EU and I. Part II.

European Commission
Directorate General for External Relations
Gunnar Wiegand

Dear Mr. Vasiliev,
  I am writing in response to the message that you sent on 28 October to
President Barroso. I regret the delay in replying caused by the need to
investigate the facts of the matter. I would like to assure you that
the possibility for residents of the Kaliningrad region to travel as freely
as possible is high on our agenda. It is a major part of the EU's
strategy to make Kaliningrad a successful region of the Russian
Federation and positive example of cooperation between the EU and
Russia. That success depends to a large extent on a degree of
integration of Kaliningrad with neighbouring regions of the EU and
Baltic region in general.
   We are aware that the combined effects of the Visa Facilitation
Agreement between the European Union and the Russian Federation as well
as the accession of Poland and Lithuania to Schengen have had some
negative consequences for the residents of Kaliningrad (while
undoubtedly visa facilitation has improved the situation for other
citizens of Russia).
   That is why the Commission has pointed to a number of possibilities
that exist to ease the burden for those who travel from the Kaliningrad
region to Lithuania and Poland. Firstly, these are the broad categories
of persons who benefit from the waiving of the visa fee under the Visa
Facilitation Agreement. Secondly, it is possible to issue more
frequently multiple entry visas, valid for a period of one year, up to
a maximum of five years (such visas will be for all the Schengen zone
not, as before, only to Lithuania or Poland). Thirdly, since 1st January
2007, the visa fee is fully waived for children under six years,
students and accompanying teachers travelling for educational purposes
and researchers fulfilling certain conditions.
The Schengen "acquis" also provides for the possibility for Member
States to waive or reduce the visa fee in individual cases, when this
measure serves the promotion of cultural interests, foreign policy,
development policy or other areas of vital public interest or for
humanitarian reasons.
  The Commission has encouraged the Russian Federation, Poland and
Lithuania to negotiate bilateral agreements on local border traffic
which would enable residents living close to the border to cross
without a visa. As we understand there is an intention to negotiate such
agreements in the future.
  I hope you will find this information useful. I wish you all success in
your endeavours.

Gunnar Wiegand
Acting Director Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, Central Asian Republics
Head of Unit for Relations with Russia, Northern Dimension Policy and
Nuclear Safety
European Commission
Directorate General for External Relations
Thu, 10 Apr 2008

The Baltic Republican Party

 On photo, Sergei Pasko (right) and Rustam Vasilev.

The Baltic Republican Party in Kaliningrad renamed the Kaliningrad Public Movement-Respublika.
The Baltic Republican Party (BRP) was founded in 1992, leader Sergei Pasko. Authorities shut down the BRP on 27 October 2002.
The BRP contested court decisions based on the Russian law on political parties, which requires parties to have a minimum of 50,000 members and active branches in half of Russia's regions in order to be registered. In February 2005, ruling on the complaint brought forward by the BRP, the Russian Constitutional Court confirmed the validity of the law on political parties. According to the ruling, all parties that did not meet the minimum requirements would have to "self-disolve by January 1, 2006, or transform into public associations".
The BRP's main goal was to make Kaliningrad larger autonomy within Russia or special international legal status which gives the ability to negotiate its trade deals with the EU and to regulate its own commercial affairs. Many people from Kaliningrad supporting this idea.
The BRP leader suggested that immigration should be controlled by local authorities in Kaliningrad and that dual citizenship (Russian and EU) should be granted to the inhabitants of Kaliningrad.
The leader of the BRP told the Wall Street Journal in February 2003 that: "Kaliningrad will be a partly independent state in connection with the Russian Federation, but we hope to be a subject of the EU as well".
Kaliningrad should become an autonomous region within Russia, but which would bring its laws in line with EU standards.
BRP had collected signatures from residents in favour of the city of Kaliningrad going back to its previous name of Koenigsberg.

