ABSTRACT
Kaliningrad’s geography on the southern shore of the Baltic invites comparisons with the post-Soviet Baltic states further along the Baltic littoral. Indeed, the Baltic states’ successful integration into the West has also relied significantly on the redefinition of their respective ‘place identities’, but in very different ways to Kaliningrad’s evolution. Both the appropriation of cultural figures and the use of anniversary events to appease contradicting historical narratives have also been used in Kaliningrad. Yet, whilst in the Baltics, this has enabled the littoral states’ largely successful integration into the West; in Kaliningrad, the adoption of such practices has produced markedly differing results. The link between Kaliningrad and Russia proper was made more emphatic through the erection of the Orthodox Church of Christ the Saviour in Kaliningrad’s Victory Square. Also the site of the statue to Lenin, the two symbols stood side by side during the former’s construction.
