Monday 26th September – Kaliningrad

• Arrival at your own leisure in Kaliningrad
• We’ll then head out for our first dinner in Russia’s exclave in the middle of Europe
• Isolated from Russia and surrounded by Lithuania and Poland, Kaliningrad inherited a distinct Teutonic culinary tradition that has always been different from that of the rest of Russia. You’ll have the chance to try some delicious local Zeppelins: giant balls of mashed potato stuffed with various fillings and drenched in cheese sauce or Zurek: a soup with eggs, sausage slices and spices, served in a bowl made of bread.
• Overnight in Kaliningrad

Tuesday 27th September – Kaliningrad

• Isolated from Russia and surrounded by Lithuania and Poland, Kaliningrad inherited a distinct Teutonic culinary tradition that has always been different from that of the rest of Russia. You’ll have the chance to try some delicious local Zeppelins: giant balls of mashed potato stuffed with various fillings and drenched in cheese sauce or Zurek: a soup with eggs, sausage slices and spices, served in a bowl made of bread.
• After a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we will meet our English speaking local guide and tour the city.
• Our first stop will be the Nazi command bunker museum, technically called the Blindage Museum, it tells the harrowing history of the last days of the Second World War. These are the last days of Königsberg and inside you can see how the city fell to Soviet Forces on the rampage of vengeance towards Berlin. Built by slave labour, the bunker’s gate that is made of thick steel wire and is covered in runic symbols. Supposedly meant to give supernatural defense to the German forces inside it.
• We will then visit fort 5, part of a series of Prussian forts that were a significant part of the unrelenting Soviet assault. Now museums and still littered with war damage, artillery pieces and Soviet monuments dedicated to WW2.
• After lunch, we will then have the rare chance to roam around significant piece of Cold War history. An excellently maintained Foxtrot-class Soviet nuclear submarine.
• See an original Nazi Kreigsmarine ship. Vityaz is a research vessel that was built in 1939 and served with the Kriegsmarine during World War II until she was seized by the British in 1945.
• We’ll check out the House of Soviets and see why the locals often refer to as the “buried robot”.
• See Victory Square with its hulking Soviet monument and The Brandenburg Gate which is one of seven surviving city gates from the former German city of Königsberg.
• Overnight in Kaliningrad

Wednesday 28th September – Baltiysk/Svetliy/Kaliningrad

• After breakfast we journey to Mother Russia’s westernmost edge!
• Today we’ll be visiting the Heart of the Baltic fleet in the city Baltiysk. It is a huge Russian navy base located on the Baltic sea and has only been opened to foreigners since 1995, you have to get the special permission beforehand but YPT’s contacts in Kaliningrad can arrange this no problem.
• On the way, we’ll explore some destroyed and abandoned German era buildings and a typical soviet town called Svetliy.
• On arrival in the city we’ll be taking in sights such as the pentagonal Pillau Citadel, founded by the Swedes in 1626, completed by the Prussians in 1670, renovated in 1870 and currently holding an impressive naval museum.
• We’ll visit the ruins of the 13th-century Lochstadt Castle; a maze of 19th-century naval fortifications; the Naval Cathedral of St. George the 32-metre Expressionist observation tower the Gothic Revival building of the Baltic Fleet Museum, and an elegant Lighthouse, dating from 1813. A stone cross, erected in 1830 to commemorate the supposed spot of St. Adalbert of Prague’s martyrdom, was destroyed by the Soviets and restored a millennium after the event, in 1997.
• Return to Kaliningrad for an evening meal
• Overnight in Kaliningrad

Thursday 29th September – Curonian spit/ Kaliningrad

• After breakfast, we’ll travel to the Curonian spit.
• It took several thousand years for the spit to shape out from the sands blown by the wind and dragged by the sea waves and to finally form a narrow sandy neck of land that separates the Curonian Gulf from the Baltic Sea and connects the Kaliningrad region with Lithuania. Its widest part is 3.8 km and the narrowest point is 400 m.
• This place has no rivals in the world. Try to cross the spit from gulf to sea and you will notice how the landscape changes from a bare desert to a pine forest. The size of the Curonian spit is astonishing, it has no analogies in the world; its majestic scenery and the lavishness of the flora and fauna is simply amazing, varying from the taiga-like plants, mountain pines, and alder-trees to the tumbleweeds rolling in the deserts of the sand dunes rising up to 70 m high.
• After a day of exploring we will return to Kaliningrad city for our last dinner in the enclave with celebrations to wish farewell to those who will leave us tomorrow.
• Overnight in Kaliningrad.

Friday30th September – Kaliningrad

• Last morning in Russia so you might want to do all the last things to wanted to do in Kaliningrad!
• Those heading onwards to our Soviet Baltics tour, go to Vilnius by bus around 13:00.
• Overnight in Vilnius

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