Royal Gate - uVisitRussia

Royal Gate

The Royal Gate were, to common conviction, one of the most beautiful in the city. The present Royal Gates inherited its name from the older gates, which were located in the same place. Initially, the Calthof Gates were situated at this place. In 1717, they were demolished, and during the entry of Koeningsberg into Russia during the Seven Year War, the gates on this site were built anew by Russian engineers. Originally, these gates were called Gumbinnen, because just in Gumbinnen (now Gusev) there was a road passing through them. In 1811 the gates were renamed the Royal after the name of the street on which they were located (German Königstrasse). The name of the street is connected with the fact the Prussian kings used this road when they followed from the Koeningsberg castle to the military inspections in the suburb of Devau.

At the end of the first half of the 19th century, there was started the modernization of the city fortifications in Koeningsberg. Then the old gates were demolished, and in their place there were built a new ones, which were preserved until now. The solemn laying of the new Royal Gates took place on August 30, 1843 in the presence of King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV, and the construction was completed in 1850.

At the end of the XIXth century, the defensive structures, which included the Royal Gates, were decayed, from the military point of view, and began to interfere with the development of the city. In 1910, the military department admitted, that these defence structures had finally lost military significance, and sold them to the city. Later in the twentieth century, the barrages adjacent to the gates on either side, were removed, as they interfered with the increased auto traffic. Thus, the gates became a free-standing, island structure. Now they performed the function of a kind of triumphal arch.

The gates were damaged by artillery and bombardment during the Second World War. Since 1976, there was a bookshop No.6 in the gates. By the beginning of the «perestroika», the bookstore in the gates was closed. They again became an «orphan» building, of which no one took care, and which was gradually being destroyed. For some time the gates were used as a warehouse and a shop. In 1990, the gates housed a cooperative cafe.

By 1991 the gates were abandoned. For the next ten years, this situation did not change, despite the fact, that there were many options for their recovery and further use. A turning point in the history of the gates was the celebration of the 750th anniversary of Koeningsberg, which was celebrated in 2005. Due to this event the gates were completely restored.

On November 10, 2005, a message to the descendants was  walled in the Royal Gates — a glass case with the book «The City of My Dreams», from which Kaliningradians of the future will learn how their time seemed to the Kaliningradians of 2005. On February 10, 2005, the gates were transferred to the Museum of the World Ocean. Today, the gates is the historical and cultural center «Great Embassy», dedicated to the famous diplomatic mission of Peter I. The exposition acquaints the visitors with the history of Russian and European diplomacy. The «Amber Cabin», in which samples of solar stone are collected from all corners of the planet, is of particular interest.

Construction description by Baldur Koester (translated by Alexey Shabunin) says that the gate initially had only one portal with a width of 4,5 m, through which the pedestrian and road traffic should pass. Only in 1875 the Northern casemate of protection was rebuilt under a pedestrian passage; later, the Southern casemate also served as a passage for pedestrians. What was the situation outside in the direction of the foss can be seen from the Rossgarten gates section. At this point the gates were exactly alike. And only with the increase in automobile traffic in the 20th century, On both sides of the gates the barrages were demolished. So the place along all four sides of the gates was cleaned for the construction of the road. These roads were also used by trams. In such a free position, the Royal Gates are presented to the observer today.

Its wall constructions of a stable red brick are laid in accordance with military requirements. For example, the walls on both sides of the middle portal have a thickness of 2 m, and the cross vault in its key point is 1.25 meters thick. In addition to this vault, an earth embankment was also made, which in its profile followed the side earth barrages, that is, continued the earth barrages, without interruption, over the gates and there was a height of up to 2 meters.

In accordance with the romantic spirit of the time, to this structure, designed solely to resist the bombardment of the artillery, an eye-pleasing detail was added: on the side facing the city (called the inner side), something like a showcase facade was created, the structure of which in its middle essentially rose above the earth barrages and could be reached only from the earth barrages. The structure could be used at best as an Observation platform, it had no military use at all. This display side is divided into three parts: the middle arched passage is underlined by the «two-storey» structure. It is divided into three blind niches with a tip in the form of a pointed arch. In the above drawing, probably created in 1843, these niches are filled with narrow decorative windows, but the consoles are already placed beneath them.

Since the readiness on these consoles there are three statues, in the middle, King Friedrich I, on the right side, the Duke Albrecht, and on the left, King Ottokar II, Bohemian. They are made of yellow sandstone and do not just stand free, as usual, on consoles, but are firmly connected by their back side to the wall (probably for safety reasons). So the statues survived the war almost without damage. Their heads were broke off later. Between the statues three emblems of the rulers, inscribed on the buried ground, are visible. The surfaces of the walls are completed («one-storeyed» on each side, and «two-storeyed» in the middle) with crown of peaks, over which there stand the extensions of the octagonal towers, which are not much higher than them.

This type of decoration is usually characteristic of the new Gothic or romantic Gothic styles. The last expression hints at the fact, that it fits into the romantic understanding of the middle of the 19th century. However, the real spirit of the Gothic Middle Ages is simply absent. But the facade does not show the Gothic elongation of the forms, it is is rather balanced in the classical sense, divided into vertical and horizontal elements, and with the exclusion of the lancet arches of the three ornamental niches and three small castellations, there are no other Gothic decorative forms. Even the flat, only slightly pointed large arches are not, in fact, the Gothic elements. The direction of these arches leads to the side, and not upwards (as it happens with purely Gothic decorative niches).

After the removal of the side defensive barrages, the gates, which originally had only two facade sides (to the city and the outer part), suddenly found themselves surrounded by streets from all sides. Those sides of the gates, to which the earth barrages were previously adjacent, should now have a good look. These facades were covered with the Gothic decorative arches. Now, almost square in shape, the building body tied up earlier to the long line of barrages, should look as powerful as possible in the middle of the streets and therefore acquired four small side turrets, that looked like the side towers of the taller block of the tower, located above the middle gates. The building turned from the gates decorated from the front sides only, into an independent structure, which stood in the middle of the road crossing as a large statue.