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Sovetsk (until 1946 - Tilzit, German Tilsit, Polish. Tylża, lit. Tilžė) is a city in the Kaliningrad region, the Russian Federation. It is the second largest city in the (after Kaliningrad) Kaliningrad region with a population of 40,486 people. (2017). It is the second largest city of the region is located on the Russian-Lithuanian border on the banks of the Neman River. Until 1946, it was called Tilsit. In the city in 1807, Alexander I and Napoleon Bonaparte concluded the peace of Tilsit that briefly ended wars in Europe.
Architecture
Bridge of Queen Louise. The bridge over the Neman
River, connecting the city with Lithuania. The main symbol of the
city, depicted on its coat of arms.
Lutheran Kreuzkirch.
Villa
Franca (Franchise Villa).
Town Hall.
Main Post Office
building.
The ruins of the castle Tilsit.
The building of the
former city royal gymnasium.
Natural objects
Mill pond.
Dendropark.
Museums
Tilsit Theater, Teatralnaya Square, 1.
City History Museum, 34 Pobedy Street.
House-museum of Vilyus
Vidunas, Lenin str., 15-17
Orthodoxy
On August 2, 1988, the first Divine Liturgy was
celebrated in Sovetsk in the city's first Orthodox church in honor of
the Holy Trinity. The service was led by Archbishop Kirill of Smolensk
and Vyazemsky (now Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia). The first rector
of the temple is the priest Pyotr Berbenychuk. Since 1998, the church
life of the city has become much more active. The construction of a new
wooden Orthodox church in honor of the Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God
began. The temple was consecrated on April 17, 1999. In the same year,
design work was carried out on the construction of a new cathedral in
honor of the Three Ecumenical Saints: Basil the Great, Gregory the
Theologian and John Chrysostom. On May 5, 2000, the foundation was laid.
By the festive date of the 200th anniversary of the Peace of Tilsit,
construction work on the outside of the building was completely
completed, the temple was built in the traditional Russian architectural
style. The consecration of the cathedral was performed by Metropolitan
Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad (now His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow
and All Russia) on November 4, 2007, in the presence of the regional
governor GV Boos. Today, the design of the interior of the cathedral is
underway.
Catholicism
The history of the modern Catholic
Church in Sovetsk begins in 1992. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the priest
Anupras Gauronskas, who in 1991 was appointed by Bishop Tadeusz
Kondrusiewicz to the post of rector of the parish of the Resurrection of
Christ in Sovetsk, as well as local Catholics, the construction of a new
building of the Catholic church began. The solemn opening and
consecration of the parish of the Resurrection of Christ[38] took place
on August 20, 2000. The erection of this majestic building was achieved
thanks to the plan of the architects from Kaunas Gedeminas Jurevičius
and Stasys Juški, embodied by the builders and supported by the
ministers.
Tilsit Theater
The performance took place for the first time in
the large hall of the wine restaurant of the pharmacist Falk (Nemetskaya
street). In 1772, there were actor's societies in Danzig and Königsberg,
which also happened to be visiting theaters in Tilsit. The typographer
Heinrich Post writes that on March 15, 1807, at the end of the
unfortunate war, the actors' unit stayed in Tilsit for 8 days. They
played in cramped conditions behind a military hospital (German Street /
corner of Sailerstrasse). The real building of the theater was built
with voluntary donations from the inhabitants of Tilsit and the
surrounding areas. 145,000 marks were collected for the construction, of
which the most significant contribution - 60,000 marks - was made by the
merchant August Engels.
In the autumn of 1893, to the sound of
Weber's solemn overture, the curtain of the theater opened for the first
time. That evening they gave a drama by W. Goethe "Egmont". This
determined the further repertoire of the theater, which consisted mainly
of operas, operettas and classical drama. The Tilsit stage was the
cradle of many leading figures of the theater and cinema, it became the
first step to the world fame of such playwrights as Frank Wedekind and
Alfred Brust.
In 1903, the first reconstruction of the building
took place, during which the auditorium was significantly expanded.
The first director and artistic director of the theater was Emil
Hahnemann, who is also a brilliant character actor. The restoration of
the rights of the German "new drama" is largely due to Francesco Scioli,
who headed the theater in 1908. Scioli's activities went far beyond the
"local scale": people from the west specially came to Tilsit to watch a
good modern performance. Years passed, ups and downs alternated, the
owners of the theater changed. In difficult years, they tried to support
him by private efforts, but not for long. At the beginning of 1933, the
National Socialist Theater Organization took over the management of the
theatre.
In 1936, the theater building was rebuilt for the second
time. Built in the style of classicism and baroque, after the
reconstruction it acquired a rather austere look. Two busts of the great
German poets Schiller and Goethe turned out to be "architectural
excesses", apparently not fitting into the ideology of the National
Socialists. Having completely changed its appearance, the theater
received a new name - “the theater of the borderland”.
After some
time, the theater was evacuated deep into Germany. And during the Second
World War, the theater in Tilsit was closed, and the troupe was
disbanded.