The Kaliningrad Public Movement-Respublika.
"Respublika Kaliningrad Public Movement" was created in February 2005 by Sergei Pasko, chairman of the banned Baltic Republican Party and president of the Kaliningrad Entrepreneurs Union.
The main goal of the movement is to obtain international status permitting "independent relations with the European Union, while retaining associate membership of the Russian Federation".
Sergei Pasko had declared to the russian newspaper "Kommersant": "Respublika is not the BRP. There is interaction, but not more. We have shifted to the higher level – we are preparing a legal basis".
The new movement's flag is orange and contains the words "KOD Respublika" (Kaliningrad Public Movement Republic, in Russian).

European Union and I. Part 1.

Dismantlement of Public Health Service in Kaliningrad by Kremlin.

(On photo, regional infectious hospital in Kaliningrad. See the rest of photos.)
http://karpov-sergey.livejournal.com/34363.html

  The children's Center of regenerative medicine and rehabilitation, can be closed on April, 1st, 2009 in connection with financing change. Ther is no money In regional budget on the maintenance of the centre. The centre of regenerative medicine has been created in 1995 and is unique establishment in the Kaliningrad region which is engaged in medical and social rehabilitation of children-invalids, including patients of children's cerebral paralysis. That is children here both treat, and learn. Now the centre serves about 500 children at the age from 3 months till 18 years.
  Maternity homes in the Kaliningrad region will be kept only in four cities – Sovetsk, Gusev, Chernyakhovsk and Kaliningrad. Delivery rooms in other cities of area will be closed, has declared Elena Klujkova the Minister of Health of region.
In the beginning of 2008, delivery rooms functioned in 21 city of area. In particular, delivery rooms in Baltiysk and Svetliy are already closed.
  According to women, closing delivery rooms is obviously planned action directed against people.
  In children's hospital № 3 of Kaliningrad, closed branch, for children who have remained without parents.
Closed children's hospital in Mamonovo, city which bordering with Poland.

(On photo, looted Hospital of fishermen.  See the rest of photos.)
http://duh-lesa.livejournal.com/93558.html

  Hospital of fishermen in Kaliningrad is liquidated. Constructed long time ago by enterprises of a fishing industry for the employees.
  This establishment, serving 10 thousand inhabitants of the regional centre, has been closed by the authorities on November, 1st last year. The reason - an economic inconsistency. The hospital could not earn on a life in system of new single channel financing. The situation was not rescued even by joining hospital of fishermen to the regional hospital for the veterans, which also in the heaviest financial crisis.
  The Kremlin and Moscow`s puppets as governor Georgiy Boos with his Moscow team breaks here in Koenigsberg everything good, what Kaliningraders built for decades.

The diplomats of EU, Kaliningraders and cretinism of Kremlin.

( On photo, memorial service near settlement Yantarny without detained diplomats.)

  Russian traffic police, on February 1st, have detained two cars with diplomatic plates in which were consul of Poland in Kaliningrad Marek Golkovsky and consul of Germany Aristide Fenster with his wife. Diplomats was on their way to the memorial service devoted to memory of massacre by nazis at settlement Yantarny, located on the bank of Baltic sea.   The reason of detention of diplomats, according to traffic police, was that foreigners have crossed a border zone without corresponding admissions.

  Traffic police have referred to the order of FSB №238 from 2006- "The border zone limits in the Kaliningrad region"- according to which a border zone are defined by a site from frontier to the back of Kaliningrad region on depth of 5-7 kilometres.
  Stupid Kremlin law by Putin and former head of FSB Patrushev on which even we Russians, Kaliningraders should ask the permission from FSB to visit that zone. Though in that zone a few towns and villages. Mad Kremlin policy against Kaliningraders.

  At the night from January, 31st toFebruary, 1st, 1945 - under the German city of Palmnicken (nowadays settlement Yantarny, Kaliningrad region) nazis have shot thousands prisoners, most of them are Jews.
Massacre of Palmnicken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yantarny
  Because of the advance of Soviet troops in January 1945, the East Prussian subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp was disbanded and its inmates were sent through Königsberg to Palmnicken. Only 3,000 of the original 13,000 inmates survived the forced march.   Originally, the surviving detainees were to be walled up within a tunnel of an amber mine, but this plan collapsed upon the objections of the mine's manager. Schutzstaffel members then brought the prisoners to the beach of Palmnicken during the night of January 31 and under rifle fire forced them to march into the Baltic Sea. Only 15 inmates survived the war crime.

