The capital of the German province of East Prussia was Koenigsberg.
East Prussia had been part of the German Empire before 1918. As part of the peace settlement of 1919 at the end of the first world war the state of Poland was re-created from those parts that had been incorporated into Prussia, Russia and Austria-Hungary. To give Poland access to the sea a corridor was created which separated off East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Thus Koenigsberg was the capital of a German enclave, and one that was missing the former German territories of Poland.

Koenigsberg (Kingshill) had been founded by the Teutonic Knights in 1255. Then it had been one of the Hanseatic cities of the Baltic which traded among each other and with Scandinavia and Britain.

The defeat of Germany in the second world war was complete. Soviet forces invaded the area and drove back the German armies from the Baltic area - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and East Prussia. The new frontiers of the area required huge movements of population. Germans were driven out of most of East Prussia. Most of it was given to Poland which now had the whole Baltic sea coast. Koenigsberg was taken by the Soviet Union and incorporated into Russia, and used as a Soviet naval base on the Baltic - in waters that seldom freeze, unlike Leningrad (now Sankt Peterburg). The German inhabitants were expelled (though a few remain). The city was renamed for a prominent Soviet politician Mikhael Kalinin.

At present (2002) this enclave of land on the Baltic remains part of Russia though now several hundred miles from the nearest parts of Russia - now separated by independent Lithuania and Belarus. Both its neighbors Lithuania and Poland have now joined both NATO and the European Union.

This leaves the people there a problem. They need to cross foreign countries to get to the rest of Russia. Its economy has collapsed as modern Russia has no money for the huge fleet that used the facilities, and no need for it anyway. It will remain a non-member of the EU.

The former inhabitants and their descendants are beginning to be interested again in the territory. Could it become germanised again? Its future must be very uncertain.

Wikipedia

Russian

German

There is a governor appointed by Moskva (by President Medvedyev).

After the fall of the Soviet Union its only serious economic activities consisted of various kinds of smuggling and illegal trade, and the support of the rusting Baltic Fleet of the former Soviet Union, now belonging to Russia. The fleet sees little use.

Russia now has a policy of investing in the area and it has been made a Special Economic Zone, which means tax advantages for businesses. Manufacturing is now said to be growing rapidly, though almost entirely for the Russian market, being shipped across Lithuania or Belarus by train. Russians are being encouraged to migrate there.

Serious pollution from the military bases of the former USSR.

No worse, or better, than in the rest of Russia.

The Baltic is tending to freeze later and thaw earlier.