Baltic Republican Party

Drink for freedom of Königsberg !

2012-01-11T04:23:00.000-08:00

We are selling beer, vodka, cognac and kvas. The brands of "Königsberg", "Old Königsberg", "Samland", "Ostmark" and other.
By buying alcoholic drinks from us, you are not only supporting Baltic Republican Party and our movement, but promoting Königsberg and East Prussia (Ostpreußen) in your region.
We have got our own exporting company.
Our price list. The price shown without delivery. Minimum quantity for signing a contract and delivery is 1000 bottles.
All beer and kvas produced by local branch of "Heineken".
The cost of delivery to Berlin 400 Euro.
E-mail: rustamvasiliev@yahoo.com

Promo for vodka "Old Königsberg.

Cognac "Old Königsberg"

Support the BRP by buying a T-shirt.

2011-12-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

You could buy a T-shirt with the logos of Baltic Republican Party. By buying those T-shirts you are supporting our Party and spreading the word about our movement.
The price is 26 US Dollars ( 20 Euro) plus shipping. T-shirts available in all sizes.
The requests send to email: rustamvasiliev@yahoo.com

You could transfer money for the T-shirt into our Visa debit card of "Finservice" bank.
For Euro
Bank Finserviсe JSC, Moscow, Russia
SWIFT: KOMXRUMM
асс. № 30109978900010002305
with Development Capital Bank, Moscow, Russia
SWIFT: VIZIRUMM
acc.№ 100-9478090-00 with Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt, Germany
SWIFT: DEUTDEFF
acc. No 40817978800001000001
in favor of : Rustam Vasilev, card № 4299 0771 2557 7650

For US dollars
BANK FINSERVICE,MOSCOW,RUSSIA SWIFT – KOMX RU MM ACCOUNT № 30109840300010002305
With Development Capital Bank, MOSCOW, RUSSIA SWIFT: VIZI RU MM
ACCOUNT №04446018
With Deutsche Bank Trust Company Аmericas,New York, UNITED STATES
SWIFT:BKTR US 33
acc. No 40817840200001000001
in favor of : Rustam Vasilev, card № 4299 0771 2557 7650

The flag of Königsberg is waving again!

2011-12-18T02:01:00.000-08:00

Today`s protest in Königsberg. I`m a little bit grim on the photo, after a lot of arguing with commies, with the insults like "fascist", "Teuton`s dog" and so on. I was like a toreador today with the flag of Königsberg. My friends were by my side. Lots of people were coming and shaking hand, showing support, saying, that my flag is the only nice and right flag on that demonstration.
So from now on, that flag will be waving on any demonstration.
One of our Baltic Republican Party member Sergey Sterlin held a speech on that demonstration.

Our flag is waving again!

Photo: Rustam Vasilev and Sergey Pasko.

The survey on Independence and the pro-Kremlin lie.

2011-12-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

We, the members of banned Baltic Republican Party always were suspicious about the opinion polls on the future of our region organized by pro-Kremlin people. In the Kremlin's media (and in Russia 99.9% is a Kremlin's media), all sorts of political "spin doctors" and sociologists have always argued that the number of supporters of independence in our region, only 5%. The source of these polls were always been questionable and it was never possible to verify these results.
We conducted a survey on our blog. The survey lasted for about a year. The question of the survey was completely neutral.
What is the future for the region of former East Prussia?
The results of the Russian version of the blog.
Voted - 381 persons
Independence - 219 votes (57%)

Leave everything as it is - 39 votes (10%)

Greater autonomy within the Russian Federation - 108 votes (28%)

Other - 15 votes (3%)

The results of the English version of the blog
Voted - 435 persons
Independence - 288 votes (66%)

Leave everything as it is - 29 votes (6%)

For greater autonomy within the Russian Federation - 55 votes (12%)

Other - 53 votes (14%)
So, as we see our survey is significantly different from that pro-Kremlin political analysts. Let's just say the so-called political analysts talking a lie.
This year we were filmed by one of the Kremlin`s television channel - NTV. We talked with them on various topics about 6 hours or so, but the main theme was - Russian separatism. NTV has cut all of that in just in 1 minute. We have no complaints, it is not our channel, but Kremlin`s. A journalist with whom we were talking, was quite good, but as the pro-Kremlin journalist of the state television channel, he was sceptical ( he was for the first time in Königsberg). So we offered him to conduct a survey on the streets. We arrived at the central square of Königsberg and asked around 30 persons about the future of the region . The result confused our Muscovite journalist. The majority voted for independence or greater autonomy. The NTV channel did not air that survey of course.
If you are in doubt of the results, you are welcome to Königsberg, we are happy to help you carry out the same survey with your TV crew. Of course not everybody will be willing to tell the truth on the camera, but even so you will get the result. We hope you show such survey, in contrast to the NTV channel.

Protest in Königsberg.

2011-12-11T22:17:00.001-08:00

The commies in Königsberg on 7-th of December, were trying to capitalized on the people`s protest. People do NOT support them at all. Konigsbergers booed commies and police. 11 people were arrested that day by political police department "E" (extremism).

Later on 10 of December we are gathered together on central square without the commies and the rest of pro-Kremlin so called parties. Local authorities and police did not sanctioned our gathering. Around 60 police "officers" were present including those who in civil clothing FSB ( secret police) and political police department "E".

Next protest will be on 17-th of December at noon, so you are welcome.

Receive an East Prussian soil or stone.

2011-11-28T18:21:00.001-08:00

Dear East Prussian readers. As you know I`m living in Königsberg. I could send you the handful of soil or stone of Ostpreußen, for those who couldn't come here and collect themselves. Just specify the place within the "Kaliningradskaya oblast", I will get it and send it to you. I will make a few pictures of place to reassure you that it is genuine. I did send the soil recently to Kathleen Roskosch for her mother, the soil from Waldhausen ( Berezhkovskoje).
The soil ( Heimaterde) or stone from your Motherland ( Vaterland) is the best present for your relatives. It is not just a soil, it is the soul of Ostpreußen. The price is 50 euro including shipping and handling for 600 grams. It could cost more up to 100 euro, if your Motherland is rural ( difficult to get there) or if the stone will be heavy.
The requests send on my email: rustamvasiliev@yahoo.com
You could transfer money into our Visa debit card of "Finservice" bank.
For Euro
Bank Finserviсe JSC, Moscow, Russia
SWIFT: KOMXRUMM
асс. № 30109978900010002305
with Development Capital Bank, Moscow, Russia
SWIFT: VIZIRUMM
acc.№ 100-9478090-00 with Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt, Germany
SWIFT: DEUTDEFF
acc. No 40817978800001000001
in favor of : Rustam Vasilev, card № 4299 0771 2557 7650

For US dollars
BANK FINSERVICE,MOSCOW,RUSSIA SWIFT – KOMX RU MM ACCOUNT № 30109840300010002305
With Development Capital Bank, MOSCOW, RUSSIA SWIFT: VIZI RU MM
ACCOUNT №04446018
With Deutsche Bank Trust Company Аmericas,New York, UNITED STATES
SWIFT:BKTR US 33
acc. No 40817840200001000001
in favor of : Rustam Vasilev, card № 4299 0771 2557 7650

Donating to the Baltic Republican Party.

2011-11-24T21:41:00.001-08:00

Financial support to the Baltic Republican Party, you can do by donating money into our Visa debit card of "Finservice" bank.
Your donations will help to achieve our common political goals. Thank you friends for your help.

For Euro
Bank Finserviсe JSC, Moscow, Russia
SWIFT: KOMXRUMM
асс. № 30109978900010002305
with Development Capital Bank, Moscow, Russia
SWIFT: VIZIRUMM
acc.№ 100-9478090-00 with Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt, Germany
SWIFT: DEUTDEFF
acc. No 40817978800001000001
in favor of : Rustam Vasilev, card № 4299 0771 2557 7650

For US dollars
BANK FINSERVICE,MOSCOW,RUSSIA SWIFT – KOMX RU MM ACCOUNT № 30109840300010002305
With Development Capital Bank, MOSCOW, RUSSIA SWIFT: VIZI RU MM
ACCOUNT №04446018
With Deutsche Bank Trust Company Аmericas,New York, UNITED STATES
SWIFT:BKTR US 33
acc. No 40817840200001000001
in favor of : Rustam Vasilev, card № 4299 0771 2557 7650

Anniversary of Sergei Pasko.

2011-11-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

Sergei Pasko the founder of the Baltic Republican Party is 60 years old now.
Sergei, we are congratulate you on your birthday!
On this wonderful day we wish you to be prosperity, confidence in achieving goals, inexhaustible energy and optimism in the years to come!

We celebrated his anniversary in a close circle of friends, party members and supporters.
Dear readers, you could congratulate Sergei Pasko here or on his page in Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001471382104

Rebirth of the Königsberg Synagogue.

2011-10-17T06:13:00.000-07:00

The ceremony of laying the cornerstone in the foundation of Königsberg synagogue was held on October 16, 2011 at 12:00 in Konigsberg, Oktyabrskaya Str, 3.
The new synagogue will be repeating the architectural style of old synagogue which were burnt and shattered during the "Kristallnacht" in Koenigsberg.
The ceremony was attended by more than a hundred members of the Jewish Community of Königsberg, including rabbi David Shvedik, as well as Chabad representative, mayor Alexander Yaroshuk, the MPs of the regional Duma and City Council, the consuls of Poland,Lithuania, and Germany.
This event is a great importance for Europe and the region.
The local businessman V. Katzman granted around 5.000.000 Euro for the construction of synagogue.
The synagogue is bearing the historical name "Koenigsberg", not a bloody communist-"Kaliningrad."

Photo: rabbi David Shvedik, sponsor V. Katzman and mayor Alexander Yaroshuk.

Photo: Dr. Aristide Fenster, the German consul in Königsberg.

Photo: Sergei Sterlin, member of the Baltic Republican Party.

In 1704 there was the formation of the Jewish congregation, when they acquired a Jewish cemetery and when they founded a "Chevra Kaddisha". In 1722 they received a constitution. In 1756 a new synagogue in Schnürlingsdamm street was dedicated but destroyed by the city fire in 1811. In 1815 a new synagogue was constructed on the same location, meanwhile called Synagogenstrasse #2. The second constitution of the Jewish congregation was issued in 1811.

Some Orthodox congregants seceded from the Jewish Congregation of Königsberg, which they doomed too liberal, and founded the Israelite Synagogal Congregation of «Adass Jisroel». In 1893 the Israelite Synagogal Congregation built its own synagogue in Synagogenstraße #14–15. Soon later the mainstream Jewish Congregation of Königsberg built a new and larger place of worship, therefore called New Synagogue, dedicated in August 1896. The synagogue in Synagogenstrasse #2 was called Old Synagogue since.

The New Synagogue, as well as the Old Synagogue, were destroyed in the November Pogrom in the night of November 9–10, 1938. The Adass Jisroel synagogue was terribly vandalised, but spared from arson, and could thus be restored to serve as Jewish place of worship. In July 1939 the Gestapo ordered the merger of the smaller Israelite Synagogal Congregation in the larger Jewish Congregation of Königsberg, which now had to enlist also all non-Jews such as Christians and irreligionists, whom the Nazis categorised as Jews because they had three or more Jewish grandparents. The systematic deportations of Jewish Germans, starting in October 1941, and brought the congregational life in Königsberg to a halt by November 1942.

Photo: the Old Synagogue right after the "Kristallnacht", Königsberg, 1938.
Update! The vandals smashed the sign on cornerstone. Before the cornerstone was sprayed with neonazi signs.

The supporters of Kalinin (the murderer of children), in Königsberg.

2011-10-09T03:12:00.000-07:00

A few days ago we had a debate between the supporters of historical name of Königsberg and supporters of Mikhail Kalinin murderer of children.
The bulk of those who have transgressed all moral laws were "people" from the communist "party" of the Russian Federation. The commies are neck-deep in human blood, some individual members of other Kremlin's parties like the "United Russia" party, "Liberal democratic party" and "Patriots of Russia" party are joined to commies to swim in that blood.
Who are those advocates of devil, actually? We can call them by names.

Let's start with the bloody сommies. Dear readers should remember, that commies began to kill children with the Russian Royal family.

Boris Ponomarev, secretary of Communist Party regional committee of the ideology

Dmitry Trunov, a member of Communist Party, assistant to the MP from Communist Party Igor Revin, a former member of Limonov`s National Bolshevik Party .

Sergei Sevostyanov, member of Communist Party

Unknown сommie, but must be named.

Vladimir Nikitin, member of Communist Party, MP, representative of so-called "Kaliningradskaya oblast" in the State Duma from Communist Party.

"The renaming can only support our pro-Western elite and those who wants to live by Western standards," - said Nikitin, adding that he will be preventing the renaming by any means necessary. Commie Vladimir Nikitin criticized the idea of returning back to Königsberg as"a move to split our society." Vladimir Nikitin said that renaming of city is against foreign and domestic policies of Russia.
Our commentary:
Well, that is fine with us residents of Königsberg region, it is time to split normal people and idiots, separate from bloody сommies. It is a shame that "people" like Vladimir Nikitin representing our region in Moscow.

Viktor Gorbunov, a member of the party "Patriots of Russia".
He is confident that the subject of returning back the historical name Königsberg to the city, is not relevant. According to him, the returning back the historical name should take place only when the majority of 97% for the return of the historic names, and then you can rename. But for now residents of our region should live under the name of murderer Kalinin, it's quite normal for him, by his "logic".

Yelena Afanasyeva, MP, representative of the so-called "Kaliningrad oblast" in the State Duma from the "Liberal Democratic Party" ( no liberals and democrats in that "party"). A member of the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children. She was born March 27, 1975 in Orenburg ( German name of the city).

Our commentary: The commies and their look-alikes are like nazis, they have no moral principles, they are still denying all proved crimes against Russian citizens. More than that, they deny it with the smile on their faces. They are ready to demolish even now all the past of that land. It is a pity that the residents of Königsberg and the region are going to give their votes for those "people" in upcoming "elections".

The "United Russia" party.
The "United Russia" party always like to speak about strong subordination and coordination within the party. In reality there is non. The leader of "United Russia" party Vladimir Putin and the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev are condemned the crimes of Stalin and other Soviet officials like Mikhail Kalinin. We do respect Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev and the State Duma MPs of "United Russia" party for their courage and consistent principled position. In opposition to them some of the party members from local brunch of "United Russia" party disagree. They saying, that live under the name of Mikhail Kalinin is normal. That we should lie about the past of Mikhail Kalinin to the future generation.
Who are them?

Egor Razinkov, member of of "United Russia" party, deputy "Svetlogorsk district," deputy "Primorye village"

Yevgeny Fyodorov, a representative of the region from the "United Russia" party.

Nikolay Tsukanov, a member of "United Russia"party, the governor of the so-called "Kaliningradskay oblast".
Nikolay Tsukanov does not want to live in Königsberg. "Kaliningrad should remain as Kaliningrad". "As for my personal opinion: I was born in Kaliningrad, going to live and work in Kaliningrad, and I oppose to renaming of the city", - said Tsukanov.
Our commentary: Well, as you can see Nikolay Tsukanov do not care about moral aspects. He does not care, that our beloved Königsberg still bearing the name of communistic butcher Kalinin. Does he know about the bloody past of Mikhail Kalinin at all? Yes, probably he knows.

On 8 May 2010, Russia handed over to Poland 67 volumes of the "criminal case No.159," launched in the 1990s to investigate the Soviet-era mass killings of Polish officers. The copies of 67 volumes, each having about 250 pages, were packed in six boxes. With each box weighting approximately 12 kg (26.5 lbs), the total weight of all the documents stood at about 70 kg (153 lbs). Russian President Dmitry Medvedev handed one of the volumes to the acting Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski. Medvedev and Komorowski agreed that the two states should continue their efforts in revealing the truth over the tragedy. The Russian president reiterated that Russia would continue declassifying documents on the Katyn massacre. The acting Polish president said that Russia's move might lay a good foundation for improving bilateral relations.

In November 2010, the State Duma (lower house of the Russian parliament) passed a resolution declaring that long-classified documents "showed that the Katyn crime was carried out on direct orders of Stalin and other Soviet officials". The declaration also called for the massacre to be investigated further in order to confirm the list of victims. Members of the Duma from the Communist Party denied that the Soviet Union had been to blame for the Katyn massacre and voted against the declaration. On December 6, 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promised the whole truth about the massacre, stating "Russia has recently taken a number of unprecedented steps towards clearing up the legacy of the past. We will continue in this direction."

Nikolay Vinnichenko, special representative of the Russian President in the North-West Federal District
Words of Nikolay Vinnichenko.
“I don’t think that this is a hot topic today, although I myself have watched online forums, and various disputes on this subject,” said Nikolay Vinnichenko. "I believe that Kaliningrad must remain Kaliningrad."
In the opinion of the Nikolay Vinnichenko, “generally speaking, this is a blather on the ground level.”

Finally Sergei Sterlin, member of the Baltic Republican Party (so far), biker, editor of "Jewish newspaper Simcha".
He was saying, that Königsberg is a fascism, because Jewish synagogue were destroyed in Königsberg. According to him, Königsberg should be erased from the surface of the Earth, that we should eradicate all German culture, all historical past of that land and give a new name to the city, which will be not associated with Königsberg and German past.
Some commie-nazi techniques in the head of our Jewish friend Sergei Sterlin, we will say.
Another suggestion from Mr. Sergei Sterlin, that we from now on should associate the name of the city "Kaliningrad" with the small tree "Viburnum" ( Kalina in Russian). Well, we people of Königsberg do not see the connection of small tree "Viburnum" with the name of our beloved city Königsberg. That "logic" of Mr. Sterlin not only strange, but it is a mockery of the dead, millions of people butchered by Mikhail Kalinin. Königsberg synagogue, will be rebuilt soon and it will be under the name of "Königsberg synagogue". According to Sterlin "Königsberg synagogue" is not a nazi name, but the Konigsberg itself is. Perhaps for new synagogue will be more suitable name, "Kaliningrad synagogue", it is better for Jew Sergei Sterlin, he probably wish to smear the synagogue with the blood of victims of butcher Kalinin.Taste of blood on the tongue while saying words like "Kaliningrad" and "Kaliningradskaya oblast", but that does not bother some locals, they are already accustomed to that taste from the childhood. We are fed up in explanation of simple things to Sergei Sterlin, may be worldwide Jewish community will explain to him what is right and what is wrong. We are still hoping, that he is not lost completely for society of normal people.

Sergei Sterlin is a well known biker. Dear readers could see on photo above, that even his biker jacket bearing bloody name "kaliningrad". He, along with other local bikers ( including people from the local government like Nikolay Tsukanov), often riding in Poland, Polish bikers are joining them. Why Polish bikers are joining people who supports murderer Mikhail Kalinin??? Well, probably Polish bikers do not care about their 22.000 dead relatives. Mikhail Kalinin is responsible for that killings, he agreed to kill Polish just for being Polish.

