by Alexander MAKARYCHEV, Museum of History and Arts, Kaliningrad Region The Kaliningrad Region was formed in 1946 in the northern part of the German province Eastern Prussia that passed to the USSR upon World War II (1939-1945) results. Today it is the smallest and most westerly region of Russia and the only Russian semi-enclave: this region has an exit to the Baltic Sea, i.e. a marine border with Russia, and has no land frontier, since it is separated from our country by Lithuania and Belarus. Royal Gates renovated to the 750th anniversary of the city. 2005. стр. 80 The history of human society in the territory of the present-day Kaliningrad Region started about 10,000 years ago during glacier thawing, gradually retreating to the Arctic and leaving behind boggy soils, numerous lakes full offish and geological agglomerates. The land was then gradually settled by forest hunters who built their houses on piles---thus they protected themselves from wild animals and made it possible to fish right from the threshold with bone harpoons. Late in the 3rd millennium B.C., there lived also representatives of cord ceramics, a group of Indo-European tribes who decorated ceramic dishware with ornaments in the form of cord imprints. They had a number of common traditions, i.e. a tradition to burry tribesmen in burial mounds* as a symbol of eternal life and interconnection of terrestrial and the other world states of the soul, which was widespread in Eurasia. The first written evidence on the aboriginal population of the South-Eastern part of the Baltic Region were found in the works of the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (end of the 1st century): "They are not used to iron weapons, cudgels are more frequent. They are patient corn and fruit growers, which is typical of lazy Germans. They also search the sea and gather amber along the seashore..." By the way, the local "sunny gem" is still the principal natural wealth of the Kaliningrad R ... Read more