Blogs from Kaliningrad, Northwest, Russia, Europe

An diesem Tag bin ich von Danzig mit der Eisenbahn nach Königsberg/Kaliningrad gefahren. Abgesehen von einem längerem Stop an der Grenze war das völlig problemlos. Am Zielort war ich eigentlich nur noch in einem Supermarkt und den Rest des Nachmittags im Hotel.... read more

A new day! Did I mention how great the breakfasts are in my hotel? Hot dishes! Блины (blini)! Potato pancakes with sour cream! Nom nom nom. In the morning, I'm met by Elena, my paid tour guide. We're heading to Балтийск (Baltiysk), a coast city which is almost totally uninteresting except for the compelling fact that even today, nobody in Kaliningrad really understands whether foreigners are allowed to visit it or not. Back in May, the aforementioned Staus and the aforementioned Aleksandr had a heated argument about this, in Russian, on a CouchSurfing forum, which I followed along by running their posts through Google Translate: Aleksandr argues that he has taken foreign tourists there many times, and the official rule doesn't matter because (paraphrasing), "the old grandmother who checks passes at the entrance to the city ... read more

On the evening I arrived in Калининград (Kaliningrad), I had arranged to meet Staus, a CouchSurfer who had been particularly helpful to me online. He worried I might be tired from the trip, which I was, but I suspected I would need a really fundamental orientation to the city when I arrived, which I desperately did. It wasn't quite what I got, but I got something way more fun and memorable. Staus and his friend Anton (who did not, as far as I can tell, speak English) arrived late to pick me up, having gotten lost trying to find my hotel. This continued to not bode well for the location of the hotel. We walked toward the city, I pretended I wasn't struggling to keep up with young long-legged dudes, and we ended up at a ... read more

Vandaag een rustdagje in Rusland. Een beetje langer geslapen na de late nachtconversaties. Bij het ontwaken was enkel Vladimir hier. Beetje relaxen. Tegen de middag kwam zijn moeder thuis die in den naburige school, ze maakte verse groentesoep. Oh dat smaakte na al die instantsoep. Ook nog iets van vlees in een bladerdeegzakje, aparte smaak. Na de middag hebben we nog een wasmachine gestart en dan ging Vladimir even uit huis en toen zijn zuster, Irena thuis was ging ik met haar op pad. We gingen naar de zee waar er een metalen constructie fungeerde als wandeldijk. Er was opvallend veel volk op het strand aanwezig voor een weekdag. We gingen nog even langs het aanpalende bos waar er toch opvallend veel vervuiling aanwezig was. Ecologie is niet echt HOT hier. Hier in het dorp zijn ... read more

I had been told that the old city of Königsberg was gone and that the present city of Kaliningrad was nothing to write home about. But I have decided to write home anyhow. Kaliningrad is a fascinating place seeing that almost all the inhabitants are immigrants from Mother Russia. This old Preussian stronghold which fostered people such as Immanuel Kant, is today a Russian exclave in the center of Europe and enclosed by EU and NATO countries. Here in between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea, everything is in cyrillic, people speak nothing but Russian and the reminder of grotesk Soviet architecture is everywhere. The people of Kaliningrad But though the people of Kaliningrad are citizens of Russia, and vivid supporters of the Russian ice-hockey team, they also seem very European. In difference to Little Moscow ... read more