Talk:Kaliningrad

Present-Day Kalingrad

I am in the process of conducting some research about the region. Specifically, the role it plays in both conflict and cooperation between Russia and the West. I will be updating this page within one month. If there is anything you would like to see added to this page, chances are I will be coming across the data. QatBurglar (talk) 22:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Any chance of a better map? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.168.116.56 (talk) 06:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Königsberg Pre War Population

The figure 316.000 in main article is wrong. The offical German statistic shows:

Stadtkreis Königsberg 193 km2 Einwohner 1.1.1940 372.270. I correct this in the main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.188.135 (talk) 10:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Languages

Can anyone add information about the percentage of speakers of each language in Kaliningrad if possible, or some idea as to how prevelant Russian, German, etc. are in the region? Paxuniv (talk) 18:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Kienigsberg

The direct German name Königsberg in Cyrillic Kjenigsbjerg was used also much earlier than 1945 - 1946. At least during the days of Imperial Russia and in Soviet Union up to 1946.

Layout

Could someone sort out the mess on the left hand side adjacent to the temperature table? It is beyond my skill level! I have since noticed that the mess in is Firefox and Safari but not in IE or Chrome, and that quite a lot of information is missing in Firefox, obviously a formatting issue.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.0.221.95 (talk) 09:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Startling Omission

The article mentions a 2002 Census determined 78% Russian ethnicity and 0.6% German; an intriguing result albiet the article mentioned the USSR Russified the population. Here you have a nation founded and existing for nearly 700 years as part of the Germanic state and in a mere 57 years nearly all Germans there cease to exist. What happened? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Micael (talk • contribs) 03:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It is in the article: "The remaining German population was expelled from 1945–48." Please read Expulsion of Germans after World War II. Fentener van Vlissingen (talk) 04:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It's called Ethnic cleansing. Erikeltic (talk) 11:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Michael. This section itself feels "cleansed," lacking important information. By stating that the population was "expelled," the impression is given that they were perhaps simply asked to move or transported. Following the war, in the winter of 1945, the Red army decimated whole German civilian populations. How can there be no history of the nature of the violence exacted or threatened against the German civilians in this area? The article feels unbalanced by avoiding the topic, probably because it is an uncomfortable subject for those who wish to see the war as "black-and-white" - Germans as evil Nazis, Allies as good. Of course, that type of partisanship has no place in the article page of an encyclopedia. But even if it did, what this position misses is that Russia, along with Germany, began the war by mutually invading Poland. So, their hands were not clean as non-aggressors to begin with. Also, the expulsion of civilian populations (with or without killing) was one of the bases of war crime charges resulting in Nuremberg sentences at the time. But not so for Red Army commanders? These are historically important facts, and the article should simply state them if they are available. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.88.60 (talk) 03:09, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with you, but this article is not the place for it. This article is about the new city built on the ruins. That detail belongs either in the konigsberg article or (more probably) in a special article. Roger Pearse (talk) 16:35, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Traveling to/from the rest of Russia by land

Related to traveling from the rest of Russia to Kaliningrad by land through the EU, the article says that Special travel arrangements for the territory's inhabitants have been made. Can anybody expand that, here or in other article? --Anna Lincoln (talk) 08:47, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I found them here to be the Facilitated Transit Document (FTD) and Facilitated Rail Transit Document (FRTD), the documents needed for the transit. --Anna Lincoln (talk) 09:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The legislation implementing the documents is here. --Anna Lincoln (talk) 09:08, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Kaliningrad.ru City portal

Hi, friends. Kaliningrad.ru was a popular news portal in Kaliningrad since 2003, and one of the most visited independent regional news portals in Russia for about 5 last years.

On 09-10-2009, the domain was misappropriated by a pro-government RF organization. New location of the Kaliningrad.ru news portal is now www.NewKaliningrad.ru/ - The details of the issue are available in Russian here: http://knia.ru/digest/751.html - it is another independent city news site, and here is the translated by Google into English version of that article: http://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://knia.ru/digest/751.html

Currently, the original owners of the "Kaliningrad.ru" trademark are thinking over further steps to obtain justice.

At the moment, all web site contents, with numerous subject forums, are available under http://www.NewKaliningrad.ru —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaliningradka (talk • contribs) 01:20, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi there! Not to appear insensitive or something, but, all in all, we don't care. You are, of course, welcome to update the links so they lead to proper sites, but the politics around this situation is of no relevance to Wikipedia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:42, October 13, 2009 (UTC)

"Rumors" present in the article

The "Military" subsection includes this sentence: "Since 1991 there have been rumors that the Russians have transferred numerous tactical nuclear warheads to the exclave."

