Kaliningrad is a city in the north-west of Russia, the administrative center of the Kaliningrad region. It is unique in that it has no borders with other regions of Russia, neighbors only with Poland and Lithuania, and is washed by the Baltic Sea.
For a long time Kaliningrad belonged to Germany. The history of the city began in 1255, when the knights of the Teutonic Order laid a fortress on a hill and named it Königsberg (King's Mountain). For the first time the city passed to Russia in 1758, after the victory in the Seven Years' War. However, in 1762, the lands were returned to the Prussian Kingdom. Koenigsberg became Russian again in 1946, when, after the end of World War II, part of the German territory was transferred to the USSR. At the same time, a new name appeared - Kaliningrad.
One of the world's greatest thinkers, Immanuel Kant, was born and lived in Königsberg. His grave is located at the walls of the Cathedral of the XIV century.

The Kurshskaya Kosa (German: Kurische Nehrung) is an amazing creation of the wind and waves of the Baltic Sea, formed about 5000 years ago. This sandy peninsula has an elongated saber shape and stretches from the Russian Zelenogradsk to the Lithuanian Klaipeda. With a modest width of 350 m to 3.8 km, the Kurshskaya Kosa has a length of 98 km, which makes it the largest sand dump on the planet! It acts as a natural barrier between the salty Baltic Sea and the freshwater Kurshskaya Lagoon. Geographically, the peninsula is divided between Russia and Lithuania.

Since 1987, its part belonging to Russia has become a national park, and after another 13 years it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.