We people of Königsberg have won those debates, 67% of those who took part in an event voted in favour of Königsberg.
P.S. In private talks one of the person listed above ( I will not mention him) admitted, that he red everything and understood a lot about Kalinin`s past. He is not defending Kalinin anymore. "F*ck him!" - that was his last words about Mikhail Kalinin.
To be continued, still in writing ( have got no time for everything) ...

Königsberg - the good, Kaliningrad - the bad and the ugly.

2011-09-20T23:39:00.000-07:00

Baltic Republican Party states, that Mikhail Kalinin is a children killer, the murderer of thousands of innocent Soviet citizens and an international criminal. It is a moral turpitude of Kremlin and local authorities, that Königsberg and our region still bearing the name of murderer of children .
The city of Königsberg was renamed to Kaliningrad in 1946 after the death of Chairman of the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Mikhail Kalinin, one of the original Bolsheviks.
Who was actually Mr. Kalinin?

Kalinin was a factional ally of Stalin during the bitter struggle for power which erupted following the death of Lenin in 1924. Kalinin was one of comparatively few members of Stalin's inner circle springing from peasant origins. Kalinin kept a low profile during the Great Purge, he remained submissive to Stalin.
Kalinin's own wife Katarina Loorberg was arrested by the NKVD on 25 October 1938. She was forced under torture to confess to "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities" and sent to a labour camp ( the Gulag). She was released in 1945, not long before her husband's death. Kalinin has not taken any steps towards her liberation. He betrayed his closest person - his wife.

During his lifetime, three large cities — Tver, Korolyov and Königsberg — were named or renamed in his honour; the last has retained the name Kaliningrad after the fall of the USSR.
Mikhail Kalinin signed the "Law of Spikelets" or "Law of Three Spikelets". The common name came into use because peasants (including children) caught gleaning (hand-collecting the leftovers of grains or 'spikelets') in the collective fields after the harvest, were arrested for "damaging the state grain production". The punishment was 5 to 10 years of prison camp time. It has been estimated that a quarter of a million people were charged by the OGPU and there were more than 200,000 sentences.

Here are just some of the documents indicating the crimes of Mikhail Kalinin.
A decree about harsher law enforcement.
1 Investigate cases only for 10 days max.
2 By that decree the accused could see his case only 1 day before the trail.
3 The trail in court without hearings of sides.
4 No appeals are allowed.
5 Killing right after the sentence.

The Katyn massacre, was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by NKVD, the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. This official secret ( not any more) document was approved and signed by the Soviet Politburo, including Mikhail Kalinin. The number of victims is estimated up to 22,000.

Approved by Kalinin mass executions of innocent Soviet citizens. Thousands of such top secret documents in Russian archives. These mass killings were carried out by the security organisations, such as the NKVD ( now FSB), and reached their peak in the Great Purge of 1937-38, when nearly 700,000 were executed by a shot to the base of the skull. Following the demise of the USSR in 1991, many of the killing and burial sites were uncovered. Some of the more notable mass graves include:

Bykivnia - containing an estimated 120,000 - 225,000 corpses

Kurapaty - estimations range from 30,000 to 200,000 bodies found

Butovo - over 20,000 confirmed killed

Sandarmokh - over 9,000 bodies discovered

The Soviet law for execution of children approved by Kalinin. Decree signed by Mikhail Kalinin, which allowed to kill children, later article 12 of Criminal Code of Russia. That Russian law ended only in 1959.
Only in Butovo firing range a location where more than 20,000 political prisoners were shot, including 200 children during the Great Terror of the Soviet Union and thereafter from 1938 to 1953. It is located in the Yuzhnoye Butovo District of Moscow.

Yes, Königsberg went through 12 years of fascism. The Königsberg itself is not guilty of fascism. More then that Königsberg was the anti-fascist city, local Prussian bourgeois and military aristocracy hated Adolf Hitler and his fascistic clowns. At the East Prussian Landtag elections in 1928, the Hitler's party was at the end of the list. In 1932, at the presidential election, Hitler received only 34.5% of Königsberg votes (Social Democrats were leading). After Hitler came to power, many Germans anti-fascists of East Prussia were murdered in concentration camps. The list included, local union leaders, journalists and owners of newspapers, members of political parties (SPD, the Communist Party of Germany, etc.). On 20 July 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was the culmination of the efforts of several groups in the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government. Dozen Königsbergians were involved including Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort, Heinrich Graf zu Dohna-Schlobitten, Fritz Goerdeler, Marion Dönhoff etc.

The legendary Soviet spy Richard Sorge, he became an anti-Nazi in Königsberg.

Königsberg - part of Russian History and cultural heritage. Imperial Russian troops occupied eastern Prussia at the beginning of 1758 during the Seven Years' War. On December 31, 1757, Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issued a decree about the incorporation of Königsberg into Russia. On January 24, 1758, the leading burghers of Königsberg submitted to Elizabeth. Five Imperial Russian general-governors administered the city during the war from 1758–62; the Russian army did not abandon the town until 1763. During this time no one tried to rename the city of Königsberg or Tilsit. The same with Tilsit (not Sovetsk), Tilsit written in Russian History as the city of "Treaties of Tilsit".

Baltic Republican Party was one of the first, who proclaimed in 1993, that historical name Königsberg should be returned to the city. We are still do not understand the reason why Kremlin authorities still keeping the name of Kaliningrad for the city of Königsberg. Mikhail Kalinin is a killer of children, the murderer of thousands of innocent Soviet citizens and an international criminal. It is a disgrace to all residents of Königsberg, that our glorious city still bears the name of one of the Kremlin`s murderer.

P.S. While I was writing this article, the Governor Nikolai Tsukanov spoke in Poland about the referendum on the renaming of Kaliningrad. The Baltic Republican Party is fully supports Mr. Nicholay Tsukanov and the head of administration Mr. Felix Lapin. In 2009, Felix Lapin, in an interview to radio "Echo of Moscow" did mention the possibility for returning historical name to the city.

Communist Crimes: The Soviet Story from No Communism on Vimeo.

The expulsion of German and Prussian families from East Prussia is a war crime.

2011-09-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

The expulsion of German population of East Prussia in Germany, which took place in 1945-1948, was nothing but a war crime in peacetime. The Nazism and Fascism should have been convicted for sure, and many Nazi criminals were punished, but the forced eviction of civilians from their homes in peaceful time is a crime of the 20th century. Total forcibly evicted around 200,000 people. The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Potsdam Conference actually legalized the deportation of Germans from the Eastern Europe. From Potsdam Agreement:

V. City of Koenigsberg and the adjacent area.The Conference examined a proposal by the Soviet Government to the effect that pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement, the section of the western frontier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which is adjacent to the Baltic Sea should pass from a point on the eastern shore of the Bay of Danzig to the east, north of Braunsberg-Goldap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the Polish Republic and East Prussia.The Conference has agreed in principle to the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the City of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it as described above subject to expert examination of the actual frontier.The President of the United States and the British Prime Minister have declared that they will support the proposal of the Conference at the forthcoming peace settlement.

Meanwhile, although a significant number of refugees, the problem of the expulsion of Germans from East Prussia, has remained a taboo subject for a long time. The cohabitation of German and Soviet civilians in East Prussia, which lasted for more than three years 1945-1948, was unique in the history of both nations. Two parallel worlds, each existed by itself, but by force of circumstances, forced to interact with each other, and even cooperate. Due to human nature, between these "worlds" quickly began to appear sincere and deep human connection. One of the main results of cohabitation was overcoming of open hostility of the Soviet people to the Germans. East Prussia (later Kaliningrad region) was the only Russian territory, where it happened so fast. The tendency to bring the two nations together are actively constrained by the policy of the authorities, and then was artificially aborted by the deportation of the German population in 1947-1948 years. Until 1951only a small number of Germans left in the region. Most of them were highly skilled professionals needed for the local economy. The last group (193 people), was sent to the GDR in May 1951.

In those postwar times, even in the Red Army were the voices opposing the bias of society towards the German population. One of these voices was a literary critic Lev Kopelev. When the German-Soviet War broke out in June 1941, he volunteered for the Red Army and used his knowledge of German to serve as a propaganda officer and an interpreter. He entered an East Prussia with the Red Army through the East Prussian Offensive. He sharply criticized the atrocities against the German civilian population. He was arrested in 1945 and sentenced to a ten-year term in the Gulag for fostering bourgeois humanism and for "compassion towards the enemy". Released in 1954, in 1956 he was rehabilitated. The present and future generations should erase the historical mistakes. We all, Russian and Germans paid in full for our mistakes. We're saying to Germans and Prussian families: "Welcome back to Konigsberg". It is a long way for the returning of Germans, but the first steps are taken.

Only the truth makes us free - official speech at meeting of East Prussia 2011

2011-08-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Erika Steinbach: Nur die Wahrheit macht frei - Festansprache Deutschlandtreffen der Ostpreußen 2011
Erika Steinbach - member of Bundestag from the state of Hesse and the president of "The Federation of Expellees".

Königsberg.

2011-07-31T09:53:00.000-07:00

Königsberg before WW2.

Königsberg after the WW2

Baltic Republican Party vs. Communist Party.

2011-07-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

To the Consul of Lithuania in Kaliningrad Mr. VACLAV STANKEVIČ.
We are the members of the Baltic Republican Party, express our regret over the picket by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, near your consulate in Kaliningrad, on July 18, 2011.
We and many residents of the region, do not share the objectives of the picketing, nor the views of Mr Igor Revin, a MP of the Kaliningrad Oblast (organizer of the picket) and his communistic party members.
We did not take part in the picketing and publicly condemn such unfriendly acts towards you, our dear neighbors and friends.
It should be noted, that the press service of the local FSB office, sent out press releases about the upcoming picketing, to the media of the region. In this regard, such a large coverage of the picket in local and federal press.
Article 170-2 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania, is correct. Criminals committed crimes against the Republic of Lithuania and its citizens must be punished. The denial of the documented crimes against the Republic of Lithuania, is also a crime.
Sincerely yours, members of the BRP

Baltic Republican Party on Kremlin TV channel ( NTV).

2011-06-13T04:26:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, the TV station "NTV", aired a story about regionalism and separatism in Russian Federation. I said there a few words.

Interestingly, the NTV guys are interviewed about 10 people here (including MPs), interviewed the people's opinion, on the street(20 people), about the future of the region. Me and Sergei Pasko did speak, on camera, with the NTV crew for 5 hours alone. For three days they were filming here and did compress, eventually everything in 1 minute. Well, thanks a lot, to the NTV channel, even for that. Remind you, that every TV&Radio station is under control of the Kremlin. The owners are the people, who affiliated with Kremlin. The owner of NTV channel - the state company "Gazprom".

At the same day, on June 12, our Party member Mr. Igor Kovrigin, held a picketing in Sweden, in the city of Malmo. Igor Kovrigin protested against words, expressed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in denying the fact, that there is should be visa facilitation, for residents of our region with EU. Igor spoke out against the Kremlin's tyranny, where one person administers the fate of a million people. The picketing, also was a part of international political action "Russia - Yes! Putin - no!". The action took place, in cities across the Russia, Latvia, Great Britain, USA, Sweden and Finland.
I want to add, that Russia never had a visa equality, there is NO equality now and never will be. Mr. Vladimir Putin is well aware of it, but puts the citizens of the country into the delusion.
If someone does not know, I will remind you.
Visa exemptions have the following regions of Russia:
1 North-western region of Russia with Finland (EU country).
2 Part of the southern republics of the Russian Federation with Georgia.
3 Far East of Russia with China.
4 Some areas of Chukotka with USA ( Alaska).
5 Murmansk region with Norway.
6 Kuril islands with Japan.
All other regions of Russia obtain visas in these countries on a common basis. Сould you please, Mr.Putin point us out, where is visa equality in Russia? Does your words, just a cheap populism and hypocrisy?

The Baltic Republican Party in Germany.

2011-06-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

On the 28-th and 29-th of May, took place a meeting of former residents of East Prussia - "Deutschlandtreffen der Ostpreußen". I was invited, as representative of the Baltic Republican Party and a resident of the region, by German and Prussian friends.

The meeting was held in Germany, in Erfurt, at the building called "Messe". By my estimates, about 10000 people attended that event, people came from all over the world. At on official part of the event, speeches were held by; politician Stefan Grigat, member of Bundestag from the state of Hesse Erika Steinbach (who is also president of "The Federation of Expellees"), and others.

The informal part of the meeting was held in a cordial and friendly atmosphere. As a representative of the Party, I met with many organizations and individuals. We held lively debates about the past, present and future of the region. Baltic Republican Party, strengthening good-neighbourly relations and develops the European connections.
Speech in German by Stephan Grigat.
http://www.odfinfo.de/Div/DT-Erfurt-2011/Rede-Grigat.htm
P.S. There were no Königsberger Klopse on the menu, that`s a pity. :)

Meeting with the Governor Nikolay Tsukanov.

2011-05-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

My attitude towards Nikolay Nikolaevich Tsukanov were always positive, from the very beginning, when he supported our political campaign, on simplification of visa regime.
I usually do not visit the meetings with Russian officials. Not interesting to me, no desire to ask questions, because I know the answers. Or perhaps a mutual antipathy, as officials and politicians (to whom I myself barely include here) are different sides, and sometimes enemies. I did not want to go and at this meeting, but then changed my mind, because stated theme "The Future of the Region", was interesting for me.
For me was a great honour to meet and ask a few questions, the VIP. Nikolay Tsukanov is not just a VIP, from my regional views - the President.

The meeting was organized by blogger`s talkclub "AmberKant" and the head of that club Mr. Dmitry Nadrshin ( my friend). I see the fruits of democracy in Russia, VIP comes to the bloggers. The day before the meeting, I asked you, my worldwide readers of my blog, which questions would you like to ask the governor directly. It was very surprising for some of you, since many of you, had no answers from your governments. I get some questions from you, two of them I asked, the governor answered - fair enough. The first question about the monument to Alexander Marinesko in Kaliningrad ( Königsberg) and the controversy of the monument itself, because of the tragedy of "an attack of the century"( as Russians call it) in which was sunk the " Wilhelm Gustloff " (a question of Dr. Wolfgang Kelker from Frankfurt am Main) and the second question on issue of facilitation of visa regime for EU citizens, for Kaliningrad ( Königsberg) region ( a question of Florian, student from Germany).
The meeting was a good one, who wanted to ask sharp questions, did that. I want to wish a success to Nikolay, and especially in lobbying for the visa`s issue at the federal level. For his support of our initiatives on visa subject, I shook his hand.
My questions and the answers of Nikolay Tsukanov, in Russian - starting at 44.00 and finishing at 50.16. I will translate for you his answers on those two questions, but later.

After the meeting, I came to the Governor and asked him, about the possibility for him, to answer the questions from the worldwide audience. He was positive about it, so hopefully, later he will answer your questions. Anyway, your questions for him, you could start asking right now.

Immanuel Kant and Baltic Republican Party.

2011-04-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Today is a birthday of Immanuel Kant. Our Baltic Republican Party, put a flowers to the grave of great world philosopher. It is our tradition. We raised the flag of our banned Party. Long live Königsberg!

Strangely enough a few days we were filmed, by one of the Kremlin TV station. We are not allowed even in the local press and TV by the Kremlin censorship, but now we are appearing on national level.

We are still isolated. Königsberg prisoner of Europe.

2011-04-19T03:32:00.000-07:00

For Königsberg!

2011-04-18T04:37:00.000-07:00

That was yesterday at political rally in Kaliningrad. I raised the flag of Königsberg.

Königsberg Is Dead

2011-04-15T03:27:00.000-07:00

Language of the film - German.
This really provides with a refreshing point of view on the restless Königsberg/Kaliningrad-issue. Obviously made by people emotionally unburdened by any memories from before 1945, it lacks any nostalgia for the times that once were.

In this respect 'Königsberg is dead' is at a lightyears' distance from the usual documentary about former East Prussia. It's quite good, though, and certainly made with great historical precision.

Most valuable is its documentation about the times after 1945. Extending these right to the present day, it reveals how the Kaliningraders have to deal with a strong indentity-problem. They are Russian, but their country doesn't look Russian; they live in today's Russia, but are constantly reminded of their country's German past; for their cultural interests they look westwards, while their country is tied up eastwards; They want to make a proper life, while Moscow hardly cares about them.
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snj84WdSTRo
Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVzTh7pFouo
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCoVOsfLBXI

Elder Blossom / Holunderblüte

2011-04-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

Stories from the Kaliningrad region and its inhabitants: with the calamity of unemployment and the ravages of alcohol, many children are left to their own devices, in landscapes that are retuning to the wild. Games, dreams, solidarity, and the fierce will to live defy a forsaken world.
The film tells the story of the East Prussian landscape and its inhabitants. A region steeped in history. At one time Germans, Poles, Lithuanians and Jews lived here alongside and with one another. After World War II and the expulsion of Germans by the decision of USSR, USA and UK at the Potsdam Conference, the Prussian province turned into a Russian exclave, more important geostrategically than economically. An absurd rudiment of political power games.
The film dedicated to a generation, born in the 90's, and familiar with the Soviet Union and East Prussia only from school books. Their present is a different one. Parents and Grandparents who were resettled to where they are now have never really felt at home. In the meantime they have hopelessly succumb to unemployment and alcohol. Their children can only rely on themselves.
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=531SsCdoq3k
Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgHL7kiVUnE
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT6gC3rwGTI
Part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEJXn5mkTdo

The Kaliningrad oblast - an illegitimate region.

2011-03-11T21:11:00.000-08:00

The so-called Kaliningrad oblast and the so-called authorities of that pseudo-formation are illegitimate.The status of the region for sure questionable in the world, but not even that, the Kaliningrad oblast illegitimate by Russian law.
Citizens of the Russian Federation, on 12 December 1993 adopted the basic law of their life - the Constitution. The Constitution begins: "We, the multinational people of the Russian Federation ...".
Third article of the Constitution states - "The bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in the Russian Federation shall be its multinational people. No one may usurp power in the Russian Federation. Seizure of power or usurping state authority shall be prosecuted by federal law". In the sense, that power can not be seized by anybody without a decision by the people.
The Kaliningrad Region, being before an ordinary administrative-territorial unit of the USSR, suddenly became the subject of the Russian Federation, and like the rest of the subjects became eligible for state attributes of power: the status, the adoption of the Basic Law, the definition of a system of legislative and executive power (Article 77 of Constitution) .
Let's talk about two main authorities of a state power: the Kaliningrad Regional Duma ( the Parliament) and the Governor.
They form a system. The question arises. Who has defined that system?
The right to define a system of public authorities in the Kaliningrad region belongs only to people who living on its territory. What do we have then?
The Basic Law of the Kaliningrad region accepted on 28 December 1995 and is called the Charter. It begins with the mysterious words "The Duma of Kaliningrad Oblast ...", in Article 17 of Charter recorded more mystery, that Duma "is a permanent supreme and legislative authority of the Kaliningrad region". There is not even a word about the will of the people either in the preamble or the text of the Charter. So, where did the Duma appeared from, who expressed his will to empower its government? It is unknown.
In the same Charter, they named the chief executive of the region - the Governor. Self-proclaimed Duma has unlawfully presented to us with a second self-proclaimed branch of power. That's how we live, without democracy, driven by impostors and yes we even spend on their maintenance as much as they want.
Now let's talk about the status of the region.
Russia's status is enshrined in the first article of the Constitution: "The Russian Federation - Russia is a democratic federal law-bound State with a republican form of government." The world community considered Constitution as legitimate, since the words beginning "... we the people" and it was accepted on a referendum.
Identification of the form of statehood as Federation, entails a number of legally binding consequences. So, only the state formations can be members (subjects) of federation . They could be called republics, areas, "oblasts", but firstly they must be subjects of the public law. Gaining such law, according to article 3 of the Constitution, possible only by the highest expression of the will of the people living in particular region and differ from other regions. That is a public referendum, the will of the people. No public referendum held on the territory of the so-called "Kaliningrad oblast", and consequently pseudo-formation is illegitimate, and power seized by by thieves - impostors.
In the Russian Federation only 8 state subjects (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Sakha-Yakutia and Kalmykia and others, in time till December, 12th 1993 held referendum about the status). The remaining 80 regions have not yet become a state subjects, and those regions can not be legitimate. They are simply territories of Russia where citizens of Russia live.
The right of statehood status is eligible by all regions of Russia. This right is written in Article 66 part 1 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

Eine Liebe in Königsberg

2011-03-11T17:13:00.000-08:00

Even if you don´t speak German ( I do not speak, just a few words) the pictures are still powerful.

