ABSTRACT
The decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR of July 4, 1946 has formed the new Kaliningrad region as part of the RSFSR, which bears the name of the great son of the Russian people, the outstanding statesman Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin. One of the immediate upheavals faced by the Soviets after the occupation of Königsberg in the summer of 1945 was how to approach the region’s German heritage. Whilst the German-built environment – scattered across the region amongst the rubble and ruins left by war – was envisaged to be paved over and rebuilt as a model socialist city, the continued existence of German towns and street names presented a different type of challenge. A local focus too informed the preparatory work of the RSFSR Council of Ministers, which was keen to use the renaming process in Kaliningrad to establish historical ties between the USSR and the former lands of East Prussia.
