Life in the Russian exclave Kaliningrad | German heritage, Russian people and Soviet buildings 

I have to remind myself sometimes that this is not a film crew, but a one person production. You're very skilled with both filming and editing. I'm grateful that you spend your free days grinding out videos for your channel. I really enjoy your videos.

My father was born there when it was still called Koenigsberg. Thanks for this video❤

As a person who appreciates all cultures, I've been watching your videos and enjoy being taken along your journeys. As a side note, my german grandmother was born in Königsberg and always told me of her life in East Prussia. One day I hope to visit.

Not a single word about Immanuel Kant 😢 one of the most important philosophers of the last centuries. He spent his whole life in Königsberg.

I went to Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in Fall of 1942 and also to Tilsit and went there to school for a few month, before I returned to Silesia.

Hi Eli from Russia. Every day's a school day. I love learning about your beautiful country and the people within it🥰

You make the videos so well. It makes me feel I have known you all my life though physically and culturally, we are poles apart. My hats off to you Eli.

Great video. We visited Kaliningrad in 2018 for the World Cup and I agree people there are so friendly and accommodating. Actually we found people to be very friendly everywhere we traveled in Russia, hope this war is over soon so we can visit again. Kaliningrad is very interesting, there are only a few structures left from the former Königsberg (apart from the cobbled streets), there are a few places from the old walls 2 gates, one of which has been turned into a museum, very interesting. I think they must get a lot of German tourists (or did get), as you see souvenirs in most shops with Königsberg on them.

Thanks Eli! Beautiful video as usual! The place looks amazing also!

I grew up as a boy of German parents living in Canada and later, the US. I love the German Christmas traditions....except for Marzipan! You are right, Eli. There is no middle ground when it comes to Marzipan. You either love it or hate it. Perhaps the Kaliningrad Marzipan might change my mind. Thank you for the history of Marzipan! I never knew this.

Willkommen in Kaliniingrad! Hoffentlich hat es dir bei uns gut gefallen!)

I became addicted to your videos Eli . Even start to learn some few words in Russian .. I wish you make more videos .. Wish you the best

Awesome video Eli and I learned a lot from it. Thank you for sharing!

Wonderful video Eli. Many thanks for taking me on another visit to a part of Russia. Fascinating

Super love your narrative style and contents, informative, peaceful and soothing. Love your smile even more.

Excellent, Eli from Russia! Outstanding quality in all areas. I found it informative, interesting and entertaining.

Thanks for the tour, Eli! Amazing part of the world! Superb video editing also.

Always excited to see a new video from you Eli. Your production values are just excellent, professional quality in my opinion. And you do what we need more of, spread some people to people goodwill around the world. Stay your lovely and charming self and I look to see more of you in the future! 💖

I'm in love!....with marzipan of course. Love your vids best wishes from Australia. Take care, also great choice of music to finish with.

Thanks for the English subtitles 👍 Btw great video!

Eli, always interesting things from you, Kaliningrad, so close, and far a way, from Sweden. Keep it up with your nice little documentaries.

Always first class videos. Thank you for sharing your country to the viewers!

Hi Eli, I really enjoy your videos. Keep up the good work!

Eli u are great. Thanks for sharing x

What an unusual city Kaliningrad is in some area's it really does look German and the rest like Russia thankyou for sharing Eli I'm loving your stories about your homeland 💜

I am watching your channel for the first time in several months. I stopped only because of time considerations, not for political reasons. Your blogs are always so professional and so enjoyable to watch!

Only yet: thank you Eli for this interesting video: my ancestors are from this region. I will go there one day. Greetings from Austria

Здорово! Я собираюсь впервые в жизни посетить Калининград и нашла ваше видео. Вы молодец!!! ❤

Thanks Elli for the very interesting documentation! A few years ago, as Germans, we visited Kaliningrad when times were not that complicated. Really worth seeing! You didn't mention one important fact: Immanuel Kant, one of the most important philosophers, spent his whole life here!

Thanks for sharing your day off Eli. You are quite the explorer and always show us interesting places and things.

Eli, I love your videos!!!! I started watching it yesterday when I was searching for Bashkirs. So glad you still keep making vids despite what's going on politically.

Its hard to imagine that both Gdansk and Kaliningrad were rival cities with similar number of people and how it looks today... Gdańsk/ Danzig was heavily destroyed during WW2 but luckily rebuilt by Poles(lets say 40-50% of historical city was brought back to life the rest was gone)... In Kalingrad whole city center looks like empty desert with one church remaining in the middle of nothing plus some 90's and 2000's added buildings... its such a big pity that Russians didn't decide to rebuilt this city. This cobbled stone roads are probably older than whole Russia there, and it is sad when people say that they like this european architecture there but generally it was destroyed in 90% of its previous state. Kalingrad would be in one list with turistic Tallin Riga Gdansk and for example Lubeck...

Great vid guys thanks for sharing your time with us 2 Canadians 🇨🇦 living in Mexico Yucatan peninsula sending you support cheers ✌️🥂🥰🙏

What you said is wrong. Only certain goods are blocked to pass Lithuania due to sanctions. Most goods, especially food and medicine and also private travel are NOT blocked.

Great vlog. Keep up Eli, you are great.

Thanks for your nice work promoting freedom, knowledge and peace among human beings. 🙏🙏🙏

The travel videos you produce are always impressive, Eli. I'm so provoked to want to visit Kalingrad, especially when in summer it looks very beautiful. Thanks a lot for the information. And keep making interesting videos about Russia, so that the world community understands how unique and beautiful Russia is.

Excellent content lately, Eli. I'm glad to see that you're managing to get more of it uploaded for us at a fast pace, too. Thanks! Oh, and I hate marzipan, though I've never tried any from Kaliningrad. Lol...

Thank you for covering this area .My family history and relatives are from this region, left in 1945 . I enjoyed seeing the area in your doco. ❤

Спасибо Eli ! Kalingrad seems like a city worth visiting indeed.

I am in team love Marzipan, great video on Kaliningrad!! It is a place I think most of us don¨t know much about

Eli, glad to see u again. East coast USA is waiting for your visit....well someday I hope. Be safe, glad your well. Keep up the good work.

I absolutely love your all videos of Russia. My FAVORITE ones.🤩

So interesting - thank you so much for continued excellent videos about life there.

This is why exclaves and enclaves are some of the most interesting places on Earth. The combination of cultures and the historical heritage is incredible.

Very fascinating video, I might like to visit it because its such an interesting geopolitical situation and it seems to have such an identity of its own a mix between Russian and European

Eli, There are mainstream media film crews that do not produce such quality videos. I’ve learned so much from following your travels. God Bless…

Dear Eli ,Russia is so huge I think it will take one's lifetime to be fully covered by travel and explore the entire country. Best wishes and best of luck ❤.

*Greetings from a Russian blogger to a Russian blogger🇷🇺😂* Thanks for the wonderful video, Elli)

Hi, Eli! You use such good music, the end of this video had a really cool piece - what was it? I liked it very much.

Thanks for sharing your culture! As for marzipan… I agree folks either love it or hate it! I was able to visit Russia a few years ago and one of my ‘tourist’ photos was of a Ritter Sport dark chocolate and marzipan candy bar with a Cyrillic label. Clearly I am in the ‘love marzipan’ group.

I'm glad you keep posting & showing the warmth and goodness of the common Russian people - thank you

Beautiful location ☺️😊 thanks 🙏

Eli, your voice is very pleasant to hear. Your English is very good too. Yo do a great job. 👏👏👏

Thank you for making those videos and I love marzipan

Just wanted to let you know that the roads are made with 'cobble stones' not paving stones. PAving stones are what you have on the pavement :-). Kaliningrad is beautiful !

Eli, so glad I am still able to see your posts. Your videos teach me so much about the different parts of Russia that I am eager to learn.

Such high quality videos, good choice of music too.

You are such a great educator! Thank you!

Eli, Great tour . The Amber museum is interesting . Thanks so much. 😍💐 🇺🇸🇷🇺

Very interesting look. My German ancestors are from the Konigsberg area, I think it's safe to say that there wouldn't be any relatives still living there now.

Thanks Eli. Nice video about this peculiar enclave in the Baltic

Thanks from Italy, Eli !

Thank you Eli this was another of ur wonderful videos I am not Russian but I have a few friends here in Portland, Oregon and I share these videos with my Russian friends

In 2016, i was in Kaliningrad. I drove to that area with my own car. I am from the Netherlands. We stayed in Zelenogradsk for a week. It was very nice. The tiny hotel was 150 m from the sea. We also visited the dancing forest, Dune Elau (62m) and the bird watch on the Curonian Spit, Kurische Nehrung. We went to Kaliningrad city by train. We had a volunteer guide, a young student girl. She asked us if we wanted to go to the zoo. I said that we have a nice zoo in Amstedam too and that i wanted to go to the General Lasch war museum, under the university garden. She did not know it existed. So we went there. After that we walked along the former Schlossteich to the Amber museum. It was very nice. After that we went to the Historical Museum, next to the Schlossteich. We also drove one soviet city bus and later we drove a new city bus with airconditioning. She offered us a lunch and we went to a model kit shop somewhere else in the city. An other day we wanted to go to the militairy show in Baltysk, but we did not arrange the permit in time. On the last day we drove via the castle ruine of Schaaken and then southwards via a more scenery route to the Polish border. We liked our stay very much and everybody was unselfish helpfull ( the hotel gardener walked us all the way to the postoffice and the girl from the souvenir marketstand ran after us because we had forgotten to take one of the items we bought from her). We gave the guide loads of Rubels that she did not want. I just put it in her pocket. We hope to go there once again and visit Georgenburg, and the Elk region, Sovetsk and other nice places. Yes, we bought Amber items ther. A necklace with hanger and a silver with amber letter opener. I hope the old buildings in the centre of Zelenogradsk/Cranz will be restored. The highway ( 100km/h) was brandnew and there were several roadworks to modernize the infrastructure. My car had a good place on the guarded hotel courtyard. And the benzine was only €0,55 per liter. Yes, we would like to go there again, once......

Having lived in Germany for four years I love Marzipan. Thank you for sharing this information and providing us with a tour.

I love marzipan. Thanks for another great video!

Great vlog as always! Thank you for visiting Kalleningrad! I want to go too! That was not sausage but soup! The swedes makes soup and pack them like that. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for sharing this! The beautiful people, beautiful trees, beautiful architecture. May God have mercy on us all.

Beautiful city! Great video, thank you!

Fantastic video! I’m definitely in the ❤ marzipan team

Thank you Eli for recognizing that Konigsberg was part of Germany before. I am German and after the end of the war we had to deal with many refugees from that part of the world. Some of my best friends as far away as Mexico came from there.

Your channel is awesome, and you're posting very often! Nice to see Kaliningrad as a beautiful place, a nice architecture city, and not like many media in my country says: "just a potential source of geopolitical problems"

Hello from Kaliningrad! The video came out very interesting. I wish you to continue your vlog💗😺

Congratulations Eli , very nice movie . Wishing to visit It once as well ! Also thanks to refresh my Memory about the Marzapane origin ....I really did forget It ...Greetings from Italy and may God bless all the good people of Our World

This transparent sausage is called "Aspic" it is very popular in Germany (Sülze) . But it is also part of baltic cuisine and many other European countries. But if I search on yandex image search for "Холодец" it seems it is also in large regions in northern Russia known. Food geography is really a very interesting topic and it shows us how strong cultural interchange has been over centuries.

Awesome video Eli! I thoroughly enjoyed the history lessons and sights, and looking forward to seeing more. Positive vibes baby, positive vibes!! 👍👍☺️

great video to learn about Kaliningrad. Thanks

Hi Miss Eli, Your so beautiful and kind person for your transparent vlog. Thank you hope your in good now

Brava Eli ! Sempre piacevole vedere I tuoi video ! Keep creating beautiful reports of your adventures! Love and light from Italy! Ciao !

I want to visit here. My family is from this area, fled in 1945. I am very interested in putting together family heritage locations and do a family heritage rendition. I hope to make this happen one day. I love this video.

Thank you for your great video and the many interesting information. I am looking forward to my three-week vacation in Kaliningrad. Best wishes from Berlin

I love supermarket videos. Seeing the food product and fresh product you can by in a real setting with you feels very appeasing and comfortable.

I was 1993 there and the changes are really nice. The church you started the video was without roof and you saw the sky entering it. On the right side there was a small room with a relief of old Königsberg and in front of the church two construction worker building the top of the tower. This was an EU project. By the way: This nice park didn´t exist at that time and it was the place for the University till 1945. You showed the Emmanual Kant monument, which was placed 1992. Besides the Königsberger Marzipan and the Amber (I visited the musuem as well) there are Königsberger Klöpse (dumplings). You should try them, if you have the possibility. They are very nice. Hope you enjoyed your stay there.

Hi again Eli! “Trru Roshah" hahahaha. Ummm, Marzipan is awesome! Anyway, you joining the Russian Geographic Society has really highlighted your filming and production talents and you are a natural in front of the camera! Watching you is like watching a PBS or BBC program, except much more honest 😁. Together with your Russian Speaking Club, both have really given your future an unlimited ceiling! I’m really glad that the algorithm has allowed me to discover your channel and keep up the great work!

Very interesting and informative, thank you!

I think a behind the scenes video would be cool, too... how you do all the research, planning, traveling, cutting, etc.

Very informative, interesting video, thank you for your work !

Many thanks Eli for the wonderful and very, very interesting videos. Многие приветы из Германии - Herzliche Grüße nach Russland 👍❤️🍀🇷🇺

Thank you Eli for this wonderful video. You showed us a lot of interesting things about Kaliningrad. Would love to see the beach activities during the summer. Спасибо.

I just love how these videos can be colorized now with CGI. It almost looks real. It looks so different from the black and white motherland. Great job 👏👏👏

The fish in the grocer looked so health in the clean tanks. Our live fish area or crab or lobster tanks are horrific dirty sometimes dead fish with live . Omg a marzipan museum??? I need to go ! I love love marzipan!

Beginning of this video, the place where you sat on the grass, the building behind you, I think, the burial ground of the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant is located there.

Thank you for the video Eli ! I have never been in Kaliningrad [ Königsberg ] but its almost like a home coming for me since part of my Family came originally from that part of the world . The architecture and I mean the old architecture still looks as good as in the pictures in our family album , really nice to see . Love your channel , greetings from from the other side of the Globe - canada 🇨🇦

Through my work with old people, i sometimes meet a Lady i.e., born in Ostpreußen, but had to leave being quite young. Thank you Eli for your great channel, you are an excellent ambassador :-) Peaceful wishes , South Germany

Brilliant video Eli, thank you so much 👍

Happy to watch the video. I just love amber; just a wondrously vibrant stone; and some amber with fossils is also neat for jewelry and such. I've never tried the chocolate bar you're discussing but I'm fascinated by history like that: that shows you that even in hard times people find a way to bake bread. I like your videos and want to learn Russian but I still have hopes of progress with my current Russian course with Nastya of Moscow. I mean; it's not perfect I would describe myself as a contented student so I don't want to take on another Russian course; But I would love to learn Russian phrases as part of these videos.

Wow what a great video Eli super enjoyable and professional. You have beautiful handwriting! Oh I have to go to bed I've work tomorrow. I wish I could see some of these places in person, especially St.Petersburg winter palace.

Thank you for the video. This is the first time I see life in Kaliningrad and it is amazing.