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{{Infobox Russian federal subject|EnglishName=Kaliningrad Oblast|RussianName=Калининградская область|LocatorMap=250px-EU location KO.png|LocatorMapLegend=Location of Kaliningrad Oblast in Europe|CoatOfArms=Kaliningrad Oblast Coat of Arms 2006.jpg|CoatOfArmsLink=
Coat of arms of Kaliningrad Oblast|AnthemLink=None|AdmCtrOrCapital=Administrative center|AdmCtrName=[Kaliningrad, [1946|EconomicRegion= [Kaliningrad economic region|CodeNumber=39|Area=15100|AreaRank=78th|Population=955281|PopulationRank=57th|UrbanPopulation=77.6%|RuralPopulation=22.4%|LangLangs|LangList=Russian language|HeadTitle=Governor of Kaliningrad Oblast|HeadName=
Georgy Boos|ConstitutionType=Charter|ConstitutionName=[Charter of Kaliningrad Oblast (an [oblast) of
Russia on the Baltic Sea coast.
Despite being the westernmost part of the Russian Federation, it has no land connection to the rest of Russia, as it is an
exclave of Russia surrounded by Lithuania and Poland. Borderless travel to the main part of Russia is only possible by sea or air. The fact that Lithuania and Poland are both members of the European Union and NATO means that the oblast is surrounded by the territories of these organizations as well.
Its largest types of inhabited localities in Russia and the administrative center is
Kaliningrad (
geographical renaming Königsberg), which has historical significance as both a major city of
Prussia and the capital of the former Germany province East Prussia, of which the region remains the northern core remnant. Population: 968,200 (2004 est.); 955,281 (
Russian Census (2002)); 871,283 (Soviet Census (1989)).
Geography
Kaliningrad Oblast is a non-contiguous exclave of Russia surrounded by
Lithuania,
Poland, and the
Baltic Sea.
Geographical features include:
- Curonian Lagoon - shared with Lithuania
- Vistula Lagoon - shared with Poland
Politics
The current governor (since 2005) of Kaliningrad Oblast is
Georgy Boos, who succeeded Vladimir Yegorov.
The EU and Russia have had serious political debate over Kaliningrad. The recent enlargement of the EU (2004) saw Poland and Lithuania become member states meaning Kaliningrad now has land borders only with the EU. Issues of security have been at the forefront of debate, with high relevance to the
Schengen Agreement.
History
East Prussia
The region of Kaliningrad Oblast was inhabited during the
Middle Ages by tribes of Old Prussians in the western part, and
Lithuanians in the eastern part by the Pregolya and Alna rivers. The Teutonic Knights conquered the region and established a
Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. On the foundations of a destroyed Prussian settlement known as Tvanksta, the Order founded the major city Königsberg, the current
Kaliningrad. Germans and
Poles resettled the territory and assimilated the indigenous Old Prussians. The
Lithuanians-inhabited areas became known as Lithuania Minor. In 1525, Grand Master
Albert I, Duke of Prussia German Mediatisation the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order and established himself as the sovereign of the
Duchy of Prussia, later inherited by the
Margravate of Brandenburg. The region was reorganized into the Province of
East Prussia within the
Kingdom of Prussia in 1773..
East Prussia was an important centre of German culture. Many important figures, such as
Immanuel Kant, originated from this region. The cities of Kaliningrad Oblast, despite being heavily damaged during
World War II and after, still bear typical German architecture, such as
Jugendstil, showing the rich German history and cultural importance of the area. The Lithuanian-speaking population in East Prussia diminished due to Germanization; in the early 20th century Lithuanians made up a majority only in the far northeast of East Prussia, the rest of the area being predominantly German-speaking.
The Memel Territory (
Klaipėda region), formerly part of northeastern East Prussia, came under Lithuanian control in 1923 after
World War I. After coming to power in Weimar Republic, the Nazism radically altered about a third of the place names of this area by Germanizing most names of Old Prussian or Lithuanian origin in 1938.
Kaliningrad Oblast
During
World War II the Soviet Union Red Army entered the eastern-most tip of East Prussia on August 29
1944. Rumours of massacres committed by the Soviet troops spread panic in the province and caused a mass flight westward. More than two million people were
Evacuation of East Prussia, many of them via the Baltic Sea. The remaining population was deported after the war ended and the area was repopulated primarily by
Russians and, to a lesser extent, by
Ukrainians and
Belarusians (see
Kaliningrad Oblast#Demographics, below).
