Kaliningrad in Autumn: Turning over an old leaf

Leaf it to me

25 November 2025 – Kaliningrad in Autumn: Turning over an old leaf

From the earliest time of recollection, autumn has been for me my favourite season. In the days before real climate change, as distinct from the racketeering kind championed by the EU (achieve Net Zero or else!), I remember encountering glorious autumn mornings, especially at Hinwick Lodge.

With the nip of winter already in the air and thin ice glazing the puddles, often, as we emerged bleary-eyed into the early-morning light, we would be greeted by a hazy, glistening mist, hovering as an apparition a few feet from the ground and stretching into the ether to touch a barely visible haloed sun. Trying its very best to do what precedence taught us it would succeed in doing by mid-morning, eventually and at last, the sun would break through the mist’s upper opacity, evaporate the lower density and bathe the broad sweeping riding that runs at the side of Great Haze Wood in a less than powerful but brilliant light. Soon afterwards it would come to settle, pouring more light and warmth on the open ground of the surrounding meadows, reaching out with the awaited promise of a seasonally atmospheric and sensorily singular wonderful day.

Kaliningrad in Autumn: Turning over an old leaf

As with Kaliningrad, which is a tree-rich city, the preponderance of woodland encompassing Hinwick Lodge gave vent to the certainty of much variegated and enchanting autumnal leaf colour from its ash, oak and hazel mix. In Kaliningrad, it is the leaves of the maple tree, relatively large with their three-to-five toothed and jagged pointed lobes, which in autumn change from green to yellow, auburn, red and orange, that contribute most effectively to the city’s colourful seasonal character.

At the time of writing this post, the best part of our Kaliningrad autumn, when the air is at its most crisp and the ground is at its most dry, has tipped its hat and hurried past. The view from my bedroom window is certainly different from what it was just a mere seven days ago. The first thrilling moments of a bright-lit, expressively dry November have fallen back in the queue behind the ever-more typical expectations of damp, rain and lately snow, the initial sprinkle of which, announcing the onset of winter, has itself in recent hours given way to larger flakes falling for longer durations.

It’s time to don those woolly hats that mess your hair up so completely and shake hands once again with one’s thick and welcoming winter gloves. But before I pull on my thermal pants and barricade my body behind my fur-lined snow- and windproof coat, let’s take a trip together and say hello to some of the city’s transformational autumn scenes, including, where we have captured them, landmarks in their autumnal garb.

Other Odes to Autumn
Kaliningrad in Autumn Leaves it Out
Kaliningrad Leaves Autumn to the Leaf Suckers
An Autumn Walk in Kaliningrad