Seven gates of Koenigsberg-Kaliningrad. Gate of Königsberg. Ausfal and Railway Gates Entry into the Königsberg Gate was only permitted

Now it’s time to explain why gates are mentioned in the title of the post.
In 1626 - 1634, a rampart fortification was erected, which surrounded Königsberg on all sides. The fortification consisted of several bastions and half-bastions, as well as 9 gates. In addition, on the sea side, in 1657, the powerful fort of Friedrichsburg was founded.
And two centuries later, King Frederick William IV issues a decree on the beginning of the construction of the Second Rampart fortification, which generally follows the contours of the previous one. The powerful Don and Wrangel towers, the defensive barracks Kronprinz and the Astronomical Bastion are being built, and new fortified gates are being erected on the site of the previous ones. The construction of the Royal Gate was the first to begin in 1843, and construction was completed with the construction of the Friedland Gate in 1862.
We didn’t manage to visit all the gates: (But I’ll still show you some of them:)

Brandenburg Gate

There is a memorial plaque on the wall.

And here are the gates themselves. The tram line runs through them.

The Brandenburg Gate was built around 1860. The facade was designed by architect August Stüler. On the side facing the city, two portrait medallions of the sculptor Wilhelm Ludwig Stümler have been preserved: on the left is the military engineer Field Marshal Hermann von Boyen, on the left is General Ernst Ludwig von Aster, a participant in the Napoleonic wars and the author of the second rampart fortification of the Königsberg fortress. The name of the gate can be interpreted in two ways: first, through it there is a road to the Order Castle Brandenburg (now the village of Ushakovo); second, the same road leads to the German state of Brandenburg. But they have nothing in common with the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

which one is a field marshal and which one is a general, I'm confused))

This is a view of the gate from the other side. By the way, pay attention to the tram line - it is a narrow-gauge railway. And the trams are quite normal in size. According to my feelings, they shake on the way twice as much as in Moscow ones :)
A little history of the Königsberg tram. In the 19th century, due to the growth of the city, there was a need for public transport. In May 1881, the first horse-drawn tram route was opened in Königsberg (in the same year, an electric tram was already launched in Berlin). The horsecar owners were joint-stock companies. Compared to droshky rides, the cost of a horse-drawn ride was much more affordable: from 10 to 20 pfennigs (depending on the distance) versus 60 pfennigs for one passenger, 70 pfennigs for two, 80 for three and marks for four passengers on a droshky.
And in May 1895, the first trams appeared on the streets of Königsberg. In 1901, the city bought all the horse-drawn lines (with the exception of the lines in Hufen) and began electrifying them.

The strange structure ahead is a bridge.

The next gate is Friedrichsburg.

The Friedrichsburg Gate is the only historical gate in Kaliningrad that led not to the city of Königsberg, but to the fortress of the same name. In 1657, at the direction of the Great Elector Frederick William, south coast Friedrichsburg fortress was built on the Pregolya River. It was built according to the design of Christian Otter and was topographically shaped like a square. At its corners there were four bastions with euphonious names - Ruby, Emerald, Diamond and Pearl. In the quadrangular courtyard, surrounded by earthen ramparts, there were various buildings: the commandant's office, barracks, prison house, barns, guardhouse, prison and church.

During the stay of the Great Russian Embassy in Königsberg in 1697 under the name of Sergeant Peter Mikhailov, Russian Tsar Peter I underwent artillery training in the Friedrichsburg and Pillaus fortresses. The training was conducted by Brandenburg specialist in this field, Colonel von Sternfeld. He noted the abilities of his 25-year-old student. Upon his return to Moscow, Peter I received a certificate that said: “Peter Mikhailov is to be recognized and revered as an accomplished bomb-thrower, a careful and skillful firearms artist.”

In the middle of the 19th century, during the construction of new rampart fortifications around Königsberg, the Friedrichsburg fortress was rebuilt into a fort of the same name. In 1852, a brick gate was erected at Fort Friedrichsburg. The author of the design of these gates was August Stüler, the court architect of the Prussian king Frederick William IV. On August 23, 1910, Fort Friedrichsburg was excluded from the defensive fortifications of Königsberg and sold to the Imperial Railway. The ramparts were torn down and the ditches of Fort Friedrichsburg were filled in. The main part of its structures has been dismantled. Railroad tracks were laid across the territory previously occupied by this fort. Only the gates and barracks at the eastern defensive wall of the southeastern bastion have survived from the fort's buildings.
Now the Friedrichsburg Gate has been transferred to the Museum of the World Ocean.

Some tiny hatches))

Bridge. This strange design is a spreading mechanism, or rather a lifting one :) The new railway bridge was built in 1926. Its design was rotary, the upper part of the bridge was intended for trains, the lower for pedestrians and cars. The turning part was 57 meters long and weighed 1225 tons, and the bridge could be turned within 2-3 minutes. It was blown up during the retreat of German troops and restored in 1949. The design of the bridge was changed to a drawbridge. The height of the bridge is about 50 meters.

The bridge is in such a... neglected and picturesque state. My friends were even afraid to cross it on the rusty metal. And I remembered my home and the stairs on the Embankment))

The views from the bridge are great!

Maybe the piles of some old bridge?

The Cathedral is visible in the distance.

The cat somehow looks unkindly at the guests of the city :)

"Rock garden" in one of the courtyards :)

What pleases me most here is the pink “toy” house)

The building on the right is also very interesting.

This is the YuI MIA - a police university. The building was built approx. 1931, during German times the labor exchange was located here.

Railway gate

1866-1869 The Railway Gate was designed by the architect Ludwig von Aster.
Passed through these gates Railway, leading to Pillau (now Baltiysk). After defensive structures the city center was removed, a street was laid along the former rampart. Thus, since then the gate has been inconspicuous, and rather resembles a tunnel through a road embankment.

There is an unexpected sign on the gate)))

Behind the gates beautiful park with ponds.

And this is the Ausfal Gate.
The first gate, approximately on the site of the current one, was built in the twenties of the XVII century, during the construction of a defensive rampart around the city. Later, in 1866, the gate was rebuilt in the brick Gothic style. Built in the 19th century, the Ausfal Gate allowed only pedestrians through, and was less significant in relation to the rest of the city gates (as evidenced, for example, by its poorer architectural design). The new Ausphallian Gate was designed by the architect Ludwig von Aster.

From the very beginning, the gate crashed into the shaft and was actually below ground level. In the 20th century, the only gate passage was blocked. Like all other city gates, in 1910 the Ausfal Gate was sold by the military department to the city.
During the war, the Ausfal Gate was converted into a command post for military units. Extensive interior spaces The gates were divided into separate compartments by concrete walls. The passages between the compartments were closed with hermetically sealed security doors.
After the war, the gate was used as a warehouse, later as a bomb shelter for the nearby police school, and later as a sewage collector.