A decade later, a city drama theater was opened in the
renamed Sovetsk. The play Dm. Zorin's "Eternal Source" in November 1956,
the theater takes on its second birth. One of the first who revived the
theater was Alexander Brodetsky, who headed the theater troupe for about
ten years.
During the fifteen-year activity of Boris
Kodokolovich, the creative dawn of the theater came. Being a
director-teacher by vocation, he brought up a whole generation of
talented actors.
The turning point for the theater was 1989. The
theater acquired the status of "Youth" and received the right to the
advertising name "Tilsit - Theatre". The theater literally got younger:
the composition of the troupe was updated, the leadership changed.
In 1991, the troupe of the theater was headed by a graduate of the
Shchukin School, Yevgeny Marchelli, with unexpected in form and
expressiveness, provocative in their expressiveness, performances that
earned the name of an outrageous director. Thanks to his work, the
theater has its own directorial direction.
The repertoire of the
theater is dominated by classical productions. Ostrovsky, Lermontov,
Gorky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Shakespeare are the authors who today
form the basis of the Tilsit-Theatre's repertoire.
In 1993,
within the framework of the international festival, the theater
celebrated the centenary of the Tilsit stage, which has repeatedly been
the arena of seminars for critics, directors, and playwrights.
Eugene Marchelli was the chief director and artistic director of the
theater from 1993 to 1999. He created his own small, cozy, incredibly
stylish theater. Marcelli is well known to the theater goers in the
capital. He gets both criticism from critics and theater awards, but
never indifference. His production of "Othello" at the Theater. Evg.
Vakhtangov was awarded the "Seagull" award in almost all categories.
In recent years, "Tilsit - Theater" has taken part in many
prestigious theater festivals in Russia and abroad, and, as a rule,
returned as a prize-winner.
Since 2012, Vilius Malinauskas has
been the chief director of the Tilsit Theatre.
Green theater
In 1933, when the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, headed by Goebbels, began to
encourage the Aryan ethnic movement, speaking under the motto "Blut und
Boden" ("blood and soil"), which began to shake up old chests and
decayed manuscripts, runic letters, forgotten ornaments , the iconic
symbol of the rolling sun, sacred greetings, etc. - everything that
belonged to the ancient Germanic peoples before they broke up into Goths
and Scandinavians.
The scope of the propaganda of the Third Reich
needed an appropriate frame, and the eyes were turned to the eternal
architecture of Greece and the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation,
created by Otto 1. The structures in the form of horseshoe-shaped
amphitheatres, where the Nazi gatherings were to take place, came up
with the names - Thingplatz, attracting to the German " parade ground
"(square) the word" ting ".
Ting is an Old Norse word. In the
early Middle Ages, the Thing was a popular assembly of free men, at
which laws were passed and where leaders were elected. Thing was also
the name of the place of the court, where the plaintiffs and defendants
disputed their problems. Thus, the ting had the same meaning among the
Scandinavians as the forum among the ancient Romans - it is a place of
social and cultural communication.
According to the grandiose
plan of the Third Reich, it was planned to build 1200 tingplatz in
various districts and cities, but only about 40 were built.
The
architectural idea of building tingplatz was to approximate as much as
possible to the natural state of the environment, which should include
existing rocks, groups or isolated trees, bodies of water, ruins, and
small hills of historical or even mythical significance.
The
first tingplatz was built in 1934 near Halle. Tilsit was also lucky in
this regard - the city fathers hurried up and supported the project, and
already in 1935 the tingplatz was very beautifully laid out among the
pines on the dune-shaped hill on the outskirts of the park. Today
Thingplatz can be confidently considered an architectural monument.
Of the 40 built tingplats, far from all have survived to date. On
the territory of East Prussia, in addition to Tilsit, another tingplatz
was built in Nordenburg (Nordenburg), today it is the village of
Krylovo, Pravdinsky district, located at the very Polish border.
Today in Sovetsk, the former tingplatz has become an open-air summer
theater with comfortable, low and strong benches of rough stone and
bright green grass breaking through. Perhaps because of the riot of
greenery around this building, the Soviets came up with a new name for
the tingplatz - the "Green Theater", which is a venue for all kinds of
outdoor folk events. Many festivals and concerts take place here every
year. "Green Theater" is a favorite place of the townspeople.
Cinemas
After 1945, the Spartak cinema was opened in Sovetsk. It was
located on Victory Street, opposite the square with a monument to the
Liberator Soldier.
In addition, until the end of the 90s, there
was a cinema in the building of the House of Culture of the Soviet TsBZ.
In 1984, the Neman cinema was built, in the mid-90s it was renamed
the Parus Culture and Leisure Center, which lost its functions as a
cinema. To date, the city has a cinema "Lumen Film", located in the FOK.
Tilsit as a city originates in 1552, when the Prussian Duke Albrecht
of Brandenburg granted city status to the settlement.
