, the region of Kaliningrad is an accident
of history, a part of Russia now literally cut off from the rest of the
motherland by Lithuanian territory. But this small, Russian fifth
column inside an expanding EU is mounting a surprise comeback. Buoyed
by something of an economic boom, the region's extrovert, 42-year-old
governor, Georgy Boos, has ambitious plans to turn the enclave into the
Hong Kong of the Baltic. He also wants to transform the city once known
as Königsberg into one of Europe's least likely tourist destinations.

When you arrive on the snow-covered tarmac of Kaliningrad's airport
there is little sign that this is the next Baltic boom town. For one
thing there are no other planes unless you count military aircraft.
Only one airline flies regularly between Kaliningrad and western Europe
- the newly-launched KD Avia - and it will be a few years before the
fledgling carrier takes on Easyjet. To fly with them you have first to
get to Berlin, the only international destination currently served by
Kaliningrad's flagship carrier.

Inside the terminal there is little by way of shopping, apart from
stalls selling amber souvenirs - the enclave is home to 90 per cent of
the world's amber deposits. Meanwhile the local press still has that
distinctly Soviet feel. Kaliningradskaya Pravda's front page story on
the ubiquitous, bear-like Mr Boos and his United Russia party, carries
the headline: "Together with the president, together with United
Russia, we will make the Kaliningrad area one of the best regions in
the world."

But if it is history you are looking for, Kaliningrad has plenty.
Founded by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century, the city's
prosperity grew with the creation of the Hanseatic League, an
association of Germanic cities which controlled trade in the Baltic and
which, by the end of the 15th century, had a fleet of more than 100
vessels. By 1660, Königsberg was under Prussian control and, in 1701
Frederick III von Hohenzollern was crowned the first king of Prussia in
the cathedral of Königsberg, taking the name Frederick I.

The city was at the heart of trade between Russia and Germany and was
capital of Prussia before Berlin took its place. It was a famous centre
of education (the Albertina University was founded in 1544) and its
most famous son, Immanuel Kant, whose three best-known works helped
shape modern philosophy, spent all his life in Königsberg, dying there
in 1804.

The 20th century wrought extraordinary changes. Germany's defeat in the
First World War left Königsberg and East Prussia separated from the
rest of the country by the Polish Corridor. This prompted Hitler's
desire to reunite the territory, one of the triggers for the next
conflagration. The region was taken by the Red Army in 1945 amid some
of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War and became part of the
Soviet Union, renamed in honour of Mikhail Kalinin, president of the
Supreme Soviet.

The German population disappeared, never to return. Those that survived
either fled, were sent to Siberia or exiled to East Germany. In their
place Russians were brought in from across the Soviet Union, many to
work at nearby Baltiysk, the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet.

The city centre was destroyed by Allied bombing raids and today
remnants of the its golden age are scarce. Instead, visitors are more
likely to notice the most famous architectural legacy of the USSR, the
House of the Soviets, thought by many to be the ugliest building on
Russian soil. But the historic cathedral, reduced to ruins by the RAF,
has been rebuilt and, in the city's leafier districts, the Soviet
architecture gives way to grander, pre-war German houses.

The aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union was not kind to
Kaliningrad and the economic and social malaise of the 1990s still
hangs over this oblast, or region. In her small, Spartan office by the
city's port, Nina Voronkova, head of the support centre for families
and children, can reel off a list of the city's social problems with
alarming speed. "Alcohol, drugs, HIV-Aids, family problems,
psychological problems, lack of employment, teenage pregnancy, people
with low self-esteem," she says.

Male life expectancy is 58, and the support centre sees around 30,000
people a year, but, with several years of double-digit economic growth,
things have eased. Ms Voronkova, who was born in Kazakhstan and raised
her daughter in Ukraine, says the economic situation here is much
better than in the 1990s.

Kaliningrad is beginning to shake off its reputation as the Aids
capital of Russia. New cases have stabilised, falling from 52 per
100,000 population in 2001 to 41 in 2004 (compared with 81 per 100,000
in St Petersburg).

Economic growth is improving living conditions for the one million
people of the region. In January 1996, Kaliningrad was designated a
Special Economic Zone, bringing key tax advantages which have lured
investors. A year later the first KIA car was assembled in Kaliningrad.
The region now boasts a BMW assembly plant and a thriving furniture
business as well as a fishing and oil extraction industry.

The authorities say growth overall hit 11.5 per cent in 2004 with
industrial output rising 25.8 per cent. Meanwhile the EU has realised
that it has a stake in preventing any further decay in an enclave
bordering both Lithuania and Poland and Kaliningrad benefits from
grants from Brussels to the tune of nearly €50m. The EU has ploughed
€16m into 17 projects which are already completed, and has staked a
further €32m on current work with a further €40m earmarked for
future schemes.

During a recent visit, Benita-Ferrero Waldner, the EU commissioner for
external relations, argued: "We would like to contribute to the
economic development of the area. It is in our own interest to create
stability in our region." But problems are looming and many believe
that the progress made by Kaliningrad is artificial and fragile.

Moreover, Russia is due to become a member of the World Trade
Organisation and, while that should benefit investment in general, it
will mean that some of the tax breaks currently enjoyed by business in
Kaliningrad will have to be phased out over the next decade. At present
companies that import material, assemble furniture, then export it to
mainland Russia, pay no customs duties. The region boasts no fewer than
120 furniture-makers who have an uncertain long-term future.

Meanwhile Kaliningrad's location, cut off from the rest of Russia, will
inevitably complicate development. For years before neighbouring
Lithuania and Poland joined the EU, Brussels was locked in interminable
negotiations with Moscow on how Russians could transit through EU
territory, particularly Lithuania. These talks were hardly eased by the
fact that Russia's first lady, Lyudmila Putin, was brought up in
Kaliningrad and took a special interest.

The end result was the creation of a special travel document which is
cheaper and easier to use than a visa. There was also a promise to
study the possibility of building a high-speed train link to cut
through Lithuania.