In 1993, on the upper covering of the gate, which is located level with the level of the roadway of Gvardeisky Prospekt, the Orthodox chapel of St. George was built, dedicated to the Soviet soldiers who died during the storming of Koenigsberg.

In Soviet chronicles, Königsberg is called nothing less than a “fortress city” - and for good reason. Founded as the metropolis of a foreign and hostile land, at the gates of the restless east, growing for centuries around the castle, Königsberg could not help but be a fortress. The oldest walls of the 14th century, a kind of “zero belt”, covered, and from them two towers survived the war. The first belt was built in 1626-34 and already covered Forstadt, and the Second belt grew in 1843-62, and partially coincided with the first - collectively, what remained of them is known as the Inner Ring. Finally, the third belt (Outer Ring) was built in the 1870s-90s, runs approximately along the current bypass, and has been used for its intended purpose until the present day. The inner ring, which lost its defensive significance by the beginning of the twentieth century, is in fact the center of Königsberg, the edge of the “donut hole”, into which two train stations are woven. It is also impressive that British aviation, having burned the city center to the ground, spared transport hubs and fortifications - the Inner Ring has been preserved almost entirely from the pre-war period, its main losses are associated with the development of Königsberg at the beginning of the twentieth century.

I will divide the hike along the ring (which in practice was not continuous) into three parts, and in the first we will examine the South Station, adjacent old district Haberberg and the part of the fortifications that covered it. I’ll also make a reservation in advance that I’m a layman on the topic of fortification, I’m even confused in the terminology, so I’m counting on corrections and comments.

The introductory shot shows the Friedland Gate, the extreme point of the route. To the right is the island of Lomze, the bridge to which is a little further, and I didn’t go there anymore, so let’s go counterclockwise. Most of the objects marked on the diagram have survived, except for the Hollenderbaum Gate, the section from the Krausek Bastion to the Tragheim Gate inclusive, and individual bastions along the entire length of the ring. The southern station is located approximately on the site of the Brandenburg Bastion. I applied the green stripes to the diagram (photographed at the Friedland Gate) myself, and they indicate the “boundaries” of my posts:

We will start our hike not from the Friedland Gate, but from the South Station, which has been the main one in Königsberg and Kaliningrad since its founding. As already mentioned in the post, the railway came to Königsberg in 1857, and in 1862 it merged with the railways of Russia. Koenigsberg was an important transport hub, but at the same time it did not have a clearly defined Main Station - only a few small stations, some of which, existing and disappeared, we will still meet. Conventionally, the main one could be considered the complex of the Eastern and Southern stations - the oldest in the city, they were located quite far from the current Southern one.

In general, it was no longer an ordnung, but some kind of mess, so in the 1920s the Königsberg transport hub underwent a comprehensive reconstruction. The South Station in its current form opened in 1929, and its structure is clearly visible on Google Maps:

In front of the station there is a huge (420x160m) and empty Kalinin Square, and a simple but stylish station building in the style of “new materiality” is the most impressive object on it:

On the facade there is the coat of arms not of the Soviet Union, but of the RSFSR separately. I think it's quite a rare case?

5a.

Inside, it seemed to me that the station is a bit cramped, but very civilized:

Its main attraction is a huge (180 by 120 meters) three-span landing stage with the words “Welcome Kaliningrad” on the ends. Similar landing stages were preserved in the former USSR in Moscow (Kyiv and Kazansky railway stations), St. Petersburg (Vitebsky railway station), and in our time, a landing stage has also been acquired. In Germany this was commonplace. And as you can see, such a relatively fragile contraption survived both August 1944 and April 1945:

The station is located not at the middle, but at the northern end of the landing stage. The second entrance is through the tunnel from the other end:

The landing stage is not very high (in Lviv it is noticeably higher, not to mention Moscow-Kievskaya), but it seems immensely wide. Long distance trains Now there are about three pairs going from here (to Moscow every day, to St. Petersburg every other day and to Adler sometimes), and about a dozen suburban ones. And here, perhaps, there is the greatest variety of tracks: not only are there both diesel and electrified ones (to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk), but there is also a Stephenson gauge track (the Kaliningrad-Gdansk-Berlin train used to run).

The station here is purely passenger, freight tracks do not enter it (the huge Kaliningrad-Sortirovochny station is visible on the satellite image):

10.

The northern exit is marked by a very stylish control center:

11.

Yuzhny is a small railway museum that hangs exactly over the platforms of the bus station. The bus station here is typical, small but busy. In general, bus service in the region is organized very competently.

12.

The ensemble is completed by a German viaduct, the “tunnel” under which is painted with surprisingly high-quality graffiti:

13.

The plots are very different. Take a closer look - the gray creature is pulling a train from its belly:

14.

Overall, one of the most impressive train stations I've ever seen... as well as the Northern one. But Königsberg’s transport mosaic is not exhausted by these two stations...
And from the overpass we will first go clockwise - to the Friedland Gate. The railway goes south, and our path is along Kalinin Avenue, along the ramparts, on which and under which, at the end of the 19th century, South Park was laid out, I apologize for the name:

15.

In which there are two ravelins. Closer to the station - Haberberg:

16.

17.

18.

Between them is an obelisk. Under the Nazis, the park bore the name of Horst Wessel, a young activist, author of the NSDAP anthem, who was killed by the Communists back in 1930. Under the Soviets, the park was renamed 40th Anniversary of the Komsomol, and in the place where the monument to Wessel stood, a stele to Komsomol members was erected.

19.

20.

And finally - Friedland Gate, the youngest on the Inner Ring (1857-62). There were gates with a similar name on the first ring, but they were located somewhat closer to the center, and the name in both cases came from the town of Friedland (now Pravdinsk), which was located on that side. At the old Friedland Gate, the Germans held back Napoleon's army for several days, giving the Russians time to retreat beyond the Neman.

21.

You can climb up the gate, but you can’t approach it from the outside yet:

22.

The two sides of the gate are decorated with sculptures of the Teutonic commander Friedrich von Zollern (1412-16) and Grand Master Siegfried von Feuchtwangen (who moved the capital of the Order to Marienburg), recreated in 2005.

23.

The fact is that since the 1990s, the gate has been occupied by a museum founded by enthusiast Alexander Novik, and only in 2002 received official status. For Kaliningrad this was a breakthrough - if the Museum of the World Ocean showed itself to be an effective organization, then this museum is an example to follow. It was the first museum specializing in pre-war Königsberg. In 2007, at the all-Russian competition "Changing Museum in a Changing World" it took second place after the Tretyakov Gallery.

