This is on my travels through Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian enclave in the the Baltics. It was a blast from the past, like meeting the Soviet grandpa I never had.
Immanuel Kant lays here. He was born and died in Konigsberg, now Kaliningrad.
The House of the Soviets, as it was called, was made to house the government of the enclave. It drew inspiration from Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. It was never finished and later demolition started in 2023.
My host probably ended up losing more money than I spent on renting her place. She prepared me dinner and breakfast every day I was there. Love you Galina.
It was at this time that I felt I had finally reached heaven, all that I wanted. For many years growing I had tried to imagine how it could have been growing up in the Soviet Union, and though the experience was not it, it felt like it deep at its core. There was I, eating fresh vegetables and black bread for dinner with a beer thinking about what it had taken for me to be there.
"Speaking to you, I'm not talking to just anyone. I'm speaking to a Russian..." Galina said.
These shapes, the polish, the numbers. The USSR was back baby, or I was there.
Doesn't get more 70s than this jajajaja.
Just as I was the weird tourist clearly not from there (I was wearing plain clothes, no bathing suit in sight) dark clouds hover over us and decided to join me in my sadness as I was not able to get into the sea. The downpour consumed us and we all had to leave.
Art Nouveau and German architecture. You can see the influences both historical and ideological.
Found it funny that even the ducks had an adapted place. Smart ducks!