The
Potsdam Agreement of world powers assigned northern East Prussia to the Soviet Union pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement:
VI. CITY OF KOENIGSBERG AND THE ADJACENT AREAThe Conference examined a proposal by the Soviet Government that pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement the section of the western frontier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which is adjacent to the Baltic Sea should pass from a point on the eastern shore of the
Gdańsk Bay to the east, north of Braniewo and
Gołdap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the Poland and East Prussia.
The Conference has agreed in principle to the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the city of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it as described above, subject to expert examination of the actual frontier.
The
Harry S. Truman and the Clement Attlee have declared that they will support the proposal of the Conference at the forthcoming peace settlement. In 1957, an agreement was signed and later came into force which delimited the boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union. (Full text: , for other issues of the frontier delimitation see )
According to some documents written during the administration of
Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet government had planned to make the rest of the area a part of the Lithuanian SSR. The area was administered by the
planning committee of the LSSR, although the area had its own Party committee. However, the leadership of the Lithuanian SSR (especially
Antanas Sniečkus) refused to take the territory mainly because of its devastation during the war. Instead the region was added to the Russian SFSR and since 1946 it has been known as Kaliningrad Oblast. According to some historians,
Joseph Stalin created it as an oblast separate from the LSSR because it further enclosed the Baltic republics from Western world. Names of the towns, cities, rivers, and other geographical objects were changed into newly-created Russian ones.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the independence of the
Baltic states physically isolated Kaliningrad Oblast from the rest of Russia. Some ethnic Germans began to migrate to the area, especially
Volga Germans from other parts of Russia and Kazakhstan, especially after Germany stopped granting free right of return to ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union. The economic situation has been badly affected by this isolation (and the large reduction in the size of the Russian military garrison which was previously one of the major employers), especially when neighbouring nations imposed strict border controls when they joined the
European Union. Proposals for visa-free travel between the EU and Kaliningrad have so far been rejected.
In recent times, the situation has slowly changed as the people of Kaliningrad have begun to reexamine their past. Germany and Lithuania have renewed contact with Kaliningrad Oblast through
town twinning and other projects. This has helped to promote interest in the history and the culture of the East Prussian and Prussian Lithuanians communities.
Time zone
National Park (a
World Heritage Site).
Kaliningrad Oblast is located in the Eastern European Time (known locally as the Kaliningrad Time or the Russia Zone 1). Coordinated Universal Time offset is +0200 (USZ1)/+0300 (USZ1S).
Administrative divisions
==Demographics==
Population: According to the
Russian Census (2002) the population of the region was 955,281 (78% urban; 22% rural). Kaliningrad Oblast is the fourth most densely populated in the Russian Federation, with 62.5 persons per sq.km. Almost none of the pre-World War II Lithuanian population (
Lietuvininks) or German population remain in Kaliningrad Oblast.
Ethnic groups: According to the
Russian Census (2002) the 'national composition' included
- 786,885 Russians (82.37%)
- 50,748 Belarusians (5.31%)
- 47,229 Ukrainians (4.94%)
- 13,937 Lithuanians (1.46%)
- 8,415 Armenians (0.88%)
- 8,340 Germans (0.87%)
- 4,729 Tatars (0.50%)
- 3,918 Poles (0.41%)
- 2,959 Azeris in Russia (0.30%)
- 2,320 Mordvins (0.24%)
- 2,027 Chuvash (0.21%)
- 1,599 Jews (0.17%)
- 1,447 Roma people (0.15%)
- 1,116 Moldovans (0.12%)
- 738 Chechens (0.08%)
- 709 Latvians (0.07%)
- 681 Georgians (0.07%)
- 631 Kazakhs and 631 Uzbeks (0.07% each)
- 562 Bashkirs (0.06%)
- 504 Yezidi (0.05%)
- 448 Mari (0.05%)
- 433 Ossetians (0.05%)
- 382 Udmurts (0.04%)
- 359 Lezgins (0.04%)
- 346 Bulgarians (0.04%)
- and 309 Tajiks (0.03%)
as well as other groups of less than three hundred persons each. An additional 0.93% of residents declined to state their nationality or ethnocultural identity on the census questionnaire.