Films of modern Kaliningrad and old Koenigsberg.

This article will be update in the future

The main streets of Kaliningrad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl2kjMinyxY

DW-TV Kaliningrad-Tax haven for investors.
Not yet though for foreign investors, as money simply disappear in black hole of Kremlin. Do not trust and do not deal with Kremlin people and your money will be safe. Deal with Kaliningraders who is willing to unite back Konigsberg and EU.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d1kPMIMZ-c&feature=related

Kaliningrad fights Baltic amber smuggling.
Kremlin corruption at it`s worst.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4EhgSskjUw&feature=related

Is our Baltic sea for peace or for war stupidity?

  More than 300,000 tons of weapons were dumped by the Allies between 1945 and 1947. The toxic stockpile includes nearly 65,000 tons(net!) of mustard gas, nerve agent sarin and the notorious death camp gas, Zyklon B.
Environmental aspects and the issue of protection of the sea were completely ignored at that time.
  1. The Bornholm site is located in the western Baltic, east of the island of Bornholm. Over 35.000 tons were dumped in water depths ranging between 70 and 120 m. The CW contained an estimated 13.000 tons of toxic agents. Most CW was thrown over board packed in crates or containers, but some ships were also sunk.
  2. The Gotland Deep site is located in the central Baltic. At least 2.000 tons of CW was dumped here (some sources mention a total of 40.000 tons). There are strong indications that part of the conventional and chemical munition was thrown overboard during transport to the Baltic dump sites; how many tons were thus dumped is not known. Most likely it is mainly this ammunition that has been washing ashore on the beaches of Denmark and Poland.
  3. The Måseskär site is located in the eastern Skagerrak, 25 km off the Swedish coast. At least 8 ships were sunk here in a water depths ranging between 180-200 m. According to reports roughly 30.000 tons of toxic agents were dumped.
  Some degradation products of chemical warfare agents are even more persistent and several times more toxic than their original substance (e.g. mustard gas and lewisite).

  It is important to note that, in addition to the dumping of tens of thousands of tons of chemical munitions into the Baltic sea, many more tens of thousands of tons of conventional explosives were also disposed of in this manner, sometimes in the same shipments or locatit is clear that the munitions are subject to corrosion effects rendering them fragile or even resulting in leakage of CW agents. There is also good evidence that certain types of explosive can become extremely unstable with the passage of time.

  Public concern over the potential environmental impacts inherent in sea-dumped CW is genuine. Too often opinion of people populated Baltic shores have been ignored in order to provide support for unrelated strategic or economic considerations.

Kaliningraders vs. Kremlin State.

( On photo, Polish politics trying to help somehow to Kaliningraders)

  The government's decision to raise import duties on used foreign cars and trucks, aimed at protecting domestic and foreign car producers in Russia amid the global credit crunch will come into force on January 12.
  In reality, the duty on used cars will double, and triple for trucks.
The decision has led to an increase in those wishing to bring foreign-made cars into the Kaliningrad Region since early December as people try to avoid the January deadline.
  The head of a public organization that protects motorists "Spravedlivost" ( Justice) Konstantin Doroshok said a 33-year-old man had died on the Russian-Lithuanian border crossing Friday morning on December 26 after spending several days waiting to cross the border. Driver Vycheslav Skubna will never come back to home anymore.

(On photo, Polish people helping Kaliningraders by bringing them free food and woods to warm up in freezing cold.)

  Protests by motorists unhappy with the slow processing and bribery by customs periodically take place on the border. Customs showing just open sabotage by not processing at all.
  In addition, corruption has gotten markedly worse as the level of monopolization in the economy and bureaucratization of government has increased. All of this is pushing people’s discontent to the surface.

