Kaliningrad Region Overview

Kaliningrad (Калинингра́дская – written in Russian) is the region I was assigned to and following are some interesting facts and a little history about the area.

Russia’s smallest oblast (region), it is an enclave 200 miles away from the border of Russia proper. This area was formally German territory which was allocated to the Soviet Union in 1945 during World War II (WWII). Located along the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania, the primary and port city is also known as Kaliningrad.

Founded in 1255 and known as Koingsberg, it was the capital of German East Prussia. It was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 after Mikhail Kalinin, the formal “leader” of the Soviet Union from 1919 – 1946. Germans living in the region were forced out and replaced with Soviet citizens. The ice-free port of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea was home to the Soviet Baltic fleet during the Cold War.

After the fall of the USSR in 1994, neighboring Lithuania gained their independence cutting Kaliningrad off from Russia. Kaliningrad was supposed to develop in the post-Soviet era into a “Hong Kong of the Baltic” but hasn’t happened. Railroads connect Kaliningrad to Russia through Lithuania and Belarus but food importing is not cost effective so they relay on neighboring European Union-member states for trade. Some people in Moscow still refer to Kaliningrad as Germany, and with their disconnected physical location from Mother Russia, Kaliningrad itself is like an orphan.

Kaliningrad city is home to approximately 400,000 people with nearly one million living on the region of Kaliningrad, of which is approximately one-fifth forested.

Kaliningrad’s industries include: transport railcars, crane plants, car/truck assembly plants, shipbuilding, food processing, manufacturer of electric propulsion systems and fishing. It also has 90%+ of the world’s amber deposits which is mined. Their monetary denomination is the rouble.