24.

Munchausen on the wall:

24a.

However, I was unlucky - a large (and most interesting) part of the museum is currently under reconstruction, so I was somewhat disappointed. But it’s clear that the museum is done with taste:

25.

Between the railway and Bagration Street, the former district of Haberberg (“Oat Mountain”) stretches along the rampart. It is believed that there was either a pasture here, or planting oats for the Teutonic cavalry, and the suburb of Haberberg took shape at the same time as Rossgarten and Tragheim - in the 17th century: in 1613 a community was formed, which by 1652 had grown to a full-fledged suburb, which in 1724 , like others, became part of the united city. As far as I understand, the 17th century Haberberg shaft did not span, which was corrected when the second shaft was built.

26.

In Haberberg, cemeteries were “evicted” from the overpopulated center, so a small area on the outskirts had as many as three churches. The Trinity Haberberg Church has been known since 1652, Kant was baptized there... and when the church burned down and was rebuilt in 1748-52, according to legend, it was Kant who proposed equipping it with a lightning rod. It stood not far from the current Kalinin Square:

27.

Luther's Church with a 67-meter tower was built in 1907-10, and was located near the barracks shown above. The church had a reinforced concrete dome, an organ and steel bells with a very unusual “heavy” ringing. This is the last church in Königsberg, purposefully demolished under the Soviets in 1976. Perhaps, in general, the last temple destroyed by Soviet power...

28.

Finally, the Catholic Church of the Holy Family (1904-07) is located on the same line with the already mentioned obelisk of the Komsomol. Since 1980, it has housed the Philharmonic and Organ Hall.

29.

Architecturally, this is perhaps the best stylization of “Hansean Gothic” among the surviving Kaliningrad churches:

30.

I walked in this area in the evening of the first day - the train arrived at the South Station at about half past five, and I had an hour and a half. The following shots are no longer Haberberg, but Forstadt, partially shown in. Forshtadt stands out among other areas with its gloomy architecture, shabbyness and constant red color.

31.

31a.

32.

33.

34.

Especially good is this house in Maly Lane - a former telegraph office:

35.

Or rather, its gate in the style of “new materiality” is one of my favorite works of Old Königsberg:

36.

And a whole block of the Kaliningrad Marine Fishery College:

37.

There are some visual aids in the yard:

38.

And the horned one main building- the former St. George's Hospital (1894-97), founded in 1329 as a leper colony, and in subsequent centuries it was destroyed and reborn many times:

39.

I forgot to photograph one iconic building on Leninsky Prospekt (which connects the South and North stations) - the Directorate of Railways in Königsberg, which since 1895 has occupied an apartment building, built, by the way, on the site of the school where Kant studied in the 1730s. Photo from Wikipedia, 2002:

40.

And this is Haberberg again, the end of Lenin Avenue:

41.

We return to the station. Adjacent to it is an extremely (like the entire complex) stylish railway post office (pay attention to the portal):

42.

View through the same gate. The shot was taken in full view of the employees - no one said a word. They probably decided that the German...

43.

The station buildings stretch for another couple of hundred meters:

44.

Opposite is the brick fence of the Altstadt and Kneiphof cemeteries, as already mentioned, those “evicted” here in the 18th century:

45.

There was nothing left of them except the wall:

45a.

Nearby is the Brandenburg Gate (just like in Berlin!) above Bagration Street. Brandenburg (now Ushakovo) is a castle by the bay, on the road to Balga... and then just to that Barndenburg, where Potsdam and Berlin are. This gate is the only one in the Inner Ring that is passable, even with tram tracks.

46.

However, we do not go under the gate, but parallel to it - the road rises to an overpass, parallel to which a railway bridge runs. Below are the tracks of the freight station, somewhere on the right side of it stood the Eastern Station:

47.

Some of the warehouses here are still German, and the high-rise buildings are already beyond Pregolya:

48.

Next is a noisy road and a dull industrial zone. The railway embankment, so similar to a rampart, has another stunningly stylish tower, marked on Wikimapia as the “mechanical centralization point of the South Station”.

49.

And behind it you can see the railway bridge (1915-27)... about which in the next part.

FAR WEST-2013

Koenigsberg was surrounded by seven bastion fronts, i.e. faces of a polygonal fortress belt, including bastions with an earthen rampart connecting them. Lunettes, cavaliers, redoubts and individual reduites built into the rampart and placed outside it were supposed to become auxiliary defensive structures. The system also included ditches fed by water, both branches of the Pregel and other reservoirs. Separate elements of the defensive circuit were the gates.

All city gates of Koenigsberg were locked at night and a guard was posted. Entry into the city from sunset to dawn was prohibited. The only exceptions were doctors and priests.

History of gate construction

On April 5, 1843, the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV ordered the creation of a Second rampart fortification around Koenigsberg. The head of the engineering corps, Lieutenant General Ernest Ludwig von Aster, was assigned to develop the project.

Ludwig von Aster, when developing the project for the Second Rampart fortification of the city of Königsberg, took into account not only the military purpose of the gate, but also the aesthetic one. All city gates were made in one of the directions of English neo-Gothic - Tudor style. Special attention was paid to the sculptures that decorated them.

Construction of the city gate began on August 30, 1843 from the bookmark of the Royal Gate. King Frederick William IV himself took part in this event. Construction was completed with the consecration of the Friedland Gate in 1862.

At the end of the 19th century, the construction of the fort belt “Night feather bed of Koenigsberg” began, which was placed a considerable distance from the city borders.

The second rampart fortification of the city of Koenigsberg lost its military significance.

The decree of August 25, 1910 ordered the exclusion of a number of defensive structures from the fortification system, including the city gates of Koenigsberg.

During World War II, many city gates of Königsberg (Kaliningrad), were partially damaged.

In the post-war years, they were not even considered as an architectural monument and vegetated in abandonment and oblivion. Some were given over to vegetable warehouses, others to workshops. This continued until 1960, when, by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, they were declared under state protection.

But the main revival of Königsberg's city gates took place in 2004. Then, for the 750th anniversary of Kaliningrad, the Royal ones were restored.

Now these are seven attractions of the city. Some gates house museum exhibitions, while others house cozy cafes.

Royal

Royal Gate (German: Königstor) located at the intersection of Frunze Street and Litovsky Val. Originally, the Kalthof Gate was located on this site.

In 1717 they were demolished, and during the entry of Königsberg into Russia, they were rebuilt on this site by Russian engineers.

These gates were originally called Gumbinnensky, since it was to Gumbinnen (Gusev) that the road leading through them led. In 1811, the gate was renamed the Royal Gate, after the name of the street on which it was located (German: Königstrasse).