(On photo, Polish-Russian border, Branevo-Mamonovo. Long queue for a few kilometers, almost 700 cars.)
  The anger over increased import duties is particularly strong among residents of the Kaliningrad region, the majority of which -- perhaps as high as 55 percent -- make a living either directly or indirectly connected with the sale or servicing of imported automobiles.
  To some, Visas come to an end, the Russian state compels them to break EU rules by staying in queue in their cars near borders..
  Russian newspapers and TV are silent, as the state holds the control over a freedom of speech in Russia.
  Eventually on family holidays the Christmas and New Year, the Russian state by customs bodies has thrown and left people in the winter in unhuman conditions on borders.

Russian Missile Plan Gives a New European Trade Hub an Old Identity Crisis

By ELLEN BARRY, The New York Times
Published: November 27, 2008

KALININGRAD, Russia — This is what passes for humor in Kaliningrad these days: Iskander missile tourism. Dipping deep into his reservoir of black humor, Vladimir N. Abramov tries out this sales pitch for his region, a cold war garrison turned European trade hub that may, once again, become a staging ground for missiles pointed west.
“Attracting tourists to see an Iskander is a creative idea,” said Mr. Abramov, a political scientist. “Especially for the Poles. When it is flying toward them, they may not be able to see it. Come to Kaliningrad! Pose next to the missile which is going to kill you.”
Somewhere behind the joke is a real question about the future of Kaliningrad. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has devised a series of plans for this old military outpost, wedged on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Poland.
Former President Boris N. Yeltsin saw it as the Russian Hong Kong, a free trade zone to entice foreign investors. Mr. Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir V. Putin, drew it closer to Moscow, planning a nuclear power plant that would export energy to Europe. As oil and gas wealth poured into Russia, more ideas emerged: Las Vegas-style gambling, for instance, and a constellation of luxury resorts.
The most recent idea arrived early this month, when President Dmitri A. Medvedev said Russia would stage short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if the United States proceeded with missile defense facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland.
The proposal is seen by many as rhetorical — a bargaining chip to use with a new American president. But if carried out, it would mark Kaliningrad’s first rearming against the West since the end of the Soviet Union, and another twist in an old identity crisis: Is it Russia’s window, open to Europe, or a turret for firing on it?
“The phrase ‘military stronghold’ was gradually forgotten here,” said Vadim Smirnov, a columnist for Kaliningradskaya Pravda, the region’s largest newspaper. “Experience shows that it was premature.”

