Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russian FederationHotel Tchaikovsky - Kaliningrad City
I managed to sleep in until 6:30 am this morning - a good sleep.
I showered and went down to breakfast about 8:30 am and had fried eggs and some odds and ends from the breakfast buffet which was more than adequate. I got cappuccino from the machine but it only made a half of a small cup so I made a second one. I spoke to a new receptionist - who speaks English and she told me that the airport had called: my bag was at the Kaliningrad airport and they would deliver it to the hotel this morning.
I stayed at the hotel researching what to do while I am here and trying to get a map on my phone. I was hoping my bag would come and I could change clothes. By the time it got to be 10 am, I decided to do some sightseeing...in my dirty clothes....hot clothes. I started walking to the city center...in the shade if I could manage it. First I checked out the Russian Orthodox Cathedral (Cathedral of Christ the Saviour) in Victory Square with all its fountains and monument to peace. The Cathedral is quite beautiful inside with lots of icons and candles. I bought 3 candles for 30 roubles and lit them, standing them up as Paul had shown me how to do during the North Caucasus trip.
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Then I continued on to the the Koenigsberg Cathedral on Kant Island. While still on Leninsky Prospeckt, I decided to doublecheck my directions and asked an older man something. The results were rather mixed. He got extra help from another man and they went on and gave me some directions and talked on a bit. The two men(one was celebrating his 53rd birthday) appeared to have already celebrated with many birthday toasts by this time in the mid-morning, but they were very friendly and tried to be helpful. The receptionist had told me how to get on the island by descending the stairs that come off the bridge. I like the river (Pregel or Russian Pregolya river.) - there are a lot of tour boats zipping back and forth on it and also buildings in the old Teutonic style. I made my way around the park along the riverbank and saw the New Kaliningrad Synagogue before the Cathedral. I went inside the beautiful building only to find it had been turned into a restaurant. I later read that there was much more, including a museum, but all this was not at all apparent to me at the time.
Too bad I missed it.
The Koenigsberg Cathedral is a museum and concert hall. Sometimes I would forget that this city was Soviet-controlled. It is still controlled by Russia but feels more like the Baltic state capitals with the Teutonic influences. Some of the museum exhibits include paintings and drawings of Immanuel Kant who also is buried here, but I have not yet found his tomb. I arrived at the Cathedral at 1 pm, walked up a spiral staircase to the Museum but found I needed a ticket so I went across the courtyard and got myself a ticket for the 2 pm organ concert as well. My cash now is almost gone. The concert was great. I managed to get through the museum before the concert and get a decent seat on the not-so-comfortable pew seats. After the concert I walked around the main nave of the cathedral and took some photos of the colorful windows and displays within the cathedral concert hall.
I had seen some restaurants with outdoor umbrellas along the riverside so I walked back to that area to get a late lunch.
I ended up at a cafe on the riverfront. I looked at an English menu and picked out mussels and draft amber ale. They were out of mussels. I picked a Laurenntian pie with salmon but they only had chicken so I ordered another Greek salad. The olives were pitted canned olives, but they use a milder cheese than feta that I rather like. It took a long time to get my bill and I got impatient so I went to the cash register after the restroom. I may have been a bit unsteady on my walk back to the hotel. I made my way back to Victory Square, then back on Sovietsky Prospeckt but then went wrong somewhere and had to ask people to find my way back to Tchaikovsky Street. Just before I reached it, I went into a little corner store to get something to drink - a bottle of orange juice and a bigger bottle of water.
Just as I reached the hotel around 6:30 pm, I saw a man dragging my bag to the hotel door. It was back in my possession and I have clean clothes again - or relatively clean. Since I had been really hot walking around in my jeans, I took another shower and put on the terrycloth hotel robe. I lounged around as I read a little, uploaded today's photos and wrote up this blog. It is almost 10 pm and I am almost ready to go to bed!
Victory Square: https://www.inyourpocket.com/kaliningrad/Victory-Square-and-monument_137973v
New
Kaliningrad Synagogue:
http://lubavitch.com/news/article/2087743/Historic-Synagogue-Rises-Once-Again-Eighty-Years-After-Destruction.html
2025-05-22