I had a great day today in Kaliningrad, thanks to Inga and the Goldwing club. In the morning Inga collected me for an excursion around Kaliningrad. First stop was the 5th fortress, a very interesting WWII fortress where the Russian forces overwhelmed the German occupants.

The fortress was interesting in its own right, with a moat and lots of tunnels. Access to the Baltic sea, specifically the only part of the Baltic sea that doesn’t freeze in winter, made Kaliningrad a strategically important port for maintaining supply chains.

In German hands the city was known as Königsberg, which some people still refer to it as today. There were a lot of German tourists around, but fortunately no queues for them to jump! Some guys dressed up as soldiers were due to do a reenactment of the battle in the next 5 minutes, bonus!

We got fed up of waiting, so we wandered off into some tunnels. As we came back out there were 5 Russian soldiers running towards us firing automatic weapons. They were madly gesticulating for us to get out of the way. It was quite bizarre, but it made the German tourists laugh.

Afterwards they let me have a crack with their weapons to make amends. Awesome!