Bleak Kaliningrad: Infused with the Happiness of Philosopher Immanuel Kant

by Lisa Piergallini
Tightening the protective thickness of my long coat, I began to question whether or not coming here was a good idea. A crisp wind stung my cheeks and challenged the tree branches around me, as the gray wool of the sky stretched itself over the oblast of Kaliningrad, Russia. This tiny exclave of the enormous Mother Country is nestled in between Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea. Originally the great capital city of East Prussia (then called Konigsberg), it was overtaken by Soviet brigades in 1945 and renamed Kaliningrad after the Bolshevik revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin.
I...