05-19-2020, 09:24 PM
![[Image: 5a746e3ca1040.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/ydd4DY7X/5a746e3ca1040.jpg)
Since I already did an overview of Konigsberg up until 1945, I might as well finish what I started.
Even thought the future of the medieval city was decided before the final assault that demolished it took place, the end of Konigsberg as such didn't actually occur until after the war, when Soviet authorities decided to rename the enclave after the recently-deceased Mikhail Kalinin (a big fish within the URSS) thus putting an end to the history of Konigsberg and signaling the beginning of the Kaliningrad era.
But much like other Soviet cities, Kaliningrad wasn't allowed to shine.
Most of the historical buildings of the city where either demolished due their damaged state or finished off in order to use their materials to aid the reconstruction of the Soviet Union. The historical castle (now merely a shell) was the first one to go, followed by the remnants of the Albertina University and the entirety of the bordering towns of Altstadt and Lobenitch. Five of the seven King's Gates were also brought down because of the soviet material-gathering effort. All of these structures were replaced by multi-purpose Stalinistic monsters of concrete (some of which weren't even finished) that fatally wounded the city's skyline and forever buried any resemblance with the historical fortress that came before them.
Unsurprisingly, the Soviet authorities began expelling the surviving German population around the time the city got renamed and subsequently closed Kaliningrad to all foreigners, as it was made the headquarters of the Soviet Baltic Fleet. To this effect, the ex-postal administrative building was repaired by the Soviet Navy and refurbished in order to house their Naval High Command.
Since Kaliningrad remained closed, an effort was made by the leading authorities in order to make it more appealing to the few people that resided in it: the old Konigsberg Borse (the Stock-Exchange building) was built back and preserved due to its Russian neo-classical style, and the Rossgarten Gate's relatively light damages were also fixed, which allowed the location to be turned into a popular cafè/restaurant. Furthermore, the Napoleonic-era fort originally built by Karl Friederich Emil zu Dohna-Schlobitten was reconstructed in the late sixties and reopened as the Kaliningrad Regional Amber Museum in 1979, which has become one of the city's most popular landmarks.
Kneiphof Island was also reconstructed in the early 70s (since the Russians had finished their material-gathering operations) and was turned into a large park dotted by a multitude of statues. The historical cathedral was allowed to be rebuilt after the fall of Soviet Union and, once completed, became the centerpiece of the newly-named Kant Island.
The aforementioned fall of the Soviet Union allowed for more and better projects to be developed in and around the former capital of East Prussia: building on the Cathedral of Christ the Savior began in 1995 and --by the time it was completed in 2006-- became the city's most recognizable landmark.
The original King's Gate was repaired thoroughly after being left to rot and having been vandalized at the end of World War 2 and reopened in 2005, to commemorate the city's 750th anniversary.
But the end of the Soviet rule didn't just bring about positive changes for Kaliningrad.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union already at full speed (and with many of its former satellites declaring their independence) Kaliningrad became cut and isolated from the rest of the Russian Federation. Moscow feared not only that Germany would try to get back the territory, but also that Poland and Lithuania would try to make claims on it as well. These proved to be unfounded fears, since Germany had renounced all claims to the former East Prussia in order to be reunified and Poland decided not to push the issue, as a net beneficiary of the Postdam Agreements. Lithuania remained silent and didn't make any claims to the territory, either.
It is honestly kinda funny to think how much of Kaliningrad's history seems to rhyme. The creation of the Polish Corridor had isolated Konigsberg from the rest of the Germany and had caused a lot of unrest for not only its population, but main state as well. Now the fact that many of the countries surrounding the now-isolated Kaliningrad Oblast are NATO members produces exactly the same effect, just in the middle of the nuclear era. It's a quaint development to say the least.
Also on the odd side is the fact that Kaliningrad wasn't renamed further after the end of the Soviet Union, as all major cities within its former borders were... my guess is that not enough people knew who Mikhail Kalinin was
As of today, Kaliningrad remains one of Europe's finest and most popular destinations, attracting people by the truckload due to its uncanny mix of former Konigsberg-era, Soviet-era and Russian-era buildings. It's honestly quite the shockingly attractive combo, as one can make one turn and end up facing the King's Gate and find a Soviet office complex on the next. It's a mix that works for reasons that resist analysis, but that punches twice as hard because of it.
It is true that most of what made the former Konigsberg a Prussian center of art and education is long gone, doomed to exist only on black and white film and history books, but what made it an international cultural center like no other can still be seen around every street and corner of the current Kaliningrad, whimsically mixing styles and languages at every crossroad... and I can't think of a better legacy to preserve.
And while it is almost a complete certainly that the city will never be German again, the opening of a consulate in there and the fact that the country has become quite active in terms of its former territory (from publicly lending funds and donations to build it back to privately organizing archeological efforts in order to save as much history as possible) guarantee that the link will never be truly broken. And perhaps that's the fairest note to end on.
. Still strikes me as odd that it didn't regain its former name after the fall of the Soviet Union - but then, until I read this thread, I didn't know who Mikhail Kalinin was either 
!