Secret code of Koenigsberg Text. Andrey Przhezdomsky - Secret code of Koenigsberg Secret code of Koenigsberg

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Andrei Stanislavovich Przhezdomsky
Secret code of Koenigsberg

© Przhezdomsky A.S., text, illustrations, 2014

© LLC Publishing house "Veche", 2014

From the author

H our Russian cities – whether they are the throne cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg or almost invisible on the map of Russia Pechora near Pskov and Mezen in the Arkhangelsk North – have so many exciting stories, so many amazing and still unsolved events in their distant and recent past that You can talk about this endlessly. The only pity is that in today's everyday bustle, in pursuit of a place under the newly shining sun, many of us somehow did not care about the history of our country, our people, our cities.

At the same time, without looking into the past, without comprehending past events, there is no present, much less a future. The past is just there, good or bad, exciting or not. Not to know it, to try to forget it, playfully alter it for the sake of momentary interests, or, moreover, to refuse it is a crime against future generations. Thank God that most people understand this.

Among Russian cities, Kaliningrad occupies special place. The most western in our country, it seems to have absorbed all the contradictions that arose at the junction of two great civilizations - Western European and Slavic, concentrated the virtues and vices of past centuries, retained touches of the past and signs of antiquity of the former Königsberg.

The ancients called this city in Latin Regiomontum, which means “Mountain of the King”. What kind of characteristics did not give Koenigsberg! All the invaders and obscurantists, from the knights of the Teutonic Order to the Nazi military, called it "the German outpost in the East." Scientists and philosophers called it "the city of Kant". The soldiers of the Great Patriotic War perceived it as "the lair of the fascist beast" and "the stronghold of German militarism." Kaliningraders and guests of the current Baltic city know it as a "garden city" and "the pearl of the Amber Region" ... Everyone has been giving out their epithets to Kaliningrad-Königsberg.

And I would call this city on the coast of the Baltic Sea “a city of amazing secrets” because I don’t know of another such place in our country where the circumstances of the past centuries would be intertwined so much true and now hidden from our eyes. Maybe it's just me. And the romance of the search for the Amber Room, in which I happened to participate, created its halo over what was left of the former Königsberg. However, I would still argue: this city holds so many secrets of the past that it is hardly possible to tell about them all in sufficient detail.

In my book, the first edition of which was published in 1998 under the title "Teutonic Cross", I will try to tell only about a few secrets of the old city, which I had to come into contact with personally in one situation or another, sometimes understandable to me, and sometimes completely inaccessible to a sober explanation. It was in Kaliningrad that I once encountered elements of mysticism and believed that there are things that cannot be explained only by correct logical constructions and conclusions, that some phenomena must be taken for granted, without trying to determine the causes of their occurrence. Of course, this is non-materialistic. But aren't we too much carried away by the rationalistic explanation of events, if in the end we again began to look for a way to the origins?

The reader is offered seven small fragments of history and a short walk through one of the districts of the city, which, it seems to me, clearly show how closely the events of past years are intertwined with our life today, that the differences between people lie not at the border posts, but in their image. thoughts and, most importantly, in their life position. Perhaps these stories with a retrospective look into the past will be of interest to the reader, especially to those who have visited this amazing city at least once. I really hope so.

Part one
Seven Fragments of History

Teutonic cross

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:

Mors et fugacem persequitur virum 1
“Death for the fatherland is joyful and glorious - He who fled from it in battle will not survive” (translated from Latin). Quintus Horace Flaccus (65 - 8 BC). "Odes" ("Carmina", III, 2, 13-16. Translated by A.A. Fet).

Quintus Horace Flaccus (65-8 BC)

In the early morning we were already on our feet. After a quick bite and putting a sapper shovel, a flashlight and a five-meter rope into the bag - the "inventory" necessary for the implementation of our plan, we went outside. The district house of pioneers, where we decided to stay, was located from the city center in twenty minutes by tram.

In the center of Kaliningrad in the mid-1960s

Where have these brisk miniature Kaliningrad trams swaying from side to side gone now? Turning with a screeching turn, they seemed about to tip over on their side or jump off their iron track. But, oddly enough, this did not happen, and they rushed through the streets and squares of the city, ringing at intersections and sharply braking at bus stops.

It was on this tram that we got to the square. The day was sunny, bright, rather warm, at least not as cold as all the preceding March days had been. Everything felt the approach of the long-awaited summer - spring school break 1967 was in full swing.

With a quick step, we proceeded along a row of nondescript four-story buildings to the cherished goal of our stay in this city - the ruins of the Royal Castle. Yesterday, having barely arrived from the South Station, we immediately went to the castle and already had time to examine its sinister and at the same time mysterious ruins. And today they intended to certainly go down to one of his dungeons, still vaguely imagining for what purpose.