In 1807,
the Peace of Tilsit was held in Tilsit between Alexander I and Napoleon.
As part of the USSR
The 113th Rifle Corps of Major General N.N.
Oleshev entered the land of East Prussia in the fall of 1944 as part of
the troops of the 1st Baltic Front. During the Memel offensive
operation, on October 9, 1944, the corps, acting in the vanguard of the
39th Army, captured the East Prussian city of Schmaleningken-Witkemen
(now the Lithuanian Smalininkai).
During the East Prussian
strategic offensive operation, the 113th Rifle Corps, along with the
entire 39th Army, again fought as part of the troops of the 3rd
Belorussian Front, while, thanks to the leadership talent of its
commander, Major General N. N. Oleshev , he clearly distinguished
himself: in the battles for the city of Tilsit (now Sovetsk) and its
environs (for this, on the basis of the order of the Supreme
Commander-in-Chief, the corps was awarded the military honorary name
"Tilsitsky"); in the assault on the fortress city of Königsberg (for
this the corps was awarded the Order of the Red Banner); in battles to
capture the cities of Neuhausen (now Guryevsk) and Fishhausen (now
Primorsk).
Soviet troops of the 1st Baltic Front under the
command of Marshal Baghramyan entered Tilsit on January 17, 1945.
According to the decision of the Potsdam Conference, Tilsit became
part of the USSR in 1945 and was renamed Sovetsk in 1946. At first, the
administration of this territory was carried out by the command of the
3rd Belorussian Front, and from July 1945 - by the Military Council of
the Special Military District.
The military commandant's office
of the Ragnitsky district (Neman), whose service area included Tilsit,
was headed by the military commandant, Colonel V. A. Alekseev. The power
of the military commandant of the district extended both to the military
and to civilians. The commandant, first of all, had to deal with issues
of order and discipline in the garrison, but along with this, he was
also charged with the responsibility of managing the economic affairs of
the city. This was until June 1946, when all power passed to the Office
of Civil Affairs. The German population was also served by the Office
with the help of qualified interpreters. Soldiers, sergeants and
officers were the first to clear the rubble and ruins in the city. They
were helped by prisoners of war, they repaired craters and potholes on
roads and embankments, cleared mines from enterprises and residential
buildings, helped fight floods in the Slavsky district, and restored
bridges.
This work was carried out somewhat later by the
personnel of the Central Automobile School of the USSR Ministry of
Defense, which made it possible to jointly remove all the destroyed
buildings by the end of 1959.
After the fighting, only 25% of the
housing stock remained in the city, and even that required mandatory
repairs to roofs, doors, floors and windows. Therefore, there was a
great shortage of housing for the families of military personnel and
immigrants from other regions of the Union. It had to be built. For this
purpose, construction brigades, companies were created, and then a
full-time military construction detachment was formed through the USSR
Ministry of Defense, which made it possible not only to repair part of
the dilapidated apartments and barracks, but also to build dozens of
comfortable houses.
Later, a separate railway battalion was
involved in the restoration of the city, which, in addition to restoring
the railway lines, built several residential buildings for the families
of officers and ensigns on its own.
On April 7, 1946, the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Decree “On the
Formation of the Königsberg Region as part of the RSFSR”, and on July 4
of the same year, the region was renamed Kaliningrad, and Tilsit was
renamed Sovetsk. Power in the field belonged to the military
commandant's offices, and from the end of May 1946, the transfer of
power from the commanders of military units, units and military
commandant's offices to the civilian Soviet party apparatus began.
The formation of the city took place in difficult conditions. Over
60% of industrial and administrative buildings were destroyed. The power
plant was inactive, trams did not run, water supply and sewerage did not
work. The Soviet people who arrived in the new city had to lift and
rebuild a lot.
In May 1945, the first echelon with specialists
arrived in Tilsit to restore the pulp and paper mill.
On July 9,
1946, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted Resolution No. 1522
"On priority measures for the settlement of regions and the development
of agriculture in the Kaliningrad region."
The heads of the
district departments for civil affairs determined the number of migrants
on the acceptance for permanent residence in August - October 1946 of 12
thousand families of migrants - collective farmers, including by
district: Ragnitsky - 500.
On September 7, 1946, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet of the RSFSR, the city received a new name - Sovetsk and became
the second most important after the regional center.
Since 1946,
the mass settlement of the region began. In August 1946, the first
echelon arrived at the Gumbinen (Gusev) station - 570 people. From 1946
to 1953, 42376 families moved to the Kaliningrad region from 30 regions
and territories, four autonomous republics of the USSR to restore the
region, including 2336 in Sovetsk. The first settlers were experienced
party and economic workers, specialists from various branches of the
national economy.
The migrants who arrived to restore the
national economy met with great difficulties at their new place of
residence: they often had to live in premises unsuitable for habitation,
in tepushkas and basements. The supply of food and basic necessities
also did not improve soon. At first, the city authorities provided the
new residents with the most necessary things: kerosene, matches, salt,
shoes. We can judge this by looking at the resettlement tickets
preserved in some families, where all the goodness issued was strictly
taken into account.