Though the travel document appears to be working, Kaliningrad's
residents fret about how the rules will change when Poland and
Lithuania join the EU's passport-free Schengen zone, probably before
the end of the decade. That will mean tighter restrictions. The costly
high-speed train project has been quietly shunted into the sidings.

For Europeans, too, the border question is also neuralgic. If you play
word-association games with a Russian and mention Kaliningrad, the
chances are they will respond: "Narkotiki." Ms Ferrero-Waldner remains
diplomatic but concedes that she raises the issue of drug-trafficking
regularly with the Kaliningrad authorities. "There is a lot of
smuggling of cigarettes and drugs and alcohol. It is always an issue
when we hold talks," she says.

And some wonder whether it is really in Moscow's interests for
Kaliningrad to be too successful. At present there is little separatist
sentiment but, were the enclave to become more prosperous than the
mainland, its citizens might start looking more to the EU than to
Moscow.

For the time being, however, the region is experiencing the unfamiliar
taste of modest success. Outside the centre for children and families,
Djana Pestova says that, even for those on one income, life here is
"definitely better than in the central areas of Russia", and possibly
in many other parts of the world too. "My husband is a sailor and, he
visits many countries," she says before adding emphatically: "We are
happy that we live here."

10 things to know about Kaliningrad

* IMMANUEL KANT

The German philosopher spent his whole, celebrated life in his
hometown. Often considered as one of the greatest, and most
influential, thinkers of modern Europe, Kant was the last major
philosopher of the Enlightenment. His essay "What is Enlightenment?"
defined an age with the motto, "Dare to know". Daring meant thinking
autonomously.

* THE MONSTER

The grand Teutonic fortress of Königsberg has gone, demolished in the
1960s as a "monument to fascism". In its place stands the Hall of the
Soviets. Its rooms have never been used, the walls and floors have been
stripped bare and it's known unaffectionately to locals as "the
monster".

* AMBER

Home to 90 per cent of the world's amber deposits, Kaliningrad is awash
with the orange resin. Most of it is illegally extracted as the
enclave's giant mine had to shut down after losing two-thirds of
production to thieves. Kaliningrad was reputedly the source of
Catherine the Great's legendary Amber Room, in her palace in St
Petersburg.

* THE BALTIC FLEET

The once-mighty Soviet Baltic fleet is still moored in the endless
docks of Kaliningrad. But these days the ghost ships are little more
than forlorn sun decks for shaven-headed Russian sailors. The rusting
destroyers and submarines are too expensive for Moscow to operate. In
the fields around the harbour, thousands of ancient tanks hunker under
camouflage, while slowly sinking into the soil.

* THE NAMESAKE ...

Despite the fact that the former president of the Supreme Soviet,
Mikhail Kalinin, never even visited the region, Stalin insisted on
renaming the conquered Prussian city of Königsberg after the veteran
Bolshevik revolutionary. Remembered during his lifetime as the "Kind
Grandfather", Kalinin is now known as the man who ordered the Katyn
massacre - the mass execution of the Polish officer class by Soviet
forces in 1940.

* ... AND AN ALTERNATIVE

Many residents of Kaliningrad are uncomfortable with their region's
name and have suggested suitable alternatives that recognise both
Kaliningrad's Russian and German heritage. As the earlier name of
Königsberg conjures unpleasant memories of Prussia and German
conquest, some feel that Kantgrad is the only acceptable solution.

* FAMOUS WIVES

Two daughters of Kaliningrad have become the wives of powerful world
leaders. Leah Rabin, wife of Yitzak, was born in then Königsberg in
1928 - her family emigrated to Palestine five years later. Vladimir
Putin's wife Lyudmila also grew up in the city before meeting her
husband in St Petersburg.

* COMMUNIST HERITAGE

Just because Kaliningrad is surrounded by Europe does not mean the
Russian outpost is ashamed of its Soviet past. The city raised a few
eyebrows in November by bucking revisionist trends and re-erecting a
statue of Lenin. And no one has dared touch the 13-metre bronze statue
of Kalinin outside the railway station.

* SECRET SOCIETY

For much of the Cold War, Kaliningrad was closed to visitors and a
notoriously secretive place. As French President Jacques Chirac
discovered last year, things are a little different now. It was while
in Kaliningrad that Chirac famously called British cooking the second
worst in the world (after Finland). His comments were instantly leaked
to the press.

*SPITTING IMAGE

Kaliningrad is sheltered from the Baltic by the Curonian Spit, the
highest drifting sand dune in Europe. Formed more than 5,000 years ago,
the 52km-long Unesco world heritage site provides Kaliningrad with the
Baltic's only ice-free winter port.

Jerome Taylor

Once it was a home of philosophy, a European capital and a centre of
Baltic prosperity. These days those who have heard of Kaliningrad
associate it with drugs, prostitution and the Russian Aids epidemic.

Jutting out into the Baltic, the region of Kaliningrad is an accident
of history, a part of Russia now literally cut off from the rest of the
motherland by Lithuanian territory. But this small, Russian fifth
column inside an expanding EU is mounting a surprise comeback. Buoyed
by something of an economic boom, the region's extrovert, 42-year-old
governor, Georgy Boos, has ambitious plans to turn the enclave into the
Hong Kong of the Baltic. He also wants to transform the city once known
as Königsberg into one of Europe's least likely tourist destinations.

When you arrive on the snow-covered tarmac of Kaliningrad's airport
there is little sign that this is the next Baltic boom town. For one
thing there are no other planes unless you count military aircraft.
Only one airline flies regularly between Kaliningrad and western Europe
- the newly-launched KD Avia - and it will be a few years before the
fledgling carrier takes on Easyjet. To fly with them you have first to
get to Berlin, the only international destination currently served by
Kaliningrad's flagship carrier.