Very soon, high round towers with pediments, skeletons of facades and mountains, literally mountains of brick and debris, appeared from behind the houses in a completely open space. The closer we got to this ominous mutilated stone block, the faster our hearts beat, the more we were overwhelmed with the desire to penetrate into the most secret corners of the castle, to lift the veil of mystery over its centuries-old history and, of course, to find at least some hint of the bowels of the treasure. The spirit of adventurism captured us - two sixteen-year-old boys who came here, to Kaliningrad, from Moscow for literally a few days and were ready, contrary to the instructions of their parents, to rush into an unknown, risky business, to feel real danger and find out what real adventure is.

From the book "A.T. Bolotov in Königsberg". Kaliningrad, 19902
Hereinafter, the style and spelling of the source are preserved in quotations.
“The most famous of all the buildings located in Koenigsberg can be considered the so-called Castle, or the palace of the former dukes of Prussia. This huge and, according to its antiquity, magnificent building was erected on the highest mound, or hill, in the middle of the city itself. It is made quadrangular, high and has inside itself a quadrilateral, deliberately spacious area and gives the whole city a decoration, and all the more so because it is visible from many sides, and especially because of the river, above all houses.

This is how we saw the castle in 1967

We decided to start today's "examination" of the castle from that part of it that went out onto the street descending to the river, where we passed yesterday, following from the station. Here the castle seemed to be the best preserved.

Huge oval towers as high as a nine-story building, high and thick walls of the facade with gaps in huge rectangular windows, massive buttresses 3
Buttress - a stone transverse wall or ledge that reinforces the main supporting structure; one of the main elements of Gothic architecture.

Now pointlessly supporting it from the outside. Down along the street stretched a wall of large stones, an open terrace with a balustrade, a superbly preserved stone wall of gray stone with a pink tint.

After walking a little along the terrace and not finding anything but caked heaps of bricks, overgrown with last year's grass, and still bare, without a hint of bush buds, we turned towards the arched opening in the wall to go inside the ruins of the castle. Everywhere we came across broken, and sometimes whole bottles of wine and vodka, crumpled cigarette packs, heaps of torn newspapers and wrapping paper. All this, of course, somewhat reduced our romantic and adventurous mood, but could not shake the main thing - the confidence that something mysterious and unusual awaits us in these attractive ruins.

My comrade Volodya, who was walking a little way off, suddenly exclaimed:

- Look!

Directly in front of us, between two massive brick blocks that had collapsed from somewhere above, a black hole gaped in the ground. It was not visible either from the side of the narrow path winding between the ruins, or from the side of the terrace from which we were moving. If you do not climb over the blockage of bricks, risking getting smeared in clay and brick dust, then you will not even guess that there is an entrance to the dungeon here. Of course, local boys have already been here, and probably more than once. But we, Muscovites, who were unaware of the contemplation of the ruins familiar to Kaliningraders, found ourselves for the first time in front of the entrance to the present dungeon present knight's castle.

- Did you forget the flashlight? - for some reason I asked Volodya.

Royal castle in Königsberg

His bewildered look testified at least to the strangeness of my question - we put all the things together in the morning. A ray of light from an old German trophy Daiman, given to Volodya by his father, a former front-line soldier, ran through the bricks and literally disappeared into the darkness of the dungeon. Its electric power was clearly not enough to see anything in the pitch darkness of the dungeon. I squatted down, sat on the edge of the dip, dangled my legs into it, and shone it down again. Bricks crumbling from above and packed earth or clay formed something like a steep slope, going down somewhere. Flickering in the beam of a lantern Matchbox, stuck between the stones, somehow immediately relieved the tension, and Volodya and I, probably, almost simultaneously thought that nothing bad would happen if we tried to go down. Just in case, we threw a heavy stone into the gap - with a dull thud, it hit the wall somewhere in the depths of the underground passage.

Well, go ahead! We took turns jumping down. We were wafted with dampness, cold, and some other unusual smell with an admixture of mustiness. The break was now above us at arm's length. Bright daylight streamed into it. The noise of a tram passing near the castle was barely audible from the street.

When our eyes adjusted a little to the darkness, we saw that we were in a spacious room with a vaulted brick ceiling. It was difficult to determine the dimensions of the underground hall, since the beam of a flashlight caught only the outlines of the walls that appeared in the darkness. We walked several steps over broken bricks, stumbling over large pieces of debris and metal wire. The remnants of rebar hung from above, and rusty metal hooks protruded from the brickwork at chest level.

From the book of Adolf Boetticher "Monuments of architecture and art of East Prussia". Koenigsberg, 1897
“…the western side of the Castle was rebuilt… by Margrave Georg Friedrich in 1584-1595 on foundations built during the period of the order…

The castle building inspector Kuttig stated in 1882 that “in the construction of the western wing of the Castle, not only some of the old structures were used, but also a significant part of the ancient structure ... Dungeons located deep underground,” Kuttig reported, “have ... barrel vaults ...” In our opinion... all the walls above the ground and supporting columns in the dungeons were built in 1584-1595, and the encircling wall lying underground... - during the period of the Order.

Here begins the descent into the dungeon

Ruins of the northern wing of the castle

Having searched the wall opposite from us with a beam of a flashlight, we found right in the middle a high lancet arch with bricks that had fallen out along the edges. In the silence of the dungeon, our steps on the crumbling stone crumble made an unimaginable noise and seemed like a roar. In those moments when we stopped, wondering where to go next, we distinctly heard water dripping somewhere. The walls felt rough and damp to the touch.

