Kaliningrad Oblast

Kaliningrad Oblast (Russian: ??????????????? ???????), informally called Yantarny kray (Russian:???????? ???? - meaning Amber region) is an administrative division (oblast) of Russia on the Baltic coast, with no land connection to the rest of Russia: an enclave of the European Union. It is the westernmost parcel of land belonging to Russia, separated from the rest of Russia by Lithuania and Belarus. Its largest city is Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg), which has historical significance as both a major city of Prussia and the capital of the former German province East Prussia, of which the region remains the core remnant.

External links

• Official site
• Recent photos taken by Joost Lemmens of the Netherlands shows examples of small towns neglected under the Soviet Union around Kaliningrad Oblast. This site gives the Prussian German town names and the corresponding Russian names after 1945/49. It starts out with the gate of the horse breeding stables in Trakehnen, and hopeful signs of new beginnings for this devastated land.
• Kaliningrad oblast Town of Tilsit (now Sovetsk) website in English