Inside the terminal there is little by way of shopping, apart from
stalls selling amber souvenirs - the enclave is home to 90 per cent of
the world's amber deposits. Meanwhile the local press still has that
distinctly Soviet feel. Kaliningradskaya Pravda's front page story on
the ubiquitous, bear-like Mr Boos and his United Russia party, carries
the headline: "Together with the president, together with United
Russia, we will make the Kaliningrad area one of the best regions in
the world."

But if it is history you are looking for, Kaliningrad has plenty.
Founded by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century, the city's
prosperity grew with the creation of the Hanseatic League, an
association of Germanic cities which controlled trade in the Baltic and
which, by the end of the 15th century, had a fleet of more than 100
vessels. By 1660, Königsberg was under Prussian control and, in 1701
Frederick III von Hohenzollern was crowned the first king of Prussia in
the cathedral of Königsberg, taking the name Frederick I.

The city was at the heart of trade between Russia and Germany and was
capital of Prussia before Berlin took its place. It was a famous centre
of education (the Albertina University was founded in 1544) and its
most famous son, Immanuel Kant, whose three best-known works helped
shape modern philosophy, spent all his life in Königsberg, dying there
in 1804.

The 20th century wrought extraordinary changes. Germany's defeat in the
First World War left Königsberg and East Prussia separated from the
rest of the country by the Polish Corridor. This prompted Hitler's
desire to reunite the territory, one of the triggers for the next
conflagration. The region was taken by the Red Army in 1945 amid some
of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War and became part of the
Soviet Union, renamed in honour of Mikhail Kalinin, president of the
Supreme Soviet.

The German population disappeared, never to return. Those that survived
either fled, were sent to Siberia or exiled to East Germany. In their
place Russians were brought in from across the Soviet Union, many to
work at nearby Baltiysk, the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet.

The city centre was destroyed by Allied bombing raids and today
remnants of the its golden age are scarce. Instead, visitors are more
likely to notice the most famous architectural legacy of the USSR, the
House of the Soviets, thought by many to be the ugliest building on
Russian soil. But the historic cathedral, reduced to ruins by the RAF,
has been rebuilt and, in the city's leafier districts, the Soviet
architecture gives way to grander, pre-war German houses.

The aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union was not kind to
Kaliningrad and the economic and social malaise of the 1990s still
hangs over this oblast, or region. In her small, Spartan office by the
city's port, Nina Voronkova, head of the support centre for families
and children, can reel off a list of the city's social problems with
alarming speed. "Alcohol, drugs, HIV-Aids, family problems,
psychological problems, lack of employment, teenage pregnancy, people
with low self-esteem," she says.

Male life expectancy is 58, and the support centre sees around 30,000
people a year, but, with several years of double-digit economic growth,
things have eased. Ms Voronkova, who was born in Kazakhstan and raised
her daughter in Ukraine, says the economic situation here is much
better than in the 1990s.

Kaliningrad is beginning to shake off its reputation as the Aids
capital of Russia. New cases have stabilised, falling from 52 per
100,000 population in 2001 to 41 in 2004 (compared with 81 per 100,000
in St Petersburg).

Economic growth is improving living conditions for the one million
people of the region. In January 1996, Kaliningrad was designated a
Special Economic Zone, bringing key tax advantages which have lured
investors. A year later the first KIA car was assembled in Kaliningrad.
The region now boasts a BMW assembly plant and a thriving furniture
business as well as a fishing and oil extraction industry.

The authorities say growth overall hit 11.5 per cent in 2004 with
industrial output rising 25.8 per cent. Meanwhile the EU has realised
that it has a stake in preventing any further decay in an enclave
bordering both Lithuania and Poland and Kaliningrad benefits from
grants from Brussels to the tune of nearly €50m. The EU has ploughed
€16m into 17 projects which are already completed, and has staked a
further €32m on current work with a further €40m earmarked for
future schemes.

During a recent visit, Benita-Ferrero Waldner, the EU commissioner for
external relations, argued: "We would like to contribute to the
economic development of the area. It is in our own interest to create
stability in our region." But problems are looming and many believe
that the progress made by Kaliningrad is artificial and fragile.

Moreover, Russia is due to become a member of the World Trade
Organisation and, while that should benefit investment in general, it
will mean that some of the tax breaks currently enjoyed by business in
Kaliningrad will have to be phased out over the next decade. At present
companies that import material, assemble furniture, then export it to
mainland Russia, pay no customs duties. The region boasts no fewer than
120 furniture-makers who have an uncertain long-term future.
Meanwhile Kaliningrad's location, cut off from the rest of Russia, will
inevitably complicate development. For years before neighbouring
Lithuania and Poland joined the EU, Brussels was locked in interminable
negotiations with Moscow on how Russians could transit through EU
territory, particularly Lithuania. These talks were hardly eased by the
fact that Russia's first lady, Lyudmila Putin, was brought up in
Kaliningrad and took a special interest.

The end result was the creation of a special travel document which is
cheaper and easier to use than a visa. There was also a promise to
study the possibility of building a high-speed train link to cut
through Lithuania.

Though the travel document appears to be working, Kaliningrad's
residents fret about how the rules will change when Poland and
Lithuania join the EU's passport-free Schengen zone, probably before
the end of the decade. That will mean tighter restrictions. The costly
high-speed train project has been quietly shunted into the sidings.

For Europeans, too, the border question is also neuralgic. If you play
word-association games with a Russian and mention Kaliningrad, the
chances are they will respond: "Narkotiki." Ms Ferrero-Waldner remains
diplomatic but concedes that she raises the issue of drug-trafficking
regularly with the Kaliningrad authorities. "There is a lot of
smuggling of cigarettes and drugs and alcohol. It is always an issue
when we hold talks," she says.

And some wonder whether it is really in Moscow's interests for
Kaliningrad to be too successful. At present there is little separatist
sentiment but, were the enclave to become more prosperous than the
mainland, its citizens might start looking more to the EU than to
Moscow.

For the time being, however, the region is experiencing the unfamiliar
taste of modest success. Outside the centre for children and families,
Djana Pestova says that, even for those on one income, life here is
"definitely better than in the central areas of Russia", and possibly
in many other parts of the world too. "My husband is a sailor and, he
visits many countries," she says before adding emphatically: "We are
happy that we live here."