People worked day and night to restore the
largest enterprise - the pulp and paper mill, and already in 1946, the
plant raised from the ruins produced the first 200 tons of market pulp
and the same amount of paper. This enterprise still personifies the
industrial potential of Sovetsk.
A bakery, a yeast factory, a
brewery, a brick-and-tile and a sawmill, river moorings, a shipyard, and
a railway station were restored. Created: promartel "Victory" and
"Krasny Pischevik", Zagotzerno, motorcade and other enterprises.
In the summer of 1947, the construction of a bridge across the Neman was
completed. In the 60s of the XX century, it was replaced by a bridge
based on reinforced concrete structures.
The current situation
dictated the restoration and construction of housing, hotels, industrial
and social service enterprises, educational, health, cultural and
leisure institutions.
By the beginning of the 1950s, the heroic
labor of the first settlers restored: a tile and brick factory, a yeast
factory, a port, a carpet factory, a dairy factory, a fruit and berry
wine factory, military and civil construction organizations, a factory
of reinforced concrete products, a cardboard and printing factory.
Due to the difficult economic situation in the country after the
war, the growth of political tension near the borders of the new Soviet
region, the region and the city of Sovetsk in the 50s and 60s did not
receive proper funding from the regional budget, and their own economy
was not yet able to close all the essential needs of the city. They
survived as best they could. In the city, as well as throughout the
region, offices for the preparation of bricks were created. In the
conditions of the most severe economy and total deficit, this was the
little that the new region could initially give to the country. The
mined brick was taken out for the restoration of Leningrad and other
cities of the Soviet Union affected by the war.
On the central
square of the city on November 4, 1967, on the eve of the 50th
anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, a monument to
Vladimir Lenin was erected. The monument was created according to the
project of the sculptors of the Maksla plant of the Latvian SSR Otto
Kaleis and Valdis Albergs. In 1976, a new building of the Rossiya Hotel
appeared on the southwestern side, designed to simultaneously receive
149 guests of the city.
As part of the Russian Federation
2001
- Sovetsk was ranked among the best small towns in Russia in terms of
business climate, and took 1st place in developing a city development
strategy and attracting investment.
2005 - The European
Commission at the Council of Europe, together with the Congress of
Municipalities, awarded the city of Sovetsk with a diploma "For a
strategic approach to the development of cross-border cooperation."
The northernmost city in the region. It is located at
the confluence of the Tylzha and Neman rivers, connected to the
Lithuanian coast by the Queen Louise Bridge through the customs
terminal. Opposite Sovetsk on the Lithuanian coast is Panemune, the
smallest city in Lithuania, created artificially after the war.
Sovetsk is located 118 km from Kaliningrad, near the border of the
Kaliningrad region and the Republic of Lithuania, at the confluence of
the Tylzha and Neman rivers. In the north, the city borders on
Lithuania, in the southeast - on the Nemansky district of the
Kaliningrad region, in the northwest - on the Slavsky district. Their
regional centers are located at a distance of 7 km from Sovetsk.
Vegetation
Favorable temperature conditions, an
abundance of moisture and a sufficient number of sunny days a year make
Sovetsk a real garden city: most of its territory belongs to parks,
orchards and squares. Many trees, shrubs and flowers are planted in the
city every year. Before perestroika, Sovetsk could rightfully be called
the city of roses. About 40,000 roses were planted in city flowerbeds
and flower beds; today, only a few rose bushes on the central streets of
the city remind of its former beauty.
Climate
The climate of
the city is transitional from maritime to continental. As a result,
winters are warm and summers are cool. The warmest months are July and
August. Spring is long, March and April are cold, and May and June are
warm. Throughout the year, the frequency of continuous cloud cover is
high. The degree of cloud coverage of the sky exceeds 5.5 points. High
air humidity and high cloudiness significantly affect the change in the
light regime. The number of cloudy days is increased at some distance
from the coast, in the Sovetsk-Chernyakhovsk-Zheleznodorozhny band, in
connection with the peculiarities of the development of convective
activity in the warm season. Clear days are rare - only 30-33 days a
year. Spring and autumn come more slowly than in mainland areas. The
climate is largely similar to the climate of Kaliningrad.
The
average annual temperature is +7.3 °C.
The average annual wind speed
is 4.7 m/s.
The rapid growth of Tilsit's industry began in the
19th century (70-80 years). Numerous civil, industrial, military and
engineering facilities are being actively built, many of which have
survived to this day, although they have been rebuilt many times, but
are significant architectural structures of the city. The beginning of
the city's industry was laid by the enterprising pharmacist Johann
Wächter, who built a sugar factory in 1820, using the most modern and
complex technology at that time (which was developed by Prussian
scientists), processing raw materials into sugar. Sugar in those days
was expensive and sold in pharmacies. By the way, we can say that it was
then that the saying “Even the king does not eat sugar with spoons” was
in use.