References
History section:
Simon Grunau, Preußische Chronik. Hrsg. von M. Perlbach etc., Leipzig, 1875.
A. Bezzenberger, Geographie von Preußen, Gotha, 1959
External links
- Online guide to Kaliningrad - Kaliningradcity.ru
- Official site
- Kaliningrad Oblast on Google Maps
- Photos of Kaliningrad
- Recent photos taken by Joost Lemmens of the Netherlands shows examples of small towns neglected under the Soviet Union around Kaliningrad Oblast. This site gives the Prussian German town names and the corresponding Russian names after 1945/49. It starts out with the gate of the horse breeding stables in Trakehnen, and hopeful signs of new beginnings for this devastated land.
- Master's thesis by Sergey Naumkin on the possibility of Kaliningrad integrating with the EU as a special economic zone
- Life in Kaliningrad Oblast
- Spuren der Vergangenheit / Следы Пρошлого (Traces of the past) This site by W.A. Milowskij, a Kaliningrad resident, contains hundreds of interesting photos, often with text explanations, of architectural and infrastructural artifacts of the territory's long German past.
- Euroregion Baltic
{{Infobox Russian federal subject|EnglishName=Kaliningrad Oblast|RussianName=Калининградская область|LocatorMap=250px-EU location KO.png|LocatorMapLegend=Location of Kaliningrad Oblast in Europe|CoatOfArms=Kaliningrad Oblast Coat of Arms 2006.jpg|CoatOfArmsLink=Coat of arms of Kaliningrad Oblast|AnthemLink=
None|AdmCtrOrCapital=Administrative center|AdmCtrName=[Kaliningrad, [1946|EconomicRegion= [Kaliningrad economic region|CodeNumber=39|Area=15100|AreaRank=78th|Population=955281|PopulationRank=57th|UrbanPopulation=77.6%|RuralPopulation=22.4%|LangLangs|LangList=
Russian language|HeadTitle=
Governor of Kaliningrad Oblast|HeadName=
Georgy Boos|ConstitutionType=Charter|ConstitutionName=[Charter of Kaliningrad Oblast (an [oblast) of
Russia on the
Baltic Sea coast.
Despite being the westernmost part of the Russian Federation, it has no land connection to the rest of Russia, as it is an
exclave of Russia surrounded by Lithuania and
Poland. Borderless travel to the main part of Russia is only possible by sea or air. The fact that Lithuania and Poland are both members of the European Union and NATO means that the oblast is surrounded by the territories of these organizations as well.
Its largest
types of inhabited localities in Russia and the administrative center is Kaliningrad (geographical renaming Königsberg), which has historical significance as both a major city of Prussia and the capital of the former Germany province
East Prussia, of which the region remains the northern core remnant. Population: 968,200 (2004 est.); 955,281 (Russian Census (2002)); 871,283 (Soviet Census (1989)).
Geography
Kaliningrad Oblast is a non-contiguous exclave of Russia surrounded by Lithuania, Poland, and the
Baltic Sea.
Geographical features include:
Politics
The current governor (since 2005) of Kaliningrad Oblast is Georgy Boos, who succeeded Vladimir Yegorov.
The EU and Russia have had serious political debate over Kaliningrad. The recent enlargement of the EU (2004) saw Poland and Lithuania become member states meaning Kaliningrad now has land borders only with the EU. Issues of security have been at the forefront of debate, with high relevance to the Schengen Agreement.
History
East Prussia
The region of Kaliningrad Oblast was inhabited during the
Middle Ages by tribes of
Old Prussians in the western part, and
Lithuanians in the eastern part by the
Pregolya and Alna rivers. The
Teutonic Knights conquered the region and established a Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. On the foundations of a destroyed Prussian settlement known as Tvanksta, the Order founded the major city Königsberg, the current Kaliningrad. Germans and
Poles resettled the territory and assimilated the indigenous Old Prussians. The
Lithuanians-inhabited areas became known as
Lithuania Minor. In 1525, Grand Master Albert I, Duke of Prussia German Mediatisation the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order and established himself as the sovereign of the
Duchy of Prussia, later inherited by the Margravate of Brandenburg. The region was reorganized into the Province of East Prussia within the
Kingdom of Prussia in 1773..
East Prussia was an important centre of German culture. Many important figures, such as Immanuel Kant, originated from this region. The cities of Kaliningrad Oblast, despite being heavily damaged during
World War II and after, still bear typical German architecture, such as
Jugendstil, showing the rich German history and cultural importance of the area. The Lithuanian-speaking population in East Prussia diminished due to Germanization; in the early 20th century Lithuanians made up a majority only in the far northeast of East Prussia, the rest of the area being predominantly German-speaking.
The Memel Territory (
Klaipėda region), formerly part of northeastern East Prussia, came under Lithuanian control in 1923 after
World War I. After coming to power in
Weimar Republic, the
Nazism radically altered about a third of the place names of this area by Germanizing most names of Old Prussian or Lithuanian origin in 1938.
Kaliningrad Oblast
During
World War II the
Soviet Union Red Army entered the eastern-most tip of East Prussia on August 29
1944. Rumours of massacres committed by the Soviet troops spread panic in the province and caused a mass flight westward. More than two million people were Evacuation of East Prussia, many of them via the
Baltic Sea. The remaining population was deported after the war ended and the area was repopulated primarily by
Russians and, to a lesser extent, by
Ukrainians and Belarusians (see Kaliningrad Oblast#Demographics, below).
The Potsdam Agreement of world powers assigned northern East Prussia to the
Soviet Union pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement:
VI. CITY OF KOENIGSBERG AND THE ADJACENT AREAThe Conference examined a proposal by the Soviet Government that pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement the section of the western frontier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which is adjacent to the
Baltic Sea should pass from a point on the eastern shore of the
Gdańsk Bay to the east, north of Braniewo and
Gołdap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the
Poland and East Prussia.
The Conference has agreed in principle to the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the city of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it as described above, subject to expert examination of the actual frontier.
The
Harry S. Truman and the Clement Attlee have declared that they will support the proposal of the Conference at the forthcoming peace settlement. In 1957, an agreement was signed and later came into force which delimited the boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union. (Full text: , for other issues of the frontier delimitation see )
According to some documents written during the administration of
Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet government had planned to make the rest of the area a part of the Lithuanian SSR. The area was administered by the
planning committee of the LSSR, although the area had its own Party committee. However, the leadership of the Lithuanian SSR (especially Antanas Sniečkus) refused to take the territory mainly because of its devastation during the war. Instead the region was added to the
Russian SFSR and since 1946 it has been known as Kaliningrad Oblast. According to some historians,
Joseph Stalin created it as an oblast separate from the LSSR because it further enclosed the Baltic republics from Western world. Names of the towns, cities, rivers, and other geographical objects were changed into newly-created Russian ones.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the independence of the
Baltic states physically isolated Kaliningrad Oblast from the rest of Russia. Some ethnic Germans began to migrate to the area, especially Volga Germans from other parts of Russia and
Kazakhstan, especially after Germany stopped granting free right of return to ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union. The economic situation has been badly affected by this isolation (and the large reduction in the size of the Russian military garrison which was previously one of the major employers), especially when neighbouring nations imposed strict border controls when they joined the European Union. Proposals for visa-free travel between the EU and Kaliningrad have so far been rejected.
In recent times, the situation has slowly changed as the people of Kaliningrad have begun to reexamine their past. Germany and Lithuania have renewed contact with Kaliningrad Oblast through
town twinning and other projects. This has helped to promote interest in the history and the culture of the East Prussian and Prussian Lithuanians communities.
Time zone
National Park (a World Heritage Site).
Kaliningrad Oblast is located in the
Eastern European Time (known locally as the Kaliningrad Time or the Russia Zone 1).
Coordinated Universal Time offset is +0200 (USZ1)/+0300 (USZ1S).
Administrative divisions
==Demographics==
Population: According to the
Russian Census (2002) the population of the region was 955,281 (78% urban; 22% rural). Kaliningrad Oblast is the fourth most densely populated in the Russian Federation, with 62.5 persons per sq.km. Almost none of the pre-World War II Lithuanian population (Lietuvininks) or German population remain in Kaliningrad Oblast.