10 things to know about Kaliningrad

* IMMANUEL KANT

The German philosopher spent his whole, celebrated life in his
hometown. Often considered as one of the greatest, and most
influential, thinkers of modern Europe, Kant was the last major
philosopher of the Enlightenment. His essay "What is Enlightenment?"
defined an age with the motto, "Dare to know". Daring meant thinking
autonomously.

* THE MONSTER

The grand Teutonic fortress of Königsberg has gone, demolished in the
1960s as a "monument to fascism". In its place stands the Hall of the
Soviets. Its rooms have never been used, the walls and floors have been
stripped bare and it's known unaffectionately to locals as "the
monster".

* AMBER

Home to 90 per cent of the world's amber deposits, Kaliningrad is awash
with the orange resin. Most of it is illegally extracted as the
enclave's giant mine had to shut down after losing two-thirds of
production to thieves. Kaliningrad was reputedly the source of
Catherine the Great's legendary Amber Room, in her palace in St
Petersburg.

* THE BALTIC FLEET

The once-mighty Soviet Baltic fleet is still moored in the endless
docks of Kaliningrad. But these days the ghost ships are little more
than forlorn sun decks for shaven-headed Russian sailors. The rusting
destroyers and submarines are too expensive for Moscow to operate. In
the fields around the harbour, thousands of ancient tanks hunker under
camouflage, while slowly sinking into the soil.

* THE NAMESAKE ...

Despite the fact that the former president of the Supreme Soviet,
Mikhail Kalinin, never even visited the region, Stalin insisted on
renaming the conquered Prussian city of Königsberg after the veteran
Bolshevik revolutionary. Remembered during his lifetime as the "Kind
Grandfather", Kalinin is now known as the man who ordered the Katyn
massacre - the mass execution of the Polish officer class by Soviet
forces in 1940.

* ... AND AN ALTERNATIVE

Many residents of Kaliningrad are uncomfortable with their region's
name and have suggested suitable alternatives that recognise both
Kaliningrad's Russian and German heritage. As the earlier name of
Königsberg conjures unpleasant memories of Prussia and German
conquest, some feel that Kantgrad is the only acceptable solution.

* FAMOUS WIVES

Two daughters of Kaliningrad have become the wives of powerful world
leaders. Leah Rabin, wife of Yitzak, was born in then Königsberg in
1928 - her family emigrated to Palestine five years later. Vladimir
Putin's wife Lyudmila also grew up in the city before meeting her
husband in St Petersburg.

* COMMUNIST HERITAGE

Just because Kaliningrad is surrounded by Europe does not mean the
Russian outpost is ashamed of its Soviet past. The city raised a few
eyebrows in November by bucking revisionist trends and re-erecting a
statue of Lenin. And no one has dared touch the 13-metre bronze statue
of Kalinin outside the railway station.

* SECRET SOCIETY

For much of the Cold War, Kaliningrad was closed to visitors and a
notoriously secretive place. As French President Jacques Chirac
discovered last year, things are a little different now. It was while
in Kaliningrad that Chirac famously called British cooking the second
worst in the world (after Finland). His comments were instantly leaked
to the press.

*SPITTING IMAGE

Kaliningrad is sheltered from the Baltic by the Curonian Spit, the
highest drifting sand dune in Europe. Formed more than 5,000 years ago,
the 52km-long Unesco world heritage site provides Kaliningrad with the
Baltic's only ice-free winter port.

Jerome Taylor

  #2  
Old March 23rd, 2006, 08:54 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town


eetinBelgië wrote:

[from article]

For the time being, however, the region is experiencing the unfamiliar
taste of modest success. Outside the centre for children and families,
Djana Pestova says that, even for those on one income, life here is
"definitely better than in the central areas of Russia", and possibly
in many other parts of the world too.



Well, that's not saying much. The place sounds like a Baltic version
of Albania -- except that Albania is probably easier to visit (less
onerous visa requirements, better facilities, etc.)...

--
Best
Greg

  #3  
Old March 23rd, 2006, 09:44 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town

Except giving us your copy an' paste stuff, do you sometimes travel ??

"eetinBelgië" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town

Once famous for brutalist Soviet architecture and soaring Aids rates,
this tiny enclave is emerging as Putin's answer to Hong Kong
Stephen Castle reports
Published: 23 March 2006

Once it was a home of philosophy, a European capital and a centre of
Baltic prosperity. These days those who have heard of Kaliningrad
associate it with drugs, prostitution and the Russian Aids epidemic.

Jutting out into the Baltic, the region of Kaliningrad is an accident
of history, a part of Russia now literally cut off from the rest of the
motherland by Lithuanian territory. But this small, Russian fifth
column inside an expanding EU is mounting a surprise comeback. Buoyed
by something of an economic boom, the region's extrovert, 42-year-old
governor, Georgy Boos, has ambitious plans to turn the enclave into the
Hong Kong of the Baltic. He also wants to transform the city once known
as Königsberg into one of Europe's least likely tourist destinations.

When you arrive on the snow-covered tarmac of Kaliningrad's airport
there is little sign that this is the next Baltic boom town. For one
thing there are no other planes unless you count military aircraft.
Only one airline flies regularly between Kaliningrad and western Europe
- the newly-launched KD Avia - and it will be a few years before the
fledgling carrier takes on Easyjet. To fly with them you have first to
get to Berlin, the only international destination currently served by
Kaliningrad's flagship carrier.

Inside the terminal there is little by way of shopping, apart from
stalls selling amber souvenirs - the enclave is home to 90 per cent of
the world's amber deposits. Meanwhile the local press still has that
distinctly Soviet feel. Kaliningradskaya Pravda's front page story on
the ubiquitous, bear-like Mr Boos and his United Russia party, carries
the headline: "Together with the president, together with United
Russia, we will make the Kaliningrad area one of the best regions in
the world."