Even though there is a reference, it is still admittedly a reference to rumors and I believe the whole sentence should be deleted. 97.125.48.202 (talk) 06:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

On Eulers solution of the "Seven Bridges of Königsberg" problem

The sentences "The city is famous in the history of mathematics in connection with the famous Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem. The solution of this problem by Leonard Euler was the beginning of the branch of mathematics known as graph theory, and the first example of methods which were to form the mathematical discipline of Topology." are in contradiction with the article "Seven Bridges of Königsberg" which contains the sentence "Euler proved that the problem has no solution.". Tis is confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.89.11.183 (talk) 08:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Calininopolis (or Kalininopolis)

This Greek name seems a bit odd. I respelled it with a K... Anyway, there's no corresponding name on Greek Wikipedia. It's spelled "Καλίνινγκραντ" (Kaliningkrant) and Καίνιξμπεργκ (Kalinixmpergk) or Καινιξβέργη (Kainixberge) for Konigsberg. Is this correct or relevant?

Cheers, Cashie (talk) 03:56, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute August 2010?

The History section of the article is marked with a neutrality dispute from 8/2010, but I don't see any comment on the discussion page dated from then that flags specific areas for neutrality.

IMHO the current section is factual, if a little bit terse when describing the transition from Russian to German population (per 'Startling Omissions' above). Does anyone want to take a stab at trying to fill that in a bit more without recapitulating the full history of ethnic cleansing during and after WW2, or is there a consensus for leaving it and clearing the neutrality tag? Willhsmit (talk) 19:19, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. I think the tag should be cleared. That said ... the section could probably be abbreviated. All that it really needs to say is "Kaliningrad was formerly Konigsberg, and was populated by Russians after the German population was expelled." The rest belongs to the Konigsberg article, IMHO. Roger Pearse (talk) 16:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Russian name (pre-Soviet)

What was the original name of the city in Russian, before the Soviet take-over? best. 188.221.129.72 (talk) 20:57, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Right above, German: Königsberg. Also sometimes Anglicized as Koensigsburg. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 11:41, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Odd inconsistency

I find it quite odd that this article makes such a radical break between the pre-war German period and the post-war Soviet/Russian one. This is very different from the approach taken in the articles about the cities that became part of Poland, such as Stettin or Breslau. Those cities, much like Koenigberg, were also incredibly destroyed and completely ethnically cleansed. Globo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC).

German name of city

The article starts by saying: "Kaliningrad (Russian: Калининград; IPA: [kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈgrat]; German: Königsberg". This suggests that the current German name for Kaliningrad is Königsberg, in the same sense that the English name for Napoli is Naples. But this is not correct. The current German name for Kaliningrad is Kaliningrad. Königsberg is the former name for the city when it was a German city. The current wording implies that Germany does not recognise the fact that the city is now in Russia, which is untrue. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 19:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I've made the corrections for German, and for Polish as well.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 24, 2012; 18:32 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I hate to quibble, but what does "Polish: Königsberg (formerly Królewiec)" mean? I don't doubt that the city is called Królewiec by some Poles, but it has never been a Polish city and that has never been the actual name of the city. The wording suggests that now the Poles have stopped calling it Królewiec and started calling it Königsberg, which makes no sense. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 20:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

It means I'm a moron who didn't bother to re-check his edit after posting. What I meant to do is to put "Kaliningrad" as the Polish name (because, just as it is with German, "Kaliningrad" is the name used to refer to the modern city in Polish) and to retain "Królewiec" the same way I retained "Königsberg" for German. Instead of "Kaliningrad", however, I must have accidentally pasted "Königsberg", so you have a full right to quibble :)

How to best format all these details in the lede without overwhelming it, I'm not entirely sure, but I like neither the way I did it, nor the way you corrected it today. Perhaps Polish name shouldn't even be in there at all. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 25, 2012; 20:49 (UTC)

Area?

