Chernyshevskoye (; , from 1938: ''Eydtkau''; ) is a settlement in Nesterovsky District in the eastern part of

Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad Oblast () is the westernmost federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of the Russian Federation. It is a Enclave and exclave, semi-exclave on the Baltic Sea within the Baltic region of Prussia (region), Prussia, surrounded by Pola ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, close to the border with

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. Between Chernyshevskoye and Lithuanian Kybartai is an important 24-hour border crossing point on the A229 principal road (part of the

European route E28 European route E28 is a west–east intermediate road in the international E-road network. Beginning at the Bundesautobahn 10 (''Berliner Ring'') near Berlin, Germany, it runs west–east for a length of to Minsk, Belarus. The section betwee ...

) and the railway route connecting

Kaliningrad Kaliningrad,. known as Königsberg; ; . until 1946, is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, an Enclave and exclave, exclave of Russia between Lithuania and Poland ( west of the bulk of Russia), located on the Prego ...

with

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

through Lithuania and

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

History

The settlement was first mentioned in the 16th century, when the area was part of the Polish

Duchy of Prussia The Duchy of Prussia (, , ) or Ducal Prussia (; ) was a duchy in the region of Prussia established as a result of secularization of the Monastic Prussia, the territory that remained under the control of the State of the Teutonic Order until t ...

, near where its eastern border ran as stipulated by the 1422

Treaty of Melno The Treaty of Melno (; ) or Treaty of Lake Melno () was a peace treaty ending the Gollub War. It was signed on 27 September 1422, between the State_of_the_Teutonic_Order, Teutonic Knights and an alliance of the Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569), Kin ...

Incorporated into the

Prussian Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzoll ...

province of

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

, Eydtkuhnen became the eastern terminus and border station of the Prussian Eastern Railway in 1860, connecting

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

with the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. To continue their voyage, passengers—e.g., of the ''

Nord Express The ''Nord Express'' (Northern Express) was a long-distance international express train which for more than a century connected Paris with first Russia and later Poland, the Baltic states and Scandinavia. In its heyday before the First World W ...

'' luxury train coming from Saint Petersburg—had to change over from Russian

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

railcars to Berlin and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, leaving on the other side of the platform. The same interchange in the opposite direction was provided at the Russian train station in neighboring Virbalis (''Wirballen''). The Eydtkuhnen station building, erected according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler, offered luxuriously furnished waiting rooms and restaurants. The railway connection decisively promoted Eydtkuhnen's development: the Neo-Romanesque Lutheran parish church was built according to plans by Friedrich Adler and consecrated in 1889; the settlement received

town privileges Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...

in 1922, when the population reached 10,000. Nevertheless, Eydtkuhnen was devastated during the Russian invasion of East Prussia in 1914 and again in 1945 during the East Prussian Offensive of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. After World War I and the Act of Independence, the border crossing led to Lithuania, while corridor trains provided the railway connection to Berlin. With the implementation of the Oder-Neisse line after World War II, the area became part of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, while the remaining German population was expelled. Up to today, large parts of Chernyshevskoye are a military restricted area.

Notable people

* Gertrud von Puttkamer (1881–1944), writer * Wilhelm Gaerte (1890 (Eydtkuhnen) – 1958 (Hanover)), archaeologist, museum director * Felix Bressart (1892–1949), actor * Barnett A. Elzas (1867–1936), rabbi and historian * Herbert Kirrinnis (1907–1977), gymnasium teacher and historian * Dieter Biallas (1936–2016), politician (FDP), mayor and senator in Hamburg * Ernst Helmut Segschneider (* 1938), scientist

References

External links

{{Authority control Rural localities in Kaliningrad Oblast