But if it is history you are looking for, Kaliningrad has plenty.
Founded by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century, the city's
prosperity grew with the creation of the Hanseatic League, an
association of Germanic cities which controlled trade in the Baltic and
which, by the end of the 15th century, had a fleet of more than 100
vessels. By 1660, Königsberg was under Prussian control and, in 1701
Frederick III von Hohenzollern was crowned the first king of Prussia in
the cathedral of Königsberg, taking the name Frederick I.

The city was at the heart of trade between Russia and Germany and was
capital of Prussia before Berlin took its place. It was a famous centre
of education (the Albertina University was founded in 1544) and its
most famous son, Immanuel Kant, whose three best-known works helped
shape modern philosophy, spent all his life in Königsberg, dying there
in 1804.

The 20th century wrought extraordinary changes. Germany's defeat in the
First World War left Königsberg and East Prussia separated from the
rest of the country by the Polish Corridor. This prompted Hitler's
desire to reunite the territory, one of the triggers for the next
conflagration. The region was taken by the Red Army in 1945 amid some
of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War and became part of the
Soviet Union, renamed in honour of Mikhail Kalinin, president of the
Supreme Soviet.

The German population disappeared, never to return. Those that survived
either fled, were sent to Siberia or exiled to East Germany. In their
place Russians were brought in from across the Soviet Union, many to
work at nearby Baltiysk, the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet.

The city centre was destroyed by Allied bombing raids and today
remnants of the its golden age are scarce. Instead, visitors are more
likely to notice the most famous architectural legacy of the USSR, the
House of the Soviets, thought by many to be the ugliest building on
Russian soil. But the historic cathedral, reduced to ruins by the RAF,
has been rebuilt and, in the city's leafier districts, the Soviet
architecture gives way to grander, pre-war German houses.

The aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union was not kind to
Kaliningrad and the economic and social malaise of the 1990s still
hangs over this oblast, or region. In her small, Spartan office by the
city's port, Nina Voronkova, head of the support centre for families
and children, can reel off a list of the city's social problems with
alarming speed. "Alcohol, drugs, HIV-Aids, family problems,
psychological problems, lack of employment, teenage pregnancy, people
with low self-esteem," she says.

Male life expectancy is 58, and the support centre sees around 30,000
people a year, but, with several years of double-digit economic growth,
things have eased. Ms Voronkova, who was born in Kazakhstan and raised
her daughter in Ukraine, says the economic situation here is much
better than in the 1990s.

Kaliningrad is beginning to shake off its reputation as the Aids
capital of Russia. New cases have stabilised, falling from 52 per
100,000 population in 2001 to 41 in 2004 (compared with 81 per 100,000
in St Petersburg).

Economic growth is improving living conditions for the one million
people of the region. In January 1996, Kaliningrad was designated a
Special Economic Zone, bringing key tax advantages which have lured
investors. A year later the first KIA car was assembled in Kaliningrad.
The region now boasts a BMW assembly plant and a thriving furniture
business as well as a fishing and oil extraction industry.

The authorities say growth overall hit 11.5 per cent in 2004 with
industrial output rising 25.8 per cent. Meanwhile the EU has realised
that it has a stake in preventing any further decay in an enclave
bordering both Lithuania and Poland and Kaliningrad benefits from
grants from Brussels to the tune of nearly ?50m. The EU has ploughed
?16m into 17 projects which are already completed, and has staked a
further ?32m on current work with a further ?40m earmarked for
future schemes.

During a recent visit, Benita-Ferrero Waldner, the EU commissioner for
external relations, argued: "We would like to contribute to the
economic development of the area. It is in our own interest to create
stability in our region." But problems are looming and many believe
that the progress made by Kaliningrad is artificial and fragile.

Moreover, Russia is due to become a member of the World Trade
Organisation and, while that should benefit investment in general, it
will mean that some of the tax breaks currently enjoyed by business in
Kaliningrad will have to be phased out over the next decade. At present
companies that import material, assemble furniture, then export it to
mainland Russia, pay no customs duties. The region boasts no fewer than
120 furniture-makers who have an uncertain long-term future.

Meanwhile Kaliningrad's location, cut off from the rest of Russia, will
inevitably complicate development. For years before neighbouring
Lithuania and Poland joined the EU, Brussels was locked in interminable
negotiations with Moscow on how Russians could transit through EU
territory, particularly Lithuania. These talks were hardly eased by the
fact that Russia's first lady, Lyudmila Putin, was brought up in
Kaliningrad and took a special interest.

The end result was the creation of a special travel document which is
cheaper and easier to use than a visa. There was also a promise to
study the possibility of building a high-speed train link to cut
through Lithuania.

Though the travel document appears to be working, Kaliningrad's
residents fret about how the rules will change when Poland and
Lithuania join the EU's passport-free Schengen zone, probably before
the end of the decade. That will mean tighter restrictions. The costly
high-speed train project has been quietly shunted into the sidings.

For Europeans, too, the border question is also neuralgic. If you play
word-association games with a Russian and mention Kaliningrad, the
chances are they will respond: "Narkotiki." Ms Ferrero-Waldner remains
diplomatic but concedes that she raises the issue of drug-trafficking
regularly with the Kaliningrad authorities. "There is a lot of
smuggling of cigarettes and drugs and alcohol. It is always an issue
when we hold talks," she says.

And some wonder whether it is really in Moscow's interests for
Kaliningrad to be too successful. At present there is little separatist
sentiment but, were the enclave to become more prosperous than the
mainland, its citizens might start looking more to the EU than to
Moscow.

For the time being, however, the region is experiencing the unfamiliar
taste of modest success. Outside the centre for children and families,
Djana Pestova says that, even for those on one income, life here is
"definitely better than in the central areas of Russia", and possibly
in many other parts of the world too. "My husband is a sailor and, he
visits many countries," she says before adding emphatically: "We are
happy that we live here."