In 1830, an oil mill, a vinegar factory, a cooperage
establishment, a warehouse for oil, cake and a dryer were built. In 1845
- Milkhbud - a cheese factory near Tilsit, which produced the famous
"Tilsit cheese". In the same year, the construction of a highway began
between Tilsit and the nearest town of Ragnit (Neman). In 1865, another
important event took place: the commissioning of the Tilsit-Insterburg
railway (Chernyakhovsk) and the construction of a railway station in the
city. The building of the station with minor changes has survived to
this day. In 1875, a railway bridge across the Memel was put into
operation, through which railway traffic to Klaipeda began to be carried
out. Gas lighting from the gas plant works in the city (at present,
warehouses of the Druzhba hosiery factory are located at this place).
1874 - grain pressed yeast and distillation factory. Since 1907,
liqueurs and wholesale wine trade. Since 1920 - the release of alcohol
yeast. 1881 - 9 sawmills, the Tilsit joint-stock brewery (2200 thousand
liters annually), 2 vinegar factories (180 thousand liters), 3 mineral
water factories, 2 metal foundries and machine-building enterprises
(processing 800-900 tons of raw and wrought iron; manufacture of
machines for sawmills, brick factories, mills, paper mills, printing
houses; assembly of agricultural machines), glass factory (bottles and
window glass), 5 steam flour mills (4000-5000 tons of wheat and
3500-4000 tons of rye flour ). Processing of flax (500-600 tons),
flaxseed into linseed oil was carried out. 125-250 tons of colza were
processed into rapeseed oil. 2 soap factories produced soap and candles,
and linseed oil was processed into drying oil, and rapeseed oil into
lubricants. There were a paper factory, 12-15 leather workshops, a wagon
factory, a furniture factory (assembling pianos from imported parts),
brick factories (8400 thousand bricks and 1300 thousand tiles).
The development of industry caused a rapid increase in the city's
population. Since 1873, the paving of streets in the city center began,
in 1880 the city sewerage system began to be built. Along with the
development of the city, the number of industrial enterprises also
increased. In 1898, a pulp and paper mill appeared in the city (it
exists to this day), since 1901 - an elevator (today a flour mill on the
banks of the Neman) and a number of other enterprises. In 1907, the
construction of a stationary road bridge across the Memel was completed,
which was called the Queen Louise Bridge. 1927 - a gas furnace was put
into operation. Benzene was produced and resins were extracted (45 m³
per 100 kg of coal).
In the post-war period, Sovetsk, through the labor of
the first settlers and the next generations of Soviets, quickly turns
into a major industrial center of the region. Despite the terrible
destruction, the sabotage actions of the German combat groups and former
members of the Hitler Youth remaining in the Soviet rear (the last arson
of buildings and warehouses were suppressed in 1947), vandalism by
certain officials of the Lithuanian Economic Council, work was
established in the city in a short time industrial enterprises and the
production of various products is ensured.
For many decades, the
Soviet Pulp and Paper Plant became the largest, city-forming enterprise
of the city. The first restoration work on the site of German factories
began in May 1945. The plant was located in the northwestern part of the
city on the banks of the Neman River. The area occupied by it was more
than 90 hectares, not counting the territory of the bark dump. In the
best years, the number of workers at the SCBZ reached 3,500 people. The
timber exchange, wood, chlorine, cooking and other workshops were
complex from a technological point of view of production. The enterprise
had its own fire station, railway depot, oil depot, medical service,
sports hall with a heated pool. Important for the city was the work of
the boilers of the plant's CHPP, for many years the only source of
central heat supply of Sovetsk. The plant gave work to its numerous
subcontractors. First of all, the railroad. Kilometer-long trains with
pulpwood from Arkhangelsk and Vologda have become a familiar sight for
Soviets walking along the street. A. Nevsky or the Humpbacked Bridge.
The company's products in the form of pulp, offset paper, cardboard, and
subsequently wallpaper were sold throughout the Soviet Union, and were
exported in large volumes to the countries of Eastern and Western
Europe.
Familiar to many school notebooks with the stamp "Soviet
TsBZ" were produced at the printing department of the plant, which later
became an independent cardboard factory. It produced albums, notebooks,
calendars and other printed products. Unfortunately, the collapse of the
Soviet Union, the emergence of an enterprise of the independent state of
Lithuania on the way of transporting raw materials and finished products
led to a violation of previously built transport and logistics chains,
an increase in the cost of production costs and a significant increase
in the cost of manufactured products. In 2006, a major fire broke out at
the enterprise, which completely destroyed a number of workshops
important in the technological process of the plant. Currently, a small
Atlas-Market LLC operates on the territory of the STsBZ, which produces
corrugated board and related products under the trade mark "Soviet
Paper".