Having overcome the arch, we found ourselves in a room of similar size, only more littered with broken bricks that had fallen through a gap in the ceiling. Daylight no longer penetrated here, and one had to navigate exclusively by the beam of a flashlight. Suddenly there was a metallic rumble, as if a foot had stumbled upon an empty bucket. Rusty German helmet! There was plenty of this "good" in Kaliningrad at that time. Volodya kicked her into the corner of the basement, where in the darkness a whole pile of similar scrap metal was guessed.

So we moved from room to room, trying to step with extreme caution, as more and more shards of bottle glass began to come across. Finally, they hit a blank wall. Having illuminated it, we noticed the clear outlines of another arch, neatly bricked up. Apparently, this was done a very long time ago - the brick in color and texture was no different from the masonry of the wall. Volodya and I, like real Sherlock Holmes, carefully tapped the wall with a stone, caught obvious differences in the sound of a blow on the immured part and the rest of the surface. There was no doubt! There was a secret in front of us! Who and when arranged it - we were no longer interested. Most importantly, we were on the right track. However, we were fully aware that on our own, without any special instrument, we were not able to shake the hardness of the walls of the citadel. It only remained to think about how we could dismantle this wall and who would help us in such an undertaking.

From Borrmann's book "East Prussia". Berlin, 1935
“The castle in its present form stands on the foundations of the former burgh 4
Burg ( lat. burgus) - castle, fortified point.
The construction of which was begun by the Teutonic Order in 1263, and significantly increased over the next three centuries.

In the knight's dungeon

Excavations at the site of the Royal Castle

Dangling telephone wires and a stranded cable in a braid corroded by time and dampness dangled on the wall from somewhere above. Bottle glass crunched underfoot; It seemed to me that the light of the flashlight had dimmed a little, and I told Volodya about it. We did not want to stay here, in this cold and damp dungeon, without light, and we decided to make our way to the exit.

Suddenly, I felt a vague uneasiness. On the far wall, the approach to which was littered with large boulders, I fancied some stains that had the correct geometric shape. Despite the faint light of a pocket flashlight, we saw that this wall was quite different. Instead of the dark red brick from which all the other walls were built, the material for it was large stones, mostly oval in shape. Therefore, it looked like the shell of a huge turtle.

From the book "German book of cities. Handbook of urban history. Volume I. Northeast Germany. Stuttgart - Berlin, 1939
“The wooden Order Castle was founded in 1255 (on the site of today's Reichsbank). It began to be built of stone in 1257 in the area of the western side of the current castle courtyard.

At the same time, in the middle of the wall, the outlines of an incomprehensible object so far appeared more and more clearly. We took a few steps, and now we saw quite clearly a massive iron cross embedded in the masonry.

Not without difficulty, overcoming the blockage of bricks and debris, we approached the wall. The cross was rough, all covered with a crust of age-old rust. Its shape was unusual: crosshairs of the same length ended at all four ends with short transverse crossbars. On the surface of the cross, rusty metal brackets protruded as barely noticeable outgrowths, embedded in the wall and tightly holding it in a vertical position. Something ominous seemed to be in this massive cross, in this mute witness to the events of the past, the life of many generations. What did this old knight's cross “see” from its stone wall, what events unfolded in its silent presence in the dark ages of the Middle Ages? Who could answer this question?

From Foley's Encyclopedia of Signs and Symbols. Moscow, 1996
“... The crosslet is also called the Teutonic cross. The four small crosses at the ends symbolize the four Gospels…”

Metal cross embedded in the wall

Teutonic cross

These walls remembered a lot

We stood in the dungeon a little more, considering the outlandish historical find. But the light of the flashlight became quite dim, and we, fearing that the battery would run out completely, set off on our way back.

When we reached the arch leading to another hall, I involuntarily turned around. I don’t know, maybe it seemed to me, but in the darkness of the dungeon, the cross seemed to even give off a little metallic sheen. "Devilry! I thought. What shine? It's rusty through and through!"

Soon we emerged from the castle cellars, squinting in the unexpectedly bright light of the March sun and enjoying the spring smell of rotten earth. Gloomy dungeons, stone blockages and a brick-filled arch - all this remained there, in the black hole of the castle underworld. Somewhere below, embedded in a stone wall, hung a large rusty cross, keeping some unsolved secret, covered in the darkness of the past centuries.

* * *

Glappo woke up. In the darkness, he felt his beaten, bleeding body. It smelled of dampness and something burning. The blood pounded in his temples, the pain literally split his head, preventing him from concentrating. Glappo could not remember what happened to him, why he ended up in this dark, damp basement. Sometimes it seemed that he managed to catch some disturbing thought, but it immediately slipped out of his inflamed consciousness. He pushed himself up on his elbows, then sat up, overcoming the pain. From somewhere above, a faint light penetrated the room, and Glappo managed to make out the outlines of his dungeon: walls made of large stone, a high ceiling supported by a massive wooden pillar, a heavy door knocked down from thick boards. On the opposite wall from the door, in the twilight of the dungeon, Glappo saw the outlines of a black Teutonic cross and remembered everything.