10 things to know about Kaliningrad

* IMMANUEL KANT

The German philosopher spent his whole, celebrated life in his
hometown. Often considered as one of the greatest, and most
influential, thinkers of modern Europe, Kant was the last major
philosopher of the Enlightenment. His essay "What is Enlightenment?"
defined an age with the motto, "Dare to know". Daring meant thinking
autonomously.

* THE MONSTER

The grand Teutonic fortress of Königsberg has gone, demolished in the
1960s as a "monument to fascism". In its place stands the Hall of the
Soviets. Its rooms have never been used, the walls and floors have been
stripped bare and it's known unaffectionately to locals as "the
monster".

* AMBER

Home to 90 per cent of the world's amber deposits, Kaliningrad is awash
with the orange resin. Most of it is illegally extracted as the
enclave's giant mine had to shut down after losing two-thirds of
production to thieves. Kaliningrad was reputedly the source of
Catherine the Great's legendary Amber Room, in her palace in St
Petersburg.

* THE BALTIC FLEET

The once-mighty Soviet Baltic fleet is still moored in the endless
docks of Kaliningrad. But these days the ghost ships are little more
than forlorn sun decks for shaven-headed Russian sailors. The rusting
destroyers and submarines are too expensive for Moscow to operate. In
the fields around the harbour, thousands of ancient tanks hunker under
camouflage, while slowly sinking into the soil.

* THE NAMESAKE ...

Despite the fact that the former president of the Supreme Soviet,
Mikhail Kalinin, never even visited the region, Stalin insisted on
renaming the conquered Prussian city of Königsberg after the veteran
Bolshevik revolutionary. Remembered during his lifetime as the "Kind
Grandfather", Kalinin is now known as the man who ordered the Katyn
massacre - the mass execution of the Polish officer class by Soviet
forces in 1940.

* ... AND AN ALTERNATIVE

Many residents of Kaliningrad are uncomfortable with their region's
name and have suggested suitable alternatives that recognise both
Kaliningrad's Russian and German heritage. As the earlier name of
Königsberg conjures unpleasant memories of Prussia and German
conquest, some feel that Kantgrad is the only acceptable solution.

* FAMOUS WIVES

Two daughters of Kaliningrad have become the wives of powerful world
leaders. Leah Rabin, wife of Yitzak, was born in then Königsberg in
1928 - her family emigrated to Palestine five years later. Vladimir
Putin's wife Lyudmila also grew up in the city before meeting her
husband in St Petersburg.

* COMMUNIST HERITAGE

Just because Kaliningrad is surrounded by Europe does not mean the
Russian outpost is ashamed of its Soviet past. The city raised a few
eyebrows in November by bucking revisionist trends and re-erecting a
statue of Lenin. And no one has dared touch the 13-metre bronze statue
of Kalinin outside the railway station.

* SECRET SOCIETY

For much of the Cold War, Kaliningrad was closed to visitors and a
notoriously secretive place. As French President Jacques Chirac
discovered last year, things are a little different now. It was while
in Kaliningrad that Chirac famously called British cooking the second
worst in the world (after Finland). His comments were instantly leaked
to the press.

*SPITTING IMAGE

Kaliningrad is sheltered from the Baltic by the Curonian Spit, the
highest drifting sand dune in Europe. Formed more than 5,000 years ago,
the 52km-long Unesco world heritage site provides Kaliningrad with the
Baltic's only ice-free winter port.

Jerome Taylor

Once it was a home of philosophy, a European capital and a centre of
Baltic prosperity. These days those who have heard of Kaliningrad
associate it with drugs, prostitution and the Russian Aids epidemic.

Jutting out into the Baltic, the region of Kaliningrad is an accident
of history, a part of Russia now literally cut off from the rest of the
motherland by Lithuanian territory. But this small, Russian fifth
column inside an expanding EU is mounting a surprise comeback. Buoyed
by something of an economic boom, the region's extrovert, 42-year-old
governor, Georgy Boos, has ambitious plans to turn the enclave into the
Hong Kong of the Baltic. He also wants to transform the city once known
as Königsberg into one of Europe's least likely tourist destinations.

When you arrive on the snow-covered tarmac of Kaliningrad's airport
there is little sign that this is the next Baltic boom town. For one
thing there are no other planes unless you count military aircraft.
Only one airline flies regularly between Kaliningrad and western Europe
- the newly-launched KD Avia - and it will be a few years before the
fledgling carrier takes on Easyjet. To fly with them you have first to
get to Berlin, the only international destination currently served by
Kaliningrad's flagship carrier.

Inside the terminal there is little by way of shopping, apart from
stalls selling amber souvenirs - the enclave is home to 90 per cent of
the world's amber deposits. Meanwhile the local press still has that
distinctly Soviet feel. Kaliningradskaya Pravda's front page story on
the ubiquitous, bear-like Mr Boos and his United Russia party, carries
the headline: "Together with the president, together with United
Russia, we will make the Kaliningrad area one of the best regions in
the world."

But if it is history you are looking for, Kaliningrad has plenty.
Founded by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century, the city's
prosperity grew with the creation of the Hanseatic League, an
association of Germanic cities which controlled trade in the Baltic and
which, by the end of the 15th century, had a fleet of more than 100
vessels. By 1660, Königsberg was under Prussian control and, in 1701
Frederick III von Hohenzollern was crowned the first king of Prussia in
the cathedral of Königsberg, taking the name Frederick I.

The city was at the heart of trade between Russia and Germany and was
capital of Prussia before Berlin took its place. It was a famous centre
of education (the Albertina University was founded in 1544) and its
most famous son, Immanuel Kant, whose three best-known works helped
shape modern philosophy, spent all his life in Königsberg, dying there
in 1804.

The 20th century wrought extraordinary changes. Germany's defeat in the
First World War left Königsberg and East Prussia separated from the
rest of the country by the Polish Corridor. This prompted Hitler's
desire to reunite the territory, one of the triggers for the next
conflagration. The region was taken by the Red Army in 1945 amid some
of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War and became part of the
Soviet Union, renamed in honour of Mikhail Kalinin, president of the
Supreme Soviet.