At the end of the first half of the 19th century, the modernization of city fortifications began in Königsberg. Then the old gates were demolished, and new ones were built in their place, which have survived to this day.

Solemn laying of the new Royal Gate took place on August 30, 1843 in the presence of King Frederick William 4, and construction was completed in 1850.

Koenigsberg built in pseudo-Gothic style and externally resemble a small castle. The author of the gate project was General Ernst Ludwig von Aster, the architect Friedrich August Stüler was responsible for the artistic design of the facades, and the bas-reliefs were created by the sculptor Wilhelm Ludwig Stürmer.

Royal Gate consist of one passage 4.5 meters wide, on either side of which there are casemates. On the city side, the casemates had windows and doors, and on the outside there were embrasures.

The edges of the roof are framed with battlements. There are four octagonal turrets at the corners of the building (in old drawings the turrets are round), and another four octagonal turrets are located on the high central part of the Royal Gate.

The façade on the city side is decorated with bas-reliefs of King Ottokar 2 of the Czech Republic (left), King Frederick 1 of Prussia (middle) and Duke of Prussia Albrecht 1 (right). Below the figures are their family coats of arms. Above the niches are the coats of arms of the Prussian lands - Samland and Natangia.

At the end of the 19th century, the ramparts lost their defensive functions, and at the beginning of the 20th century Royal Gate were sold by the War Ministry to the city government.

Later, in the 20th century, the ramparts flanking the gates were demolished as they interfered with increased traffic. Thus, they became a free-standing, island structure. Now they serve as a kind of triumphal arch.

During the Great Patriotic War, during the bombing of the city, the gate received minor damage.

After the war, the Royal Gate was used as bookstore No. 6, which closed in the 1990s. Afterwards they were used as a storage room.

In 2004, restoration work began, during which the Royal Gate building was completely restored, and the bas-reliefs of Frederick 1, Duke Albrecht 1 and Ottokar 2 were returned to their lost heads.

In 2005, the Royal Gates became a symbol of the celebration of the 750th anniversary of Kaliningrad.

On November 10, 2005, a message to descendants was embedded in the wall of the Royal Gate - a glass case with the book “The City of My Dreams”. One of the entries in the book was made by Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 2.

Since 2005, the Royal Gate has been a branch of the Museum of the World Ocean. There is an exhibition dedicated to the visit of Peter the Great to Königsberg.


From the city side	main facade

bas-reliefs	From the outside s

Rossgarten

Rossgarten Gate (German: Rossgärter Tor) located at the intersection of Chernyakhovsky (Wrangels) and Alexander Nevsky (Cranzer Allee) streets, next to Vasilevsky Square and the Amber Museum.

The first gate that was located on this site was built at the beginning of the 17th century during the construction of the first rampart fortification of Königsberg.

In 1852-1855, according to the project of the director of fortress construction Irfugelbrecht and engineer-lieutenant von Heil, new, more modern ones were built on the site of the first city gate.

The design of the gate facade was developed by the secret supreme building councilor August Stüler, head of the Technical Construction Deputation in Berlin. Stüler himself worked out the design of the façade, giving it distinct Gothic forms. The author of the sculptural decorations is Wilhelm Ludwig Stürmer.

Rossgarten Gate have only one passage four meters wide. There are three casemates on both sides of the passage. Thus façade of the Rossgarten Gate consists of seven openings. On the city side, the casemates have windows; on the outer side of the city, there are embrasures. Above the facade of the gate there is a row of battlements, divided into two halves by a raised central part.

On the sides the central part is framed by two high octagonal turrets. Above the entrance there is an observation platform fenced with battlements. To the right and left of the entrance there are arcades consisting of arches supported by columns. On the sides of the main arch there are two medallions-portraits depicting the Prussian generals Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

From the outside, the passage is covered by a blockhouse, from which all-round rifle and artillery fire could be conducted, and a guardhouse, from the embrasures of which frontal and flank fire could be conducted. The guardhouse had swing gates. In front of the guardhouse there is a ditch with a drawbridge across it.

After the war Rossgarten Gate were restored and began to be used as a cafe-restaurant "Sunny Stone".


From the outside	From the city side


Rossgarten Gate	medallion-portrait of Scharnhorst	medallion-portrait of Gneisenau

Sackheimskie

Sackheim Gate (German: Sackheim tor) located at the intersection of Moskovsky Avenue and Litovsky Val Street. The first gate that was located on this site was built at the beginning of the 17th century during the construction of the first rampart fortification of Königsberg.

Construction Sackheim Gate, which has survived to this day was built in the mid-19th century.

They have one passage in the form of an arch, which served as a checkpoint at the entrance to the city.

The gate building was built in the neo-Gothic style from red bricks of varying degrees of firing. The walls and decorative details are made from it. At the corners of the gate there are four towers: two round on the city side and two octagonal on the outside. On the city side they were decorated with bas-reliefs of Johann David Ludwig York and Friedrich Wilhelm Bülow, on the outside - with an image of a black eagle.

At the end of the 19th century, the ramparts lost their defensive functions, and at the beginning of the 20th century Sackheim Gate were sold by the War Ministry to the city government, and they were left as an architectural monument in the form of a triumphal arch. Some of the casemates were demolished and residential buildings were added to the gates. Transport stopped passing through them, which was allowed near the gate, thereby tearing down a significant part of the defensive rampart.

The gate was not damaged during the Second World War. After the war, they began to be used as a warehouse, which is the function they performed until 2006.

In 2006, restoration of the gate began. The Sackheim Gate was to house the federal government institution “Center for Standardization and Metrology,” its laboratories and a small museum where scales and other ancient measuring instruments could be seen.

At the moment (April 2011), no work is being done, and we can only dream about a museum.


From the city side	From the outside

From the city side	From the outside

Friedlandic

On the outskirts of the city, not far from the cattle yard, at the exit from Austrian Street (Kalinina Avenue), and its intersection with Schönfliesserallee (Dzerzhinsky Street), a rampart with a gate was built to cover the city from the south, along the road that led into the city Friedland (Pravdinsk).

First mention of Friedland Gate (German: Friedländer Tor) dates back to 1657, it was in this year that Prussia freed itself from vassal dependence on the part of Poland.

The defensive structures were well equipped with artillery, but these fortifications were seriously tested only during the Napoleonic wars. The French attempt to immediately take Konigsberg failed, but this fact is an exception, since the first rampart ring showed its inconsistency when the enemy attacked.

And already in 1857-1862, construction began on a new second defensive ring around the city. The old ones were dismantled and new ones were built in their place in 1862, and they were the most fortified in the system of the second shaft ring. The Friedland Gate was built under the leadership of the architect F. A. Stüler (1800-1865).