* * *

They came to his homeland as cold-blooded and treacherous killers. At first there were few of them, and the naive inhabitants of Sambia 5
Sambia is the ancient name of the area located on the Kaliningrad Peninsula.

They laughed at the unusual figures of riders in white cloaks with black crosses on their backs. The riders publicly announced that they had come here with a great mission to convert the Prussians to a new faith, to teach the pagans the Word of God. Having once asked his father what kind of new faith this was, Glappo did not hear any explanation in response. The father sat the boy on his lap, gently stroked his head and said:

- Son, grow strong and brave. Great trials lie ahead of you. Always worship our gods Perkunas Pikoloss and Potrimpos and do not offend the snakes, these sacred animals that bring happiness to people. Because of strangers who want to take away our gods from us, our land will cease to give a harvest, trees will bear fruit, and animals will cease to bear offspring. Don't trust them!

The father was a smart man and foresaw the trouble that was coming to their house.

Then, more and more often, Glappo heard the conversations of seriously alarmed adults, and one day a man in tattered clothes and with a bandaged head came to their little house with mud-smeared walls and a thatched roof. He spoke long and excitedly about the fact that the knights of the Teutonic Order moved in huge hordes to their land, bringing tears to the defenseless Prussian population. They brutally kill women and children, cutting them with their heavy swords, burning villages to the ground, and converting the surviving Prussians to a new faith, forcing them to worship a god alien to them. The Teutons have already completely conquered the Helm land, now they are moving into Natangia 6
Natangiya is a historical region in the southwestern part Kaliningrad region.

And soon, very soon they will come to these places.

Prussian warrior. From an old engraving

Teutonic Knight

“The superiority of weapons, which made each knight something like a mobile fortress, the best tactics, the art of fortification, the disunity of the Prussians, their carelessness and the inability characteristic of all savages to foresee the future and take care of it, explain the final success of the conquest, and the insignificance of the forces involved in the war makes understandable the duration of the struggle .

This conquest moved forward like a tidal wave, now advancing, now receding again.

Weak p Russian army was unable to resist the power of the knightly order and began to suffer defeat after defeat. Penetrating deep into the country, the knights build numerous fortresses and from there make their bloody raids. Kulm, Thorn, Marienwerder 7
Kulm, Thorn, Marienwerder - now the cities of Chelmno, Torun and Kwidzyn in Poland.

- these words sounded ominously in the mouth of the guest.

The walls were ready to collapse. 1967

Young Glappo listened to the confused story of a stranger about how, under the onslaught of the knights, the Prussian army under the command of the governor Piopse was besieged in the wooden fortress of Balga, on the coast of the sea, not far from here. The defenders could have held out for a long time if not for betrayal. One of the noble Prussians, succumbing to the admonitions of the knights, who promised anyone who would cooperate with them, to give a safe-conduct for hereditary possession of land, secretly made his way to the gates of the fortress and opened them at night for the enemy. The knights broke into the fortress, killed almost all of its defenders, not sparing the population of the surrounding villages who had taken refuge in it.

That night, hundreds of women, old people and children died under the blows of heavy Teutonic swords. In an unequal battle, the governor Piopse also fell, struck down by a crusader's spear. And the damned traitor went to the service of foreigners, by vile betrayal of his fellow tribesmen, securing the miserable existence of a traitor. The man, who excitedly told about the horrors of that night, miraculously managed to escape, and now, on the instructions of the governor, he carries gloomy news to the Prussian fortress of Lebesgue 8
Lebegov - now the city of Polessk, Kaliningrad region.

Soon, riders in white cloaks appeared in their land. True, so far they behaved peacefully and came only to hire people to build their fortresses, which they began to build literally at every step. A little time passed, and the entire southern part of Prussia was covered with a network of fortresses: Kreuzburg, Bartenstein, Rössel, Wiesenburg, Braunsberg, Heilsberg 9
Now these are the cities: Slavske in the Kaliningrad region, Bartoszyce, Braniewo, Lidzbark-Warminski and others in Poland.

Where did the Teutonic knights begin to make their robbery raids.

Figured monogram from the dungeons of the castle

Sinister ruins

Glappo remembers how one day, returning from the forest, where he and the guys went for mushrooms and berries, he found his mother and father crying at home, putting something in his hunting bag. He wore a new canvas short knee-length skirt with a belt adorned with bits of amber and finely carved iron plates. On the head is a pointed fur cap. My father brought from the closet a carefully honed ax with a long ornate handle and a javelin with a thick leather strap.

Twelve-year-old Glappo saw his father with a weapon for the first time. Saying goodbye to his wife and kissing each child individually, the father cast a heavy glance over the miserable furnishings of the house and, bowing low in farewell, went to the place where the gathering of all Prussians capable of bearing arms had been announced the day before. The rumors about the victory of the Slavic brothers over the dogs-knights, when the Russian army led by Prince Alexander defeated the Teutons on Lake Peipus, stirred up the Prussians, sowed in them the hope that, united, they would be able to resist the conquerors.

