Ghosts of past haunt 750 years of Kaliningrad, Russia's Baltic gateway

RUSSIA: Celebrations to mark the 750th anniversary of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad will be overshadowed today by the ghosts…

RUSSIA: Celebrations to mark the 750th anniversary of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad will be overshadowed today by the ghosts of the past and a row from the present.

Little remains of the former East Prussian capital of Königsberg, founded on the Baltic coast by the Teutonic Knights and birthplace of German thinkers from Immanuel Kant to Hannah Arendt.

The stunning Prussian palaces and ornamental bridges vanished in August 1944 under a hail of explosives from British Lancaster bombers. Soviet soldiers marched into Königsberg in April 1945 to "liquidate the imperialistic den of thieves", as Stalin crowed later in Pravda.

The Soviets annexed the city, renamed it Kaliningrad and brutally expelled or killed the 200,000 surviving German residents.

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The ice-free Baltic port gave the region strategic importance during the Cold War, and Soviet authorities closed the exclave to foreign visitors for nearly half a century.

The fall of the Iron Curtain left Kaliningrad cut off from "Great Russia", as locals call it, and the EU accession of Lithuania and Poland last year only proceeded after a last-minute visa compromise for Kaliningrad residents making the 200-mile trip to Russia.

Today's diplomatic flap is minor in comparison to the dramas of the past, but damaging for the relationship between Russia and its neighbours.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has invited Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and President Jacques Chirac of France to the anniversary ceremonies today, but put Polish and Lithuanian noses out of joint by failing to invite their leaders. Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus said through a spokeswoman that it was "difficult to understand" why he wasn't invited to the celebrations.

Agricultural minister Kazimiera Prunskiene has gone to Kaliningrad anyway, in a move which foreign minister Antanas Valionis called "an insult to Lithuania".

The decision of Kaliningrad University to award Mr Putin and Mr Schröder honorary doctorates is "a significant milestone in Moscow-Berlin relations", added Mr Valionis.

"We may be witnessing attempts to once again form the Moscow-Berlin geopolitical axis, which historically proved to be quite notorious," said Mr Raimundas Lopata, head of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius.

Lithuanian and Polish diplomats made fruitless requests for an explanation of the snub.

Some suggest it is an expression of the Kremlin's displeasure at its neighbours' assistance to Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko during the Orange Revolution last year.

Others suggest that the Kremlin is unhappy with demands from Vilnius and Warsaw to acknowledge crimes committed by Soviet troops in the region during and after the second World War.

The Russians have spent €44 million for a spectacular display to reflect Kaliningrad's "eventful history", as deputy mayor Silvia Gurowa put it.

Ceremonies include a wreath-laying at a memorial to the 1,200 Soviet soldiers who died scaling the Königsberg fortress walls in April 1945.

Streets have been repaired and historical buildings given an extra polish in the hope that "the Russian city in the centre of Europe", as organisers call it, will attract foreign investors deterred so far by poor infrastructure, high crime rates and labyrinthine Russian bureaucracy.

Only 11 per cent of the €457 million invested in Kalingrad last year came from foreign investors, leaving unfulfilled the one-time dream of turning Kaliningrad into the "Hong Kong of Russia".

Chancellor Schröder's visit is another step in German relations-building with the exclave.

Foreign minister Joschka Fischer opened the country's first diplomatic mission there last year, and Germany is Kaliningrad's third-largest investor.