The Friedland Gate is made in the neo-Gothic style from red bricks of varying degrees of firing. The walls and decorative details are made from it. The gates had a large number of casemates with windows and embrasures. They had a scarp wall (the inner wall of the fortress rampart) with a patrol path behind it. This wall runs along the park and has survived to this day.

The gate casemates had not only rifle embrasures, but also cannon ones. The gates had two passages with pointed portals, and the portals had platbands repeating their shapes. The front part of the gate from the city side is divided vertically by five buttresses, ending at the level of the decorative crenellated parapet with pointed gable turrets - pinnacles with phials. There are only three such towers on the outside of the gate.

To create chiaroscuro and greater architectural expressiveness, the turrets and battlements of the parapet are decorated with decorative niches with multi-lobed and two-centered arches. Under the crenellated parapet stands out an ornament of repeating crosses, called bezant in ancient architecture.

On the city side, the gate was decorated with the figure of Friedrich von Zollern, who at the beginning of the 15th century was the commander of the Balga fortress. On the outside of the gate is an image of the fifteenth Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Siegfried von Feuchtwangen.

The author of the sculptures is Wilhelm Ludwig Stürmer (1812-1864). The date of creation of the sculptures, discovered during restoration, is 1864.
Currently, the sculptures have been restored (the sculpture of Feuchtwangen - in 2005, the sculpture of Zollern - in 2008).

At the beginning of the 20th century, Friedland Gate they wanted to demolish it, but the gate, along with the entire second rampart, was sold by the War Ministry in 1910 to the city administration, and it was left as an architectural monument.

After the First World War, the Friedland Gate was closed to transport and became the entrance gate to the park, which was created on the site of the defensive structures of the southern front. And the road to Friedland (present-day Dzerzhinsky Street) began to pass on the side of the gate, and part of the defensive rampart was demolished.

During the Second World War, Friedland Gate had to become a military facility. At the top there are still traces of trenches and artillery pits. During the storming of the city in 1945, the gate was practically not damaged. What cannot be said about the Soviet period. In the post-war period, the gate was empty for a long time, then it housed a warehouse. The unique ceramic bricks were repeatedly whitewashed and painted, trees grew on the roof of the gate and eventually the gate was destroyed.

In 1988 Friedland Gate were transferred to the park named after the 40th anniversary of the Komsomol (now Yuzhny Park). With donations from individuals and public organizations, the Friedland Gate was restored and a museum of East Prussia was opened there.

When cleaning the park's ponds, various objects were found, which made up the first exhibition of the museum. There is a collection of weapons from the 19th and 20th centuries, a collection of wine and beer bottles, blacksmith and carpenter's tools, bricks with animal paw prints and craftsmen's marks.

Friedland Gate Museum founded by Alexander Georgievich Novik. Initially, the museum was actually private and had no official status. Only in 2002 the museum was officially created by order of the director South Park.
Now the Friedland Gate Museum is the only municipal museum in Kaliningrad whose exhibition is dedicated to the history of pre-war Koenigsberg.

Permanent exhibitions of the museum:

“A fortified city, a garden city. A virtual walk through the streets of old Königsberg: an opportunity to see what the city was like in the 1895-1910s, look into shop windows.
“Konigsberg in the first half of the 20th century”: the life of townspeople in the first half of the 20th century, familiar things in an unusual form, famous trademarks.

“Civilization begins with sewerage”: the history of water supply and sewerage from ancient times to the present.


From the city side	From the outside


sculpture by Friedrich von Zollern	sculpture of Siegfried von Feuchtwangen


museum

Brandenburg (Berlin)

Brandenburg (Berlin) Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor) located at the intersection of Bagration Street (Alter Garten) and Yuzhny Lane.
The first city gates on this site were built in 1657. They were intended to protect the city in the southwestern section, and the road leading to Brandenburg Castle (now the village of Ushakovo).

Due to meager funding, a wooden gate was built with a roof that rested on an earthen rampart. To be safe, a ditch was dug in front of them and filled with water.

18th century, by order of the Prussian king Frederick 2, Brandenburg Gate were demolished, and in their place, to cover the city from the south (now Suvorov Street), a massive brick building was built.

They had two spacious passages, guard garrison premises, service, utility and storage rooms.

In 1843, restoration work was carried out and the gate building was almost completely rebuilt.

The pediments became gabled, with cross-shaped sandstone flowers and stylized leaves.

Installed on the gate sculptural portraits Field Marshal Boyen (1771-1848), Minister of War, participant in reforms in the Prussian army, and Lieutenant General Ernst von Aster (1778-1855), chief of the engineering corps, one of the authors of the Second Rampart fortification.

Brandenburg Gate- the only Königsberg city gate that has survived to this day, serving its former purpose transport function. The building of the Brandenburg Gate has been restored and is protected by the state as an architectural monument.


From the outside	From the city side

Ausfalskie

Ausfal (Pass) gate (German: Ausfalstor), located at the intersection of Gvardeisky Avenue (Deutschordenring) and Gornaya Street.

The first gate on the site of the current one was built in the twenties of the 17th century during the construction of the first rampart fortification of Koenigsberg.

In 1866 Ausfal Gate were completely rebuilt in brick Gothic style. Due to the fact that they were intended only for pedestrians, and were less significant in relation to the rest of the city gates, the architectural design of the gates was an order of magnitude poorer than the rest of the city gates of Königsberg.

Designed new Ausfal Gate architect Ludwig von Aster.

The Ausfal Gate has only one passage, to which a staircase and a narrow bridge led from the outside of the city. On the sides of the passage there are casemates with embrasures for frontal and flanking fire. The passage is blocked in an arc with a beam arch, which is decorated with a casing with teeth. The side outer walls of the gate facing the moat are lined with granite slabs.

Nothing is known about the appearance of the facade of the gate from the city side, since the facade of the gate is covered with earth, and no photographs or drawings of it have survived. Above the passage there is a combat platform with a crenellated parapet. From the very beginning, the gate crashed into the shaft and was actually below ground level.

At the end of the 19th century, the rampart fortifications of the city lost their defensive functions, and at the beginning of the 20th century, the Ausfal Gate was sold by the War Ministry to the city government, and the only gateway was blocked.

During the Second World War Ausfal Gate were converted into a command post for military units. The vast interior of the gate was divided into separate compartments by concrete walls. The passages between the compartments were closed with hermetically sealed security doors.

After the war in Ausfal Gate were used as a warehouse, later as a bomb shelter for a nearby police school, and even later they were used as a sewage collector.
In 1993, on the upper covering of the gate, which is located level with the level of the roadway of Gvardeisky Prospekt, the Orthodox chapel of St. George was built, dedicated to the Soviet soldiers who died during the storming of Koenigsberg.

