World Cup City Tour: Kaliningrad
By Lu Wenao
People's Daily app
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Kaliningrad, founded in 1255, is now the capital of Russia’s Kaliningrad Region, with a total population of over 500,000 people.

It is the center of Russia’s westernmost region and the country’s only exclave. Until 1946, Kaliningrad used to be known as Koenigsberg, translated from German as the King’s Mountain, and was part of East Prussia.


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Koenigsberg Cathedral is the city’s main landmark for tourists. (Photos: FIFA)

Koenigsberg was home to one of the world’s greatest philosophers, Immanuel Kant. His remains lie in a tomb adjoining the Koenigsberg Cathedral.

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Amber Museum was set up in 1979 in a neo-Gothic tower, which erected in 1853 as part of the city’s fortification facilities.

At the end of World War II in 1945, Koenigsberg became part of the Soviet Union. Later in 1946, the city was renamed Kaliningrad after the death of Mikhail Kalinin, one of the original Bolsheviks.

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The Fishing Village, a trade handicraft ethnographic part of the city, is located close to the new stadium. It is home to small pre-war-style buildings.

The region and the city have been known as a source of amber, fossilized tree resin that is some 50 million years old. It is home to the planet’s only industrial-scale amber production facility with an annual output of more than 300 tons.

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King's Gate, one of the former six gates of the city, was built as early as the 19th century. It was originally the Gumbinnen Gate.

Kaliningrad citizen Petya Nikolayev, who was born on October 31, 2011, was officially acknowledged by the UN as the 7-billionth person on Earth.

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World Ocean Museum is Russia's first comprehensive maritime museum. It has exhibitions devoted to navigation marine flora and fauna geology and hydrology of the oceans as well as maritime library and environmental station.