A man´s mother died and her last will is to have her ashes distributed in her beloved hometown Königsberg.

Her son, who was never interested in this story, travels to Königsberg to fulfil his mother´s last wish.

He finds out, that his father was a Russian officer, who was in love with his mother, who was a nurse at a hospital, but their love was not accepted in the Soviet Union.

He gradually finds out the truth and finds a half sister and his father.

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQJGe6v5WYY&feature=related
Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qul_DKk2Hf8&feature=related
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U9j2Mje60c&feature=related
Part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiKsBIbHg64&feature=related
Part 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn_TLLMfWF4&feature=related

You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.

2011-02-11T16:57:00.000-08:00

Despite criticism that it will revisit yet more thorny tangles from Russia’s past, Parliament has passed a law to restore to religious organizations property seized by the state in Soviet times.
Under the law, the federal, regional and municipal authorities have two years to hand over property after a decision is made on a claim by the church, either for rent-free use or in a full transfer of ownership.
While the law addresses religious property generally, it is seen as broadly favouring the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest religious organization in the nation, though all groups had property taken by the Communists.
The new law dictates that government bodies must post all property claims and decisions on Web sites. Claims can be disputed in court and legal challenges are expected. The concept of former church real estate extends not only to buildings that were used for worship, but also to church-run hospitals, schools and residential buildings.
In Kaliningrad, the former German Königsberg that ended up in Soviet hands after World War II, questions of church property are especially complex. The regional legislature voted to transfer more than a dozen former Catholic and Lutheran churches, cathedrals and Teutonic castles to the Russian Orthodox Church, which says Orthodox believers there are underserved.
Moscow’s relations with the Vatican had been improving, but Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, whose diocese oversees Moscow and Kaliningrad, said that the region’s legislators were “profoundly mistaken” in their effort to hand over the neo-Gothic Church of the Holy Family to the Russian Orthodox rather than the Roman Catholic Church. The church is now used by the Kaliningrad Philharmonic.
The debate has reached across borders. After protests from the government of neighboring Lithuania, the Kaliningrad region is reconsidering its decision to include in the transfer list a Lutheran church that is the burial site of Kristijonas Donelaitis, a Lithuanian pastor and poet.
Properties in Kaliningrad region, that handed over, by the local government, to the Russian Orthodox Church for free.
1 Church of the Holy Family
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Family,_Kaliningrad
2 Arnau Church ( German cultural organisation paid 320000 Euro to restore that Church)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnau_Church
3 Königin-Luise-Gedächtniskirche
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigin-Luise-Ged%C3%A4chtniskirche_%28Kaliningrad%29
4 Waldau Castle
http://www.tacis.zamkigotyckie.org.pl/waldau-ang.htm
5 Neuhausen Castle
http://www.tacis.zamkigotyckie.org.pl/neuhausen-ang.htm
6 Taplacken Castle
http://www.tacis.zamkigotyckie.org.pl/talpaki-ang.htm
7 Ragnit Castle
http://www.tacis.zamkigotyckie.org.pl/ragneta-ang.htm
8 Labiau Castle
http://www.tacis.zamkigotyckie.org.pl/labiau-ang.htm
9 Gergdauen Castle
http://www.tacis.zamkigotyckie.org.pl/gierdawy-ang.htm
10 Insterburg Castle
http://www.tacis.zamkigotyckie.org.pl/wystruc-ang.htm
And about 15 or so other properties.

My friends and I rallied against the transfer of cathedrals and castles to the Russian Orthodox Church. But usually we did end up in the police stations through the court procedures and fines. We signed up the petition to the president of Russia, local intelligentsia did back us up, but unfortunately local and federal authorities do not wish to hear us.

Mit offenen Karten - Kaliningrad - Eine Deutsche Geschichte

2011-02-01T18:10:00.000-08:00

Mit offenen Karten - Kaliningrad - Eine deutsche... megaman7de

Kaliningrad - Eine Russische Insel In Der Eu

Kaliningrad - European isolationism.

2011-01-12T11:52:00.001-08:00

Keeping one million people isolated in centre of Europe in 21 century is inhuman.
10 March 2010 - Strasbourg, European Parliament. Kaliningrad visa question.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=CRE&reference=20100310&secondRef=ITEM-013&language=EN#3-439

Video http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getVod.do?mode=unit&language=EN&vodDateId=20100310-19:00:05-461

Putin Eyes New Start for Russia, EU Integration.

2010-11-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

Visa lifting between the European Union (EU) and Russia is the starting point of their integration, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in his article published Thursday in a German newspaper.

According to Putin, "the genuine partnership" between Russia and EU is impossible as long as there are obstacles for human and business contacts, that is, visa regime.

"We believe waiving visas must not be the end but the beginning of the real integration process of Russia and EU," said Putin in the article carried by Suddeutsche Zeitung.

Putin said scrapping visa regime would remove a serious obstacle for small and medium business activity and for innovative companies.

Putin stressed the importance of setting a clear timetable of visa waiver process that would enhance cooperation of the law enforcement agencies of Russia and European countries.

The Russian head of government also offered to create a free trade zone between Brussels and Moscow, removing the remaining obstacles for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization.

"As a result, we'll get a common continental market worth trillions of euros," he said.

Putin urged to create "post-industrial" strategic alliances in shipbuilding, car industry, airplane construction, space technologies, nuclear power, logistics and others.

Putin published his article on the run-up of the 4th annual German economic forum he was going to attend.

Visa-free travel could start real Russia-EU integration” - Putin

Published by Russia Today TV, 25 November, 2010, 16:45

Moscow suggests shaping Europe’s future “through the partnership of Russia and the EU,” but true partnership is impossible “as long as barriers persist,” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said.

German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on Thursday published Putin’s article “Russia and Europe: From learning the lessons of the crisis to a new partnership agenda.” It was timed to coincide with the fourth annual economic forum for heads and top managers of leading German companies organized by the paper. The forum takes place on November 25-26 in Berlin.

Shaping the future together would be “our joint attempt at achieving success and competitiveness in the modern world,” Putin said.

“Let’s face it, both Russia and the EU have proved quite vulnerable economically, and the crisis showed that clearly. Russia still depends strongly on its raw material exports, and the European Union, after many years of de-industrialization, is facing a real threat of losing its positions on the industrial and high-tech markets. It is obvious that we are lagging behind in certain areas of education and scientific research and development.

“I should also add that in general, today's level of interaction between Russia and the EU is definitely not up to the challenges we are facing.”

Common economic policy

“Changing this situation requires using the tangible advantages and opportunities that both Russia and the EU have,” Putin said. “That would be a truly harmonious synergy of two economies: the classic, well-established economy of the EU and the emerging, developing economy of Russia, with growth factors that complement each other.

“First, we need to establish a harmonious community of economies stretching all the way from Lisbon to Vladivostok. In the future, we may establish a free trade area or even a more advanced form of economic integration. That would essentially result in a common continental market with a capacity measured in trillions of euros.

“Naturally, that would require removing all obstacles in the way of Russia's accession to the WTO first. Then we would need to standardize our legislation and customs procedures, as well as technical norms and regulations, and eliminate existing bottlenecks in the pan-European transport infrastructure.

“Second, we need a common industrial policy based on the combination of the technology and resource potentials of Russia and the EU. Also, we need joint programs to support small and medium-sized businesses working in the real sector.

“Third, there is an urgent need to set up a common European energy complex.

“Over the past few years, the subject of Russia-EU energy interaction attracted much attention and, frankly speaking, was too politicized. Russia was even accused of plotting to use its oil and gas deliveries to achieve its political goals. That, of course, had nothing to do with reality.

“The truth is that the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived Russia of direct access to major export markets. We now face the problem of transit countries, which seek to use their monopoly position to achieve unilateral advantages. That was the cause of our recent conflicts.

“Naturally, this situation ran counter to Russia’s national interests and, actually, those of the countries which consume our energy resources. That is why Europe’s leading energy companies and the governments of many European countries, including Germany, have supported Russia’s plans to build pipelines under the Baltic (Nord Stream) and the Black Sea (South Stream)”.

Supporting science and education

“Fourth, without a developed industry, European science and education cannot develop,” the prime minister’s article reads.

“Today, both in the European Union and Russia, fewer and fewer gifted young people seek to get technical education. They see no future for themselves as engineers or skilled workers. They choose other occupations which often require lower qualifications. That is why it may not only be manufacturing plants that move from our continent elsewhere; design bureaus and engineering companies may do the same.

“European science and education should secure leading positions. And again, the only way for us to achieve that is to develop close partnership.

“Russia will continue investing in pan-European science projects such as the construction of a roentgen laser in Hamburg or the Darmstadt accelerator.

“We are ready to open Russian universities and science centers for EU researchers and even to offer grant programs. Furthermore, Russia offers an excellent opportunity to work on unique experimental equipment.”

Removing barriers

“Fifth, a true partnership is impossible on this continent as long as barriers persist that hinder personal and business contacts,” Putin said.

“The main one of these is the visa regime between Russia and the EU. We think that allowing visa-free travel would be the beginning, rather than the completion, of real Russia-EU integration.

“Young people, schoolchildren and college students, will be the first to benefit from the freedom of movement. They will enjoy new opportunities to travel, to get education, and to see the unique cultures of different countries.

“By abolishing visas, we will also remove a serious obstacle to extending business activities. Currently, visas do not create problems for big business but they have quite an impact on small and medium-size businesses and on innovation companies. In effect, the visa system is artificially perpetuating the existing structure of our economic ties, which is far from perfect.

“Finally, establishing timeframes and a clear timetable for the abolition of visas will make it possible to intensify cooperation between the law enforcement agencies of our countries. It will help us join our efforts and more effectively fight against illegal migration, drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism.

“Let me stress the following. Russia has no interest whatsoever in a weak or divided European Union because that would indirectly diminish Russia’s own international influence as well. Our opportunity to rely on a partner with similar and often directly concurring interests would shrink. Closer ties between Russia and the EU cannot be directed against any other party. Neither does it require the weakening of ties with our traditional partners and allies.”

Source http://www.aljazeerah.info/News/2010/November/25%20n/Putin%20Eyes%20New%20Start%20for%20Russia,%20EU%20Integration.htm

Model European Parliament Baltic Sea Region (MEP BSR) Kaliningrad 2010

2010-11-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

Kalningradians picketing European Parliament and European Commission in Brussels.

2010-10-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

At this moment in Brussels Kalningradians picketing European Parliament and European Commission in Brussels in the frame of campaign "Kaliningrad - Prisoner of Europe". 31 participants of the picketing, in particular, the publisher of the newspaper "Dvornik" Arseny Mahlov, the leaders of NGO "Spravedlivost" Konstantin Doroshok and Vitaly Lavrinovic, local MP from Chernyakhovsk Vera Safonova, head of the independent non-profit organization "New World" Alexander Shatsky and other activists from Kaliningrad region.
Arseny Mahlov passes from the scene.

15-06: We start picketing European Parliament and European Commission.
15-10: The Europeans are interested, waiting for the police to come .
15-35: No police and we still picketing without police permission. . Attention is big, especially when NATO generals are passed by. Our girls rushed to give them a leaflet about the Kaliningrad region, but the policeman stopped the unauthorized distribution, despite the fact that NATO generals willing to take! Journalists and officials European Commission joined to us.
15-37: Police commissioners arrived.
15-46: Police allowed us to move to the entrance to the European Commission with the distribution of leaflets.
16-00: Konstantin Doroshok went to Jose Manuel Barroso to hand over 4,500 signatures of Kaliningradians.
16-17: Signature handed over to personal assistant of Mr. Barroso. Our proposals for issuing multiple-entry visas will be considered at the next meeting of the International Affairs Commission and Mr. Barroso will send a reply.
16-23: Lars Gronbjerg ( an expert on relations with Russia) came to us. We made a suggestions on multiple visas. He expects an official document from the public in Kaliningrad with specific actions on facilitation of visa regime.
16-32: Commissioner Cecilia Malmström will be directly in charge of Kaliningrad. The protesters chanting: "We'll be back!"

16-48: Due to expected arriving any minute now of the Queen of Belgium to the building of the European Commission, followed an urgent request from the police to finish our picketing.

After the rally, I received a message from Brussels: "The picket was a success, Kostya handed signatures to the European Commission. We're going back with victory. Lvovich"
P.S. I`m sending picketers to the Brussels.

Picketing the Latvian conculate in Kaliningrad.

2010-10-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

On October 11 from 13 till 14 was a picketing of the Latvian consulate in Kaliningrad. I`m an organazer, Vitaly Lavrinovich from NGO "Spravedlivost" the manager of picketing. The purpose of the picketing - a request to the institutions of the European authorities for the simplification of visa regime for residents of Kaliningrad region. There were 25 participants of the picketing. The picketing was civil, participated in the picketing residents of the Kaliningrad region. We gathered signatures from passers-by. The picket was supported by the activists of political parties and public organizations. In particular - "the Baltic Republican Party", party "Patriots of Russia," party "Yabloko", NGO "Spravedlivost", NGO "Nash Gorod" and the NGO "New World ".

Our posters were - "Europe is our common home", "Kaliningrad - Prisoner of Europe."
The picketing was peaceful, without shouting slogans towards the consulate. We do not interfere with the work of the Latvian Consulate, our picketing located across the street on the sidewalk.
We did not protest against Latvians. We used consulate as one of the structure of the European authority. We see Latvians and other Europeans as our friends and neighbours.

After the picketing I handed over to the Head of Chancery of Latvian Consulate Mrs Dzidra LIEPINA a petition with copies of the signatures of 550 residents of the Kaliningrad region.
The rest 2000 original signatures sent by post to the President of European Commission Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso.
The fourth and final, picketing will be held on October 18 from 13 till 14 of local time near the Consulate of Germany, in Kaliningrad, Leningradskaya street 4.
My phone 8 909 7755 395
Will accept any assistance in organizing pickets.
Our petition in Russian and English you could download here.
http://www.2shared.com/document/bBxYfYCH/kaliningrad_prisoner_of_europe.html

Picketing the Polish Consulate in Kaliningrad.

2010-10-04T23:21:00.000-07:00

On October 4 from 13 till 14 was a picketing of the Polish consulate in Kaliningrad. I`m an organazer, Vitaly Lavrinovich from NGO "Spravedlivost"manager of picketing. The purpose of the picket - a request to the institutions of the European authorities for the simplification of visa regime for residents of Kaliningrad region. There were 20 participants of the picketing. The picket was civil, participated in the picket residents of the Kaliningrad region. We gathered signatures from passers-by. The picket was supported by the activists of political parties and public organizations. In particular - the Baltic Republican Party, "Party of Patriots of Russia," NGO "Spravedlivost", the United Democratic Movement" Solidarity "and the NGO "New World ". There were journalists from "Reuters" , newspaper "Kaliningradskaya pravda", a cable TV channel "Pervi gorodskoi", etc. Our posters were - "Europe is our common home", "Kaliningrad - Prisoner of Europe."
The picketing was peaceful, without shouting slogans towards the consulate. We do not interfere with the work of the Polish Consulate, our picketing located across the street on the sidewalk.
During the picketing, the Polish consulate has been closed down and they stopped issuing visas for Kaliningraders. About 30 persons was helplessly trying to get a Polish visa, but they see just a closed gates of Polish consulate.

The staff of the Polish consulate did not accepted our petition with signatures of Kaliningradians. I consider it as an indicator, what actually the real attitude towards to Kaliningraders, behind mask of empty words and smiles of the European diplomats. Can they do that towards Americans or British? I doubt it. Remind you my dear readers, that the Lithuanian Consulate does not stopped working during our picketing on 27 October. As the organizer of the picketing I did apologize to Kaliningraders for the inconvenience.

Picketing number 2, the Polish consulate.

2010-10-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

On October 4 we are picketing Polish Consulate in Kaliningrad from 13 till 14, Kashtanovaya Alley 51. I'm an organizer, Vitaly Lavrinovic from NGO "Spravedlivost" managing the picketing.
The purpose of picketing - to achieve simplification of visa regime for residents of Kaliningrad region.
On picketing we will gather signatures. More then 500 copies of signatures with the petition will be passed to Polish consul, this is the part of 2000 original signatures that we did post to the President of European Commission .
Our slogans - "We're not prisoners, we are not hostages!", "Europe is our common home!", "Kaliningrad the prisoner of Europe!"
We invite all parties and organizations to join us on picketing. We are planning that the picketing will attend more than 30 people. This is our second picketing, first picketing near Lithuanian Consulate gathered more than 20 people.

Picketing of the Lithuanian ( Estonian) consulate.

2010-09-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

On 27 of September was a picketing near Lithuanian consulate. We are picketed for easing of visa regime for residents of Kaliningrad region by EU. I was an organizer of it.
We were not lucky with the weather, the whole day was a pouring rain. But we Kaliningraders kinda like rain, it`s the usual weather for our region. There were about 20 persons. The picketing was attended by activists of the Baltic Republican Party, NGO "Spravedlivost," NGO "New World" and the Russian People's Democratic Union.
We did not protest against Lithuanians. We used consulate as one of the structure of the European authority. We see Lithuanians and other Europeans as our friends and neighbours.

Our slogans on picketing were: "Kaliningrad - prisoner of Europe", "Europe is our common home", "We are not hostages, we are not prisoners"
On the picketing we gathered signatures of residents of the Kaliningrad region. After the picketing I handed over to the Lithuanian consulate a petition with copies of the signatures of 500 residents of the Kaliningrad region.
Petition
http://kaliningrad-eu.blogspot.com/2010/07/kaliningraders-appeal-to-eu.html
Part of the signatures.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=319437721957422824&postID=4486031358823685079&isPopup=true
The rest 2000 original signatures sent by post to the President of European Commission Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso.