On June 15, 1243, near the Reizen Lake, large forces of the Teutonic Knights were defeated by the Prussian detachments, which were joined by the troops of the Pomeranian Prince Svyatopolk. In this bloody battle, the Germans suffered heavy losses. With an arrow fired from a Prussian dart, the Land Marshal of the Order of Berlivin was struck down on the spot. The "heroism" of the invaders came up against the steadfastness and courage of the freedom-loving people.

From the book of Laviss "Essays on the history of Prussia". Moscow, 1915
“On the eve of one of the bloodiest battles with the rebellious Prussians, the Virgin Mary appears to one knight who served her especially diligently and says: “Hermann, you will soon be with My Son.” The next day, Herman, rushing into the densest ranks of the enemy, said to his comrades: “Farewell, brothers, we will not see each other again! The Mother of God calls me to the eternal world!” One Prussian peasant who saw this battle, where the knights were put to flight and fell in heaps under the blows of enemies, ended his story about it like this: “Then I saw women and angels carrying the souls of brothers to heaven; Herman's soul shone most brightly in the hands of the Holy Virgin.

Teutonic sword hilt

The equestrian and foot knights who fled in panic threw their order banner with a black cross on the battlefield, which the Prussians solemnly burned on a hill to the sound of victorious exclamations and the sounds of hunting horns. But quite a few Prussians laid down their lives in that battle. Father Glappo did not return after him either. His mother was left with five children in her arms, having lost her only breadwinner.

* * *

…Glappo listened. From behind the massive door came guttural sounds. Sounds of German speech. At the mere thought that he had fallen into the clutches of the Teutons and was now powerless to continue the fight against the hated enemies of his people, Glappo clenched his fists, and a fit of rage seized his entire being.

He experienced the same feeling of impotent rage ten years ago, when the news came to their village that the sixty thousandth army of the Teutonic Order had again invaded Sambia. The crusaders were led by the Grand Master of the Order of Poppo von Ostern himself. The knights set out from Elbing to Balga and from there, passing through the ice of the frozen bay and not meeting serious resistance, they went deep into the country. Glappo, who by that time was twenty-four years old, hastily said goodbye to his mother, brothers and sisters, and went along with the entire male population of the surrounding villages to the fortress of Vilov, where the Prussian army was gathering. And already there the terrible news reached him that the knightly armada, crushing everything in its path, did not spare their small village either, setting fire to the houses along with the inhabitants, not sparing anyone - neither ancient elders nor babies. Three of his brothers were cut down with swords in the courtyard of their house in front of their mother, who then died herself in terrible agony - the knights burned her alive, tied to a tree. Both Glappo sisters tried to escape, but one after the other they were pierced by the sharp spears of the Teutons and thrown into the flames of the fire.

Symbols of the Teutonic Knights

From now on, vengeance became the only goal in Glappo's life. Since then, his sword and spear did not know mercy and smashed the hated knights even in a kneeling position. Comrades in arms did not recognize Glappo - he became cruel and ruthless. Once, when the young son of one of the colonists, the former leader of the Teutonic detachment, fell into his hands, he, without hesitation for a minute, pierced the child’s chest with his sword. Another time he gave the command to burn a group of missionary priests of the Order of the Sword in a barn.

“You have heard it said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”» 10
Bible. Books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Gospel of Matthew. Ch.5: 38.

The pagan Glappo, not being a Christian, fulfilled the biblical commandment.

Seal of Lobenicht. 15th century

Kneiphof seal. 15th century

Prussian leader Herkus Monte

After the knights founded Trakkeim in 1255 on the site of the three Prussian villages they had burned 11
Trakkeim (Prussian) -"village on a clearing in the forest" (later - Tragheim).

Zackheim 12
Sakkeim (Prussian) -"village in the clearing" (later - Sackheim).

and Lipenyk 13
Liepenick (Prussian) -"village in the swamp" (later - Löbenicht).

The Königsberg fortress, named after the Bohemian king Ottokar, who took part in their aggressive campaigns, it seemed that the capture of Sambia was already a foregone conclusion. But the will to freedom and hatred of the enslavers among the proud Prussians was great. Everyone, young and old, doomedly rose to a mortal battle with the crusaders, sent by the Pope with fire and sword to affirm the faith of Christ among the barbarians.

Standing under the banner of Herkus Monte, who led the uprising, the Prussians suddenly began to win one victory after another. Having defeated the army of the Order at Lake Durbe, where prominent Teutonic commanders were killed - Master Burgard von Gorngusen, Marshal Heinrich Bothel and the Danish Duke Karl, the Prussians, supported by Lithuanians and Curonians, advanced deep into the territory controlled by the Order, captured and burned the fortresses of the Crusaders Heilsberg, Braunsberg and Christburg.

From the book of Svillus "Our East Prussia". Volume. 2. Koenigsberg, 1919
"The great uprising of the defeated old Prussians against the Teutonic Knightly Order happened in 1261-1273. The reason for it was the treachery of Vogt Natangiya, who invited many noble Prussians to his castle and ordered them all to be burned alive ...