Spring 2007 Ausfal and Railway Gates were transferred to the Kaliningrad Historical and Art Museum. It is planned to restore the gates and place museum exhibitions in their premises. Together with the monument to 1200 guardsmen and Victory Park, the gate should become part of the military-historical complex.


Ausfalskie	sewage collector

Orthodox Chapel of St. George

Steindamm

Steindammer Gate (Steindammer thor), they were located in the area of the current Victory Square. They were demolished in 1912, after the defensive structures of the second circuit became outdated, lost their defensive significance and were sold to the city by the military department.

They had two wide passages for vehicles and two passages for pedestrians. There were three barracks on the right and left.

Like most city gates in Königsberg, the building Steindamm Gate was built in the Gothic style.

The platbands of the arched gates had an arrow-shaped shape. The edges of the roof were crowned with teeth. Turrets rose along the edges of the pedestrian portals. In the center of the gate, in a niche, there was a statue of King Friedrich Wilheim 4.

Hollanderbaumskie

Hollanderbaum Gate (Hollanderbaum thor) were located at the intersection of General Butkov Street (Ausfalltorstr) and Marshal Bagramyan Embankment (Hollanderbaumstr), next to the double-tier bridge over the Pregolya River.

The gate was named after the area in which it was located (Hollenderbaum, "Dutch tree"). The gate was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century, after the defensive structures of the second circuit became outdated, lost their defensive significance and were sold to the city by the military department.

Tragheim

Tragheim Gate were located in the area of Gorky Street (Waldburgstr). They were demolished in 1910, after the defensive structures of the second circuit became outdated, lost their defensive significance and were sold to the city by the military department.

Railway

Railway gate (German: Eisenbahnhof Tor) were built in 1866-1869 according to the design of the architect Ludwig von Aster.

The railway gates had two spans (northern and southern), decorated with pointed arches. On the sides of the railway spans there are casemates with embrasures, and on the outside there is a guard room.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Deutschordenring street (German: Deutschordenring, now Gvardeysky Avenue) was laid over the gate.

After World War II, traffic on the line passing through the gate ceased due to the construction of a new one. The old tracks were finally dismantled only in the 1990s, and now a pedestrian path to Victory Park has been laid in their place.


Railway

It was a huge project. Unfortunately, not everything has survived to this day.

Leaving the Railway Gate behind, I went out onto the street. General Butkov (formerly Ausfalltor Straße), and then to Gvardeysky Prospekt (formerly Deutschordenring). My further path lay in the direction of the road and railway bridge over the Pregolya River.

A couple of hundred meters later, a huge bulk of a two-tier bridge appeared in front of me, and a little to the right I could see the building of the former Holländerbaum station, which has survived to this day. Now the Kaliningrad regional customs office is located in this building.

But before stepping on the bridge, I decided to go to the edge of the embankment to admire the view of the Pregolya River, still frozen in ice and dusted with snow shining in the sun.

The weather was fairly clear and the opposite shore was clearly visible. There, proudly rising above the low warehouse buildings, could be seen the powerful towers of the Friedrichsburg Gate. It is these gates that are the next stopping point on our journey.

After taking a few shots of the gate visible on the opposite bank, I headed towards the thundering double-decker bridge (formerly Reichsbahnbrucke). The original bridge was blown up by the retreating Germans in 1945, but already in 1959-60. the bridge was completely restored and rebuilt. The unique mechanism, which unfolds a 1000-ton colossus in just 2.5 minutes, was irretrievably destroyed, so the modern bridge acquired a new, vertical, adjustable mechanism that still works properly to this day.

It is worth noting that here, not far from the bridge, at the intersection of the street. General Butkov (formerly Ausfalltor Straße) and Marshal Bagramyan embankment (formerly Holländerbaum Straße), there was previously another gate - the Hollenderbaum Gate, which was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century.

After crossing the bridge, turn left onto the street. Portovaya (formerly Friedrichsburger Straße), where, among numerous warehouses and auto centers, we are located, Friedrichsburg Gate(German) Friedrichsburg Tor). Looking ahead, I will say that these gates are not related to the city gates of Koenigsberg, since they did not lead to the city, but to a small fort, but, nevertheless, they are beautiful and interesting in their own way.

Long ago, in 1657, on the left bank of the Pregel, to protect Königsberg from the sea, as well as control the waterway to the Pillau fortress, by order of the Elector of Brandenburg Friedrich Wilhelm, the Friedrichsburg fortress was founded, and the gate of the same name, built a little later, served passage function through the protective rampart of the fortress.

The fortress project was developed by the Prussian engineer and mathematician Christian Otter (1598-1660). He invented the Dutch system of building fortresses, which he successfully applied in the construction of the Friedrichsburg fortress, surrounding it with a wide moat filled with water. The construction of the fortress was led by Georg Neumann. The first commandant of the Friedrichsburg fortress was the Dutch engineer-Colonel Gerhard von Belgulm.

The shape of the small fortress resembled a regular square, protected on four sides by earthen bastions. Inside the fortress there were barracks, a prison, food and weapons warehouses, a customs service and a small church. In 1858, the modernized fortress, which received the status of a fort, became part of the Second Rampart fortification. At the same time, according to the design of Friedrich August Stüler, the brick Friedrichsburg Gate was added to the fort from the city side.

The gate, striking in its heaviness, was built from burnt clinker bricks in the Tudor style, an English neo-Gothic style. The vaults of the through passage are made in the traditional barrelhouse style, and the casemates located on the sides of the gate are made in the cross style.

If we look closely at the gate, we will see that the walls, as well as the complex architectural decorations above the entrance arch, are made of bricks of various colors and shapes, which indicates the high skill of the builders of the 19th century. On the front facade of the gate, the black Gothic inscription “Friedrichsburg” and a high relief of the Prussian eagle have been preserved to this day.

To the left and right of the arched passage are massive round towers decorated with decorative battlements. The names of the towers are unusual and interesting: “Ruby”, “Pearl”, “Almaz” and “Smaragd (Emerald)”. Each tower has six round and four lancet windows - loopholes.

On August 23, 1910, the fort ceased to be a military facility and was transferred to the management of the Imperial Railway, and 10 years later the bastions were completely dismantled and the ditches were filled in to make way for the railway tracks of the goods station and not to interfere with the construction of the railway bridge.

After the Great Patriotic War, the gates were badly damaged and were under threat of demolition, but in 1960 they still received the status of an Architectural Monument, but this did not save them from further destruction and neglect.

And now, quite recently, a bright period has finally arrived in the post-war history of the gate. The Museum of the World Ocean took the collapsing gate under its wing. Under the Federal Target Program “Culture”, more than 20 million rubles were allocated for restoration and giving the gates its original architectural image. The difficulty lies in the fact that to restore the gate, a special brick is required, purchased in Latvia, and the necessary shaped elements are cut out of it on site.

