What should happen with Kaliningrad?

Howdy-do Beth's Dad! I believe I've sent you a few emails by mistake....

Beth, those birches are gorgeous! Man I love a good looking birch.

I don't think the Lithuanians would ever have them - have the inhabitants, I mean, rather than just the territory.

I'm afraid, in this context, that if the Lithuanians, comparing their own post-independence fortunes with those of Estonia and Latvia, are glad about any one thing, it's that they've been spared the dilemmas those other Baltic states have been grappling with since 1991 with regards to the Slavic minorities there. Having a 35-50% Russian/Ukrainian population that in majority immigrated only after the Soviet Union occupied your country - whose right to citizenship you thus contest, but who were, in majority, born in the country - who were left essentially stateless after the USSR collapsed and increasingly consider themselves a kind of Baltic-Rusian ethnos, but who in majority still don't speak the country's language - that's a problem the Lithuanians have not needed to find an answer for. Having only a 10% or so Russian minority they could afford to be magnanimous and grant them all full citizenship rights. With the Kaliningrad population aboard all that would change ...

But it's true, I did speak of long-term prospects, so perhaps I shouldn't linger on current-day ethno-political balances. Still, the shock to the small Lithuanian state would register much more heavily than that to the EU as a whole. Therefore ... if I really seriously consider the options I had put up there more or less in jest ... option 1 doesn't strike me as all that absurd, after all. I mean, if the UN can de facto govern Bosnia-Herzegovina as a protectorate, why not?

Imagine - Kaliningrad would have its own local government, democratically elected and with substantial powers (more than it has now in the Russian Federation, say), but would no longer be formally part of any nation-state ... its inhabitants would carry an EU-passport ... it's an interesting idea to entertain for the way it would finally upset the whole concept of nation-state alone ... an impulse to a more innovative line of thinking about what the EU could be and where it could go than the stultified 'europe of nations' debate going on now ... and the kaliningradi would have a field day, as with an EU passport they sholdn't have much trouble going anywhich direction. There'd be a bit of a law-and-order problem concerning that smuggling etc thing ... :wink: (considering there is no standing EU police force and all that, as far as I know) -

but as a bit of daydreaming I think it's promising

there's a lot of other replies here that i would really like to reply to - and i am of course particularly honoured that somebody with personal historical experience of the place has logged on especially for this thread (and i hope you will find many other interesting ones here, hamburger ;-) - but i have to quit. i exceeded my quota forum-time already by a *long* range writing that post-that-turned-article for the 'elections in the netherlands' thread.

<waves>

oh, one more thing, i'm curious - did anyone get my birobidzhan reference?

Re. "Bernsteinzimmer" - Amber room:

From the 'Pravda':
14:11 2002-09-02

FAMOUS AMBER ROOM CLOSES TO VISITORS SEPTEMBER 3 TILL MAY NEXT YEAR

Starting tomorrow, the famous Amber Room of the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve will be closed to visitors until May 2003. The restoration work that has continued for over 20 years and now is 95% done is supposed to be completed by that time.

The completion of the restoration of the Amber Room is one of the points of the preparation for St. Petersburg's tercentenary. Supposedly, all the monarchs will arrive to take part in the celebration. The Amber Room is expected to be opened by that time.

The problem is, St. Petersburg has just about no monumental style artist skilled in stonework left. Ivan Sautov, Director of the Tsarskoye Selo museum, says, 'Nearly all work in the Amber Room has been done by three master artists, the youngest already 70. Regretfully, stonework skills are lost with time, so we are losing the unique artistic school.'

The restoration of the Amber Room, which had been stolen by the German army, began in 1979. About 6 tonnes of amber has been used so far. The amber came from Kaliningrad. For 20 years, from 1979 through 1999, the work was financed by the federal government, a total of USD 7.754 million spent. An agreement was signed in 1999 to the effect that from then on the work would be financed by the German Ruhrgas company that pledged a donation of USD 3.5 million. Most of that has also been spent. The remaining USD 430,000 will be used up between now and May 2003. "


The virtual Amber Room is presented here by 'Ruhrgas' (reason: see above).
It's only in German, but you just have to either click on the 'quick time' or 'windows media' bottom beside the pics.