The German population disappeared, never to return. Those that survived
either fled, were sent to Siberia or exiled to East Germany. In their
place Russians were brought in from across the Soviet Union, many to
work at nearby Baltiysk, the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet.

The city centre was destroyed by Allied bombing raids and today
remnants of the its golden age are scarce. Instead, visitors are more
likely to notice the most famous architectural legacy of the USSR, the
House of the Soviets, thought by many to be the ugliest building on
Russian soil. But the historic cathedral, reduced to ruins by the RAF,
has been rebuilt and, in the city's leafier districts, the Soviet
architecture gives way to grander, pre-war German houses.

The aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union was not kind to
Kaliningrad and the economic and social malaise of the 1990s still
hangs over this oblast, or region. In her small, Spartan office by the
city's port, Nina Voronkova, head of the support centre for families
and children, can reel off a list of the city's social problems with
alarming speed. "Alcohol, drugs, HIV-Aids, family problems,
psychological problems, lack of employment, teenage pregnancy, people
with low self-esteem," she says.

Male life expectancy is 58, and the support centre sees around 30,000
people a year, but, with several years of double-digit economic growth,
things have eased. Ms Voronkova, who was born in Kazakhstan and raised
her daughter in Ukraine, says the economic situation here is much
better than in the 1990s.

Kaliningrad is beginning to shake off its reputation as the Aids
capital of Russia. New cases have stabilised, falling from 52 per
100,000 population in 2001 to 41 in 2004 (compared with 81 per 100,000
in St Petersburg).

Economic growth is improving living conditions for the one million
people of the region. In January 1996, Kaliningrad was designated a
Special Economic Zone, bringing key tax advantages which have lured
investors. A year later the first KIA car was assembled in Kaliningrad.
The region now boasts a BMW assembly plant and a thriving furniture
business as well as a fishing and oil extraction industry.

The authorities say growth overall hit 11.5 per cent in 2004 with
industrial output rising 25.8 per cent. Meanwhile the EU has realised
that it has a stake in preventing any further decay in an enclave
bordering both Lithuania and Poland and Kaliningrad benefits from
grants from Brussels to the tune of nearly ?50m. The EU has ploughed
?16m into 17 projects which are already completed, and has staked a
further ?32m on current work with a further ?40m earmarked for
future schemes.

During a recent visit, Benita-Ferrero Waldner, the EU commissioner for
external relations, argued: "We would like to contribute to the
economic development of the area. It is in our own interest to create
stability in our region." But problems are looming and many believe
that the progress made by Kaliningrad is artificial and fragile.

Moreover, Russia is due to become a member of the World Trade
Organisation and, while that should benefit investment in general, it
will mean that some of the tax breaks currently enjoyed by business in
Kaliningrad will have to be phased out over the next decade. At present
companies that import material, assemble furniture, then export it to
mainland Russia, pay no customs duties. The region boasts no fewer than
120 furniture-makers who have an uncertain long-term future.
Meanwhile Kaliningrad's location, cut off from the rest of Russia, will
inevitably complicate development. For years before neighbouring
Lithuania and Poland joined the EU, Brussels was locked in interminable
negotiations with Moscow on how Russians could transit through EU
territory, particularly Lithuania. These talks were hardly eased by the
fact that Russia's first lady, Lyudmila Putin, was brought up in
Kaliningrad and took a special interest.

The end result was the creation of a special travel document which is
cheaper and easier to use than a visa. There was also a promise to
study the possibility of building a high-speed train link to cut
through Lithuania.

Though the travel document appears to be working, Kaliningrad's
residents fret about how the rules will change when Poland and
Lithuania join the EU's passport-free Schengen zone, probably before
the end of the decade. That will mean tighter restrictions. The costly
high-speed train project has been quietly shunted into the sidings.

For Europeans, too, the border question is also neuralgic. If you play
word-association games with a Russian and mention Kaliningrad, the
chances are they will respond: "Narkotiki." Ms Ferrero-Waldner remains
diplomatic but concedes that she raises the issue of drug-trafficking
regularly with the Kaliningrad authorities. "There is a lot of
smuggling of cigarettes and drugs and alcohol. It is always an issue
when we hold talks," she says.

And some wonder whether it is really in Moscow's interests for
Kaliningrad to be too successful. At present there is little separatist
sentiment but, were the enclave to become more prosperous than the
mainland, its citizens might start looking more to the EU than to
Moscow.

For the time being, however, the region is experiencing the unfamiliar
taste of modest success. Outside the centre for children and families,
Djana Pestova says that, even for those on one income, life here is
"definitely better than in the central areas of Russia", and possibly
in many other parts of the world too. "My husband is a sailor and, he
visits many countries," she says before adding emphatically: "We are
happy that we live here."

10 things to know about Kaliningrad

* IMMANUEL KANT

The German philosopher spent his whole, celebrated life in his
hometown. Often considered as one of the greatest, and most
influential, thinkers of modern Europe, Kant was the last major
philosopher of the Enlightenment. His essay "What is Enlightenment?"
defined an age with the motto, "Dare to know". Daring meant thinking
autonomously.

* THE MONSTER

The grand Teutonic fortress of Königsberg has gone, demolished in the
1960s as a "monument to fascism". In its place stands the Hall of the
Soviets. Its rooms have never been used, the walls and floors have been
stripped bare and it's known unaffectionately to locals as "the
monster".

* AMBER

Home to 90 per cent of the world's amber deposits, Kaliningrad is awash
with the orange resin. Most of it is illegally extracted as the
enclave's giant mine had to shut down after losing two-thirds of
production to thieves. Kaliningrad was reputedly the source of
Catherine the Great's legendary Amber Room, in her palace in St
Petersburg.