Why there is no area information? There is census figure from 2010, and a city has to have some kind of borders by which the inhabitants are determined. Or is it done differently? 82.141.65.120 (talk) 06:04, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

There is no one single source to get the area, as it is the case with the population and the Census data. What's more, an area can be reported in multiple ways (that of the city proper, of the administrative division, or of the municipal formation). Official websites aren't always helpful either—many don't report an area at all, or often don't specify what kind of area is provided. With Kaliningrad, however, you seem to be in luck :) Their official website has a link to the passport of the urban okrug; I've added the area reported in that document to the infobox. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 19, 2012; 14:02 (UTC)

Proposed merger

Kantgrad ---> Kaliningrad

• This information should be merged, and the article Kantgrad redirected to this article. Vanjagenije (talk) 19:04, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. A no-brainer. That is, of course, if the "Kantgrad" moniker even passes notability test (because if it doesn't, that stub should be deleted altogether).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 25, 2013; 19:28 (UTC)
• Strongly support. "Kantgrad" is a mere pipe dream promoted by a society that apparently isn't even in Kaliningrad anymore. --RBBrittain (talk) 16:02, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, i will merge myself and I'll redirect Kantgrad to Kaliningrad. Vanjagenije (talk) 01:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merger - Königsberg to Kaliningrad

Proposed merger - Königsberg to Kaliningrad -There seems to be a content fork here created in 2006. Claims that Kaliningrad was built "on the site of" Königsberg were used to deny the simple truth that they are simply two names for the same Russian city, as these two definitions support. Ka·li·nin·grad (k-lnn-grd, -gräd, -ly-nn-grät) A city of extreme western Russia on the Baltic Sea near the Polish border. It was founded in 1255 by the Teutonic Knights and joined the Hanseatic League in 1340. Called Königsberg, it was an important Prussian city and the birthplace of Immanuel Kant (1724). Transferred to the USSR in 1945, it was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946. Population: 426,000. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Kaliningrad (Russian) [kəlininˈgrat] n (Placename) a port in W Russia, on the Pregolya River: severely damaged in World War II as the chief German naval base on the Baltic; ceded to the Soviet Union in 1945 and is now Russia's chief Baltic naval base. Pop.: 427 200 (1999 est.) Former name (until 1946) Königsberg Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged. 5.28.89.25 (talk) 11:57, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

At the moment, the following all redirect to Koenigsberg

Konigsberg (redirect page) ‎ (links) Karaliacius (redirect page) ‎ (links) Regiomontium (redirect page) ‎ (links) Köningsberg (redirect page) ‎ (links) Konigsberg, Prussia (redirect page) ‎ (links) Königsberg, Prussia (redirect page) ‎ (links) Koeningsberg (redirect page) ‎ (links) Koningsberg (redirect page) ‎ (links) Koenigsburg (redirect page) ‎ (links) Kyonigsberg (redirect page) ‎ (links) Königsberg (Preußen) (redirect page) ‎ (links) Königsberg in Preußen (redirect page) ‎ (links) Karaliaučius (redirect page) ‎ (links) Karaliaucius (redirect page) ‎ (links) Königsberg (Prussia) (redirect page) ‎ (links) Konigsberg in Preussen (redirect page) ‎ (links) Konigsberg (Preussen) (redirect page) ‎ (links) Königsbarg (redirect page) ‎ (links) Koenisberg (redirect page) ‎ (links) K\xC3\xB6nigsberg (redirect page) ‎ (links) 5.28.89.25 (talk) 12:11, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

• I don't recall anyone justifying the split because "Kaliningrad was built on the site of Königsberg" and is somehow a totally distinct entity. The split was simply a convenience matter to better handle large chunks of information; the Kaliningrad/Königsberg divide seems to be the best breaking point to use. Merging the articles would produce an unwieldy monster; I simply see no tangible benefit to doing so.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 16, 2013; 12:13 (UTC)

Please look at the articles-that justification has been made- eg This article currently says "The site now occupied by Kaliningrad was previously the site of the East Prussian city of Königsberg." Other Russian cities do not have seperate articles under their old and new names- why should Kaliningrad? For example, Leningrad, and Petrograd redirect to St. Petersburg, while Tsaritsyn & Stalingrad redirect to Volgagrad. Danzig redirects to Gdansk. Why should Kaliningrad be different? 5.28.89.25 (talk) 12:19, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Both [1] and [2] show that having a seperate article under the old name of a city is not normal.5.28.89.25 (talk) 12:36, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

The argument that it is a new city is expressed here- [3]. Discussion about the name split is all in that archive. It seems as though the decision was taken on nationalistic grounds. Moreover, when Kaliningrad was split from Konigsberg in 2006, it lost its talk page archive, as Kaliningrad was renamed Konigsberg, and a new Kaliningrad page was created. I can see no advantages, and significant disadvantages, to having two entries for the same city. If the unified article would be too long, parts could be spun off. 5.28.89.25 (talk) 13:03, 16 August 2013 (UTC)