Hercus Monte in childhood was taken by brothers (knights of the order) to Magdeburg, where he was brought up in the Christian faith and trained German... Upon returning to Prussia, Herkus abandoned this faith and became the worst enemy of the order brothers ... The inhabitants of Natangia elected him as their leader and, thanks to his intelligence and courage, won many victories ... "

Glappo, who possessed remarkable strength and skillfully wielded weapons, was elected leader of one of the detachments of the rebels. On a sacred hill, lost in the depths of the forests of Ermland, he, along with his comrades, swore to fight until not a single knight was left on Prussian soil. They sealed their oath with blood according to the ancient custom of the Prussians.

Under the command of Herkus Monte, the Glappo detachment took part in the siege of the fortresses of Balga and Elbing, and in February 1261 in the siege of Koenigsberg. The city was blocked on all sides, and only along the river could the knights receive reinforcements. It soon came and slightly battered the ranks of the Prussian soldiers, but the siege of the fortress and the city was continued. In fact, there was no city as such. An unfinished stone fortress stood on the Tuwangste hill, surrounded by a high earthen rampart and a deep moat. 14
Now this place is the empty bulk of the former House of Soviets, fountains, lawns and shopping pavilions on the Central Square of Kaliningrad.

A little lower, in a ravine along which the Katzbach stream flowed 15
Now the stream is enclosed in a pipe connecting the Lower Pond with the Pregolya River.

, - an order mill and several wooden outbuildings that were burned at the very beginning of the siege. The settlement itself was located to the north of the fortress and was fenced with a high palisade, because of which the roofs of buildings and the pointed spire of the church of St. Nicholas were visible. 16
Subsequently, it was named the Steindamm Church.

Served as a beacon for knightly ships sailing along the Lipce River 17
During the Teutonic Order, the Pregolya River was called Skara, and then Liptsey. Only later did it begin to be called Pregora, or Prigora, and, finally, Pregel.

On the western slope of the hill, not far from the place where the “order brothers” mined stones for construction, the construction of a new castle was begun. A powerful wall of huge cobblestones had already grown, which was supposed to serve as the foundation for the Teutonic citadel. Almost at the very ground, two large Teutonic crosses were embedded in its base, shining in the sun with a metallic sheen.

Findings of archaeologists

From the book of Fritz Gause "History of the city of Königsberg in Prussia". Volume. I. Cologne, 1972
“An ancient fortress… was built on the site of a Prussian fortified settlement on the southeastern side of Tuwangste… It was temporary, as the Order already intended to build a castle on the higher and more extensive southwestern part of Tuwangste. The fortress was surrounded by a five-meter-wide earthen rampart with a strong fence made of forked tree trunks... It ran along the edge of the moat... On a relatively small area enclosed by a wooden fence, towered castle structures made of logs and half-timbered structures...”

The Prussians shelled the fortress and the city, bombarded it with lit arrows, causing numerous fires, but could not overcome the stubbornness of the defenders. Glappo remembered with what frenzy the knights suppressed all attempts by the Prussians to cut off the city and fortress from the river and thereby deprive them of the opportunity to receive reinforcements from outside. At first, the Prussians seemed to have found the right solution: they blocked the river with their small boats, anchored. Their warriors peered into the distance, ready to warn of the approach of the crusaders. And yet the knights outwitted them. At night, when darkness fell to the ground and shrouded the river in thick darkness, a detachment from Königsberg silently approached the boats, consisting of Germans and Prussian traitors who had gone over to their service. Not expecting an attack from the rear, the Prussians were taken by surprise.

Andrei Stanislavovich Przhezdomsky

Secret code of Koenigsberg

Kaliningrad occupies a special place among Russian cities. The most western in our country, it seems to have absorbed all the contradictions that arose at the junction of two great civilizations - Western European and Slavic, concentrated the virtues and vices of past centuries, retained touches of the past and signs of antiquity of the former Königsberg.

Part one

Seven Fragments of History

Teutonic cross

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:

Mors et fugacem persequitur virum.

Quintus Horace Flaccus (65-8 BC)

In the center of Kaliningrad in the mid-1960s

From the book "A.T. Bolotov in Königsberg". Kaliningrad, 1990

“The most famous of all the buildings located in Koenigsberg can be considered the so-called Castle, or the palace of the former dukes of Prussia. This huge and, according to its antiquity, magnificent building was erected on the highest mound, or hill, in the middle of the city itself. It is made quadrangular, high and has inside itself a quadrilateral, deliberately spacious area and gives the whole city a decoration, and all the more so because it is visible from many sides, and especially because of the river, above all houses.

This is how we saw the castle in 1967

Huge oval towers as high as a nine-story building, high and thick walls of the facade with gaps in huge rectangular windows, massive buttresses, now senselessly supporting it from the outside. Down along the street stretched a wall of large stones, an open terrace with a balustrade, a superbly preserved stone wall of gray stone with a pink tint.

