Town of Baltiysk, Kaliningrad region (Part I)

Tiwy.com / February 2011

Baltiysk is the most western city of Russia. Here is located the largest Russian naval base on the Baltic Sea. Up to November 1946 the town was called Pillau. This name comes from the Prussian word “pils”, which means a fortress. In addition to the having the same name with the old name of town, fortress, there are two more forts there: “Stiehle” and ”Eastern”. There is a third fort – the “Western”, but it is not in Baltiysk, but on the Baltic Spit (aka Vistula Spit).

Map of Baltiysk on wikimapia:
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=54.6474207&lon=19.906182&z=14&l=1&m=b
It identifies all potentially significant places of the town. For example, in the northern part of Baltiysk a “rotten swamp” was found, marked as “the former Royal Lake”. Hardly surprising transformation.

Link to a good site about Baltiysk:
http://russian-west.narod.ru (Russian language only)

One can get from Kaliningrad to Baltiysk in 1 hour on a minibus taxi from the stop “Teatralnaya street” near Schiller Monument (this is how I came there) or on the diesel engine train from the Southern station (I used it for my way back).

Anchor-stylized stela at the entrance to Baltiysk.
200 m to the west of the anchor-stela there is a memorial to soldiers-liberators, where I, unfortunately, did not go.

Yegorov street. According to the site russian-west.narod.ru, it was named so on March 13, 1968 in honor of the battalion commander of the Northern Fleet submarine 2nd Rank Captain V.A. Yegorov (1912-1942), who died at sea in a submarine “Sch-317”.

Local graffiti. I would say that in another way: "Bear plows, pterodactyls are suffering."

Baltiysk Church. This structure is also called a former small house of pastor.

Memorial-monument – the Chapel of Dmitry Donskoy.

“Cultural and Youth Center” of Baltiysk.
It unites 22 artistic teams, which involve 440 people, among them 348 children, 92 adults. Seven teams have the title of “master”, and one (the national chamber choir “Blagovest”) – the “folk”. The Cultural and Youth Center building was built in 1958.

Library of the Baltic Fleet Officers House named after writer Valentin Pikul, who used to serve in the Baltic Fleet.

Map of Baltiysk to assist the tourists. It can be found in different parts of the town.

The monument to V.I. Lenin in Baltiysk outside the city administration building. The architectural design of the monument was completed by one of the first architects of Kaliningrad – A.V. Maximov. The monument was unveiled on April 22, 1961.

Headquarters of the Baltic Fleet base and the military prosecutor office.
The complex of brick buildings in the town center was built in early XX century.

Fortress channel that became a berth for military boats.

Memorial “To soldiers who died in the assault of Pillau”.

The monument project was designed by Y.D. Krasnyansky – participant of Pillau assault.

On the pedestal – the figures of a soldier and sailor under the battle banner.

Bas-relief portraits of sailors, tankman and infantryman.

In its present form the renovated memorial was opened by the 50th anniversary of the Great Victory in 1995. The author of the project is V.D. Fomichev. Sculptors – L.I. Bogatova and O.V. Salnikov – members of the Artists union of Russia.
↑ Click for detailed view ↑

Wikimapia has a comment of user Starmos:
I do not know as it is now, but before that was a popular place for Baltic commandant patrols, catching violators of military regulations. Using the fact that there was no other way for “citizens” to pass the monument, the patrol was getting into ambush in the area of the monument and easily caught soldiers, who failed to salute the monument or to pass to parade step.