The director of the Azimut-Stroy LLC company, which carries out the restoration of the gate, Alexander Feshchenko, says that, in comparison with the Royal Gate, things here are much more complicated, since numerous elements require 46 types of different bricks.

Upon completion of all work, the gate will welcome long-awaited guests in the status of a branch of the Museum of the World Ocean. It is planned that the museum areas will be dedicated to the history of shipbuilding, a center for the restoration of underwater archaeological finds will be opened, the area in front of the gate will be decorated with a beautiful fountain, and there are also plans to open a mini-cafe.

In conclusion of the story about the Friedrichsburg Gate, I want to note another interesting historical fact. In 1697, Peter I visited the Friedrichsburg fortress in order to learn artillery skills.

Brandenburg Colonel von Sternfeld, who acted as a teacher, highly praised his student. Upon returning to Moscow, Peter I received a certificate that stated: “ Pyotr Mikhailov is recognized and revered as an accomplished bomb thrower, a careful and skillful firearms artist»

Having looked at the snow-covered gates for the last time, between the towers of which rays of the winter sun were visible, I headed further along the street. Portovaya and soon turned onto the street. Serpukhovskaya (formerly Knochen Straße), which in turn led me to the street. Bagration (formerly Alter Garten Straße).

The next gate on our route is located on this street - Brandenburg(German) Brandenburg Tor) is the only one of the seven surviving city gates of Königsberg, which still perform their transport function to this day.

The name of the gate comes from the order's Brandenburg Castle on the Frisching River, the ruins of which are still preserved in the modern village. Ushakovo, Bagrationovsky district. It was through these gates that the cobblestone road from Königsberg went towards Brandenburg Castle.

The date of construction is 1860. The author of the design of the facade of the Brandenburg Gate, as well as the Friedrichsburg Gate, is the talented military engineer Friedrich August Stüler. The gate became part of the Second Rampart fortification and served to allow pedestrians and vehicles through the earthen rampart at the Brandenburg Bastion.

This gate, made in the neo-Gothic style, is architecturally a little lighter in comparison with other city gates. On both sides of the two symmetrical arched openings for passage, there are small casemates with embrasures. Previously, these premises served for security and customs service, but now they house the famous Frames and Frames store in the city.

The walls of the casemates are made of clinker bricks; the base is lined with granite slabs using the quadra technique, and the facades are decorated with carved stone and small plastic.

Above the two arched arches, the gate is decorated with very beautiful “vimpergi” - Roman pediments with faceted turrets - “phials”.

The pediments along the edges are decorated with stylized sandstone flowers - “crabs”, and the finials - “crucifers”. The half-turrets are interconnected by crenellated parapets.

The “tympanums” (fields of pediments) are decorated on the city side with high reliefs, on the other side - with coats of arms. The author of sculpture is Wilhelm Ludwig Stürmer.

The high reliefs of the gate depict portraits of military generals, allies of Russia in the fight against Napoleonic France: military engineer Hermann von Boyen (left) and Lieutenant General Ernst Ludwig von Aster (right).

Hermann von Boyen was born in the city of Kreuzburg (the modern village of Enino, Bagrationovsky district) and is known for taking an active part in the wars with Napoleon, fighting in the battles of Leipzig, Lyon and Paris. With his participation, a system of military conscription was introduced in Prussia. On the site of his family estate there is still a forgotten and dilapidated monument to this outstanding man...

The second high relief belongs to Ernst Ludwig von Aster, also an active participant in the battles with Napoleonic France. However, his work on the fortification project for the Second Rampart fortification brought him the greatest fame.

During World War II, the Brandenburg Gate suffered relatively little damage. In the post-war period, they were used as a warehouse and were in general disrepair. And only in 1960, by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, the Brandenburg Gate was declared a monument of urban planning and architecture of republican significance...

The bright but still cold February sun illuminated the ancient walls of the gate - silent witnesses rich history Koenigsberg. The skyward gables looked beautiful against the blue sky, probably the same as a century and a half ago, catching the eye of a casual passerby.

I wanted to look endlessly at the gates and the line of cars passing through them, but my path lay further - towards the South Station, where, a hundred meters from the gates, on a section of the ancient wall, there are memorial high reliefs informing us that here in the 19th century they were buried Professor - Rector of the Albertina University of Königsberg.

This is the philosopher Christian Jacob Kraus (1753-1807) (German: Christian Jacob Kraus), anatomist and physiologist Karl Friedrich Burdach (1776-1847) (German: Karl Friedrich Burdach), after whom the nerve bundle in the posterior columns of the spinal cord, which provides the sense of touch, is named and deep sensitivity of the lower extremities and lower parts of the body and philologist Ludvikas Reza (1776-1840) (German: Liudvikas Gediminas Rėza).

By the way, on the high relief of the famous Lithuanian poet there was an unforgivable mistake in the name (LudviGas instead of LudviKas), but let it be on the conscience of the author of this memorial sign. I’ll also add that in Kaliningrad in 2000, in the park of the Lithuanian sister cities at the intersection of the street. Chestnut Alley and Victory Ave., the monument to Ludvikas Reza by sculptor A. Sakalauskas was solemnly opened.

Meanwhile, I, passing beautiful building South Station, went out onto Kalinin Avenue and headed to the next gate on our route - Friedland. Also in the third part I will introduce you to another city gate of Königsberg - the Sackheim Gate.

To be continued...

"My unforgettable father's city,
formed in history for centuries,
I miss you day and night
and I know by heart every stone..."

(Horst Glas "Königsberg")

The ancient gates of Königsberg... Like doors to the past, they invite us to travel back several centuries to good old Königsberg - the capital of East Prussia.

Alas, not every modern Kaliningrader will find something interesting and exciting today in the silent fragments of the once majestic city. People immersed in the bustle of their thoughts and rhythm modern city, habitually rush past ancient gate without paying any attention to them. And only nostalgic groups of German tourists tirelessly click their camera shutters to capture in photographs the history of Königsberg, which continues to this day...

Back in 2011, I planned to release a series of posts on all the surviving gates of our city, but I never realized this idea. Well, maybe the time has come now? The gates of Königsberg have always been something special for me. As part of my work, I often visit the area of the Royal and Rossgarten Gates. And every time they catch my eye again and again, and my imagination paints a picture of past centuries...

Here is a mustachioed guard, hiding from the hot July sun in the shadow of the gate, checking the documents of a merchant hurrying to the city. Nimble boys run through the gate like lightning, rushing to plunge into the cool waters of a nearby pond, and an elegant lady under a snow-white umbrella is animatedly talking about something with a cheerful soldier... Peace and tranquility reigns everywhere, the warm sun is shining, birds are singing in the green trees, and the air is filled aroma from a nearby bakery...