* THE BALTIC FLEET

The once-mighty Soviet Baltic fleet is still moored in the endless
docks of Kaliningrad. But these days the ghost ships are little more
than forlorn sun decks for shaven-headed Russian sailors. The rusting
destroyers and submarines are too expensive for Moscow to operate. In
the fields around the harbour, thousands of ancient tanks hunker under
camouflage, while slowly sinking into the soil.

* THE NAMESAKE ...

Despite the fact that the former president of the Supreme Soviet,
Mikhail Kalinin, never even visited the region, Stalin insisted on
renaming the conquered Prussian city of Königsberg after the veteran
Bolshevik revolutionary. Remembered during his lifetime as the "Kind
Grandfather", Kalinin is now known as the man who ordered the Katyn
massacre - the mass execution of the Polish officer class by Soviet
forces in 1940.

* ... AND AN ALTERNATIVE

Many residents of Kaliningrad are uncomfortable with their region's
name and have suggested suitable alternatives that recognise both
Kaliningrad's Russian and German heritage. As the earlier name of
Königsberg conjures unpleasant memories of Prussia and German
conquest, some feel that Kantgrad is the only acceptable solution.

* FAMOUS WIVES

Two daughters of Kaliningrad have become the wives of powerful world
leaders. Leah Rabin, wife of Yitzak, was born in then Königsberg in
1928 - her family emigrated to Palestine five years later. Vladimir
Putin's wife Lyudmila also grew up in the city before meeting her
husband in St Petersburg.

* COMMUNIST HERITAGE

Just because Kaliningrad is surrounded by Europe does not mean the
Russian outpost is ashamed of its Soviet past. The city raised a few
eyebrows in November by bucking revisionist trends and re-erecting a
statue of Lenin. And no one has dared touch the 13-metre bronze statue
of Kalinin outside the railway station.

* SECRET SOCIETY

For much of the Cold War, Kaliningrad was closed to visitors and a
notoriously secretive place. As French President Jacques Chirac
discovered last year, things are a little different now. It was while
in Kaliningrad that Chirac famously called British cooking the second
worst in the world (after Finland). His comments were instantly leaked
to the press.

*SPITTING IMAGE

Kaliningrad is sheltered from the Baltic by the Curonian Spit, the
highest drifting sand dune in Europe. Formed more than 5,000 years ago,
the 52km-long Unesco world heritage site provides Kaliningrad with the
Baltic's only ice-free winter port.

Jerome Taylor


  #4  
Old March 24th, 2006, 11:08 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town

On 23 Mar 2006 11:54:01 -0800, "Gregory Morrow"
wrote:


eetinBelgië wrote:

[from article]

For the time being, however, the region is experiencing the unfamiliar
taste of modest success. Outside the centre for children and families,
Djana Pestova says that, even for those on one income, life here is
"definitely better than in the central areas of Russia", and possibly
in many other parts of the world too.



Well, that's not saying much. The place sounds like a Baltic version
of Albania -- except that Albania is probably easier to visit (less
onerous visa requirements, better facilities, etc.)...


I have visited both. Admittedly my trip to Kaliningrad was just an
illegal **** stop about 2 metres over the border, but I still
preferred Albania.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--
  #5  
Old March 25th, 2006, 09:10 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town



eetinBelgië wrote:

Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town

Once famous for brutalist Soviet architecture and soaring Aids rates,
this tiny enclave is emerging as Putin's answer to Hong Kong
Stephen Castle reports
Published: 23 March 2006

Once it was a home of philosophy, a European capital and a centre of
Baltic prosperity. These days those who have heard of Kaliningrad
associate it with drugs, prostitution and the Russian Aids epidemic.

Jutting out into the Baltic, the region of Kaliningrad is an accident
of history, a part of Russia now literally cut off from the rest of the
motherland by Lithuanian territory. But this small, Russian fifth
column inside an expanding EU is mounting a surprise comeback. Buoyed
by something of an economic boom, the region's extrovert, 42-year-old
governor, Georgy Boos, has ambitious plans to turn the enclave into the
Hong Kong of the Baltic. He also wants to transform the city once known
as Königsberg into one of Europe's least likely tourist destinations.

snip

All is fantasy unless Russia is willing to drop it's strong objection to
tourism and outside commercial interests. Hong Kong was strong
precisely because it was a free outpost on the edge of a totalitarian
empire.

A totalitarian outpost on the edge of a free empire has no purpose.


  #6  
Old March 25th, 2006, 09:52 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town

"Frank F. Matthews" writes:

You snipped too soon: later in the article - which I read on a dead
tree or an Interweb, but I've forgotten where - it is outpointed that
Kalininininingrad benefits very precisely from a more relaxed than a
visa entrance condition.

A totalitarian outpost on the edge of a free empire has no purpose.


Gloop gloop gloop to you too, for sure.

Des
  #7  
Old March 26th, 2006, 01:41 AM posted to rec.travel.europe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town

On 25 Mar 2006 20:52:44 +0000, Des Small
wrote:

"Frank F. Matthews" writes:

You snipped too soon: later in the article - which I read on a dead
tree or an Interweb, but I've forgotten where - it is outpointed that
Kalininininingrad benefits very precisely from a more relaxed than a
visa entrance condition.


More relaxed? I suspect they wont be competing with their neighbours
for a while on this point.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--
  #8  
Old March 26th, 2006, 05:57 AM posted to rec.travel.europe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Kaliningrad: from Russian relic to Baltic boom town



Des Small wrote:

"Frank F. Matthews" writes:

You snipped too soon: later in the article - which I read on a dead
tree or an Interweb, but I've forgotten where - it is outpointed that
Kalininininingrad benefits very precisely from a more relaxed than a
visa entrance condition.


A totalitarian outpost on the edge of a free empire has no purpose.



Gloop gloop gloop to you too, for sure.

Des


I managed to see the note that Kalingrad has some special documents for
access to neighbors. As noted though as the neighbors try to join
Schengen this will go. I haven't seen anything about easier access to
Kalingrad for foreigners.

The only real modification that may be stable is for somewhat easier
travel from Russia (non Kalingrad) to Russia (Kalingrad) and the reverse.


 




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