RUSSIA

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There are plans in Kaliningrad to rebuild the old Prussian castle. copydude

 

 

 

 

 

               Kaliningrad 1910                                                     Kaliningrad 2010                                                     Kaliningrad 1969

                                                                                                                                                         

Firebombed by the RAF in 1944, it was then levelled in 1969 to build the ill-conceived ‘House Of Soviets‘. Known locally as the ‘Monster’, this concrete egg-box has never been quite finished or occupied. Finally the blot on the landscape has to go.

Alexander Bahzin thinks he can recreate the famous Schloss from old paintings and postcards. The architect has already made a cardboard model and now just needs a green light and 100 million. Alexander is a kitsch connoisseur and has built whole repro villas in Kaliningrad from pre-war photographs. ‘There was no complicated stonemasonry in the castle’ he says. ‘It was just bricks and plaster.’ Even so, it took the Teutonic Knights a couple of centuries but Alexander is looking at three years start to finish.

There’s a lot of support for the project. Putin, whose wife comes from Kaliningrad, has offered to put up 50 million. (From the state, not from his own pocket of course.) It will also please Germans who can remember the grandeur of Konigsberg prior to being concreted over by Russians. Elderly Germans today who revisit their old hometown have been known to break down in tears.