My comrade Volodya, who was walking a little way off, suddenly exclaimed:

- Look!

Secret code of Koenigsberg Andrey Przhezdomsky

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Title: Secret code of Koenigsberg

About the book Andrey Przhezdomsky "The Secret Code of Koenigsberg"

Königsberg is a city that is not on the world map. Today it is Kaliningrad, a Russian outpost in the Baltic, the fate of which, long before it began to be called by a new name, was closely intertwined with Russia and its history, a city of complex and contradictory fate, keeping many secrets and amazing stories. Chapters of this book are devoted to some dramatic episodes from the life of Königsberg-Kaliningrad, including those in which the author directly participated.

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Andrei Stanislavovich Przhezdomsky

Secret code of Koenigsberg

© Przhezdomsky A.S., text, illustrations, 2014

© LLC Publishing house "Veche", 2014

From the author

Part one
Seven Fragments of History

Teutonic cross

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:

Quintus Horace Flaccus (65-8 BC)

In the center of Kaliningrad in the mid-1960s

From the book "A.T. Bolotov in Königsberg". Kaliningrad, 1990
“The most famous of all the buildings located in Koenigsberg can be considered the so-called Castle, or the palace of the former dukes of Prussia. This huge and, according to its antiquity, magnificent building was erected on the highest mound, or hill, in the middle of the city itself. It is made quadrangular, high and has inside itself a quadrilateral, deliberately spacious area and gives the whole city a decoration, and all the more so because it is visible from many sides, and especially because of the river, above all houses.

This is how we saw the castle in 1967

Huge oval towers as high as a nine-story building, high and thick walls of the facade with gaps in huge rectangular windows, massive buttresses, now meaninglessly supporting it from the outside. Down along the street stretched a wall of large stones, an open terrace with a balustrade, a superbly preserved stone wall of gray stone with a pink tint.

My comrade Volodya, who was walking a little way off, suddenly exclaimed:

- Look!

- Did you forget the flashlight? - for some reason I asked Volodya.

Royal castle in Königsberg

His bewildered look testified at least to the strangeness of my question - we put all the things together in the morning. A ray of light from an old German trophy Daiman, given to Volodya by his father, a former front-line soldier, ran through the bricks and literally disappeared into the darkness of the dungeon. Its electric power was clearly not enough to see anything in the pitch darkness of the dungeon. I squatted down, sat on the edge of the dip, dangled my legs into it, and shone it down again. Bricks crumbling from above and packed earth or clay formed something like a steep slope, going down somewhere. A matchbox flashed in the beam of a lantern, stuck between the stones, somehow immediately relieved the tension, and Volodya and I probably almost simultaneously thought that nothing terrible would happen if we tried to go down. Just in case, we threw a heavy stone into the gap - with a dull thud, it hit the wall somewhere in the depths of the underground passage.

From the book of Adolf Boetticher "Monuments of architecture and art of East Prussia". Koenigsberg, 1897
“…the western side of the Castle was rebuilt… by Margrave Georg Friedrich in 1584-1595 on foundations built during the period of the order…

The castle building inspector Kuttig stated in 1882 that “in the construction of the western wing of the Castle, not only some of the old structures were used, but also a significant part of the ancient structure ... Dungeons located deep underground,” Kuttig reported, “have ... barrel vaults ...” In our opinion... all the walls above the ground and supporting columns in the dungeons were built in 1584-1595, and the encircling wall lying underground... - during the period of the Order.

Ruins of the northern wing of the castle

From Borrmann's book "East Prussia". Berlin, 1935
"The castle in its present form stands on the foundations of a former burgh, the construction of which was begun by the Teutonic Order in 1263 and greatly enlarged over the next three centuries."

In the knight's dungeon

Excavations at the site of the Royal Castle

From the book "German book of cities. Handbook of urban history. Volume I. Northeast Germany. Stuttgart - Berlin, 1939
“The wooden Order Castle was founded in 1255 (on the site of today's Reichsbank). It began to be built of stone in 1257 in the area of the western side of the current castle courtyard.

From Foley's Encyclopedia of Signs and Symbols. Moscow, 1996
“... The crosslet is also called the Teutonic cross. The four small crosses at the ends symbolize the four Gospels…”

Metal cross embedded in the wall

Teutonic cross

These walls remembered a lot

* * *

They came to his homeland as cold-blooded and treacherous killers. At first there were few of them, and the naive inhabitants of Sambia laughed at the unusual figures of horsemen in white cloaks with black crosses on their backs. The riders publicly announced that they had come here with a great mission to convert the Prussians to a new faith, to teach the pagans the Word of God. Having once asked his father what kind of new faith this was, Glappo did not hear any explanation in response. The father sat the boy on his lap, gently stroked his head and said:

The father was a smart man and foresaw the trouble that was coming to their house.