Amber Room Video download

A lot of recent and some older news are to be found on the BBC-websites:

BBC "Kaliningrad"

Ditto

I nearly went to Kaliningrad by mistake. We were trying to get across the river at Travemunde on the Baltic, and went to the international ferry port to buy a crossing. I thought it was a big place for a river ferry...

We found the right ferry eventually, it was not much more than a 10 car drag chain boat if i remember correctly. The other side was the old DDR and boy! did you know it!

I think the Russians deliberately neglected Konigsberg as punishment for being a German town.

Walter, thanks for the links. My computer is so slow, that I couldn't get much other than a little panoramic view of the Amber Room, but what I saw made me want to see more. Maybe one of these days.

Nothing intelligent to add, but wanted to say hello to nimh (hi!!) and to hamburger aka ehBeth's dad. Welcome!

Diane - my parents visited the amber room in St. Petersburg last summer - stunning by my mother's report.

hiya again! longtimenosee

i have been trying to find the titles of some books dealing with today's kaliningrad and the former east-prussia(ostpreussen). have not been able to find any written or translated into english. personally i find the book "ostpreussen ade" by the german writer ralph giordano just wonderful. i have tried to find out if it has been translated into english, but i'm not very proficient at that. is there a central library site that would give an answer? giordano's book is based upon travel trough the former eastprussia during the early 90's; he spoke to germans that staid behind after the russian occupation, to poles that were were evacuated by the polish government from eastern poland before their land was turned over to the soviet-union, new settlers.... it really gave me a good understanding of the hard life all these people went through. it seems most have been able to live in peace together now. if anyone knows how to trace booktitles and authors easily i'd appreciate hearing about it.

I only found German books.

I hope someone else can find it but it might not exist.

eBeth

As far as I know, the amber room will be re-opened in May this year after the restauration. So your parents perhaps saw only parts of it.



It seems that there are no English translated books about East Prussia at all. However, some are available via amazon.com, like:
Begegnung mit Ostpreussen
by Christian Krockow. (search for 'east prussia')
(Perhaps HofT does know more about this?)

Kalingrad
came across a fairly interesting website with current information about kaliningrad: www.hkhamb-ahk-kaliningrad.com . it's been set up by the chamber of commerce, hamburg, germany. it shows that there is a fair amount of interest in establishing and expanding commerce in the region. quite a few businesses in hamburg have old established connections in the area; it goes back to the days of the "hanse" when there was much trade in fish, furs, grain and other goods with the cities in the baltic. the "hamburg" connection seems to be paying off. will still try to find info on books(in english) about the area - perhaps queen's university might be helpful.

Hamburger, this probably won't help with the search for an english language book on East Prussia, but, for your future reference, one of the best sites online for book titles is the electronic card catalogue at the Library of Congress:

http://www.loc.gov/

Try it the next time you are looking for a book.

Kaliningrad
hi, setanta! thanks for your help! i think i'll spent a bit of time over the weekend surfing library sites; perhaps i'll come up with a hit. i'll keep you posted. have a good number of german books about the subject that we brought back with us from germany over the years(my wife was born near kaliningrd(when it was still koenigsberg) and lived there until 1945. so we have some personal interest in the topic). thanks to all in the group for your friendly welcome! even though i've participated for only a few days, i feel as if i already know you for some time. of course ebeth told us about your group - so didn't feel like strangers. is great fun. greetings from coooold kingston on lake ontario - overnight low minus 25 celsius.

Kaliningrad
hi setanta and all participants! thanks setanta, used the loc.gov site. found all the books by ralph giordano - but only in english. never mind, it's a site that i'm sure i'll find very useful. has the kaliningrad subject been pretty well exhausted? ........................ i understand there is an irish shamrock growing in ohio? wonder how it got there

hamburger, sincerely hope things are warming up in your neck of the woods -- here in Chicago I am getting verrrrry tired of the low temps. I mean, I'm happy about it in the big picture, but it's breathtakingly cold out there.