The streetscape of Kaliningrad testifies to its peculiar status. Around the corner from generic Soviet monuments are cobblestone streets and red-roofed houses built before World War II, when it was a German city called Königsberg. Free trade policy has transformed this city into a huge duty free shop, crammed with fashionable restaurants and small businesses selling Italian handbags, French bath soaps, Polish light fixtures.
No less transformed are its people, who number around one million. Kaliningraders live more than 200 miles from the Russian border; they bring their grandchildren to Polish water parks and stock up at Ikea in Gdansk. Younger ones ski in Austria or shuttle goods to Central Europe. There is a deep vein of Russian patriotism here, as you would expect from a military town. But the pull of Europe is strong.
“We’re closer to Berlin than Moscow,” said Alexei Petrov, 39, a gym teacher who is driving a taxi between jobs.
Those links with Europe — culturally warm and economically central — have colored Kaliningraders’ reaction to Mr. Medvedev’s announcement. Lyudmila M. Anokha, the director of the Kaliningrad Zoo, found herself in an awkward position last month when she held a contest to name a new baby giraffe. One of the most popular suggestions was “Iskander,” but Ms. Anokha immediately saw the problem.
“The giraffe was delivered to us by the Berlin Zoo,” she said. “The giraffe came from the West. The Iskanders would be pointed toward the West. We at the zoo are beyond politics.”
The Iskander deployment is popular among Russians as a whole, who overwhelmingly see the American missile defense plan as a direct threat on their borders. A poll released last week by Moscow’s Public Opinion Foundation showed that 62 percent of respondents approved of the Iskander deployment if the missile defense facilities are built. Only 13 percent of them criticized the plans, with 4 percent dismissing them as “intimidation.”
The same stalwart support can be found in Kaliningrad. In 2004, when Poland and Lithuania joined the European Union, new visa and customs regulations stoked fears that Kaliningraders were being cut off behind a “blue curtain,” after the color of the union flag. Since then, those regulations have helped to deprive them of much of the freedom of movement that they enjoyed during the Yeltsin years. They already feel encircled, and the proposed missile defense site in Poland — an American base supplied with 10 interceptor missiles — stokes old passions.
“When someone threatens your country, every person must respond,” said Ms. Anokha, the zoo director. “We are not the ones unearthing the ax of war.”
In public, there has been little debate about the Iskander plan. For one thing, people here are accustomed to living near an arsenal — including nuclear-tipped missiles that were staged here during the cold war. The bigger threat, for many, was their removal: Since the 1980s, the number of troops here has been reduced to fewer than 20,000, from 320,000, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Rumors that the Baltic Fleet might be relocated met with “horror” in Kaliningrad, according to Mr. Abramov, the political scientist.
“The presence of troops was seen as a guarantee that Russia would not abandon us,” he said. “There are hotheads in Poland and Lithuania who would like to incorporate us. The Baltic Fleet calms them down.”
In private, however, many Kaliningraders say they are nervous about how the Iskander plan would affect them. The region’s economy is dependent on foreign tourists and foreign investment, to say nothing of the freedom to travel in Europe. Solomon I. Ginzburg, a deputy in Kaliningrad’s regional Parliament, said a poll of 1,800 of his constituents showed that 37 percent of them were “categorically against” the deployment of Iskanders, whereas only 20 percent supported it.
The most visible objections have come from Vitautas V. Lopata, an opposition deputy in the Parliament. Mr. Lopata, a wealthy businessman, publishes his own newspaper because he cannot gain coverage in the Kaliningrad press, “even if I pay for it,” he said.
In his most recent issue, he wrote that with Mr. Medvedev’s announcement, “we have, with our own hands, pushed Europe away from Russia,” ignoring Kaliningrad’s economic dependence on its neighbors. He said many citizens agreed with him, but kept their comments private, because “where can they express this opinion?”
“If you deploy missile forces, investment ends, tourism ends,” he said in an interview. “You don’t go visit your neighbor if he’s drunk and he’s holding a loaded gun.”
As people rushed past rows of shops, jewel-bright in a gathering snowstorm, most confessed that the missile deployment was not on their minds. Some had not even heard of it. But here and there was passionate opposition — from a grandmother selling five beets on a sidewalk, who said she would join street protests against the deployment, or from the taxi driver, Mr. Pavlov, who exclaimed with frustration, “Nobody is threatening anyone here.”
Natalya Gorobets, 41, who works for a tour agency, seemed to draw herself up with pride at the mention of the Iskanders, which she said “demonstrate that Russia is capable of giving an answer” to the United States. At the next desk, Viktoria Nishchenko, 28, was not so sure: She was thinking about travel.
“I just don’t want to go to a consulate and be told, ‘Oh, you’re from Kaliningrad. Stay there with your weapons,’ ” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/world/europe/28kaliningrad.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=Kaliningrad%20&st=cse&scp=1

Freedom or ......

http://forums.ec.europa.eu/debateeurope/viewtopic.php?t=3852&start=0
No independence movement but locals want looser control by Moscow and stronger association with EU.
What is to become of the enclave of Kaliningrad, Russian Federation territory cut off from Mother Russia and sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, soon to become an island within the European Union?
What do the residents want? There are a few hardliners who would favor independence from Moscow, setting up a new state within the European Union. This stance, however, does not reflect the general line of thinking within Kaliningrad, which favors looser control by Moscow with more association with the EU but not total integration and certainly not independence.
The looser control by Moscow is seen as a means of at least gaining some advantages from being an island on the EU territory.
Those who support the change of name from Kaliningrad to Konigsberg, its former name, quote the change from Leningrad to St. Petersburg. However, the move to change the name is evidence of the anti-Moscow sentiment in this part of Russia. Most people in Kaliningrad would agree that Moscow does not understand the feelings of the majority of people within this enclave, inhabited by ethnic Russians but with all the possibilities and infra-structures to become a separate state.