Another industry leader in Sovetsk was the Sovetsky Dairy
Plant. It was built in the western part of the city on Mayakovsky Street
and put into operation in 1978. The plant had the most advanced
equipment for those times and produced a different range of dairy
products. From milk to delicious ice cream. The enterprise processed 35
tons of milk per day, it was brought to Sovetsk from the agricultural
regions of the region and neighboring regions of Lithuania. But the main
products of the Soviet KMP were whole milk replacer (WMS) and skimmed
milk powder (SOM), an important component for animal husbandry. In a
high, 25 meter workshop - tower, there were 2 bunkers in which milk was
evaporated. Milk replacer and SMP were in great demand by the region's
agriculture. In addition, these products of the Soviet plant were
successfully exported to many countries up to Brazil. The plant ceased
operations in 1994. Today, its grandiose workshops are slowly being
destroyed.
Taking into account the rural areas surrounding the
city, the food industry in Sovetsk was very widely represented. In the
Soviet period, a yeast factory (Smolenskaya St.), a canning factory
(Bolnichnaya St.), a flour mill (Gagarin St.), a bakery "Sovetsky"
(Krasnaya St.), a meat processing plant (Teatralnaya St.), a food
factory of the Regional Potresoyuza ( Mayakovskogo st.), brewery (A.
Nevsky st.). The products manufactured by the city's enterprises were of
excellent quality and were in high demand among the residents of the
region. In the 90s, the city opened the production of lemonades and
SovLit mineral water, a branch of the Novaya Ruta chocolate factory, and
a cognac factory. A fairly popular brand of cognac "Old Tilsit" has been
produced in Sovetsk for several years.
At the beginning of the
2000s, on the territory of the former UNR car park on the street.
Mayakovsky, the Lithuanian company "Vici" built the food enterprise
"Vichyunai Rus". Today it is the largest enterprise in Sovetsk, the
number of employees reaches 1500. It produces products from surimi: crab
sticks, shrimp, roll; semi-finished fish products, salted fish and other
products under the brand name Vici.
The third most important industry for the city's
economy was light. The Druzhba factory (Iskra Street) produced
children's and adult knitwear, hosiery, gloves, hats, etc. After the
collapse of the USSR, part of the production became private and
separated into separate enterprises. On Tank Street. "Friendship-2",
"Friendship-3" were created. In addition, the private enterprises of IP
Okavitaya have also reached quite large volumes of production of socks.
In 1974, the flagship of the city's light industry, the Soviet
Garment Factory, was put into operation on Gagarin Street. The number of
employees was 900 people. Until now, the unique clothing production,
already in the form of Baltic Lines JSC, has been producing high-quality
women's outerwear. Trademarks MEXX, ESPRIT, S.Oliver, Berghaus cooperate
with the enterprise. The clothes for these brands are produced in the
factories and sold all over the world. On the territory of the factory
there is a store of its own products.
Sovetsk was also
represented in mechanical engineering. He did not survive the referoma
and in 1997 stopped the production activities of the ZPS - Commercial
Shipbuilding Plant, which for many years produced small-capacity fishing
and auxiliary river vessels. The last order for the ZPS was made for the
Moscow City Hall - a vessel for collecting spilled oil products. On the
basis of the railway repair workshops of the Sovetsk station, in 2005,
the Experimental Plant METALLIST-REMPUTMASH OJSC, a division of the
Kaluga Machine-Building Plant, was established. , abrasive wheels for
railway grinding machines.
In the 90s on the street. Mayakovsky
operated a plant for the production of cable products "Baltkabel".
A unique and high-tech enterprise was the Raduga Machine-Building
Plant (its workshops on Iskra Street now house various shopping
centers), which already in the 80s had CNC lathes in its fixed assets.
In the 2000s, the workshops of the plant housed, the first of its kind,
the assembly production of the Stela Plus television equipment.
Subsequently, several more similar assembly plants were opened in
Sovetsk, including the famous Soviet brand "Record". The plant was
located in a converted building of a former service station on the
Kaliningrad highway. Later, on st. A. Nevsky on the territory of the
former military units, Amber LLC and Radiozavod LLC opened their
production facilities.
The products of the Soviet furniture
factory, located in the school district 5 on Timiryazev Street, were in
great demand among the inhabitants of the region. Book-tables, Neman
walls and other products of the enterprise stood in the apartments of
many Kaliningrad families. The company ceased to exist in 2005 already
as Baltmebel OJSC. Later, a large furniture production was built by
Lithuanian investors on the street. Leningradskaya.
In the
post-war period, the construction industry was also created in the city
from scratch. Construction and installation department No. 6 (SMU-6),
repair and construction department No. 2 (RSU-2), Soviet concrete goods,
military repair plant. Through the efforts of these enterprises and
their employees, by the 70s, Sovetsk turned into a well-groomed and
flourishing city, giving its residents everything they need. It was
during these years that the Southern microdistrict and Kashtanovaya
Street were built up. Military builders ensured the construction of
residential buildings in the area of military units on the street.
Kirovogradskaya, as well as on the Kaliningrad highway.