We are going picketing the following 3 Consulates.
October 4 - Polish Consulate.
October 11 - German consulate.
October 18 - Consulate of Latvia.
We would like to picketing European Commission in Brussels, but for today it is not possible, same thing - visa problems.

An answer of Lithuanian consul Mr. Vaclav Stankevich on our picketing.
In Russian
http://ru.delfi.lt/news/politics/stankevich-strategicheskaya-cel---bezvizovyj-rezhim-s-kaliningradskoj-oblastyu.d?id=36964717

You may say I`m a dreamer, but I`m not the only one.

2010-09-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

Part of our signatures for facilitation of visa regime for Kaliningrad residents. We put them in form of our region. For today we have got about 1700 signatures.

Visa - free pact for Königsberg region and some authorities from Baltic States.

2010-09-09T04:58:00.000-07:00

Official letter from Baltic Republican Party.
For Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian parliament's committee for European affairs, Kersti Luha Press Spokesperson for Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lithuanian authorities and others.
The Baltic Republican Party concerned, that some authorities in Baltic States using our region in their political games. We are in Königsberg not your hostages and never will be. Dear Estonian friends could you please deal with Kremlin about your disputed bordering territories directly by your own powers and not by our lives. We are not your prisoners. As we see from our side, your words and actions directed on dividing Europe. You are forgetting for what Europe stands for. Democracy and human rights for you just a tools in your game of double standards.
Personally for Kersti Luha according to that http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/583121 . As a Press Spokesperson for Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs you should know visa policy for EU. About 40 of non EU countries have got visa-free access to the EU including countries like Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, etc. For your better understanding of EU policies I show you a picture. Green - countries with visa-free access to the EU. I`m not sure if you Kersti Luha personally and Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs coping with control of movements of such masses, but I`m sure that you can control one million people from Königsberg region which based within EU. Otherwise your policies are useless.
Personally for Marko Mihkelson, according to that http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/583117. As a chairman of the Estonian parliament's committee for European affairs , you should know that Leningrad and Pskov regions of Russia (in contrast to our region) have a Schengen visa privileges. They may apply for a multiple visa to Finland by a simplified scheme. Documents substantiating the purpose of the trip (the invitation, hotel reservation, etc.) are not required.
Dear European neighbours, could you please think twice before putting your words about our region. Kremlin is not your neighbour, but one million of us are. Here in Königsberg, we have got mostly pro-European views and our common home - Europe.

German Chancellor Sees Possibility for Visa-Free Travel for Kaliningrad Region.

2010-09-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said visa-free travel for the residents of Russia’s Kaliningrad region could be possible.

The European Union is actively discussing this issue, and things can start moving in the positive direction, Merkel said in Lithuania, where she is on an official visit.

However some regulations have to be changed first and some legal norms amended under the Schengen Agreement, she said on Monday, September 6.

Merkel said she had discussed visa-free travel with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and she did not consider it unreal, but believes that the partners will have to “travel a long way”.

Long live Angela Merkel! She is a woman of the year in Koenigsberg.

Königsberg - then and now.

2010-09-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

For Seth Otto Seth Anderson and other foreigners.

2010-08-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

Baltic Republican party banned by Kremlin.
Russia once again became totalitarian and it is a grim near future for the Russia.
Even here in centre of Europe in Konigsberg situation more and more goes down the hill towards totalitarian system.
No free elections, no free political parties, no free newspapers, radios, TV stations, no free market and competition everything controlled by the state.
Kremlin system making inhuman "laws" to give FSB, police unlimited powers, even now they have got uncontrolled powers.
From you Seth and other foreigners I often hear suggestion. "You could make an other party.. with a different name or something and they couldn't ban your new party".
You have got the point, but your words good only in open democratic state, not in Russia.
You see, there is a new "law" about the Parties in Russia. The key legislation governing the formation and registration of political parties in Russia is the federal law “On Political Parties,” which came into effect on July 14, 2001. The original document stated that an organization that consistently takes part in elections, has a membership of at least 10,000 and branches in at least 50 regions, with each branch having a membership of at least 100, was considered to be a party.
An updated version of the law "On Political Parties & Movements" which came into force at the beginning of January 2006, requires each political party to have a minimum of 50,000 members and more than 45 regional branches with a minimum membership of 500 each. We`d better stay as banned local Baltic Republican Party, ( that is more recognizible) then try uselessly to become a federal Party. We are regional Party and we do not wish to have branches in Moscow, Chechnya or Chukotka. This is ridiculous.
P.S From now on I`m on the "Facebook" too. You could find me and add by my name and surname - Rustam Vasiliev.

I`m on the YouTube

2010-07-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

Konigsberg TV-Apartheid in Kaliningrad

My next videos, you could find here
http://www.youtube.com/user/rustamvas

Kaliningraders appealing to the EU.

2010-07-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

The Kaliningrad region has no land borders with Russia. It is directly bordering with Lithuania and Poland. Previously, Kaliningraders issued visas in a simplified mode for visiting neighboring countries, but after the joining of these countries to the Schengen agreement earlier preferences for Kaliningraders ceased to act.
Regional authorities repeatedly drawn the attention of federal authorities and representatives of the EU that it creates many problems - both for business - tourism, transport, and for the movement of an ordinary citizens. For residents of the Kaliningrad region it is possible to introduce a visa-free regime with neighbouring countries. It is possible and it is necessary to do.
European institutions should pay special attention to our region. European authorities should recognize a special position and status of the Kaliningrad region, specific local problems faced by residents and authorities.
The European Union should be interested that the visa regime for Kaliningraders become liberal, ideally – visa-free.
Human communication between citizens of the EU and Kaliningraders should become the main foundation for the stability of bilateral relations.
Statements by European diplomats and politicians, voiced in recent years demonstrate, that the European Union understand and largely shared that view. However, progress in this matter does not exists, despite all the smiles and the ministerial statements.
After all, even if it is impossible to solve at once in full, there are exist quite realizable numerous intermediate variants which are really facilitating Kaliningraders the entrance to EU and not creating any threats and damage to EU safety. It is an ordinary citizens, not the official persons or representatives of big business, the EU might take the responsibility for braking vicious circle of "symmetry" decisions with the Russian government. It will be a farsighted step.
We especially underline that freedom of movement for Kaliningraders in the Wider Europe is not just question on simplification business, educational or tourist trips (although it is very important). It is a question of normal life in European civilization, based on common values and principles.
The problem became especially sharp after the visa barrier separated us from the nearest European neighbours, the close interaction that has always been and continues to play a crucial role in all that concerns the European trends in Kaliningrad.
We, Kaliningraders, supporters of the European way of life and European principles, consider as logical and necessary result of development of relations between Kaliningrad and EU is the abolition of visas.
We appeal to the EU Council, European Commission and European Parliament, with a desperate request not to waste time and to do everything possible to minimize process of bureaucracy, on visas simplification.
We are confident that in XXI century all of us should pay exclusive attention on elimination of remnants of "Iron Curtain" , we see this as our common strategic objective.
Signing that petition by Kaliningraders you could see here.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=319437721957422824&postID=4486031358823685079&isPopup=true
Previous correspondence with;
European ombudsman
http://kaliningrad-eu.blogspot.com/2009/03/european-union-and-i-part-1.html
European Commission
http://kaliningrad-eu.blogspot.com/2009/03/eu-and-i-part-ii.html
European Parliament
http://kaliningrad-eu.blogspot.com/2009/04/eu-and-i-part-3.html

Königsberg Castle ( Königsberger Schloss) must be rebuilt.

2010-07-07T00:40:00.000-07:00

For years Kaliningrad has been allowed to decay as a forgotten Russian enclave surrounded by Europe. But now a movement is afoot to rebuild the city center. The castle too may soon dominate the skyline once again.
The city center of Kaliningrad is not a pretty site.
Shoddy concrete housing blocks constructed by the late communist regime stand next to rusted water fountains and apartment blocks from the Third Reich. A 20-story Communist Party fortress ( the "House of the Soviets") rises up in the center. The building is a ruin.
It's not uncommon for elderly East Prussians ( having arrived in a tour boat in the nearby port of Pillau) to break into tears when they see to what architectural depths their city of birth has sunk to. The destruction visited on the former pearl on the Pregel River by the bombs of World War II was immense - matched by hardly any other European city. Indeed, Kaliningrad, once known by its German name Königsberg, became a symbol not just of loss, but also of the destruction of homeland.
Some 30 divisions and two air fleets of the Red Army attacked the surrounded city during the final battle in April 1945. They fired at the city from thousands of barrels for days, without interruption.
It's time to turn the tide.
No one here wants to run from the city's Prussian German legacy. On the contrary. To restore a sense of urbanity to the ravaged city center ( further wrecked by the Soviets) is to go retro.
The cathedral, which was damaged during the war, has already been rebuilt. The "Fishermen`s Village" - a group of old half-timbered houses and 18th century-style warehouses complete with pinnacled roofs - is currently taking shape right next door, on the banks of the Pregel.
But the city is presently the site of another, far more ambitious project - that of rebuilding its castle. The defensive fortress was built by the Teutonic Order in 1255 as a jumping off point for crusaders heading east - a military stronghold in the midst of a pagan wilderness, built on the ruins of the freshly conquered Baltic fortress Twangste.
The old Prussian center was considered a "hornet's nest of militarism and fascism" in the jargon of the communist rulers. In 1969, then party leader Leonid Brezhnev had the still impressive castle ruins blown up and the rubble cleared away with bulldozers, right down to the foundations.
That kind of animosity is hardly to be found in Kaliningrad today. An isolated region, northern East Prussia led an impoverished and shadowy existence in the Soviet empire for decades, but now a fresh wind is blowing. Petro-billionaires and oligarchs from Moscow have discovered the region for themselves and they're bringing plenty of money, much of it of dubious origin, into the area.
Economic growth could be one reason. For the third year in a row, the enclave by the Baltic Sea has seen GDP jump by at least 10 percent. Bars, restaurants and hotels are springing up out of the ground and the city now has the second highest concentration of cars in the country. The old Amber Coast has become Russia's new place in the sun.
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin likes the idea of bringing back the Prussian fortress. On a visit to the region, he promised the equivalent of $50 million from the state treasury. Putin, of course, also has an interest in a resurgence of Kaliningrad. His family is currently building a villa in the area, on the Courland Spit which separates the nearby Courland Lagoon from the Baltic Sea.
But there's still plenty of work to do. The crusader fortress took on enormous proportions over the centuries with the inner courtyard stretching for fully 105 meters (328 feet). The castle's tower "Bergfried," which was more than 80 meters (263 feet) tall. The west wing contained the Moscovite Hall with its collection of trophies; a mechanical elevator transported wine barrels into the cellar.
Just how sumptuous the interior was can be seen in paintings showing the 1701 coronation of Prussia's first king, Frederick. Apparitors in festive dress heralded the grand event, followed by 24 trumpeters, drummers and 60 aristocrats. It was the beginning of the dream of world power.
All this finery went up in flames in August, 1944. The British Air Force sent two waves of more than 800 bombers over the city. Newly developed fire bombs were dropped from bomb bays - and 48 percent of all buildings were damaged or destroyed in the resulting inferno. The legendary Amber Room - displayed as German war booty in the castle between 1942 and 1944 - disappeared without a trace.
Only recently has an exploration of the basement vault ( financed by DER SPIEGEL) yielded new findings. Researchers have discovered old wine bottles and a collection of amulets. The remains of the castle's heating system were also found, as was a secret underground tunnel.
Despite the near total loss of the original building material, an accurate reconstruction is possible. The castle was mainly built from bricks and it was plastered, this makes elaborate stonecutting work largely unnecessary.
The reconstruction of the Prussian palaces in Potsdam and Berlin ( also blown up) has been stalled for years, partly because the effete elite considers the imitation of historical buildings "kitsch."

The castle must be rebuilt. We estimate it will cost $100 million.

It is essential for the city to be rebuilt. It is the greatest of shames that such a beautiful city was bulldozed by malicious individuals. I feel that the rebuilding of Konigsberg would give back to the city its cultural heart which was sadly taken away.

Assault on East Prussia.

2010-07-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

German-Russian coalition for the best.

2010-05-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

The German Question Revisited

Germany has tremendous power in Europe, even if it is confined largely to economic matters. But just as Germany is the blocker and enabler of Europe, over time that makes.

If Germany is the key decision maker in Europe, then Germany defines whatever policies Europe as a whole undertakes. If Europe fragments, then Germany is the only country in Europe with the ability to create alternative coalitions that are both powerful and cohesive. That means that if the European Union weakens, Germany will have the greatest say in what Europe will become.

Germany is indispensable for any decision within the European Union at present, and it will be the single center of power in Europe in the future — but Germany can’t just go it alone. Germany needs a coalition, meaning the long-term question is this: If the EU were to weaken or even fail, what alternative coalition would Germany seek?

The historic alternative for Germany has been Russia. Historically Germany and Russia did look for much closer ties. But always other powers who wished to rule in Europe by any means neсessery distracted our partnership and friendship. American missiles in Poland, one of the steps of those "other powers" to divide us again.

The Russian Option

A great deal of potential synergy exists between the German and Russian economies. Germany imports large amounts of energy and other resources from Russia. As mentioned, Russia needs sources of technology and capital to move it beyond its current position of mere resource exporter. Germany has a shrinking population and needs a source of labor — preferably a source that doesn’t actually want to move to Germany. Russia’s Soviet-era economy continues to de-industrialize, and while that has a plethora of negative impacts, there is one often-overlooked positive: Russia now has more labor than it can effectively metabolize in its economy given its capital structure. Germany doesn’t want more immigrants but needs access to labor. Russia wants factories in Russia to employ its surplus work force, and it wants technology. The logic of the German-Russian economic relationship is more obvious than the German-Greek or German-Spanish relationship. As for France, it can participate or not (and incidentally, the French are joining in on a number of ongoing German-Russian projects).

Therefore, if we simply focus on economics, and we assume that the European Union cannot survive as an integrated system (a logical but not yet proven outcome), and we further assume that Germany is both the leading power of Europe and incapable of operating outside of a coalition, then we would argue that a German coalition with Russia is the most logical outcome of an EU decline.

This would leave many countries extremely uneasy. The first is Poland, caught as it is between Russia and Germany. The second is the United States, since Washington would see a Russo-German economic bloc as a more significant challenger than the European Union ever was for two reasons. First, it would be a more coherent relationship — forging common policies among two states with broadly parallel interests is far simpler and faster than doing so among 27. Second, and more important, where the European Union could not develop a military dimension due to internal dissensions, the emergence of a politico-military dimension to a Russo-German economic bloc is far less difficult to imagine. It would be built around the fact that both Germans and Russians resent and fear American power and assertiveness, and that the Americans have for years been courting allies who lie between the two powers. Germany and Russia would both view themselves defending against American pressure.

And this brings us back to the Patriot missiles. Regardless of the bureaucratic backwater this transfer might have emerged out of, or the political disinterest that generated the plan, the Patriot stationing fits neatly into a slowly maturing military relationship between Poland and the United States. A few months ago, the Poles and Americans conducted military exercises in the Baltic states, an incredibly sensitive region for the Russians. The Polish air force now flies some of the most modern U.S.-built F-16s in the world; this, plus Patriots, could seriously challenge the Russians. A Polish general commands a sector in Afghanistan, something not lost upon the Russians. By a host of processes, a close U.S.-Polish relationship is emerging.

The current economic problems may lead to a fundamental weakening of the European Union. Germany is economically powerful but needs economic coalition partners that contribute to German well-being rather than merely draw on it. A Russian-German relationship could logically emerge from this. If it did, the Americans and Poles would logically have their own relationship. The former would begin as economic and edge toward military. The latter begins as military, and with the weakening of the European Union, edges toward economics. The Russian-German bloc would attempt to bring others into its coalition, as would the Polish-U.S. bloc. Both would compete in Central Europe — and for France. During this process, the politics of NATO would shift from humdrum to absolutely riveting.

And thus, the Greek crisis and the Patriots might intersect, or in our view, will certainly in due course intersect. Though neither is of lasting importance in and of themselves, the two together point to a new logic in Europe. What appears impossible now in Europe might not be unthinkable in a few years. With Greece symbolizing the weakening of the European Union and the Patriots representing the remilitarization of at least part of Europe, ostensibly unconnected tendencies might well intersect.

Mission Statement of the Baltic Republican Party. Part II.

2010-05-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

Politics and economics
Federal laws and certain provisions of the Constitution inspire public the illusion that today you can live better than you work. But this was possible before the 80-ies - until the former rulers have sold the bulk of natural resources to support the communist idea in other countries.
The situation changed radically: to sell almost nothing, and continue to live better than what you have done by your work impossible.
The only way out from that situation is to recognize the impossibility of implementation of some promises by the state. Reduction of the state obligations will lead to reduction of expenses and will give the chance to lower taxation burden on economically active part of a society. This will help revive the domestic economy even without western investments. Constant begging for cash by the present government humiliates national pride of Russians.
Political self-determination of regional community and steps towards self-correction of economic situation will be the most powerful arguments in safety and benefit of financial investments in our region.
The most important element of the economic system should become a principle of life according to own income. The formation and acceptance of the budget with more than a 3% deficit should be prohibited by the Constitution. It liquidates variety of problems and will promote accumulation of own capital.
Essential value for Baltic Republic will be the place in world economy, not just in Russian economy. Attempts by the current leaders of the region to keep the same structure of management are fruitless. BRP believes that we should use the principle of comparative advantage, for example, world niche as an amber shop.
Economics and Morality
“No economy will rescue us, if the morals do not triumph" - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in his book "How can we build a new Russia." This idea is most closely reflects one of the main features of the changing socio-political formations in Russia. Enslaved by former and present regime, compatriots with a great difficulty gain inner freedom, and some citizens remain to the end the irreconcilable opponents of changes. Therefore, BRP which acting for freedom and morals, does not exclude reasonable compromises with carriers of other ideologies.
The main task for the authorities and politicians - to avoid confrontation in the society. The process of changing formations do not occur among the Russians, but within each one of us.
The note
Being guided by the norms of universal human morality, the Baltic Republican Party stands for the return historical name to our city with the world heritage - Königsberg.

Mission Statement of the Baltic Republican Party. Part I.

