The tragedy of Kaliningrad

The origin, rise and fall of a Russian city in the middle of Europe.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering why there’s a Russian exclave stuck between Lithuania and Poland, this article in The Beet - a weekly newsletter from the excellent Russian dissident news site Meduza - explains all.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: some places have way, way too much history for their own good:

In August 1944, British air attacks demolished most of the East Prussian city of Königsberg — literally “King’s Hill.” The next year, the German region became the first the Red Army entered on the Eastern Front of World War II, as it secured essential ports along the Baltic coast on its way to victory in Berlin. 

After four years of incessant fighting, starvation, and death, the Red Army saw the territory as a valuable “war trophy”; mass killings and atrocities against German civilians ensued. “The [Red Army] soldiers had all experienced the horrors of the German invasion. Nearly everyone in the Soviet Union had a family member or a friend who had died in the war,”