Then, more and more often, Glappo heard the conversations of seriously alarmed adults, and one day a man in tattered clothes and with a bandaged head came to their little house with mud-smeared walls and a thatched roof. He spoke long and excitedly about the fact that the knights of the Teutonic Order moved in huge hordes to their land, bringing tears to the defenseless Prussian population. They brutally kill women and children, cutting them with their heavy swords, burning villages to the ground, and converting the surviving Prussians to a new faith, forcing them to worship a god alien to them. The Teutons have already completely conquered the Helm land, now they are advancing into Natangia and soon, very soon they will come to these places.

Prussian warrior. From an old engraving

Teutonic Knight

“The superiority of weapons, which made each knight something like a mobile fortress, the best tactics, the art of fortification, the disunity of the Prussians, their carelessness and the inability characteristic of all savages to foresee the future and take care of it, explain the final success of the conquest, and the insignificance of the forces involved in the war makes understandable the duration of the struggle .

This conquest moved forward like a tidal wave, now advancing, now receding again.

The weak Prussian army was unable to withstand the power of the knightly order and began to suffer defeat after defeat. Penetrating deep into the country, the knights build numerous fortresses and from there make their bloody raids. Kulm, Thorn, Marienwerder - these words sounded ominously on the lips of the guest.

The walls were ready to collapse. 1967

That night, hundreds of women, old people and children died under the blows of heavy Teutonic swords. In an unequal battle, the governor Piopse also fell, struck down by a crusader's spear. And the damned traitor went to the service of foreigners, by vile betrayal of his fellow tribesmen, securing the miserable existence of a traitor. The man, who excitedly talked about the horrors of that night, miraculously managed to escape, and now, on the instructions of the governor, he carries gloomy news to the Prussian fortress of Lebesgue.

Soon, riders in white cloaks appeared in their land. True, so far they behaved peacefully and came only to hire people to build their fortresses, which they began to build literally at every step. A little time passed, and the entire southern part of Prussia was covered with a network of fortresses: Kreuzburg, Bartenstein, Rössel, Wiesenburg, Braunsberg, Heilsberg, from where the Teutonic knights began to make their robbery raids.

Figured monogram from the dungeons of the castle

Sinister ruins

From the book of Laviss "Essays on the history of Prussia". Moscow, 1915
“On the eve of one of the bloodiest battles with the rebellious Prussians, the Virgin Mary appears to one knight who served her especially diligently and says: “Hermann, you will soon be with My Son.” The next day, Herman, rushing into the densest ranks of the enemy, said to his comrades: “Farewell, brothers, we will not see each other again! The Mother of God calls me to the eternal world!” One Prussian peasant who saw this battle, where the knights were put to flight and fell in heaps under the blows of enemies, ended his story about it like this: “Then I saw women and angels carrying the souls of brothers to heaven; Herman's soul shone most brightly in the hands of the Holy Virgin.

Teutonic sword hilt

* * *

Symbols of the Teutonic Knights

“You have heard it said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”» . The pagan Glappo, not being a Christian, fulfilled the biblical commandment.

From the book of Svillus "Our East Prussia". Volume. 2. Koenigsberg, 1919
“The great uprising of the defeated old Prussians against the Teutonic Knights took place in 1261-1273. The reason for it was the treachery of Vogt Natangiya, who invited many noble Prussians to his castle and ordered them all to be burned alive ...

Herkus Monte in childhood was taken by brothers (order knights) to Magdeburg, where he was brought up in the Christian faith and taught the German language ... Upon his return to Prussia, Herkus abandoned this faith and became the worst enemy of the order brothers ... The inhabitants of Natangia elected him their leader and thanks his mind and courage won many victories ... "

Under the command of Herkus Monte, the Glappo detachment took part in the siege of the fortresses of Balga and Elbing, and in February 1261 in the siege of Koenigsberg. The city was blocked on all sides, and only along the river could the knights receive reinforcements. It soon came and slightly battered the ranks of the Prussian soldiers, but the siege of the fortress and the city was continued. In fact, there was no city as such. On the Tuwangste hill stood an unfinished stone fortress, surrounded by a high earthen rampart and a deep moat, a little lower, in a ravine along which the Katzbach stream flowed, an order mill and several wooden outbuildings that were burned at the very beginning of the siege. The settlement itself was located to the north of the fortress and was fenced with a high palisade, from which one could see the roofs of buildings and the pointed spire of St. Nicholas Church, which served as a beacon for knightly ships sailing along the Lipce River.

Findings of archaeologists

From the book of Fritz Gause "History of the city of Königsberg in Prussia". Volume. I. Cologne, 1972
“An ancient fortress… was built on the site of a Prussian fortified settlement on the southeastern side of Tuwangste… It was temporary, as the Order already intended to build a castle on the higher and more extensive southwestern part of Tuwangste. The fortress was surrounded by a five-meter-wide earthen rampart with a strong fence made of forked tree trunks... It ran along the edge of the moat... On a relatively small area enclosed by a wooden fence, towered castle structures made of logs and half-timbered structures...”

Now this place is the empty bulk of the former House of Soviets, fountains, lawns and shopping pavilions on the Central Square of Kaliningrad.

During the Teutonic Order, the Pregolya River was called Skara, and then Liptsey. Only later did it begin to be called Pregora, or Prigora, and, finally, Pregel.