2010-05-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

As a member of the Baltic Republican Party I represent a program of BRP. The only party which is close to me by the ideology, objectives and in spirit. The activities of the party banned by the Kremlin.
http://www.enet.ru/ ~ baltia /

Terms

In Russia there is a change of social and political formations. At the same time have already occurred stronger social relations, based on - the recognition of individual rights and freedoms, and equality remains in the form of equality of opportunity.
But the ongoing processes occur extremely unevenly because of the vast territory of Russia. In some regions, democracy already yields the fruits, in others the power remains in the hands of the adherents of the old regime, or random people. However, the absence of real external enemies gives us a historic opportunity to establish democracy in small spaces, to achieve a more equitable social arrangements in a decentralized manner. This contributes to the basic principle upon which the Constitution of Russia is based - the principle of federalism.
As a representative of the interests and express the will of the economically active part of society, Baltic Republican Party invites his fellow citizens to to make a choice in favour freedom and democracy, in favor of forming a region of an open society and the social market economy. BRP believes that social dependence must give way to the social responsibility of every citizen.
Power and Policy
The foreign policy of enclave situation that continue in existence is problematic for the prospects of our community. The reason - current legal status of region. Position of an ordinary subject of the Russian Federation and even the Federal law “About a special economic zone in the Kaliningrad region” are capable just to prolong the agony, but do not give chances for the future. In 2002, the neighboring Poland and Lithuania became members of the European Union, and the area appear alien - subject of isolation - a stain on a single political and economical map of the EU. In this connection, BRP offers:
to hold a referendum on status of our region, defining it as a sovereign state - The Baltic Republic - which is the subject of international law and at the same time - an associate entity of the Russian Federation;
To hold an election of the Constituent Assembly, which will develop and adopt Constitution of the Baltic Republic, as well as the election of the President - as the main guarantor rights and freedoms of citizens;
To hold an election of supreme legislative authority of the Republic, to be entrusted with the conclusion of the Treaty with Russia on the recognition of our right to sovereignty and the federal division of powers of the Russian Federation and the Baltic Republic.
This will allow us to regulate social, domestic economic and foreign relations. This will give us the right to apply for membership in the European Union and the chance that the Republic will become a place of communication and cooperation between the EU and Russia.

Politics and economics

To be continued ...

40.000.000.000 $ for Kremlin Fleet in Königsberg.

2010-05-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

Ukraine secured a 30% discount for Russian natural gas, expected to cost Russia $40 bln in the next 10 years, in exchange for extending the lease of a Russian naval base.The accords on reducing the price of natural gas for Ukraine and extending the lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet until 2042 were reached between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych at the last moment during their meeting in Kharkov in east Ukraine. The lease agreement extends Russian naval presence in the port of Sevastopol for 25 years after the current lease expires in 2017, and may be further extended by another five years.

As European demands on Russian gas drop, monopoly exporter Gazprom seeks to compensate the lower revenues with boosting prices on domestic sales. In 2009, domestic gas prices increased by 46 percent. The company is actively lobbying a further domestic price increase, which eventually will provide equal proportions of its revenues from domestic and foreign sales.That, however, will results in higher power prices for Russian industry, as well as for households. The lion’s share of Russian thermal power plants runs on gas, and higher prices will force them to raise tariffs on electricity and heating for the consumers.

Listen, I also want 40.000.000.000 $ for naval presence of the Kremlin Baltic Fleet in Königsberg, and yes discounts on gas too. I do not know why, but in our region no natural gas in half of cities and villages. It is simply not available or we have expensive liquefied gas. Here for example in Mamonovo that near Polish border, my parents of retirement age without gas. And every election for decades candidates for mayor say that next year, in Mamonovo will be natural gas. Mayors come and go, but still no gas. Not only that we ourselves have got no gas, bloody Kremlin whip away my last money on "investment support" to Ukraine. Beat your own to someone else's fear - the motto of the Kremlin policy.
So here I am, without gas, without money, but with a donut hole - the Kremlin Fleet.

The Kaliningrad Regional Duma supported the project on abolition of visas for residents of the European Union.

2010-05-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

The deputies of local Parliament ( Duma) unanimously supported the initiative on simplifying visa regime for EU citizens entering the territory of the Kaliningrad region.
The bill on simplification of visa regime for citizens of the European Union was designed by deputy of the regional Duma Solomon Ginzburg and representatives of the opposition. The introduction of visa-free entry into the region for residents of the European Union, according to project developers, can help residents of Kaliningrad, "after initiative towards the EU, we have the right to demand steps in our direction." Georgy Boos as Governer of Kaliningrad region promised to bring this initiative to the President Dmitry Medvedev. "I think that the decision would be at the right time in anticipation of EU-Russia summit which will be held in Rostov-on-Don on 30 May. Just before the summit, the Governor will meet with Dmitry Medvedev ", - said Deputy Solomon Ginsburg. The bill's authors suggest that the regional government need about a week on consideration of the issue. Let me remind you, 8 years ago, Solomon Ginsburg spoke with a similar legislative initiative, but it was not supported by the State Duma.

Letter to the Governer on simplification of visa regime, signed by the deputies of local Parliament.

East Prussia before WW II ( in German).

2010-04-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0mdBQ_jjOg&feature=related

Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apxK2Yym1so&feature=related

Part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CetGnqK8VQY&feature=related

Part 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW8ocdY2EZE&feature=related

Part 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clzR8T-HZ9I&feature=related

Part 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aev3Hy7mSYA&feature=related

Part 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5YWNpa0TbQ&feature=related

Kaliningrad’s ‘Special Identity’ Requires Restoration Of Federalism In Russia

2010-04-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

By Paul Goble

Kaliningrad’s status as a non-contiguous part of the Russian Federation and the rise and intensification of a regional identity combining both Russian and European elements, a local political analyst insists, “requires the restoration [in Russia] of one of the basic principles of federalism – unity in multiplicity.
”If Moscow fails to do that, Solomon Ginzburg argues in the current issue of “NG-Stsenarii,” the current antagonism between Kaliningraders and the governor there is likely to grow into antagonism between that region and Moscow, a development with potentially fateful consequences (www.ng.ru/scenario/2010-03-30/14_kaliningrad.html?mpril).
Ginzburg begins his analysis by pointing to the fundamental fact that “Kaliningrad oblast is a Russian region surrounded by countries which are members of the European Union.” As a result, its residents combine both a Russian identity and a European one, often in a “kaleidoscopic” fashion.
What Kaliningrad and being a Kaliningrader means has changed dramatically over the past 65 years, Ginzburg argues, even though many people outside the region do not understand that reality. When the Soviet Union established it, the region “encountered the traditions and style of foreign Europe.”
But the active in-migration of people from elsewhere in the USSR meant both that its people were both extremely mobile and forced to evolve in new circumstances, something that simultaneously promoted and retarded the development of a distinct regional identity because almost everyone living there was from somewhere else.
Such in-migration largely ceased with the end of the USSR, and since then, “certain features of Kaliningrad identity” have firmed up, Ginzburg writes. “Sixty years ago,” people there focused on being “the most Western” part of the Soviet Union, something that caused “the struggle with Nazi symbols to grow over into a struggle against the past of East Prussia.” Then, approximately 50 years ago, he continues, “Kaliningraders began to feel their regional distinctiveness,” and ten years after that, there arose among them “a fashion for the former, pre-Soviet, German past.” That past instead of being rejected came to be integrated into the Kaliningrad identity.
Then, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Kaliningrader’s sense of being “the most Western” began “to acquire yet another meaning,” one not limited to geography but including in itself “a desire to achieve a high level of life and to achieve a new model of development” as “a new Hong Kong” or “a Singapore on the Baltic.”
But because being “between” Russia and Europe did not mean that Kaliningrad was necessarily a bridge or connected with either and because “the sense of regionalism” annoyed Moscow but not Europe, Kaliningraders “ever more often asked themselves” just what they were part of.
And consequently, it is “senseless” to speak about “a hierarchy of identities” – Russian, regional and European – among Kaliningraders. Instead, in their identity – and Ginzburg makes it clear that he shares it – there are “pieces, segments and fragments of regional, European and Russian identity” which combine in changing ways.
For residents of Kaliningrad who have lived there “more than 20 years,” regional identity is more important than ethnic or confessional membership” and “the territorial factor is beginning to predominate over the national.” Those who have lived there for fewer years generally continue to identify with the Russian Federation.
Nonetheless, “the Kaliningrad identity is not a finally formed system of convictions, capabilities, requirements and personal histories of the residents of the western borderland of Russia.” It is still being affected by “a mass of factors,” including age, faith, language, ethnicity, ideology, political convictions, and so on.
And because that is so, “a particular feature of the Kaliningrad identity is in its kaleidoscopic and mosaic character, when a resident of the oblast at one and the same time calls himself a supporter of integration into Europe” and “a patriotic supporter of the Russian state and an opponent of NATO.”
It is thus entirely possible to say, Ginzburg says, that “the overwhelming majority of Kaliningraders consider themselves residents of a special territory, a different Russia in Europe,” although “an insignificant minority manifests xenophobia toward the neighboring countries in the European Union.”
The sense of distinctiveness has been intensified by the recent wave of demonstrations, Ginzburg says. Indeed, it is fair to speak of their “consolidating role” in that identity. Anger at the regional government and disappointment in Moscow’s policies “have helped to strengthen the desire to go into the European Union.”That is especially true among the young and middle aged, and it is “strengthening the European vector in Kaliningrad identity,” with “the anti-bureaucratic and anti-Boos attitudes being transformed into anti-Moscow and anti-federal ones,” a development that in turn is “strengthening protest identity.”
Moscow needs to recognize the special nature of Kaliningrad and of the identity of its residents and thus move quickly to restore “one of the basic principles of federalism – unity in multiplicity” lest it fail to satisfy the demands of the residents of that region and push them in more radical directions.

Restlessness in Russia’s Western Outpost.

2010-03-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

The New York Times

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: March 25, 2010

KALININGRAD, Russia — Amid the sagging Soviet-era apartment blocks and hulking government buildings here, it can be difficult to imagine that this was once a German city graced with gingerbread-style facades and Teutonic spires.

About all that remains of the 700-year-old city once called Königsberg — which was bombed to oblivion in World War II, then taken over by the Soviet Union and renamed in 1946 after the death of a Bolshevik hero, Mikhail Kalinin — are some weathered houses and a few reconstructed cathedrals. But that does not mean residents of this island of Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania do not entertain certain European expectations.
“I would like to bring Königsberg back to Europe,” Rustam Vasiliev, a local blogger and political activist, said, intentionally using the former German name of this city. “I’ve got no Kremlin in my head.”
People like Mr. Vasiliev have become a headache for the Kremlin, as some of the largest antigovernment protests in Russia in recent years have broken out here, in part because of the failure of officials to bring the region more in line with the standards of Western Europe.
The Kremlin has had similar problems in other far-flung regions, notably in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, where the economy has been drawn into the orbit of local Asian powers.
Here in Russia’s western extreme, people take pride in their European cars but complain about their city’s pocked roads. Advertisements for concerts in Warsaw and Berlin hang on the crumbling facades of long-neglected apartment buildings. When local people talk of Russia, they often seem to mean not their own country, but some foreign land to the east.
“We are located outside of Russia’s borders and within the borders of the European Union,” said Vytautas V. Lopata, a cafe owner and local independent politician. “Here, people are freer. They see how people live in Europe; they have heightened demands.”
When it comes to politics, Kaliningrad is by no means a thriving democracy. People here have nevertheless come to enjoy a level of openness not found elsewhere in Russia. There are independent television stations and real opposition politicians in the local Parliament (though their influence is minimal). Small street protests are not uncommon and are generally tolerated by the authorities.
By contrast, even the tiniest antigovernment demonstrations in Moscow are quashed by riot troops, sometimes violently. And when protests broke out in Vladivostok last year, the authorities sent those same Moscow riot troops to suppress them.
But officials both here and in Moscow were clearly caught off guard in January when as many as 10,000 people poured into a central Kaliningrad square to demand the resignation of the regional governor and other officials from Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s political party, United Russia.
Since then, the authorities have been scrambling to contain the damage lest the dissatisfaction in Kaliningrad spread to the rest of the country. They were able to head off another protest scheduled for last weekend, in part by making serious promises to opposition leaders to resolve their major complaints.
Still, it is unclear how long the tentative peace will hold, especially given that there has been no shortage of unfulfilled promises here.
Though Kaliningrad remained under Moscow’s control after the Soviet collapse, its location outside contiguous Russia seemed to hold out the promise that the formerly sealed military zone would be opened to the prosperity of the West.
But membership in the European club has always been elusive, to the dismay of many here. The region remained relatively poor, even as its neighbors — until recently, at least — prospered. Like all Russians, Kaliningraders must submit to the lengthy process of applying for visas to visit cities a few hours’ drive away.
“Here we are like fish in an aquarium,” said Konstantin Doroshok, one of the leaders of the January protests. “And the water has not been changed in a while, and we are going extinct.”
Things did not always feel this constricted, Mr. Doroshok, 40, said. Just a few years ago, he and many others were doing good business importing European cars into Kaliningrad to resell to Russians farther east, one of many similar professions that thrived here because import tariffs from European countries into Kaliningrad were cheaper than those for the rest of Russia.
A year ago, however, the Kremlin sharply increased customs duties on imported cars, which Mr. Doroshok said effectively killed his business. He was also slapped with what he said were fabricated charges of failing to pay customs duties and fined about $600,000.
“One fine day it seems that one of the oligarchs calculated how much he failed to earn as a result of the fact that citizens of Russia were importing automobiles independently,” he said, “and decided to try to push us out of this business.”
It was then that Mr. Doroshok and others angry over Kremlin interference in their way of life decided to push back.
A series of demonstrations culminating in the large January protests compelled Kaliningrad’s Kremlin-appointed governor, Georgy V. Boos, for the first time to hold serious talks with opposition leaders, including Mr. Doroshok. Though protest leaders called off a planned demonstration last week, several hundred people gathered in central Kaliningrad, shouting “Down with Boos!”
“There was an underestimation by us and me personally of the need to devote more time to communicating with people,” Mr. Boos said of the protests at a news conference here last week.
To deflect some of the ill will directed at the governing authorities here, some local United Russia leaders have even floated the idea of relinquishing some of the party’s near monopoly on power — something that might be considered blasphemous elsewhere in the country.
“That would lower some of the political strain and allow for more democratic governance,” said Konstantin I. Poliakov, the deputy head of United Russia’s faction in the regional Parliament.
Many, like Mr. Lopata, the cafe owner, say that it makes little difference to the people of Kaliningrad who their leaders are as long as their region remains cut off from their real neighbors and under Moscow’s thumb.
“We live within the European Union,” Mr. Lopata said. “But it turns out that we live behind a fence.”

A new kind of apartheid in Kaliningrad.

2010-03-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

I was brought up in Soviet good times, by the good school education. With mother's milk we have taken such slogans as, "we are not slaves - slaves are mute". But I never imagined that in a few years, in the heart of Europe, in the 21 th century, I have personally come across with the meaning of this phrase.

A lot of similarities in Kaliningrad with the past and present of South Africa. Apartheid in South Africa ordered the black and mixed ancestry (so-called. Coloured) people to live in special reservations (Bantustans). Departure from the reservation could be made only by special permission or because of job availability. That is a direct analogy with the current visa regulations for Kaliningradians. During apartheid, blacks were deprived of almost all civil rights. As a result, people of not white race, even living in "white" parts of South Africa, had no right to vote nor the ability to influence political processes. Moscow government has deprived Kaliningradians right to elect and the right to be elected. Kaliningraders have no right to elect the local governor. Kaliningraders even denied the right to elect their own mayor
of Kaliningrad. As a result kremlin authorities do not permit us Kaliningraders to gather on political rally where we want. We want it in center of Kaliningrad).

The enclave situation of our region is similar to Lesotho. Political parties are remain banned by kremlin authorities, as they did with our Baltic Republican Party, exactly like in Swaziland. Moscow colonial authorities appointed in banana republic ( Kaliningrad) "white" Governors as they do not trust the "aborigines" ( Kaliningraders). Many of the methods used by black people in South Africa in defence of their rights, but the most effective that overthrew apartheid was a boycott of consumption. They did not buy from the whites even matches. I'm afraid we are Kalinigraders to far from that kind of unity. The Rome Statute defines apartheid as one of 11 crimes against humanity. Citizens of most countries (including South Africa) may be brought against the International Criminal Court for committing such crime or even fostering that. Russia has not ratified the Rome Statute ( opposed in that to 108 countries) and not under International Criminal Court. Replaced Soviet slogans of my childhood came to the realities of today's slogans - "A slave who is not seeking to gain freedom, deserves double slavery" - Dzhokhar Dudayev.
The colonists in South Africa (Boers) at the end realized that they do not need imperial authorities such as Great Britain, because they have more rights, it is their land. I am glad that I am mostly surrounded by free citizens of Konigsberg, the citizens of the Baltic Republic.

Thousands Rally In Kaliningrad.

2010-03-21T09:55:00.000-07:00

Thousands of people have rallied in Koenigsberg despite a decision by "opposition leaders" to cancel the protest. People gathered to denounce the government's economic policy and demand more freedom in a new challenge to the Kremlin reflecting increasing disillusionment and a growing potential for protests.

Me with my kremlin friends.

Cries of "freedom" and "Putin resign" filled the main square in Koenigsberg, where up to 5,000 people gathered in pouring rain.

Activists have insisted the Russian constitution guarantees the right of assembly.

Some protesters criticized Putin's Cabinet for failing to compensate for a rise in utility tariffs that has affected living standards. Many others blamed the government for red tape and rampant corruption that have stifled business.

Instead prohibited demonstration there was a “Tangerine flashmob” - members were holding tangerines. Tangerine ("mandarin" in russian and bureaucrat in imperial China) is one of the nicknames of governor Georgy Boos. Many participants have covered their faces with medical masks. It symbolizes the lack of freedom of speech in the country. Opposition supporters had badges with crossed bear and words “Stop United Russia “.

In anticipation of the impending action police and department "E" ( extremism) came home to known activists and bloggers. In “preventive talks” police recommended “sit at home on Saturday". But who cares, we have done it.

To be or not to be?

2010-03-13T14:26:00.000-08:00

Kaliningrad opposition coalition had refused to conduct a protest rally on March 20. This announcement was made today, the leader of the NGO “Justice” Konstantin Doroshok.
According Doroshok, Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos promised that “the demands of the opposition formed a single list, which will be submitted to the government the next few days, will be resolved within a specific timeframe.” The leader of “Justice” explained that it concerns the issues of excessive utility tariffs, public health, land administration, the situation with the elections and some others. “Today we get a , which appeared on previous protests. We heard, we are addressing specific issues. But if the promises will remain empty words, we will again hold a mass protest “, – emphasized Doroshok.
He added that the authorities did everything to disrupt the rally. For example, Kaliningrad is not allowed to hold a rally in the city center, and offered to organize it in remote areas of the city. “The options endanger the life, health, and, most importantly, the safety of all its members” – said Doroshok.
He noted that holding a meeting “for the city” could become a “public flogging”. At the same time, the leader of the Communist Party offices Igor Revin stated that ” on behalf of the parties to refrain from the idea to abandon the rally. He added: “If we knew that the” Justice “can so easily believe the authorities and to succumb to its pressure, we would have applied themselves to hold a meeting on March 20″.

The region’s reviled governor, the Kremlin-appointed Georgy Boos met with the local opposition leaders in his office for four and half hours, and at the same time, in the city’s stadium four hundred yards away, two battalions of riot police were practicing how to bust heads and arrest people. The opposition got the message. They called off their demonstration.

“There are suspicions … that the government is preparing to make an example out of us, to beat the protesting mood out of the people,” said an opposition member of the city council, Solomon Ginzburg. “We can’t subject our citizens to fire houses and rubber bullets.”