Ethnic groups: According to the Russian Census (2002) the 'national composition' included
- 786,885 Russians (82.37%)
- 50,748 Belarusians (5.31%)
- 47,229 Ukrainians (4.94%)
- 13,937 Lithuanians (1.46%)
- 8,415 Armenians (0.88%)
- 8,340 Germans (0.87%)
- 4,729 Tatars (0.50%)
- 3,918 Poles (0.41%)
- 2,959 Azeris in Russia (0.30%)
- 2,320 Mordvins (0.24%)
- 2,027 Chuvash (0.21%)
- 1,599 Jews (0.17%)
- 1,447 Roma people (0.15%)
- 1,116 Moldovans (0.12%)
- 738 Chechens (0.08%)
- 709 Latvians (0.07%)
- 681 Georgians (0.07%)
- 631 Kazakhs and 631 Uzbeks (0.07% each)
- 562 Bashkirs (0.06%)
- 504 Yezidi (0.05%)
- 448 Mari (0.05%)
- 433 Ossetians (0.05%)
- 382 Udmurts (0.04%)
- 359 Lezgins (0.04%)
- 346 Bulgarians (0.04%)
- and 309 Tajiks (0.03%)
as well as other groups of less than three hundred persons each. An additional 0.93% of residents declined to state their nationality or ethnocultural identity on the census questionnaire.
References
History section:
Simon Grunau, Preußische Chronik. Hrsg. von M. Perlbach etc., Leipzig, 1875.
A. Bezzenberger, Geographie von Preußen, Gotha, 1959
External links
- Online guide to Kaliningrad - Kaliningradcity.ru
- Official site
- Kaliningrad Oblast on Google Maps
- Photos of Kaliningrad
- Recent photos taken by Joost Lemmens of the Netherlands shows examples of small towns neglected under the Soviet Union around Kaliningrad Oblast. This site gives the Prussian German town names and the corresponding Russian names after 1945/49. It starts out with the gate of the horse breeding stables in Trakehnen, and hopeful signs of new beginnings for this devastated land.
- Master's thesis by Sergey Naumkin on the possibility of Kaliningrad integrating with the EU as a special economic zone
- Life in Kaliningrad Oblast
- Spuren der Vergangenheit / Следы Пρошлого (Traces of the past) This site by W.A. Milowskij, a Kaliningrad resident, contains hundreds of interesting photos, often with text explanations, of architectural and infrastructural artifacts of the territory's long German past.
- Euroregion Baltic
Kaliningrad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kaliningrad (Russian: Калининград) is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.
Kaliningrad Oblast - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kaliningrad Oblast (Russian: Калинингра́дская о́бласть, Kaliningradskaya oblast; informally called Yantarny kray (Янта́рный край, meaning amber ...
Kaliningrad Oblast: Höfer Verlag - Regional Road Maps & Atlases from ...
Detailed indexed road map of the district ... Publisher: Höfer Verlag: Catalogue number: 103928: ISBN: 9783931103408: Format: Folded Map
Kaliningrad Oblast travel guide - Wikitravel
Open source travel guide to Kaliningrad Oblast, featuring up-to-date information on attractions, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, travel tips and more. Free and reliable advice ...
Talk:Kaliningrad Oblast - Wikitravel
Woah! This got all listy--again, I have to ask, is this really helpful to most travellers? Personally it would scare me away from even looking further. Just like we don't want ...
Kaliningrad (oblast) - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about ...
Oblast (region) in the western Russian Federation, the smallest province in the country; area 15,100 sq km/5,830 sq mi; population (1996) 932,000 (78% urban).
Information for your country: Kaliningrad Oblast
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Information for your country: Kaliningrad Oblast
Entrance Requirements Undergraduate study Postgraduate study Study Abroad Programme . Course Information. Funding. General Information for International Students
Kaliningrad definition of Kaliningrad in the Free Online Encyclopedia.
Kaliningrad (kəlyē'nyĭn-grät`), formerly Königsberg, city (1989 pop. 401,000 ... Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad Province Kaliningrad State University Kaliningrad Time
InterRail - Russia / Kaliningrad Oblast - forum
InterRail Russia / Kaliningrad Oblast - information about Interrail. Forum. Help to the topics ticket, trains, supplements, reservation, hostels, online shop... ... Does anyone ...
