In 1992 I took a train from Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, to the Russian city of Kaliningrad. Until 1945 Kaliningrad was the German, or more precisely East Prussian, city of Königsberg. Immanuel Kant, the philosopher who never left the area, even briefly became Russian when Königsberg fell under Tsarist control from 1758 to 1762 in the Seven Years’ War. Russian officers attended his university lectures. Now tensions are building around Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave bordering Poland and Lithuania, over another war – Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. My train entered Russia, passing former Prussian red-brick stations, some with an old German name still legible through the slapdash overlay. I reached an impressive finish that had been spared from the post-war reconstruction. From 1945 to 1991 the Kaliningrad region, roughly the size of Northern Ireland and home to about 1 million people, was a Soviet no-go zone, its recent German past chronicled in memoirs of flight and terror as the Red Army advanced west. Königsberg was renamed after Mikhail Kalinin, the titular Soviet head of state under Joseph Stalin. The Germans moved away. The Russians came with their Baltic fleet, missiles and troops to guard the western borders of the USSR. It was raining. I walked to the hotel in the main square, past the ruined history. As if to relieve me of any lofty quotes, a German friend had said: “Of course it was the British who destroyed Königsberg” — referring to the 1944 RAF raid that destroyed the medieval castle and town centre. Cracked concrete and cratered roads looked like a parody of broken Soviet design, with Ladas belching exhaust fumes, dirty dented trams and people hunched against the cold air. The medieval brick cathedral was in ruins. Above this bleak scene loomed a brutalist gray tower known as the Beast, the still unfinished headquarters of the local communist party, filled with asbestos. Prostitutes and drug dealers patrolled the hotel. Elegant German tourist coaches glided through town. In 1992, former East Prussians visited Heimat tourism, sometimes breaking down in tears when they saw, in the words of one, not the Königsberg they remembered but what looked like the Siberian city of Irkutsk. They had to go to the outer districts or the Baltic seaside villages of the region to see their old homeland. Rumors circulated at the time that Kaliningrad, which was cut off from Russia by Poland and newly independent Lithuania, might be up for grabs. Had then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl offered to buy it back? Can it be run jointly by Germans, Poles, Lithuanians and Russians? Russian students I met told me that the name should go, because Kalinin represented destruction. Was a new role possible, they asked: a link between east and west? The sense of siege, anger and isolation must change. As if to emphasize this, we spoke German. For some years, the prospect of change seemed real, especially as Kaliningrad rediscovered its Prussian past. The cathedral was restored. There were plans to rebuild the castle. Kant’s grave became a place of pilgrimage. Plaques went up to artist Käthe Kollwitz and even Nazi sympathizer and poet Agnes Miegel. The city’s German-Russian House held cultural events, including a dinner dedicated to Kant’s birthday, with speeches in German and Russian. You could tour the bunker from which German General Lasch had directed the city’s defense in 1945. Kaliningrad became a free trade zone. New investment (and corruption) began: manufacturing, tourism, and even—as collectivization ended—some German farmers. Kaliningrad was one of four Russian regions where casinos were allowed. Residents could visit Poland and Lithuania. Direct flights went to Berlin and Warsaw and even to London. Then came Putin’s invasion of Crimea in 2014. Relations with the West soured. The German-Russian house was closed, accused of foreign propaganda. So-called Prussianism was condemned, particularly an attempt to rename the airport after Kant, whose grave was defaced, presumably with official approval. The enclave’s military content increased, including almost certainly with nuclear-capable Iskander missiles. The region became one of the poorest parts of Russia, with most food imported from the EU. Now the latest sanctions against Russia allow food in, but prevent many other goods from entering overland through Lithuania. Empty trains sit idle at Kaliningrad station. The hopes I heard about 30 years ago have vanished again into isolation and anger.