What they got in exchange for quiet were ridiculous promises. Boos said he would break the political monopoly of Putin’s party in Kaliningrad, he would lower utility prices and taxes, he would create jobs and housing and better health care. He might as well have promised to turn the region into Switzerland. But the people believed him, or are at least pretending to. The point is they still aren’t ready for a fight, and having seen the way OMON riot cops break up protests in Moscow, I don’t really blame them. But it’s sad. I thought it may have been the start of something.

But me personally, I`m going with my friends and members of Baltic Republican Party on 20th of March to support rally and we do not care about Kremlin`s riot police. Freedom has it`s price.

Kaliningrad Rally Organizers Form New Coalition

2010-03-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

Organizers of a massive anti-government protest in Kaliningrad have come together in a political coalition that they hope will provide a viable alternative to the ruling United Russia party.

Rally organizer and coalition co-founder Konstantin Doroshok said that a founding assembly was held on Wednesday, but leaders have yet to settle on a name for the new union.

The January 30 protest in Kaliningrad, in which 12 thousand people participated, was notable both for its massive size and for the diversity of political forces represented. The new coalition features similar diversity, including the Kaliningrad branches of the parties Solidarity, Justice, A Just Russia, Patriots of Russia, Yabloko, and the Communist Party.

Coalition leaders invited the local branch of the Right Cause party to join the union, but leader Mikhail Tsikel declined the proposal. The ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party is also not included in the coalition.

Doroshok said that the union’s main goal is “to break the political monopoly of United Russia,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s ruling party, which has dominated the country’s elections at every level since its inception in 2001.

Kaliningrad residents have been threatened with losing their jobs or having their wages slashed if they take part in the coalition’s upcoming rally on March 20. Likewise, students have been promised that they will be expelled.

Meanwhile, the Kaliningrad Public Chamber was set to meet on Thursday with the Public Chamber of Russia to discuss the situation in the region, which has been a media spotlight since January’s massive rally. A relatively new institution, the Public Chamber is an oversight body intended to monitor government activities.

Protesters in the January 30 rally gathered in Kaliningrad to collectively demand that high vehicle tariffs be annulled and that Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos and Prime Minister Putin both resign. Boos immediately cancelled his vacation plans and promised to meet with opposition leaders, although he cancelled multiple times before finally meeting with Doroshok on February 26.

Another rally of more than a thousand Kaliningrad residents was held in the city of Yernyakhovsk on February 28, and a demonstration of comparable size to the one on January 30 is scheduled for March 20.

Zehn Thesen zur Zukunft von Königsberg

2010-02-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

From http://www.ostpreussen.org/Haupt/TKoenigThesen.html

1. Für den Wiederaufbau Königsbergs ist eine Besinnung auf die Geschichte Ostpreußens Voraussetzung.

Vor 700 Jahren war Ostpreußen der modernste Staat nördlich der Alpen, seit dieser Zeit des deutschen Ordens bestand hier eine einzigartige Wiege europäischer Kultur, Kopernikus und Kant stehen symbolisch für geistige Revolutionen, die von hier ihren Ausgang nahmen. Russen und Deutsche müssen sich gemeinsam auf dieses Erbe besinnen. Nur wer sich erinnert, hat Phantasie. Nur mit Phantasie kann die Zukunft Königsbergs gelingen.

2.
Nur gemeinsam können Russen und Deutsche den Wiederaufbau Nordostpreußens erreichen.

Die Beseitigung der deutschen Bevölkerung bedeutet einen Bruch in der Geschichte, der bisher nicht überwunden ist. Daß mit den Menschen auch fast alles hinweggefegt worden ist, was von Genie, Kunstsinn und Fleiß seiner ursprünglichen Bewohner zeugen könnte, lastet wie ein Fluch über diesem Land. Hieran tragen die jetzigen Einwohner von Königsberg keine Schuld. Aber auch sie spären etwas von dem Unbegreiflichen, das über diesem Lande liegt. Viele erkennen, daß der Ausschluß der deutschen Menschen, nicht fortbestehen darf. Diesem Land ein Stück seiner Identität zurückzugeben, ist ein purer Akt der Wahrhaftigkeit.

3.
Königsberg hat seine Funktion als Militärkolonie verloren, zurück bleibt ein weitgehend leeres und verödetes Land.

Mehr als die Hälfte der hier lebenden 800.000 Menschen sind Soldaten der Roten Armee und deren Angehörige. Als Kriegstrophäe Stalins wurde das Gebiet über 40 Jahre von Militärs wie ein Truppenübungsplatz verwaltet. Das flache Land blieb großenteils menschenleer. Während auf einer Fläche gleicher Größe in Schleswig-Holstein und Hamburg etwa 4,5 Millionen Menschen leben, beläuft sich die Zahl der wirklich "Einheimischen" in Nordostpreußen werden auf etwa 400 000. Eine Infrastruktur oder ein tragfähiges Wirtschaftsleben konnten sich hier nicht entwickeln.

4.
Heute ist Königsberg eine völlig verarmte Region, ein "Klotz am Bein" der ohnehin schon problemgeschüttelten Russischen Föderation.

Die einstige Kornkammer Deutschlands kann heute nicht einmal ihre spärliche Bevölkerung ernähren, Lebensmittel und fast alle Waren müssen importiert werden. Königsberg hängt am Tropf des darbenden Riesenreiches, für Moskau ist seine westliche Exklave zu einer Belastung geworden. Ohne Hilfe von außen droht das Chaos. Woher soll diese Hilfe kommen? Wer fühlt sich diesem Lande mehr verbunden als die Deutschen? Nur sie können und wollen helfen.

5.
Hierzu ist eine schwierige Einsicht nötig: Die Wiederherstellung einer deutschen Identität neben der russischen ist die Voraussetzung für eine erfolgreiche eine erfolgreiche Zukunft Königsbergs.

Hier sind leicht Mißverständnisse möglich, niemand will der russischen Bevölkerung irgendetwas wegnehmen. Nur: Damit deutsche Menschen Arbeit, Fleiß und Reichtum in dieses Land stecken, müssen sie sicher sein, daß nicht irgendein Machthaber ihnen wieder alles wegnehmen kann. Unwiderrufliche Rechte können sie nur als gleichberechtigte Bürger dieses Landes erhalten. Deutsche und Russen müssen hier mit gleichem Recht sagen können: Wir sind Bürger von Königsberg.

6.
Die Rückkehr von Deutschen wäre ein Segen für das Land, die russische Bevölkerung würde nicht verlieren, sondern sehr viel gewinnen.

Wem könnte es schaden, wenn die Menschen, die einmal hier wohnten, die ungenutzten Grundstücke, die längst verfallenen Häuser, wieder in ihren Besitz nähmen? Durch ihren Einsatz könnten alle in Ostpreußen nur gewinnen. Genug Land für eine großzügige Rückgabe ist da. Dies wäre ein Symbol der Versöhnung und ein Brückenschlag in ein neues Europa. Rußlands Weg nach Europa führt über Königsberg.

7.
Die Wiederherstellung eine deutschen Identität bedeutet nicht die staatliche Zugehörigkeit zur Bundesrepublik Deutschland, jede Regelung muß das Recht der russischen Bevölkerung respektieren.

Königsberg könnte durch die Rückkehr von Deutschen viel von dem gewinnen, was den deutschen Staat ausmacht: ein kulturelles Leben mit deutscher Sprache, soziale Sicherheit, Wohlstand und Freiheit. Fast alles davon käme auch den Russen in gleichem Maße zugute. Über ihren Willen kann sich niemand hinwegsetzen, alte Ängste vor deutscher Übermacht sind schon zu lange mißbraucht worden, sie passen nicht mehr in unsere Zeit. Heute muß jedem klar sein: Nur gemeinsam haben wir eine Zukunft.

8.
Die Rußlanddeutschen können entscheidend zur Wiedergeburt Ostpreußens beitragen, wenn sie das Angebot des Regierungschefs von Königsberg zur Ansiedlung von 200.000 Rußland-Deutschen annehmen.

Sie sind die idealen Partner in Königsberg. Mit ihnen gibt es keine Verständigungsprobleme, sie sprechen perfekt Russisch und haben alle Erfahrungen des russischen Volkes in den letzten 200 Jahren mitgemacht. Durch ihren Fleiß und ihren unumstößlichen Willen zum Neubeginn könnten sie mit der Hilfe aus Deutschland in wenigen Jahren Königsberg auf das wirtschaftliche Niveau Westeuropas bringen. Somit würden sie ihrer alten Rolle gerecht, sie wären eine Brücke zwischen Deutschen und Russen.

9.
Eine autonome Republik Königsberg unter dem Schutze von Rußland und Deutschland könnte für beide Staaten sehr nützlich sein.

Beide Länder sollten dem nördlichen Ostpreußen eine weitgehende Selbstverwaltung ermöglichen und als Garantie- und Schutzmächte nur die Rahmenbedingungen dieses Gemeinwesens festlegen. Bis auf die Fragen der Äußeren Sicherheit und des inneren Gleichgewichts könnten die Bürger von Königsberg ihr Leben selbst bestimmen. Für Rußland wäre dieses Gebiet durch einen regen Austausch von Fachkräften, Wissen und Gütern das weit offene Tor zum Westen, für Deutschland wäre es der Haupthandelsplatz im Osten. In dieser Mittellage würde Königsberg schnell zu neuer Blüte erstehen.

10.
Königsberg kann zum Modell einermodernen Staatswesens im 21. Jahrhundert werden, wenn Russen und Deutsche diese Aufgabe als eine gemeinsame Herausforderung annehmen.

In der Stadt des Philosophen Kant treffen heute auf engem Raum die Weltprobleme einer neuen Zeit aufeinander. Zu ihrer Lösung könnten auch die Ideale von Pflichtgefühl und Bescheidenheit beitragen, die als preußische Tugenden einst Grundlage für das Wohlergehen Ostpreußens waren. Eine Rückbesinnung auf diese Traditionen und die Erfahrungen zweier großer Völker wäre ein gutes Fundament für ein neues Königsberg. Seine Zukunft könnte die Fortsetzung einer großen Vergangenheit sein.

Power to the People!

2010-01-31T02:07:00.000-08:00

"Bring back governors' elections"

Twelve thousand people have attended a rally in the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Exasperation over the rising cost of living coupled with unemployment led to the rare public show of anger according to protest organizers.

Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and leader of the opposition Solidarity movement addressed the cheering crowd. ( Me on 1m29s :))

“How strong must the feelings of Kaliningrad be that here today, together, are the flags of the Communist Party, Yabloko, the Patriots of Russia Party, Solidarity and LDPR. We are all united,” he said.

Despite signs of economic improvement, Russia remains mired in financial crisis. Unemployment reached 8.9 per cent in December.

Organised by local rights group Spravedlivost ("Justice", leader Konstantin Doroshok), and attended by supporters of Solidarity, the Communist and the Liberal Democrat parties, participants held up banners denouncing both local governor Georgy Boos and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for increasing utility prices at a time of economic crisis. They also booed the refusal of the government to reinstate the direct popular election of regional governors, abolished by Putin in 2004. The 83 governors are currently chosen directly by the president.

What was particularly unusual about the mass protest in Kaliningrad, is that unlike most public demonstrations in Russia, this one was left untouched by riot police. The explanation presented by many is quite simple - protests are usually dispersed by riot police squads from other regions, but it's not easy to bring external forces into Kaliningrad, due to the fact that it's geographically separated from the rest of the country, with Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus in-between. The region is very close-knit, so getting the local police to arrest what could be their relatives or close friends is a rather complicated task.

People chanted "Partiya YedRo - Pomoinoye Vedro" ("United Russia is a bucket of filth") and "Putin is responsible for Boos" (Georgy Boos is the Kaliningrad governor who was appointed by Putin in 2005). " "Stop increasing the tariffs. We're against the government's antisocial policies and United Russia. It's Putin who's responsible"

Guess Who Was The Last Person To Visit Kaliningrad Easily?

2010-01-07T01:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.petersblurb.com/?p=801

Back in the 1930s, Hitler would catch a train from Berlin to Konigsberg. It took him 8 hours.

Today, it takes all of 8 hours just to get from Gdansk in Poland, just 125 kilometers away. The miserably slow border isn’t the only problem. In December, Poland cancelled the overnight sleeper to Berlin. It will now take you 20 hours travel time and four trains minimum to repeat Hitler’s journey.

Last time I looked, a regular daytime journey to Berlin took 35 hours. Er, no, I didn’t book a ticket.
So far, Moscow hasn’t cancelled its own Kaliningrad special, the ‘Amber Train‘, but lack of interest might do it. Here’s the schedule:
The Amber train to Kaliningrad departs from Moscow at 2 p.m with a hard day’s night ahead of every passenger.
At 2 a.m. conductors wake everyone up for a forty minute halt at Gudogai, and a papers and baggage check at the Belarussian border.
At 3 a.m. the train arrives in Kena, Lithuania, and the same procedure is repeated at the Lithuanian border. At 4.15 a.m. the train is due at Vilnius, and there is a twenty-minute halt with random checks. At 6.30 a.m. there is a Lithuanian state border again with another round of formalities, so you won’t be able to sleep even in the morning.
At 7.45 a.m. there is one more border, this time a Russian one (Nesterov), and you undergo another forty-minute check. Finally the train arrives in Kaliningrad at 10.45 a.m.
The progressive isolation of Kaliningrad is why residents call their unfortunate region, ‘The European Prison‘. It’s becoming as closed a closed town as it was in Soviet times. But this time, the EU is the jailer and Poland’s action amounts to throwing away the key.
If you’re looking for someone to name and shame, it is:

Gunnar Wiegand

Acting Director Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, Central Asian Republics, Head of Unit for Relations with Russia, Northern Dimension Policy, European Commission

Kaliningrad’s ghettoisation falls under the EU’s ‘Northern Dimension Policy’. Could Hitler have thought up a more sinister sounding name?

The rise and fall of Prussia.

2010-01-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

The signing of the Polish-Swedish Agreement on locating a Swedish consular officer in the premises of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland

2009-12-20T00:36:00.000-08:00

    The Polish-Swedish Agreement on locating a Swedish consular officer in the premises of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Kaliningrad was signed on 18 December 2009. The contracting parties are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland and the Government Offices of Sweden (Foreign Ministry). The Agreement was signed by MFA Director-General Rafał Wiśniewski and the Swedish Ambassador to Warsaw Dag Hartelius.
   Under Visa Code, which comes into effect on 5 April 2010, the Schengen states will be represented in terms of visa issuing in all third countries whose nationals are required to have visas on crossing external borders. However, due to financial constraints many EU Member States have closed a number of their diplomatic posts. This situation creates an incentive to tighten consular cooperation between the EU Member States. Such cooperation can be ensured either by means of visa representation, i.e. issuing visas on behalf of a Member State with no diplomatic post in a given country, or by allocation, i.e. locating a consul in the premises of a diplomatic post or a consular office of another Member State.
   With no diplomatic posts in many African and South American countries, Poland is greatly interested in developing such cooperation by means of the vast network of EU diplomatic posts in these regions. In return, Poland is ready to offer similar assistance in the regions where its diplomatic posts are the most numerous, e.g. in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

   A Brussels meeting of heads of consular services was organized in September 2009 on Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski’s initiative. The meeting addressed possible forms of representation and allocation and resulted in a number of common assignments currently under preparation.
   The Agreement on locating a Swedish consular officer in the Polish Consulate in Kaliningrad is the first one in a series of agreements on consular cooperation. In the near future Poland will sign agreements on visa representation with Sweden and then with Finland, the Netherlands, Estonia, Hungary, France, Slovakia, Greece, Switzerland and Belgium. Work on common consular posts is also underway within the Visegrad Group.

Mass protest in center of Kaliningrad on 12-12-2009

2009-12-13T03:30:00.000-08:00

One of the initiators of that meeting was Baltic Republican Party forbidden by the Kremlin.
"My friends! I will repeat that I`m telling for 15 years. Our parliament ( duma) and the governor - impostors! They are simply impostors. And today on "constitution day", it is the most important conclusion. Therefore, I only offer to accept the resolution on realization of norms of the constitution and self-determinate our territory as Republic as a part of the Russian Federation. In this case we will get rid of all newcomers (aliens) from Moscow. We will get rid of all that headache which constantly imposes on us by so-called "United Russia Party" ", which consists worst representatives of our nation" - said leader of the Baltic Republican Party Sergey Pasko.

Present to the governor Georgy Boos from grateful Kaliningraders. Tangerine (mandarin) is one of the nicknames of governor Georgy Boos.

Witness - Surviving Aids ( Kaliningrad).

2009-12-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

The story of Sergei and his peers, young people trying to turn back the tide of drugs and HIV/Aids that is devastating Kaliningrad's youth.

Television journalist dies after falling from window, local activists believe she was murdered.

2009-12-01T03:37:00.000-08:00

The division of the Russian Union of Journalists in the Kaliningrad region has called on law enforcement agencies to investigate the death of prominent local television journalist Olga Kotovskaya, one of the founders of the regional television company Kaskad, who is believed to have committed suicide. The Russia Union of Journalists believes the suicide theory is convenient, but it is not the only one.
"The administration of the division of the Russian Union of Journalists in the Kaliningrad region has asked law enforcement agencies to conduct a thorough investigation into the death of Olga Kotovskaya and open a criminal case," an official with the division of the Russian Union of Journalists in the Kaliningrad region said, citing an official statement by the Russian Union of Journalists.
Olga Kotovskaya died on November 16, 2009 after falling out of a 14th floor window in Kaliningrad. A forensic examination has been scheduled as part of the official probe into this case.
In 1991, Kotovskaya and a group of colleagues created the independent television company Kaskad, which later developed into a powerful media group comprised of two television channels, a daily newspaper, two radio stations and an advertising agency. Kotovskaya was editor-in-chief and creative director of the television channel for a long time.
In 2006, Kotovskaya and her partners Igor Rostov and Svetlana Ryabukha lost control of the television company to a group of people including Vladimir Pirogov, former deputy governor of the Kaliningrad region. Kotovskaya and her partners tried to contest that decision. The region's Arbitration Court reversed the decision to change the company's charter, under which the rights to run the company were transferred to its board of directors. Kotovskaya, who was among the plaintiffs in that case, said the protocol of the meeting was falsified.
The new administration of the company accused its predecessors of embezzlement.
Igor Rostov, Kotovskaya's husband and former co-owner of Kaskad, told Igor Rudnikov, a member of the local parliament, after the death of his wife: "She was murdered. If I am found dead on the rails, do not believe that I committed suicide." Arbitration Court press officer Igor Belov told "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" spokesman he finds it strange that Kotovskaya, who was to take part in a new trial seeking the return of the television company, committed suicide.
Local opposition activists were also categorical. "I do not have the slightest doubt that she was murdered. And she was murdered for her journalistic activities. I cannot imagine that a person who has won the main lawsuit in her life has decided to jump to her death from the 14th floor. The fact that violence against journalists and owners of media outlets has become the norm in the Kaliningrad region and is almost never punished should at least attract the attention of the authorities and the appropriate bodies," Mikhail Chesalin, leader of the local division of Patriots of Russia and a member of the local parliament, told "Nezavisimaya Gazeta". His colleague Solomon Ginzburg told "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" that Kotovskaya had sought his help a year ago, saying that a high-ranking official had urged her to stop taking part in the litigation involving the fate of Kaskad.
Investigators have changed their position under pressure from public opinion. Marianna Andryushina, press secretary for the Investigations Committee of the prosecutor's office of the Kalinigrad region, said the investigators will be considering all possible theories in Kotovskaya's death.

