I am sure this is common knowledge in Europe, or at least Eastern Europe, but it isn’t often that I learn a new word at the same time as have my geographical knowledge of Europe revised.

Most people know the term enclave, but what about exclave? That is, per Dictionary.com, “a portion of a country geographically separated from the main part by surrounding alien territory”.

Apparently, Russia has just such a geographically separated portion of its country on the Baltic Sea – specifically, Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is a seaport city and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. The territory borders on NATO and European Union members Poland and Lithuania, and is geographically separated from the rest of Russia.

The locality was a site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement/fort Twangste. In 1255, a new fortress was built on this site by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named “Königsberg” in honour of King Ottokar II of Bohemia.

Until the end of World War II, the area formed the northern part of the former East Prussia.

The city was largely destroyed during World War II; its ruins were captured by the Red Army in 1945 and its German population fled or was removed by force.

It was renamed Kaliningrad after the death of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin, one of the original Bolsheviks.

All military and civilian land links between the region and the rest of Russia have to pass through members of NATO and the EU.

Via Wikipedia.