Brandenburg Gate (Kaliningrad)

Last updated March 16, 2019

The Brandenburg Gate (Russian: Бранденбургские ворота, tr.: Brandenburgskie vorota, German: Brandenburger Tor) is one of seven surviving city gates in Kaliningrad, the former German city of Königsberg. The gate is located on Bagration Street and is the only gate of Kaliningrad still in use for the intended purpose.

Russian is an East Slavic language, which is official in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 25 December 1991. Although, nowadays, nearly three decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian is used in official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states, as well as in Israel and Mongolia, the rise of state-specific varieties of this language tends to be strongly denied in Russia, in line with the Russian World ideology.

Romanization of Russian is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic script into the Latin script.

German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are also strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.

History

The Brandenburg Gate was built in the south-western part of Königsberg in 1657, with the strengthening of the city walls at the intersection with the road leading to the castle of Brandenburg (now the village of Ushakovo). Due to lack of funds a mere wooden gate was erected. Some hundred years later the gate was torn down and replaced by a brick structure by order of King Frederick II of Prussia. During restoration work in 1843 the gate was significantly altered and decorated with sharp decorative pediments, cruciform sandstone color, stylized leaves on the tops, coats of arms and medallions. Sculptures of Field Marshal Hermann von Boyen (1771–1848), a war minister and reformer of the Prussian army, and Lieutenant-General Ernst von Aster (1778–1855), chief of the engineering corps, and one of the initiators of the second strengthening of the city walls, were added as well.

Ushakovo, Novomoskovsky Rural Okrug, Guryevsky District, Kaliningrad Oblast human settlement in Russia

Ushakovo is a village in the Russian enclave Kaliningrad Oblast. It is situated at the mouth of the Prokhladnaya River at the Vistula Lagoon.

Leopold Hermann Ludwig von Boyen was a Prussian army officer who helped to reform the Prussian Army in the early 19th century. He also served as minister of war of Prussia in the period 1810-1813 and later again from 1 March 1841 – 6 October 1847.

The Brandenburg Gate is the only gate of the still existing gates of Kaliningrad that performs its original transport function. The structure has been restored and is protected by the state as an architectural monument.

Architecture

Though built in the middle of the 19th century, the Königsberg gates were neogothic in style. The Brandenburg Gate expresses the Gothic motifs particularly vividly. The pediments in the form of arrows give this gate, which is in fact rather low, a sense of height. The gate is richly decorated with decorative elements, such as the high relief stone and stylized flowers.

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References

V.N. Strokin, «Monuments Ratne last» - Guide to the memorial places of the Kaliningrad Region, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Book Publishers, 1995.
Avenir Ovsyanov, In the casemates of the royal fort. Kaliningrad, «Amber tale», 1999.

External links

Media related to Brandenburg Gate (Kaliningrad) at Wikimedia Commons

Coordinates: 54°41′50.22″N20°29′41.11″E / 54.6972833°N 20.4947528°E / 54.6972833; 20.4947528

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

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