Kremlin`s war games in Kaliningrad - childish behavior.

2009-11-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

For Kremlin Kaliningrad is nothing, but just unsinkable aircraft carrier.
Oh, please, leave us alone. Take your rusty garbage and go home to your Kremlin.
Let us live peacefully with our neighbours. Let my people go.
Kaliningrad at war. Kremlin`s military training exercises "Zapad (west)2009"

Self-determination

2009-08-22T16:19:00.000-07:00

   Self-determination is defined as free choice of one’s own acts without external compulsion; and especially as the freedom of the people of a given territory to determine their own political status or independence from their current state. In other words, it is the right of the people to decide how they want to be governed without the influence of any other country.
   The revolt of the British colonists in North America has been defined as the first assertion of the right of national and democratic self-determination because of the explicit invocation of natural law, the natural rights of man and consent of, and sovereignty by, the people, ideas inspired particularly by John Locke’s writings. Thomas Jefferson furthered promoted the notion that the will of the people was supreme, especially through authorship of the Declaration of Independence which inspired Europeans throughout the 19th century.
During the early 1800s most of the nations of South America achieved independence from Spain.
   When the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia in November 1917, they supported the right of all nations, including colonies, to self-determination. As early as 1914 Lenin wrote: “It would be wrong to interpret the right to self-determination as meaning anything but the right to existence as a separate state.” The 1918 Constitution of the Soviet Union acknowledged the right of secession for its constituent republics.
   The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 led to Russia's exit from the war and the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland.
   The end of the war led to the dissolution of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation by the Allies of Czechoslovakia and the union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia as new states.
   During the 1920s and 1930s there were some successful movements for self-determination in the beginnings of the process of decolonization. In the Statute of Westminster Great Britain granted independence to Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland, the Irish Free State, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Union of South Africa after the British parliament declared itself as incapable of passing laws over them without their consent. Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq also achieved independence from Britain and Lebanon from France.
   The ratification of the United Nations Charter in 1945 at then end of World War II placed the right of self-determination into the framework of international law and diplomacy.
Chapter 1, Article 1, part 2 states that purpose of the UN Charter is: “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace."
   Article 1 in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Both read: “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
Self-determination challenges the principle of territorial integrity (or sovereignty) of states because it is the will of the people that makes a state legitimate. This implies a people should be free to choose their own state and its territorial boundaries.
   In order to accommodate demands for minority rights and avoid secession and the creation of a separate new state, many states decentralize or devolve greater decision-making power to new or existing subunits or even autonomous areas.
From Kaliningrad to: Vilnius -350 km. , Riga -390 km., Warsaw -400 km., Minsk -550km., Berlin -600 km. Stockholm -650 km, Tallinn -650 km., Kopenhagen -680 km., Oslo -850 km., Kiev -850 km.,Moscow- 1245 km.

ECHR rules in favour of Kaliningradian union activists.

2009-08-02T11:03:00.001-07:00

  The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favour of members of the independent trade union of dockers at Russia’s Kaliningrad Sea Commercial Port. The court in Strasbourg ordered the Russian state to pay EUR 75,000 (RUR 3.3m) in compensation to the union members for loss of employment and violation of their rights. Under the ruling 30 dockers at the port will receive EUR 2,500 (RUR 110,800) each.
   In October 1997, the members of the trade union called a two-day strike to press their demand for higher wages and better working conditions. The port refused to give in to the union demands, but instead dismissed the union activists. Without recourse in Russian courts, the dockers turned in 2001 to the ECHR, which accepted the case in 2004.
   Mr Mikhail Chesalin, member of the Kaliningrad regional council from the Patriots of Russia party, said this was the first time that the ECHR has recognised a case of discrimination against trade unionists in Russia. “Now Mr Putin and the port company have to pay us EUR 75,000, and authorities have to investigate the activities of those port officials who let the union activists be discriminated,” Mr Chesalin said.

Newspaper editor attacked for independent coverage in Kaliningrad.

2009-07-07T12:21:00.001-07:00

http://rugrad.eu/news/339029/

   The chief editor of the "Dvornik" (street sweeper), a regional newspaper in Kaliningrad, Alexey Shabunin, was attacked late Thursday, July 2, while he was riding a bicycle on his way home from a garage. The journalist is currently recovering from the assault in the local hospital.
   An unknown hooded man hit him on the head with a steel rod. Despite a severe injury, Shabunin was able to seek medical aid and file a complaint at the local police station.
   A criminal probe into the bodily blows has been opened and the investigators have already found the steel rod likely to contain the attacker’s fingerprints.
   Recalling his previous encounters with law enforcement officials, Alexey Shabunin tends to connect the assault with his professional activity. In early June, he was arrested and kept in detention for 4 days for a road accident he could not have possibly caused as he was in his office at the time, the journalist claims.
   It is worth mentioning that the "Dvornik" owner, Arseniy Makhlov, was hospitalized in March 2008 after having been stabbed in the back by unknown attackers.
   The paper is well- reputed for its high-profile independent coverage of local social and political events.
   Shabunin tried to report the incident to the Baltiyski district police department immediately, but an officer in charge would not accept his statement, saying he was off duty for dinner. Police opened a probe only after the local press covered the attack.
The policemen, captain Edward Kostenko and captain Michael Agievich who have not accepted the statement from the editor are sacked by major general of police Sergey Kirichenko .

Kaliningrad ghetto-visa policy of EU towards Kaliningrad.

2009-06-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

   Today Kaliningraders pay 35 euros for each departure from the limits of the Kaliningrad region. Passing all circles of the hell. Standing in queues at embassies, collecting documents, proofing something to officials and etc.
   Couple of years back the error has been made. In our visa question were engaged mr. Putin and mr. Dmitry Rogozin ( Russia's ambassador to NATO). Before the introduction of Poland and Lithuania into EU, Kaliningraders had the right, without visas visit and remain in these countries up to 30 days and vice versa. Other inhabitants of Russia paid for it. Mr. Putin has decided to equate us with inhabitants of other Russia. As a result, we are cut in the rights in relation to other inhabitants of Russia. If we go to Belarus or to Ukraine, we are obliged to pay 35 euros for the Lithuanian transit visa. Other inhabitants of Russia go to these countries free of charge. It does not equal us with inhabitants of other Russia.
   The thoughtless steps of the Kremlin and carelessness of EU power structures made us aliens in EU`s body. Back there by the hands of fascists was a Warsaw ghetto nowadays by the the hands of Kremlin and Bruxelles we have Kaliningrad ghetto.

http://www.urm.lt/index.php?376320181
   THE EU VISA POLICY WITH REGARD TO BELARUS AND RUSSIA’S KALININGRAD REGION WAS DISCUSSED IN BRUSSELS
   On 18 June, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vygaudas Ušackas, who is taking part in the European Council in Brussels with the delegation headed by President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus, met with Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security Jacques Barrot and discussed the EU visa policy with regard to Belarus and the Kaliningrad region in Russia.
Minister V.Ušackas emphasized that proper EU visa policy in the region of East-Central Europe could play a special role in promoting regional economic, cultural and political cooperation.
   The Minister stressed that Lithuania spoke up for a visa-free or a much more facilitated Schengen visa regime with all the countries in the Baltic Sea region.
According to Minister V.Ušackas, it was necessary to find flexible solutions, which would provide an opportunity for as much of free movement for residents of Russia’s Kaliningrad region and, respectively, the citizens of Lithuania as possible, and to cut visa cost for the citizens of Belarus.
   Head of the Lithuanian diplomacy informed that currently Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Poland and Russia were preparing an initiative regarding the facilitation of travelling for residents of the EU Member States – Lithuania and Poland – and for residents of Russia’s Kaliningrad region.
   V.Ušackas spoke up for a visa-free regime for residents of Russia’s Kaliningrad region and invited the Commission to come up with appropriate suggestions.
Vice-President of the European Commission J.Barrot said that he was allegedly ready to discuss the suggestions regarding the facilitated visa regime for residents of Russia’s Kaliningrad region and that he was waiting for joint suggestions of Lithuania, Poland and Russia.

EBRD long-term loan to overhaul Kaliningrad heating system.

2009-05-19T03:48:00.000-07:00

   That is funny. What for Kremlin then? Is that a Kremlin state policy for our region just to take money from EU? We could do it ourselves. Anyway Kremlin people will put most of the loan in pockets for themselves.

http://www.ebrd.com/new/pressrel/2009/090514a.htm
Part of an international package to reduce pollution and maximise energy efficiency
   The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is joining forces with the international community to modernise the communal heating system in parts of Russia’s westernmost city, Kaliningrad, through a €21.5 million financing programme, over half of which will come from the EBRD.
   The EBRD funding will take the form of a 15-year loan of €12 million to the Russian Federation, which will be on-lent to the Kaliningrad district heating company, Kaliningradteploset. This is wholly owned by the city of Kaliningrad.
   In addition, the project is supported by grants from the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) Support Fund (€7.3 million), the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (SIDA) (€1.7 million), and the city of Kaliningrad (€500,000).
   The investment programme will enable Kaliningrad to reduce gas consumption, as well as decrease water leakages and heat losses exacerbated by years of under-investment. Altogether, these measures will help to lower greenhouse gas emissions resulting from excessive fuel use.
   The programme will involve the renovation of 30 km of the heating network (to be funded by the EBRD), the closure of 71 coal-fired boilers and the overhaul of 1,212 heating sub-stations. This will lead to annual savings of 4,280 MWh in electricity consumption, 700,000 cubic metres in water usage and 56,000 Gcal in heat losses.
   Total annual cost savings from these improvements are estimated at €2.7 million, representing 10 percent of the utility’s operating costs.
   The project aims to transform Kaliningrad’s district heating company into a commercially operated and financially viable company. The introduction of a metering system will permit billing based on real usage. Financial support for lower-income groups will replace operating subsidies to the utility.
   At the request of Russia’s Finance Ministry, the EBRD and NDEP Support Fund established the Northern Dimension Foundation in Kaliningrad two years ago. The Foundation will work alongside the utility to support implementation of the project.
   The NDEP programme was conceived in 2001 to mobilise help from the international community in tackling the region’s main environmental problems, particularly in northwest Russia.
   Kaliningrad is one of the 89 regions of the Russian Federation. Located between Lithuania and Poland, it is separated from the rest of Russia by Belarus. The city has a population of around 420,000.

Kaliningrad's Governor Reports Biggest Income.

2009-05-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

(On photo: "Galeon 530 fly", boat of Georgy Boos. Price 633.900 EUR)
   More than 20 of the Russia`s 83 governors have released their tax declarations, revealing a vast chasm in their respective incomes.
   Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos was by far the top-earning regional boss last year, declaring an income of 122.37 million rubles ($3.8 million), the report said.
President Dmitry Medvedev in March published his tax declaration, reporting 4.1 million rubles ($124,000) in earnings.

(On photo: the interior of governor`s boat)
   The decree, part of Medvdev's anti-corruption campaign, has been criticized for not requiring officials to make public the income of their adult children, to whom assets can be easily transferred. Mededvev conceded Tuesday that his anti-corruption drive has so far seen no success.
   Income of 122.37 million rubles ($3.8 million) in one of the poorest region of Russia. Hmmm? The level of corruption you could see on my case. Russian poliсe entraps me for only 120$ and now trying to put me in prison for 3 years.
   By Russian law any state official could not work in commercial companies.
P.S. Take a look at the blog of "Copydude" to understand the whole situation on corruption.
Georgy Boos’ Bananas Republic.
http://www.thecopydude.com/georgy-boos-bananas-republic/

Tourism in arms: the unexpected boost of Russian missiles in Kaliningrad.

2009-05-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

Michael Kalinin statue | (Image: ©themactep/ Paul Philippov/ Flickr)

by kasiakjk - Warszawa
Translation: Lydia Bigo
In Polish-http://www.cafebabel.com/fre/article/29378/inna-rosja.html
   When Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced the deployment of missiles in the Baltic region bordering Poland and Lithuania in November 2008, the western media frowned upon a resumption of the cold war of arms. Kalingrad has rightly kept its distance from the Russian response to the planned US anti-missile shield, a diplomatic bluff.
   On the news of Moscow's military plans, one Kalingrad newspaper wryly commented that the Russian ballistic missile Iskander was already in the city! It has a very long neck. The latest acquisition to the city zoo - a giraffe - was named in honour of the missiles, the article teased, hitting on the social mood. ‘We will wait, we will see,’ claimed local residents. ‘We still don't know anything.’ Maria Drutman, the head of the tourism department in the former German city of Kalingrad, expressed hope in the victory of common sense, and admitted that she was grateful to the president. ‘Thanks to him, the entire world has found out about Kalingrad’s existence. For us, this is great exposure.’
                                                     Showpiece
    Undeniably, the town of Kanta is opting for tourism instead of arms. One of the priorities for the local government is the development of the tourism industry. It aims to attract Prussian heritage (it was once Prussia’s capital), which seems to be a Russian fantasy. Called Koenigsberg before it was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946, the Russian exclave discourages itself as a commercial attraction of Kaliningrad, and lifelong resident Immanuel Kant, a famous philosopher and moralist, has become the centrepiece of the town, where he died in 1804.
    It wasn't always like this. In soviet times, the district was a closed militarised zone. The region remained a bugbear to the west. There were traces of Prussian presence in the eyes of the communist leaders—in 1968 a castle was demolished which was built in thirteenth century Kaliningrad. It was forever to remain the property of the Soviet Union; however, its residents leaned towards Europe. In the eighties the secret police noted that the youth had an ‘unhealthy interest in everything German’, and in the local slang, the city was known as ‘Koenigiem’. Today sociologists draw attention to the fact that many youths label themselves as 'not Russian, but not yet Europeans'.
   There is no question of separatism in Kaliningrad, and from the success of football, the Russian team are celebrated grandly just like everywhere else in the country. The region’s residents like to emphasise their diversity. Local journalist Michail Janickij states that: ‘We are more European than our compatriots from the depths of Russia.’ We find ourselves in a town where next to the ‘Matuszki Rossiji’ (mother Russia) monument, (which commemorates the merging of the district to the Soviet Union) a new shopping centre has been built – ‘Europa’. Most of the residents are positive about working together with Europe and the region's ambition is to become a Russian window to the west. As many as, 70% of youths from Kaliningrad, connect their future to the European Union, as the great homeland has disappointed the people of Kaliningrad.
              Russian Hong Kong or Baltic Las Vegas
   In Moscow, Boris Yeltsin lacked ideas about what to do in Kaliningrad and how it has torn away from the rest of the territory. There were ambitious plans to transform the exclave into a 'Russian Hong Kong’, but the free economic zone created in 1991 has become a cover for illegal business dealings. In the district, the number of organised crimes increased, as did the number of people infected with HIV. Unemployment rose. Distrust with regards to Moscow rose as they lacked involvement, as during the 1998 economic crisis, when the collapse of the rouble caused a huge loss and they were dependent on import from the Kaliningrad district. During fuel prosperity, the economic situation improved as the region received federal funds. They built large shopping centres, repaired the main streets and Muscovite businessmen started to invest in building hotels and casinos.
   Kaliningrad didn't become a ‘Russian Hong Kong’, but it definitely wants to be a ‘Baltic Las Vegas’. The authorities promised the residents a ‘European lifestyle’. Nobody really believed it, but the forecast showed that the future was dominated by optimism. But, when at the end of 2008, the district felt the first effects of the world recession, the demon crash from ten years before had awoken again. Yet again, companies are going bust, unemployment is on the rise, employers aren't paying wages and the local airline has announced it is going into bankruptcy. Without air transport, Kaliningrad will turn into a prison, as crossing borders in a car is still a nightmare.
   It is a region which is not capable of feeding itself. For this reason food prices are so much higher than that of the rest of Russia, or even Poland or Lithuania, and it still wants to break out and be independent. The problem is that the plans of the Russian Federation and the district of Kaliningrad are in contradiction to each other. In ‘Little Russia’, where the residents tend to call themselves ‘Euro Russians’ or ‘ Baltic Russians’, they talk more about visas, the economic crisis, careers and new shopping centres than they do about the American threat or post imperial sentiments.
    ‘Rockets? What rockets?’ A shocked Wasil, a twenty-year-old student from the University of Immanuel Kant, says. Exactly what rockets? If the Kremlin really wanted to fulfil its military threats against the antagonists in the west, it would be against the local population. Russia was bluffing. We congratulate the residents of Kaliningrad for having some common sense.

EU and I. Part 3.

2009-04-08T11:22:00.001-07:00

A(2007)10662
Dear Mr Vasiliev,

Above all, I wish to apologise for not having replied earlier to your e-mail to the European Parliament regarding Kaliningrad area. This is due to the large amount of correspondence addressed to our service.
I can confirm that your observations have been duly noted and that the Parliament is aware of the problems of this unique area. Its Resolution of 19 June 2007 on EU economic and trade relations with Russia stressed the importance of further economic and social development in the Kaliningrad region as a model for enhanced economic and trade cooperation between the EU and Russia.
As you certainly know, it is the European Commission that is responsible for implementing the policies and programmes adopted by the Parliament and the Council, and the Kaliningrad oblast given its particular geographical situation is one of the priority areas for the Northern Dimension policy.
Additionally, you may wish to address your concerns and opinions to the Directorate-General on External Relations of the European Commission:
http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/feedback/index.htm
In conclusion, I thank you for having contacted the European Parliament and I may assure you that we will stay concerned by the development of the Kaliningrad oblast in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Antoaneta TYULEKOVA
European Parliament
Directorate General for Information
Correspondence with Citizens Unit

EU and I. Part II.

2009-03-31T07:37:00.004-07:00

European Commission
Directorate General for External Relations
Gunnar Wiegand

Dear Mr. Vasiliev,
  I am writing in response to the message that you sent on 28 October to
President Barroso. I regret the delay in replying caused by the need to
investigate the facts of the matter. I would like to assure you that
the possibility for residents of the Kaliningrad region to travel as freely
as possible is high on our agenda. It is a major part of the EU's
strategy to make Kaliningrad a successful region of the Russian
Federation and positive example of cooperation between the EU and
Russia. That success depends to a large extent on a degree of
integration of Kaliningrad with neighbouring regions of the EU and
Baltic region in general.
   We are aware that the combined effects of the Visa Facilitation
Agreement between the European Union and the Russian Federation as well
as the accession of Poland and Lithuania to Schengen have had some
negative consequences for the residents of Kaliningrad (while
undoubtedly visa facilitation has improved the situation for other
citizens of Russia).
   That is why the Commission has pointed to a number of possibilities
that exist to ease the burden for those who travel from the Kaliningrad
region to Lithuania and Poland. Firstly, these are the broad categories
of persons who benefit from the waiving of the visa fee under the Visa
Facilitation Agreement. Secondly, it is possible to issue more
frequently multiple entry visas, valid for a period of one year, up to
a maximum of five years (such visas will be for all the Schengen zone
not, as before, only to Lithuania or Poland). Thirdly, since 1st January
2007, the visa fee is fully waived for children under six years,
students and accompanying teachers travelling for educational purposes
and researchers fulfilling certain conditions.
The Schengen "acquis" also provides for the possibility for Member
States to waive or reduce the visa fee in individual cases, when this
measure serves the promotion of cultural interests, foreign policy,
development policy or other areas of vital public interest or for
humanitarian reasons.
  The Commission has encouraged the Russian Federation, Poland and
Lithuania to negotiate bilateral agreements on local border traffic
which would enable residents living close to the border to cross
without a visa. As we understand there is an intention to negotiate such
agreements in the future.
  I hope you will find this information useful. I wish you all success in
your endeavours.

