KALININGRAD ORIGINS OF RUSSIA'S EXCLAVE

Formerly the Prussian stronghold of Königsberg, since 1945 this region has been a Soviet, then Russian, foothold in Eastern Europe

- PETER CADDICK-ADAMS

The fact that seven NATO nations lie within range of a single battery of Russian missiles underlines the importance of Kaliningrad in the 21st century. But it was never intended to be so. Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden are all regretting the day when the former East Prussian city of Königsberg was absorbed into the Soviet Union, and subsequently Russia. It is a reminder that amid the unquiet tangle of East European states the shadow of the Second World War still looms large, with a sense of unfinished business, even 80 years after VE-Day.

Kaliningrad began life as the minor East Prussian settlement of Twangste, where a castle and anchorage in a lagoon facilitated the supply westwards of valuable amber, pine resin and tar via Baltic shipping. Growing in importance and wealth over the next 500 years, the settlement achieved prominence in 1255 as the main garrison of the Teutonic Knights. The knights named their bastion Königsberg (the King's Mountain) in honour of their patron and backer, King Ottokar II of Bohemia. In 1454-55 and again between 1466 to 1657 its name changed to Królewiec (by which moniker the Poles still know it) when acquired by the Kingdom of Poland and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

From 1340 it had become a prominent Hanseatic trading and ship-building port, ice-free throughout the year, from which Baltic timber, salt, grain, furs and coal sailed westwards to England and the Netherlands, and huge quantities of fish and finished European goods were imported. Königsberg was later the coronation city of the Duchy of Prussia, before that state's capital moved to Berlin in 1701, then subsequently the first city of East Prussia for the next 244 years.