I want to start my story about the gates of Königsberg with a general narrative about when and why the city gates began to be built, and then I will introduce you to the first gates on our route - the Ausfal and Railway gates.

It is logical that any gate should lead somewhere. For example, the very first gates of Königsberg were erected in the 13th century at the same time as the Royal Castle and led to its courtyard. A century later, when the city grew and was surrounded by a wall, the gates became an integral part of the fortress.

A more serious rampart fortification was erected in 1626 - 1634 and surrounded Königsberg on all sides. The fortification consisted of several bastions and half-bastions, as well as 9 gates. In addition, on the sea side, in 1657, the powerful fort of Friedrichsburg was founded.

And already two centuries later, King Frederick William IV issues a decree on the beginning of the construction of the Second Rampart fortification, which generally follows the contours of the previous one. The powerful Don and Wrangel towers, the defensive barracks Kronprinz and the Astronomical Bastion are being built, and new fortified gates are being erected on the site of the previous ones. The construction of the Royal Gate was the first to begin in 1843, and construction was completed with the construction of the Friedland Gate in 1862.

However, already at the beginning of the 20th century, the Second Rampart fortification lost its military significance and was partially demolished, freeing up new areas for urban construction in the rapidly developing Königsberg. So the beautiful Steindamm and Tragheim gates disappeared from the face of the earth, and in their place the Hansa Platz square, now known as Victory Square, was built. Time has not been kind to the Hollanderbaum Gate...

02. The unpreserved Steindamm Gate of Königsberg.

But the remaining seven gates of the Second Rampart have survived to this day, and it is about them that my story will be written.

Our route begins from Victory Square - the heart of modern Kaliningrad, where perhaps the most beautiful gates of the city were once located - Steindamm. We will return to these gates, but for now we will head along Gvardeysky Avenue, starting from Victory Square, to Victory Park and memorial complex"1200 guardsmen."

It is here, across the road from the Astronomical Bastion and a hundred meters from the obelisk, that the most inconspicuous city gates are located - Ausfalskie. Now on their roof there is a small Orthodox chapel of St. St. George the Victorious, built in 1995, but the gate itself can be seen by going down to the small lake in the park, formed from a former moat.

03. Chapel of St. St. George the Victorious on... the roof of the gate.

Why are the gates below level? earth's surface and where do they lead? To do this, let’s get acquainted with the history of the construction of these gates.

Ausfal Gate(German) Ausfalltor), translated as “Exit Gate,” were designed back in the 17th century and were part of the First Rampart fortification of Königsberg. The author of the project is an unknown military engineer.

These gates were exclusively pedestrian and served as a passage through the earthen rampart. On the field side of the gate there was a small bridge across the fortress moat. The bridge itself is long gone... only the preserved shore supports made of brick and granite still remind us of the past. And if you look closely at the tree-covered slope, you can still see (especially in winter), a road that has not yet been destroyed by time, leading to the bridge over the moat.

The Ausfal Gate is not distinguished by its bright, pompous architecture and is more reminiscent of a powerful firing point, the casemates of which bristled with numerous embrasures for direct and side fire at the enemy. The high walls of the casemates are half lined with granite slabs, protecting the brickwork from water and snow. And the only decoration of the gate was five brick battlements above the arched passage.

At the beginning of the 20th century, during the modernization of the rampart fortification, the Ausfal Gate was below ground level and was turned into a pedestrian tunnel, and a little later the city part of the gate was completely covered with earth.

During the Great Patriotic War, the gate was converted into a command post-dugout with hermetically sealed concrete premises. During the fighting, the Ausfal Gate was practically not damaged, and already in the post-war period a warehouse and bomb shelter for the Kaliningrad Police School (the modern Kaliningrad Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation), located next door, were built in it.

At the moment, it is not possible to get inside the gate, but in 2007 the Ausfal Gate was transferred to the Kaliningrad Historical and Art Museum, which inspires some hope that this gate will someday be restored and become available for careful inspection by tourists. Although, 10 years have already passed, and things are still there...

11. Once upon a time there was a bridge leading to the gate.

The second gate that we will meet is located next to the Ausfalskie. They are called - Railway(German) Eisenbahnhof Tor). The old railway to Pillau (Baltiysk) passed through this gate, also designed in the second half of the 19th century by Ludwig von Aster.

Architecturally, the gate has two separate arched bays with barrel vaults. And if from the outside everything was quite modest, then from the city side the arches were made in the form of beautiful pointed portals.

On the sides of the gate there are classic casemates, and on the field side the gate is equipped with a guard room - a guardhouse and two gates, similar to the claws of a giant crab.

Once upon a time, gate leaves were installed on them, by closing them it was possible to turn this section of the gate into a small courtyard. It is worth noting that this is the only gate with such an architectural solution.

Besides this there was another one at the gate interesting feature... Rectangular recesses were made in the walls of the arches (from floor to ceiling) - fines. In them, like “blinds,” rectangular beams or sleepers were laid horizontally, making it possible to completely close the passage through the gate.

15. Recesses are visible - fines. Archival photo of the author, 2011.

Moreover, it was impossible for the enemy to dismantle such a barrier, unless, of course, they fired at him from a cannon at direct fire. Therefore, the effectiveness of this fortification barrier in the 19th century was very doubtful...

When the gate lost its defensive purpose, a highway, which turned the gate into a real bridge across the railway tracks, which were dismantled only in the early 90s of the 20th century.

Currently, the gate partially fulfills its function. Cars sometimes pass through them, but mostly the gates are used by residents of nearby houses, since a pedestrian path to Victory Park passes through them - perfect place For cultural recreation. Like the Ausfal Gate, in 2007 the Railway Gate was transferred to the Kaliningrad Historical and Art Museum.

And recently, a digital Planetarium of the Center for the Popularization of Sciences named after F.V. was opened in the Railway Gate. Bessel. In the future, in one of the arches of the monument building, the tenants intend to open a gallery in which works by astrophotographers, photographers, as well as children's creative works will be exhibited. And on December 14, 15, 21 and 22, the Scientific Film Festival will be held at the gates, within the framework of which full-length films will be shown to the audience documentaries about science from around the world, created over the past five years.

Among the funny oddities associated with this gate, I would like to note a sign from the “don’t believe your eyes” series, explaining to us that this is not a gate at all, but a church of the 19th century... The sign hung on the wall of the gate for a long time and only after a recent restoration it was removed and replaced to the modern correct one.

This concludes the first part of my story about the Königsberg Gate, and in the second part we will get acquainted with the Friedrichsburg and Brandenburg Gates.