SMU-6
specialists erected most of the buildings and enterprises of the city:
the KMP, the Garment Factory, the Rossiya Hotel, kindergartens and
schools.
Enterprise "Improvement" (director Baranov I.P.) on the
street. Gogol arranged a large greenhouse, in which thousands of roses
were grown especially for city flower beds.
In many ways, it was
thanks to them that the city of Sovetsk was considered the greenest,
most comfortable and well-groomed city in the region.
The famous
and unique Radio Center No. 5 occupied a special place in the life of
the city. Its mast field still raises many questions from those
traveling along the Sovetsk-Bolshakovo road.
Infrastructure
In
the post-war period, the city became an important energy hub. The 330 kV
Sovetsk substation built in the eastern part of the city, before the
construction of CHPP-2 in Kaliningrad, was an important energy hub and
provided electricity supplies to the Kaliningrad region from the
Lithuanian SSR, and later independent Lithuania.
The large Soviet
oil depot supplied fuel to all enterprises in the city, as well as to
agricultural producers in the surrounding rural areas.
The linear
communications shop on Zhilinskoye Highway ensured the operation of
numerous communications linking the regional center with Moscow and
other regions of the country.
Before the main gas came to the
city, a large liquefied gas station Kaliningradgazifikatsiya operated in
Sovetsk. Nowadays, the city is fully provided with natural gas.
As part of the implementation of projects for the development of the
Kaliningrad region, in March 2018, the Talakhovskaya TPP, which has two
gas turbine units manufactured by Russian Gas Turbines LLC, went into
operation in Sovetsk. It is designed to ensure the energy security of
the Kaliningrad region and make its energy system more flexible. The
power plant was named after the Hero of the Soviet Union Konstantin
Yakovlevich Talakh, who died in the battles for the city.
Shopping malls
In Sovetsk, shopping malls are represented by the
following companies - center of household appliances Maximus; OJSC
"Victoria" shopping malls "Victoria", "Victoria-Kvartal", and "Cheap"; ,
shopping center "Europe", shopping center "Arcade", shopping center
"Baltic Meridian".
city market
The municipal market of
Sovetsk is a complex for 1000 trading places.
The length of motor roads is 105.0 km, of federal
significance 13.6 km. The total length of railway lines within the
boundaries of the city is 17.0 km.
According to Rosstatistics,
the length of public roads within the city limits is 94.5 km, which is
90% of the total length of local roads.
Railway transport
1865
- Tilsit is connected by rail with Insterburg; 1875 - construction of a
railway bridge across the Neman; 1891 - opening of the Tilsit-Königsberg
railway line;
Sovetsk station is a railway junction. During the
Soviet period, passenger traffic was carried out through the city along
the route Kaliningrad-Leningrad, Kaliningrad-Riga. The main flow of the
station was cargo for numerous industries in the city, primarily the
STsBZ.
In Sovetsk, the railway lines belonging to the Kaliningrad
railway converge from Chernyakhovsk, Polessk and Kaliningrad, the Neman
(service line, used only for transporting products from the building
materials plant, no passenger traffic) and Lithuania (only freight
traffic). Passenger railway communication with the city of Kaliningrad
is carried out (1 time per day).
Narrow gauge roads
In the
past, Tilsit was also served by narrow gauge railways, see East Prussian
Narrow Gauge Railways.
Highways
The impetus for the
development of the city was given in 1836 by the construction of the
Tilsit-Riga highway.
Today, the federal highway Gvardeysk-Neman
passes through Sovetsk to the border with Lithuania (through Siauliai to
Riga), A216, which is part of the European road network E 77. Since
2013, a new terminal of the Dubki-Rambinas international checkpoint is
being built outside the city limits. The establishment of a checkpoint
will make it possible to withdraw transit traffic flows outside the city
of Sovetsk (Kalingrad region) and contribute to the resolution of
problematic situations, including those related to the environmental
situation in the city.
Water transport
Tilsit was the center
of river navigation, where thousands of cargo and passengers a day
crossed the threshold of the port.
During the Soviet period, the
port was quickly restored from ruins, and then it grew significantly.
Bulk cargo handling volumes were among the largest in the region. The
port's fleet consisted of a large number of barges, the best river
vessels of the world Voskhod and Zarya were engaged in the
transportation of passengers. Flights were carried out to the cities of
Kaunas and Klaipeda. Trips on Zarya to Mount Rambinas were especially
popular among residents of the region and tourists.
The port was
located along the banks of the Neman River from Herzen Street to the
Flour Mill. Most of its territory was occupied by various bulk cargoes
delivered to the city by port barges for numerous construction projects
in the region. The port played a very important role in the life of
Sovetsk; annually, under the patronage of the port, a fancy-dress
holiday "Fisherman's Day" was held on the city's embankment with the
participation of Neptune and other characters.
You can see the
life of the port and the city of Sovetsk of that period by watching the
film "The First Flight" with the famous Boris Andreev in the title role.
