A crossroads of culture

The Rybnaya Derevnya, or Fishing Village, in Kaliningrad attracts tourists with its reconstructed Germanic-style buildings and decent restaurants. Such an unusual mixture of European and Russian culture and architecture, visible through numerous attractions, exists due to the city's history which includes the heritage of Prussia, Poland, the German Empire, the Soviet Union and modern Russia. Before that, even, for many centuries it was the German province of East Prussia, colonized in the 12th century by Teutonic Knights; they built the city they named Konigsberg, after Bohemian King Ottokar II who By 1283, the conquest of the Prussian lands had reached its final stage. The Teutonic Order built castles to establish power and control over the surrounding lands, and Konigsberg became home to one of these defensive fortifications, surviving three sieges by the Prussian army in 1260, 1263 and 1273 and never being captured. When World War II ended, Konigsberg and the northern part of East Prussia were transferred to the Soviet Union in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement.