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Hotels, motels and where to sleep
Svetlogorsk (until 1947 - Rauschen) - a resort city in the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation. It is the administrative center of Svetlogorsk district and urban settlement "City Svetlogorsk." It is located on the coast of the Baltic Sea, thirty kilometers north-west of the city of Kaliningrad. The population of the city is 13,030 people (2017).
Svetlogorsk, a former German Rauschen, is a traditional resort town. From the beginning of the 19th century, the fishing village became the favorite vacation spot of the Prussian (German) nobility. The life of the city is focused on meeting the needs of vacationers, thanks to the presence of several sanatoriums, resort life does not calm down throughout the year.
The city of Svetlogorsk is located on the Kaliningrad
Peninsula (formerly the Sambian Peninsula) in the region of coastal
hilly-morainic ridges. The relief here is medium hilly, slightly
dissected by a river network.
The border of the municipality, the
urban settlement "City of Svetlogorsk" in the west begins from the
intersection of the Baltic Sea coast with the northern border of the
87th quarter of the Svetlogorsk forestry of the Primorsky forestry
enterprise and goes along the coastline of the Baltic Sea in a northeast
direction to the intersection with the ravine near the village of Rybnoe
(at 230 meters east of the Svetlogorka River).
1 Baltic tower, st. October.
2 Promenade, st. Marine. A long
pedestrian road along the coast on a concrete retaining wall.
3 Sundial.
Running on the waves.
4 Organ Hall, st. Gagarin.
Hoffmann Lane and the Valley of Fairy Tales.
5 Monument to
Academician Pavlov, st. Gagarin.
6 Museum of Herman Brachert ,
Svetlogorsk, settlement Otradnoe, Tokareva st. -August), no days off.
80₽.
7 Kirch. The building is located in a suburban area inside a
small park. Inside the Orthodox Church.
8 Terrenkur (crossroads of
Oktyabrskaya and Lenina streets). Scheme of Svetlogorsk with routes on
the facade of the house.
9 Gilbert House, st. Gagarin, 5. Country
house, where the German mathematician David Hilbert had a rest.
10 High relief "Nymph" (on the promenade). One of the symbols of
Svetlogorsk is the figure of a girl, created in 1938 by the German
sculptor Hermann Brachert (1890-1972). This quite classical sculpture
was, as expected, installed in a special stone niche, but then the
Soviet artist and sculptor Nikolai Frolov decided to add modernism to
the German classics and built a mosaic shell instead of a niche. It is
due to her that the sculpture has become especially recognizable and at
the same time difficult to classify: it is sometimes called a high
relief, sometimes a mosaic panel, although in reality it is neither one
nor the other.
Useful addresses
1 Tourist Information Center
of the Svetlogorsk District, st. K. Marx 7-a. ✉ ☎ (8-40153)2-17-63, fax:
(8-40153)2-20-98.
2 Administration of the Svetlogorsk district,
Kaliningradsky prospect 77a. ✉ ☎ (40153)33300, fax: (40153)46-67-24.
Quiet and cozy town offers pleasant walks. Basically, tourist life is
limited to Lenin and Oktyabrskaya streets, as well as the promenade. You
can continue sightseeing with a walk in the city park, have a bite to
eat in numerous summer cafes, walk around the ruins and tents with
souvenirs. Announcements invite touring pop stars to concerts, concerts
are almost constantly given in the local organ hall. There is a cinema
"Priboy" on Lenin Street (probably closed).
The swimming season
is open from June to early September, this is the best time to visit the
resort.
In any hotel or travel agency, you will be offered
numerous excursions to the cities of the Kaliningrad region, to the
Curonian Spit National Park. If you have a passport, you can go on an
excursion to neighboring Poland (travel agencies promise to quickly
issue visas).
Museum of the Forest, Otradnoe village, Lesnaya
street, 5 (halfway between Otradnoe and Lesnoye, there is a sign. Better
by car or bicycle). ✉ ☎ 8 981 457 93 61. Tue-Fri: 10:00-15:00, Sat, Sun:
11:00-18:00. 100₽, children 50₽. Nice museum dedicated to nature.
Stuffed animals, sculptures, crafts, exhibits from the forest and the
sea. Aviaries with live animals. Activities for children.
Municipal
beach. It is located at the western end of the promenade, the entrance
is invisible from the first time, the cafe is blocked off.
From Kaliningrad, from the bus station
(located next to the Kaliningrad Yuzhny-South railway station) - by
bus Kaliningrad — Svetlogorsk II, the journey takes about 1 hour.
From Kaliningrad, from the Kaliningrad Severny-North station (and
from the Yuzhny-South too) - by Kaliningrad — Svetlogorsk II train,
1 hour journey time, or the Blue Arrow speed train (via
Zelenogradsk), travel time is over 2 hours.
From Kaliningrad,
from the bus station (located near the Kaliningrad North station) -
by fixed-route taxi, the journey takes about 45 minutes (the bus
route Kaliningrad — Svetlogorsk II also passes through the bus
station).
From Khrabrovo airport by taxi, there is also a minibus
- 3 times a day.
The city has two railway stations: Svetlogorsk-I, located at the entrance to the city near Kaliningrad Prospect, and the dead-end station Svetlogorsk-II, located on Lenin Street, not far from the sea and the boardwalk. Here, on Lenin Street, not far from the station, towards the Oktyabrskaya Street, a spontaneous taxi parking was organized; if you can, you need to book a taxi through the hotel, it will be cheaper.
By Russian standards there are many hotels and pensions in town.
The main cafes and restaurants of the city are located along
Oktyabrskaya Street. The price level is lower than in the capital cities
of Russia, imported draft beer is especially cheap, the difference in
price can differ by more than 2 times.
Cheap
Pancake on
Oktyabrskaya street, 22
Cafe "Veterok", Beregovoy lane, 3
Average cost
Cafe next to the pancake shop on Oktyabrskaya street, 22
Cafe at the hotel "Old Doctor"
Cafe "Rybak's House", Beregovoy lane,
1
Cafe "Polyandiya", st. Lenina, d.23
Expensive
Restaurant
"Seeshtern" on the Promenade, st. Morskaya, 11
Svetlogorsk is well worth a visit during the summer for the opportunity to buy amber. The streets and promenade are lined with tables covered with amber jewellery and knickknacks, with prices starting at approximately €1 for an amber necklace.
In climatic conditions, the influence of the sea is pronounced. The
sum of effective air temperatures ranges from 2100-2150 °C, the duration
of the frost-free period is the longest in the Kaliningrad region -
180-190 days. The snow cover is unstable, its thickness can reach 16 cm.
The sum of negative temperatures ranges from 145 to 250 °C. The average
monthly temperature in January (the coldest month) is -2.7 °C, in July
(the warmest month) +16.7 °C, the average annual air temperature is +6.8
°C.
The maximum amount of precipitation falls in July-August
(70-100 mm). In spring and in the first half of summer, in 50-70% of
years, periods without rain are observed, when less than 1 mm of
precipitation falls for 10 consecutive days. In summer, breeze
circulation appears on the coast.
In the coastal part of the
Baltic Sea, the water temperature reaches its maximum in August, the
average surface water temperature is 18 °C.
The soils are medium
podzolic sandy and sandy loamy on the moraine.
The settlement, which later received the name Rauschen (German:
Rauschen), was located on the northern tip of the Sambian Peninsula
(Zemland). The name Zemland is first mentioned in 1073 as the land
inhabited by the Prussians, while they themselves called themselves by
another name: Sembi. The first mention of a pagan settlement on the site
of Rauschen dates back to 1258, when this Prussian settlement was called
Ruze-Moter, which in translation from the old Prussian means 'burial
place', 'land of cellars'. Ruze-Moter was located on the shore of the
current Tikhoye Lake, separated from the sea by a high coastal dune; Its
inhabitants were engaged in fishing and hunting.
The knights of
the German (Teutonic) Order who came here in the 13th century first
called the village Rausche-moter, and from the 14th century, in
consonance with the indefinite form of the German verb “rauschen” (‛to
make noise’, ‛to rustle’), they called it Rauschen. Order brothers set a
new direction for the life of the village: they blocked the Katzenbach
stream, which flows into the lake, and installed a mill on the stream.
From that time on, the lake became known as Mühlen-teich ('Mill Pond'),
and milling became the main business for the inhabitants of the village.
In Order times, it was the largest mill on Samland.
About two
centuries ago there was another turn in the development of the village,
now as a resort town. At the very beginning of the 19th century in
Europe, travel and recreation with swimming in the sea became
fashionable, vacationers began to visit these places, travelers began to
stop here. Since access to the sea was hindered by a sand dune, the
picturesque corners of the lake were the place of residence and
recreation. A tavern was opened near the mill, new houses appeared. Cozy
villas and boarding houses began to be built in Raushen, and soon the
carts with sacks of grain began to get lost among the carriages with
holiday guests, trunks and wives in balloon hats. Rauschen was
officially opened as a resort on June 24, 1820. The real impetus that
brought Rauschen to life as a resort of national importance was his
visit in 1840, after his coronation, by King Frederick William IV. The
local places fascinated him with their romance. At the behest of the
king, they began intensively planting greenery on the coastal dune,
constructing convenient slopes to the sea, and strengthening the sea
embankment. However, despite the granting of official status and the
attention of the crowned person, the arrangement of the resort for the
most part remained the initiative of private individuals. Maybe that's
why until the beginning of the twentieth century, Raushen remained a
quiet and uncrowded place.
The popularity of the city as a resort
has increased significantly since 1900, when a railway was laid from
Königsberg to the Rauschen / Ort station, now Svetlogorsk-1, extended in
1906 to the Rauschen / Dune station (Svetlogorsk-2). Trains could now
drive closer to the sea, the resort became much more accessible for many
residents of Koenigsberg. A positive role both in the development of the
resort and in attracting vacationers was played by the hippodrome,
opened in Raushen by the equestrian society. The city began to be
divided into two parts: the lower one, near the lake, and the upper one,
40–50 m higher, near the sea. The upper village was located at an
altitude of up to 60 m above sea level, so a pleasant event in his life
was the opening in 1912 of a funicular, a 90-meter inclined railroad for
delivering holidaymakers to the sea and back. The funicular operated
until the 1960s. The arrangement of the resort could not do without the
arrangement of beach areas. In 1908, a wooden promenade was built on
piles on the seashore, several serpentine descents led to it. Of the
most famous personalities in the first half of the 19th century, the
pianist and composer Otto Nicolai, the author of the famous comic opera
The Merry Wives of Windsor based on Shakespeare, often rested here;
Wilhelm Humboldt; much later, in the 20th century, Thomas Mann and Käthe
Kollwitz. In the first years of the 20th century, in Rauschen, private
individuals launched an intensive construction of country houses,
villas, boarding houses, especially in the upper part of the resort.
The buildings had architectural forms with elements of fachwerk,
neo-gothic, historicism then fashionable, and fit well into the
landscape. In 1928, the villa of the architect Goering (namesake of the
Reichsmarschall) was built. In the center of Rauschen, having become a
kind of symbol of the city, a hydropathic tower was erected in the style
of national romanticism in 1900-1908.
Even then, in addition to water treatment: sea, carbonic and other
baths, sanatoriums of the city practiced mud, electric and light
treatment, therapeutic massage. Under the helmet-shaped roof of the
tower there was an observation deck for viewing the surroundings. Some
buildings of the city were built by a charitable society, which
consisted of local and visiting entrepreneurs and the wealthy part of
the intelligentsia. Starting from 1841, this charitable society,
together with the holidaymakers, published the newspaper Hospitable
Raushenets in a typographical way. Under the care of the society, for
example, a nursing home for elderly teachers and a church built in
1903-1907 were built. The church was consecrated on July 7, 1907; it was
built according to the design of the architects Wichmann and Kukuk in
the neo-Romanesque style with modern elements. The attraction of the
church was a carved wooden altar. During the First World War, Rauschen
became a "branch" of the German military department - civilians were
almost forced out by German officers who were treated and resting.
After the First World War, Rauschen acquired a power plant and a
sewer network. The local government in the city was represented by the
municipality, the mayor was also the commissioner of the resort. The
resort service was divided into two parts: medical and economic. During
the official holiday season from June 1 to September 15, each person
arriving at the resort was obliged to register with the resort's
commissariat within 24 hours and pay a certain amount to its cash desk.
The number of vacationers can be judged both by the number of individual
closed cabins, on all beaches their total number reached 3 thousand, and
according to statistics, 6 thousand vacationers visited Raushen in 1930,
and 11 thousand vacationers in 1939. At the height of the season, about
20 hotels, hotels and boarding houses with restaurants and cafes
functioned in the upper part of the city. Most of them are closed in
winter. Separately, it is worth highlighting the Raushen military
sanatorium, which began to function immediately after the First World
War, thanks to which the number of vacationing officers increased
significantly. Since the 1930s, the resort has become a favorite
vacation spot for the highest ranks of the Third Reich.
On April
14, 1945, during the Great Patriotic War, the city of Raushen and the
settlements adjacent to it were occupied by the Soviet Red Army during
the East Prussian operation. After the accession of most of the
territory of East Prussia and its capital city of Königsberg (now
Kaliningrad) to the RSFSR as a result of the Potsdam Agreement of 1945),
by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of June
17, 1947, the city of Rauschen was renamed Svetlogorsk.
In 1994,
an urban district was formed around it, which also included the village
of Yantarny and the Primorye village council. The county's boundaries
were clarified in 1999. In 2007, the Svetlogorsk urban district was
granted the status of a municipal district, and Svetlogorsk was defined
as its administrative center, three urban settlements were formed as
part of the district, including the urban settlement of the city of
Svetlogorsk. In 2018, the urban settlements were merged. In 2019,
Svetlogorsk was given the status of a city of regional significance.
On May 16, 1972, the An-24T aircraft of the 263rd Separate Transport
Aviation Regiment of the Baltic Fleet Aviation of the USSR Navy fell on
a kindergarten building in the city of Svetlogorsk.
The tragedy
claimed the lives of thirty-five people: all eight members of the
aircraft crew and twenty-seven people on the ground, including 24
children and three employees of the kindergarten, were killed. In memory
of the victims, a temple-chapel was built at the crash site.
Svetlogorsk immediately after the Great Patriotic War attracted
attention as a place of rest, but until the mid-1960s, access here, to
the border zone, was difficult. The city is located on a hill, on
ancient dunes 50-60 m high. In the lowland there is only a small part of
Svetlogorsk, in the vicinity of Tikhoe Lake and the small river
Svetlogorka flowing through the city, which flows into Tikhoe Lake, then
flows out of it and, in the end, flows into the Baltic Sea.
The
sea coast of Svetlogorsk is steep and steep, up to 60 m high above the
sea. Six descents lead from a high hill to the beach among the greenery:
three narrow metal descents (steel stairs), as well as three wider and
more comfortable stone (concrete, asphalt, tile) descents, of which one
is a wide staircase with benches for relaxing on the grounds and flower
beds descending to the sundial. The steps of this staircase served as
benches during the Baltic Seasons festival.
The cable car and the
elevator that replaced the funicular in the 1960s have not been
functioning since 2010, so going down from the high bank to the beach
and then climbing back for the overweight, elderly and disabled was
problematic, but the Svetlogorsk cable car reopened after reconstruction
6 June 2014 the day before City Day, celebrated on the first Saturday of
June. Its length is 118 meters, the number of booths is 19, the fare for
May 2018 was 50 rubles one way, for children under five years old,
travel is free. Cable car workers help people get out of the cabins. The
entrance to the upper part of the cable car is located behind the
station building of Svetlogorsk-2 station.
In 2019-2021, an
elevator was built from the village to the promenade, barrier-free
access became possible.
Svetlogorsk is located in a forest park.
Each building of the city is interspersed in the forest, that is, it is
separated from neighboring buildings by sections of the forest. The city
was built like this, in the middle of the forest, always, since 1820.
Since the beginning of the 2000s, more and more areas of continuous
development began to appear, where there are no trees between the
houses. This forest, with small additions of ornamental trees, shrubs
and herbaceous plants, is the green attire of Svetlogorsk. Pine, spruce,
larch, fir, birch, linden, oak, beech, ash, poplar, maple, elm
predominate. Of the ornamental plants, you can find here the North
American hydrangea, magnolia, pyramidal oak, red oak and other species
of this genus, red-leaved beech, Wilson's poplar, Japanese forsythia,
many different types of rhododendrons, Vicha grapes, this Japanese liana
is twined with a hydropathic tower.
Svetlogorsk health resorts
received the status of republican resorts in 1971, and on March 29,
1999, by a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation,
Svetlogorsk was given the status of a resort of federal significance.
The city is home to the Central Military Sanatorium of the Ministry of
Defense of Russia and large multidisciplinary sanatoriums Yantarny Bereg
and Yantar. In Svetlogorsk there are also rest houses, boarding houses,
children's health camps.
The study of the problem of beach
erosion was carried out in the Kaliningrad region in 2009-2010 within
the framework of the research project "Coast", implemented by the
Russian State Hydrometeorological University in conjunction with the
Atlantic Department of the Institute of Oceanology named after P.P.
Immanuel Kant State University, the Museum of the World Ocean
commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian
Federation. According to experts, the coastal protection structures
built in Svetlogorsk, protecting the coast from wave action, cause a
breaking wave, which during a storm leads to erosion of the beaches,
which have narrowed significantly, and in some places turned out to be
completely washed out. The state of the Svetlogorsk beach remains one of
the most acute and discussed problems. This is also confirmed by the
fact that the best beaches of the Kaliningrad region, and indeed of the
whole world, are wild, on which no one has ever built anything.
Therefore, time and nature have proven that the best coastal protection
is not to build anything closer than 150 m from the coast (back in 1840,
the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV introduced a rule for Rauschen
and the surrounding area not to build anything closer than 45 m from the
coastal cliff, which corresponds to about 100 m from the coast, and
taking into account the now increased weight and durability of
buildings, it would be more reliable to increase this distance by 1.5
times. in German times it had a width of 50-70 meters, and in Soviet
times 30-50 meters. If you keep this in mind, now, after 2010, we can
say that there is no longer a beach in Svetlogorsk, so, the sea will
wash a couple of spots of the beach, then wash it out and in the future
it is planned to extend the existing Svetlogorsk promenade to the west
to the village of Otradny and to the east to the town of Pionersky In
this case, the length of the promenade will grow from the current 0.5 km
to 4 km, and everyone without exception will be under the promenade
Svetlogorsk beaches.
As of January 2022, a new part of the
promenade has been built connecting Svetlogorsk-2 and Svetlogorsk-3,
stretching from the sundial in the resort area of Svetlogorsk-2 to
Baltiyskaya Street, which is located in the resort area of
Svetlogorsk-3. The new promenade has three zones: a pedestrian zone, a
bicycle zone, and a retail and residential zone, which is a chain of
apartments, with a shopping arcade at the ground level. To increase the
width of the beach line along the entire length of the Svetlogorsk
promenade, longitudinal and transverse breakwaters were installed, which
significantly increased the sandy coastline, and also created an
impressive number of places for swimming along the entire embankment.
In 2002, the city hosted the jubilee session of the Council of the Baltic Sea States at the level of foreign ministers of the nine states bordering the Baltic Sea, as well as Norway and Iceland.
Svetlogorsk regularly hosts international conferences, art festivals,
creative workshops, competitions, and concerts. Svetlogorsk is the
center of the festival of arts "Baltic Seasons", the film festivals
"Amber Panther" and "Baltic Debuts", the international plein air of
painters "Svetlogorsk Dreams of Raushen".
In 1995, the composer
and pianist Andrey Makarov opened an organ concert hall, which was
recognized by experts as the best in the countries of the Baltic coast,
in the former German Catholic chapel Santa Maria Stella Mare (“St. Mary
is the Star of the Seas”), restored at his own expense.
Cultural
and entertainment events, concerts, performances are also held on the
stage of the House of Culture of the Svetlogorsk military sanatorium,
the Yantarny Bereg sanatorium, and the Raushen hotel.
The central
square of Svetlogorsk is a favorite place of work for the only street
glass blower in Russia, one of the most famous glass blowers in the
world, Yuri Len'shin.
In Svetlogorsk, the soloist of the
Kaliningrad Opera Nikolai Gorlov regularly performs solo concerts, youth
break dance groups.
From 1950 to 1963, the famous Russian
philologist Alexei Zakharovich Dmitrovsky worked as a teacher of Russian
language and literature in Svetlogorsk.
The writer Yury
Nikolaevich Kuranov (1931-2001) lived and was engaged in literary work
in Svetlogorsk.
Since 2004, the city has hosted the annual film
festival "Baltic Debuts", which shows films created by young directors
from the Baltic and Northern Europe, as well as the Russian Federation.
In Svetlogorsk, the idea of the TV show “What? Where? When?". To
commemorate this, in 2007 and 2008 the city was twice chosen to host the
world championship in the sports version of this popular game.
By
2013, a large sports and recreation complex (FOC) with a 25-meter
swimming pool was built in the city.
In 2015, due to the
political situation, the Voting KiViN festival moved from Jurmala to
Svetlogorsk, which opened the first season of the new Yantar Hall
Variety Theater on July 17-19. The area of the Variety Theater is 30
thousand square meters, located in the park "Four Seasons".
During the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Svetlogorsk was chosen by the Serbian
national team as the main base for living and preparing for the games.
To train the Serbian national team before the World Cup, the Baltiya
stadium was built in the city, which, at the end of the tournament, was
transferred to the Baltika football club as a training base.