The enterprise was very successful, since many multi-storey buildings
along Pobeda and Gagarin streets were built for the port workers, at the
expense of its funds.
Freight and passenger traffic along the
river. Neman functioned until 1991. Due to the collapse of the USSR, the
activity of the port was stopped, and the ships were sold. So, one of
the barges was sold to Poland, but sank in the Baltic Sea during
transportation. Today, due to the border position of the river,
navigation, including passenger navigation, has been in a difficult
situation; since 1992, the city administration has been developing a
concept for the development of river tourism along the Neman jointly
with Lithuanian cities. In 2008, a liquidation procedure was launched in
relation to JSC "Soviet River Port". In November 2014, the last GANZ
harbor cranes were dismantled.
Air Transport
1921 - the
Danzig-Königsberg-Tilsit-Memel air service was opened;
1926 - air
communication Berlin - Königsberg - Tilsit - Revel - Leningrad and
Berlin - Königsberg - Tilsit - Moscow was opened;
1945 - in Tilsit
there was an air connection with Königsberg and Berlin.
During the
Soviet period in the sixties, passenger traffic between Kaliningrad and
Sovetsk was carried out on the AN-2 aircraft, and later on helicopters.
After the development and improvement of road transport, air traffic was
abolished.
Intercity and international bus service
Bus service
is represented by intra-regional and international routes. The main
Sovetsk - Kaliningrad; Sovetsk - Chernyakhovsk - Gusev and international
routes: Kaliningrad - Riga, Kaliningrad - Tallinn, Kaliningrad -
Vilnius.
Transit issues
The main problems of transit and
logistics are related to the visa regime of the EU and the Russian
Federation. Delivery of goods and passenger traffic passes through the
customs terminal Sovetsk - Panemune.
City public transport
In
the post-war years, public transport activity was quickly restored.
Already in 1946 on the street. Suvorova, 1A began its activity motorcade
1704. For many years it was engaged in cargo transportation on orders
from enterprises in the region, as well as the delivery of passengers by
public road transport from the east of the region.
There were 12
bus routes in the city, the most remote of which, No. 5, went to the
Soviet sanatorium, located on Polevoy Street in the Sanatorsky Forest.
In the 70s and 80s, LiAZ-677 buses were the main convoys in the park.
Between Sovetsk and Neman, with an interval of 30 minutes, a bus ran
along route 101. The yellow harmonica of Icarus is still remembered by
many residents of the city.
In 2007, Arkada-SZP LLC became the
successor of the oldest enterprise, with 192 employees.
The
company has 63 buses of various brands that serve 20 routes, including
Slavsky, Nemansky, Krasnoznamensky district, the cities of Sovetsk,
Kaliningrad, Chernyakhovsk, Gvardeysk. Every day, 49 pieces of equipment
go on the line, the passenger flow is more than 8,000 people a day.
29 employees of the enterprise have the title of "Veteran of
Labour", sixteen were awarded the Gratitude of the Minister of Transport
of the Russian Federation, 21 people were awarded Certificates of Honor
of the Ministry of Infrastructure Development of the Kaliningrad Region.
Currently, there are several scheduled routes in the city. The main
share of passenger traffic is carried by the Sovetsk-Neman
intermunicipal route No. 301, as well as municipal bus routes No. 1, No.
2, No. 4, No. 5, No. 6.
Tilsit tram
Main article: Tilsit tram
An electric tram operated in Tilsit from 1901 to 1944. There were four
routes in total.
Bridges
Today in Sovetsk there are two
bridges across the Neman River: a railway bridge [lt] and a
car-pedestrian bridge - the famous Queen Louise Bridge.
Tilsit
October 15, 1875 - a railway bridge connected the two banks of the Memel
(Neman). In 1904, the construction of a new bridge with a length of 416
meters began - the Queen Louise Bridge, the bridge was opened in 1907.
In 2011, construction began on a new road bridge across the Neman
River, next to the checkpoint, which is scheduled to open in 2018.
The streets of Sovetsk
There are more than 140 streets in
Sovetsk. Most of the streets were renamed from German names to Russian
ones. After the Second World War, many of the old streets have retained
their historical appearance, they are lined with paving stones, lined
with trees along the roadside and have a picturesque view. The names of
many heroes of the Great Patriotic War G. P. Burov, S. V. Lyamin, K. Ya.
Talakh and others are immortalized in the names of the streets of
Sovetsk. The oldest and widest street in the city is Gagarin Street. The
central shopping street of the city is Victory Street.
The main
transport artery of the city is Lenin Street. A number of streets are
named after the heroes of the Civil War - Chapaeva Street, Vorovskogo
Street. In 2014, the list of streets in the city of Sovetsk was
replenished with one more. Part of Gogol Street was renamed Tilsitskaya
Street. We are talking about the territory where the city's greenhouse
was once located. Now there are about ten mansions.
Lithuania Lithuania, Iskry street, 22, ☎ +7 40161 381-65, fax: +7(40161) 391-59.