Gunnar Wiegand
Acting Director Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, Central Asian Republics
Head of Unit for Relations with Russia, Northern Dimension Policy and
Nuclear Safety
European Commission
Directorate General for External Relations
Thu, 10 Apr 2008

The Baltic Republican Party

2009-03-19T06:22:00.001-07:00

On photo, Sergei Pasko (right) and Rustam Vasilev.

The Baltic Republican Party in Kaliningrad renamed the Kaliningrad Public Movement-Respublika.
The Baltic Republican Party (BRP) was founded in 1992, leader Sergei Pasko. Authorities shut down the BRP on 27 October 2002.
The BRP contested court decisions based on the Russian law on political parties, which requires parties to have a minimum of 50,000 members and active branches in half of Russia's regions in order to be registered. In February 2005, ruling on the complaint brought forward by the BRP, the Russian Constitutional Court confirmed the validity of the law on political parties. According to the ruling, all parties that did not meet the minimum requirements would have to "self-disolve by January 1, 2006, or transform into public associations".
The BRP's main goal was to make Kaliningrad larger autonomy within Russia or special international legal status which gives the ability to negotiate its trade deals with the EU and to regulate its own commercial affairs. Many people from Kaliningrad supporting this idea.
The BRP leader suggested that immigration should be controlled by local authorities in Kaliningrad and that dual citizenship (Russian and EU) should be granted to the inhabitants of Kaliningrad.
The leader of the BRP told the Wall Street Journal in February 2003 that: "Kaliningrad will be a partly independent state in connection with the Russian Federation, but we hope to be a subject of the EU as well".
Kaliningrad should become an autonomous region within Russia, but which would bring its laws in line with EU standards.
BRP had collected signatures from residents in favour of the city of Kaliningrad going back to its previous name of Koenigsberg.

The Kaliningrad Public Movement-Respublika.
"Respublika Kaliningrad Public Movement" was created in February 2005 by Sergei Pasko, chairman of the banned Baltic Republican Party and president of the Kaliningrad Entrepreneurs Union.
The main goal of the movement is to obtain international status permitting "independent relations with the European Union, while retaining associate membership of the Russian Federation".
Sergei Pasko had declared to the russian newspaper "Kommersant": "Respublika is not the BRP. There is interaction, but not more. We have shifted to the higher level – we are preparing a legal basis".
The new movement's flag is orange and contains the words "KOD Respublika" (Kaliningrad Public Movement Republic, in Russian).

European Union and I. Part 1.

2009-03-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

Dismantlement of Public Health Service in Kaliningrad by Kremlin.

2009-02-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

(On photo, regional infectious hospital in Kaliningrad. See the rest of photos.)
http://karpov-sergey.livejournal.com/34363.html

  The children's Center of regenerative medicine and rehabilitation, can be closed on April, 1st, 2009 in connection with financing change. Ther is no money In regional budget on the maintenance of the centre. The centre of regenerative medicine has been created in 1995 and is unique establishment in the Kaliningrad region which is engaged in medical and social rehabilitation of children-invalids, including patients of children's cerebral paralysis. That is children here both treat, and learn. Now the centre serves about 500 children at the age from 3 months till 18 years.
  Maternity homes in the Kaliningrad region will be kept only in four cities – Sovetsk, Gusev, Chernyakhovsk and Kaliningrad. Delivery rooms in other cities of area will be closed, has declared Elena Klujkova the Minister of Health of region.
In the beginning of 2008, delivery rooms functioned in 21 city of area. In particular, delivery rooms in Baltiysk and Svetliy are already closed.
  According to women, closing delivery rooms is obviously planned action directed against people.
  In children's hospital № 3 of Kaliningrad, closed branch, for children who have remained without parents.
Closed children's hospital in Mamonovo, city which bordering with Poland.

(On photo, looted Hospital of fishermen. See the rest of photos.)
http://duh-lesa.livejournal.com/93558.html

  Hospital of fishermen in Kaliningrad is liquidated. Constructed long time ago by enterprises of a fishing industry for the employees.
  This establishment, serving 10 thousand inhabitants of the regional centre, has been closed by the authorities on November, 1st last year. The reason - an economic inconsistency. The hospital could not earn on a life in system of new single channel financing. The situation was not rescued even by joining hospital of fishermen to the regional hospital for the veterans, which also in the heaviest financial crisis.
  The Kremlin and Moscow`s puppets as governor Georgiy Boos with his Moscow team breaks here in Koenigsberg everything good, what Kaliningraders built for decades.

The diplomats of EU, Kaliningraders and cretinism of Kremlin.

2009-02-03T14:38:00.000-08:00

( On photo, memorial service near settlement Yantarny without detained diplomats.)

  Russian traffic police, on February 1st, have detained two cars with diplomatic plates in which were consul of Poland in Kaliningrad Marek Golkovsky and consul of Germany Aristide Fenster with his wife. Diplomats was on their way to the memorial service devoted to memory of massacre by nazis at settlement Yantarny, located on the bank of Baltic sea.   The reason of detention of diplomats, according to traffic police, was that foreigners have crossed a border zone without corresponding admissions.

  Traffic police have referred to the order of FSB №238 from 2006- "The border zone limits in the Kaliningrad region"- according to which a border zone are defined by a site from frontier to the back of Kaliningrad region on depth of 5-7 kilometres.
  Stupid Kremlin law by Putin and former head of FSB Patrushev on which even we Russians, Kaliningraders should ask the permission from FSB to visit that zone. Though in that zone a few towns and villages. Mad Kremlin policy against Kaliningraders.

  At the night from January, 31st toFebruary, 1st, 1945 - under the German city of Palmnicken (nowadays settlement Yantarny, Kaliningrad region) nazis have shot thousands prisoners, most of them are Jews.
Massacre of Palmnicken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yantarny
  Because of the advance of Soviet troops in January 1945, the East Prussian subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp was disbanded and its inmates were sent through Königsberg to Palmnicken. Only 3,000 of the original 13,000 inmates survived the forced march.   Originally, the surviving detainees were to be walled up within a tunnel of an amber mine, but this plan collapsed upon the objections of the mine's manager. Schutzstaffel members then brought the prisoners to the beach of Palmnicken during the night of January 31 and under rifle fire forced them to march into the Baltic Sea. Only 15 inmates survived the war crime.

Films of modern Kaliningrad and old Koenigsberg.

2009-01-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

This article will be update in the future

The main streets of Kaliningrad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl2kjMinyxY

DW-TV Kaliningrad-Tax haven for investors.
Not yet though for foreign investors, as money simply disappear in black hole of Kremlin. Do not trust and do not deal with Kremlin people and your money will be safe. Deal with Kaliningraders who is willing to unite back Konigsberg and EU.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d1kPMIMZ-c&feature=related

Kaliningrad fights Baltic amber smuggling.
Kremlin corruption at it`s worst.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4EhgSskjUw&feature=related

Is our Baltic sea for peace or for war stupidity?

2009-01-17T16:05:00.001-08:00

  More than 300,000 tons of weapons were dumped by the Allies between 1945 and 1947. The toxic stockpile includes nearly 65,000 tons(net!) of mustard gas, nerve agent sarin and the notorious death camp gas, Zyklon B.
Environmental aspects and the issue of protection of the sea were completely ignored at that time.
  1. The Bornholm site is located in the western Baltic, east of the island of Bornholm. Over 35.000 tons were dumped in water depths ranging between 70 and 120 m. The CW contained an estimated 13.000 tons of toxic agents. Most CW was thrown over board packed in crates or containers, but some ships were also sunk.
  2. The Gotland Deep site is located in the central Baltic. At least 2.000 tons of CW was dumped here (some sources mention a total of 40.000 tons). There are strong indications that part of the conventional and chemical munition was thrown overboard during transport to the Baltic dump sites; how many tons were thus dumped is not known. Most likely it is mainly this ammunition that has been washing ashore on the beaches of Denmark and Poland.
  3. The Måseskär site is located in the eastern Skagerrak, 25 km off the Swedish coast. At least 8 ships were sunk here in a water depths ranging between 180-200 m. According to reports roughly 30.000 tons of toxic agents were dumped.
  Some degradation products of chemical warfare agents are even more persistent and several times more toxic than their original substance (e.g. mustard gas and lewisite).

  It is important to note that, in addition to the dumping of tens of thousands of tons of chemical munitions into the Baltic sea, many more tens of thousands of tons of conventional explosives were also disposed of in this manner, sometimes in the same shipments or locatit is clear that the munitions are subject to corrosion effects rendering them fragile or even resulting in leakage of CW agents. There is also good evidence that certain types of explosive can become extremely unstable with the passage of time.

  Public concern over the potential environmental impacts inherent in sea-dumped CW is genuine. Too often opinion of people populated Baltic shores have been ignored in order to provide support for unrelated strategic or economic considerations.

Kaliningraders vs. Kremlin State.

2009-01-03T03:49:00.000-08:00

( On photo, Polish politics trying to help somehow to Kaliningraders)

  The government's decision to raise import duties on used foreign cars and trucks, aimed at protecting domestic and foreign car producers in Russia amid the global credit crunch will come into force on January 12.
  In reality, the duty on used cars will double, and triple for trucks.
The decision has led to an increase in those wishing to bring foreign-made cars into the Kaliningrad Region since early December as people try to avoid the January deadline.
  The head of a public organization that protects motorists "Spravedlivost" ( Justice) Konstantin Doroshok said a 33-year-old man had died on the Russian-Lithuanian border crossing Friday morning on December 26 after spending several days waiting to cross the border. Driver Vycheslav Skubna will never come back to home anymore.

(On photo, Polish people helping Kaliningraders by bringing them free food and woods to warm up in freezing cold.)

  Protests by motorists unhappy with the slow processing and bribery by customs periodically take place on the border. Customs showing just open sabotage by not processing at all.
  In addition, corruption has gotten markedly worse as the level of monopolization in the economy and bureaucratization of government has increased. All of this is pushing people’s discontent to the surface.

(On photo, Polish-Russian border, Branevo-Mamonovo. Long queue for a few kilometers, almost 700 cars.)
  The anger over increased import duties is particularly strong among residents of the Kaliningrad region, the majority of which -- perhaps as high as 55 percent -- make a living either directly or indirectly connected with the sale or servicing of imported automobiles.
  To some, Visas come to an end, the Russian state compels them to break EU rules by staying in queue in their cars near borders..
  Russian newspapers and TV are silent, as the state holds the control over a freedom of speech in Russia.
  Eventually on family holidays the Christmas and New Year, the Russian state by customs bodies has thrown and left people in the winter in unhuman conditions on borders.

Russian Missile Plan Gives a New European Trade Hub an Old Identity Crisis

2008-12-16T02:57:00.000-08:00

By ELLEN BARRY, The New York Times
Published: November 27, 2008

KALININGRAD, Russia — This is what passes for humor in Kaliningrad these days: Iskander missile tourism. Dipping deep into his reservoir of black humor, Vladimir N. Abramov tries out this sales pitch for his region, a cold war garrison turned European trade hub that may, once again, become a staging ground for missiles pointed west.
“Attracting tourists to see an Iskander is a creative idea,” said Mr. Abramov, a political scientist. “Especially for the Poles. When it is flying toward them, they may not be able to see it. Come to Kaliningrad! Pose next to the missile which is going to kill you.”
Somewhere behind the joke is a real question about the future of Kaliningrad. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has devised a series of plans for this old military outpost, wedged on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Poland.
Former President Boris N. Yeltsin saw it as the Russian Hong Kong, a free trade zone to entice foreign investors. Mr. Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir V. Putin, drew it closer to Moscow, planning a nuclear power plant that would export energy to Europe. As oil and gas wealth poured into Russia, more ideas emerged: Las Vegas-style gambling, for instance, and a constellation of luxury resorts.
The most recent idea arrived early this month, when President Dmitri A. Medvedev said Russia would stage short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if the United States proceeded with missile defense facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland.
The proposal is seen by many as rhetorical — a bargaining chip to use with a new American president. But if carried out, it would mark Kaliningrad’s first rearming against the West since the end of the Soviet Union, and another twist in an old identity crisis: Is it Russia’s window, open to Europe, or a turret for firing on it?
“The phrase ‘military stronghold’ was gradually forgotten here,” said Vadim Smirnov, a columnist for Kaliningradskaya Pravda, the region’s largest newspaper. “Experience shows that it was premature.”

The streetscape of Kaliningrad testifies to its peculiar status. Around the corner from generic Soviet monuments are cobblestone streets and red-roofed houses built before World War II, when it was a German city called Königsberg. Free trade policy has transformed this city into a huge duty free shop, crammed with fashionable restaurants and small businesses selling Italian handbags, French bath soaps, Polish light fixtures.
No less transformed are its people, who number around one million. Kaliningraders live more than 200 miles from the Russian border; they bring their grandchildren to Polish water parks and stock up at Ikea in Gdansk. Younger ones ski in Austria or shuttle goods to Central Europe. There is a deep vein of Russian patriotism here, as you would expect from a military town. But the pull of Europe is strong.
“We’re closer to Berlin than Moscow,” said Alexei Petrov, 39, a gym teacher who is driving a taxi between jobs.
Those links with Europe — culturally warm and economically central — have colored Kaliningraders’ reaction to Mr. Medvedev’s announcement. Lyudmila M. Anokha, the director of the Kaliningrad Zoo, found herself in an awkward position last month when she held a contest to name a new baby giraffe. One of the most popular suggestions was “Iskander,” but Ms. Anokha immediately saw the problem.
“The giraffe was delivered to us by the Berlin Zoo,” she said. “The giraffe came from the West. The Iskanders would be pointed toward the West. We at the zoo are beyond politics.”
The Iskander deployment is popular among Russians as a whole, who overwhelmingly see the American missile defense plan as a direct threat on their borders. A poll released last week by Moscow’s Public Opinion Foundation showed that 62 percent of respondents approved of the Iskander deployment if the missile defense facilities are built. Only 13 percent of them criticized the plans, with 4 percent dismissing them as “intimidation.”
The same stalwart support can be found in Kaliningrad. In 2004, when Poland and Lithuania joined the European Union, new visa and customs regulations stoked fears that Kaliningraders were being cut off behind a “blue curtain,” after the color of the union flag. Since then, those regulations have helped to deprive them of much of the freedom of movement that they enjoyed during the Yeltsin years. They already feel encircled, and the proposed missile defense site in Poland — an American base supplied with 10 interceptor missiles — stokes old passions.
“When someone threatens your country, every person must respond,” said Ms. Anokha, the zoo director. “We are not the ones unearthing the ax of war.”
In public, there has been little debate about the Iskander plan. For one thing, people here are accustomed to living near an arsenal — including nuclear-tipped missiles that were staged here during the cold war. The bigger threat, for many, was their removal: Since the 1980s, the number of troops here has been reduced to fewer than 20,000, from 320,000, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Rumors that the Baltic Fleet might be relocated met with “horror” in Kaliningrad, according to Mr. Abramov, the political scientist.
“The presence of troops was seen as a guarantee that Russia would not abandon us,” he said. “There are hotheads in Poland and Lithuania who would like to incorporate us. The Baltic Fleet calms them down.”
In private, however, many Kaliningraders say they are nervous about how the Iskander plan would affect them. The region’s economy is dependent on foreign tourists and foreign investment, to say nothing of the freedom to travel in Europe. Solomon I. Ginzburg, a deputy in Kaliningrad’s regional Parliament, said a poll of 1,800 of his constituents showed that 37 percent of them were “categorically against” the deployment of Iskanders, whereas only 20 percent supported it.
The most visible objections have come from Vitautas V. Lopata, an opposition deputy in the Parliament. Mr. Lopata, a wealthy businessman, publishes his own newspaper because he cannot gain coverage in the Kaliningrad press, “even if I pay for it,” he said.
In his most recent issue, he wrote that with Mr. Medvedev’s announcement, “we have, with our own hands, pushed Europe away from Russia,” ignoring Kaliningrad’s economic dependence on its neighbors. He said many citizens agreed with him, but kept their comments private, because “where can they express this opinion?”
“If you deploy missile forces, investment ends, tourism ends,” he said in an interview. “You don’t go visit your neighbor if he’s drunk and he’s holding a loaded gun.”
As people rushed past rows of shops, jewel-bright in a gathering snowstorm, most confessed that the missile deployment was not on their minds. Some had not even heard of it. But here and there was passionate opposition — from a grandmother selling five beets on a sidewalk, who said she would join street protests against the deployment, or from the taxi driver, Mr. Pavlov, who exclaimed with frustration, “Nobody is threatening anyone here.”
Natalya Gorobets, 41, who works for a tour agency, seemed to draw herself up with pride at the mention of the Iskanders, which she said “demonstrate that Russia is capable of giving an answer” to the United States. At the next desk, Viktoria Nishchenko, 28, was not so sure: She was thinking about travel.
“I just don’t want to go to a consulate and be told, ‘Oh, you’re from Kaliningrad. Stay there with your weapons,’ ” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/world/europe/28kaliningrad.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=Kaliningrad%20&st=cse&scp=1

Freedom or ......

2008-12-08T15:45:00.000-08:00

http://forums.ec.europa.eu/debateeurope/viewtopic.php?t=3852&start=0
No independence movement but locals want looser control by Moscow and stronger association with EU.
What is to become of the enclave of Kaliningrad, Russian Federation territory cut off from Mother Russia and sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, soon to become an island within the European Union?
What do the residents want? There are a few hardliners who would favor independence from Moscow, setting up a new state within the European Union. This stance, however, does not reflect the general line of thinking within Kaliningrad, which favors looser control by Moscow with more association with the EU but not total integration and certainly not independence.
The looser control by Moscow is seen as a means of at least gaining some advantages from being an island on the EU territory.
Those who support the change of name from Kaliningrad to Konigsberg, its former name, quote the change from Leningrad to St. Petersburg. However, the move to change the name is evidence of the anti-Moscow sentiment in this part of Russia. Most people in Kaliningrad would agree that Moscow does not understand the feelings of the majority of people within this enclave, inhabited by ethnic Russians but with all the possibilities and infra-structures to become a separate state.