An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

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Seeing the sites in sight of the sea in Zelenogradsk

Published: 19 April 2021

Preface

This post is based on an extract from an entry in my 2020 diary, written last August, which I would like to use as a prelude to a pictorial piece on the architecture lining the coastal route in the seaside resort of Zelenogradsk on the Baltic Coast in the Kaliningrad region of Russia.

Last May, and subsequent to it, articles began to appear both in Russian and international media, some favourable, some not, which reported that as coronavirus strengthened its grip a boom in domestic tourism had been sparked in Russia to take advantage of and to compensate for closed borders and international travel restrictions {Russia Wants to Spark a Domestic Tourism Boom. Will It Work? ~ The Moscow Times}

Did it work? It would seem so ..

August 2020

Related: An Englishman Chilling in Zelinogradsk with a Bear & a Beer

Zelenogradsk has a wonderful, long, broad sandy beach, more than enough space to accommodate this year’s influx of tourists. And all you need if you require a more secluded spot is to take the coastal path away from the centre and head off in the direction of the Curonian Spit.

We all know that walking is supposed to be good for you, but should you prefer to travel on wheels, you can always take one of the little six-to-eight-seater charabancs  that buzz up and down the vehicular lane along the coastal route. Alternatively, you could rent yourself a bicycle for the day, or a small pedal go-kart, which accommodates a ‘driver’ and a passenger, or invest in one of those zippy little electric scooters that are fast becoming the most fashionable way of adding yourself to motorisation.

Whatever your choice of locomotion, It is worth taking the coastal route just to witness the diverse array of non-pedestrian options whizzing up and down, from the relatively mundane to the unreal, weird and whacky.

An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

I am never quite sure what to call this stretch of, er? — this route. ‘Track’ creates the impression of something mud-like winding through the dunes and undergrowth; ‘path’ limits it to a contagion of plodding feet; and ‘road’ makes it sound like the M25. In essence, it is a combination of all three ideas, except that it has a block-paved hard surface, is essentially straight, is too wide to call a path and being closed to regular traffic cannot be called a road.

Although motor vehicles of the regular variety are prohibited, as I mentioned earlier, things with engines attached other than human legs do traverse it as, at the same time, so do feet.

Basically, the route is divided into two parts: one side, the broader of the two, is reserved for pedestrian access; the other, about three times the width of a standard bicycle lane, is allocated for vehicles and is divided yet again into two directional lanes.

On the landward side of this route, it is competition time for who can build the biggest and most impressionable hotel. They come in all shapes and in very large sizes, but most share an architectural predilection for the curvilinear forms utilised so memorably, and thus so effectively, in earlier Art Deco building formats.

Brought up to date in the early twenty-first century with the accent on glass and plenty of it, the semi-circular portico and centralised tower stairwell are particularly popular features in these ‘look, I can see the sea!’ hotels.

The odd one out in this nuanced continuity, which diverges in no uncertain terms from the prevalence of the others, is that which in its fundamental shape, external facings and decorative embellishments is a dead ringer for the sort of neoclassical hall that you would expect to find, and do, in the heart of the English countryside.

Neoclassical design Zelinogradsk
Neoclassical design on Zelinogradsk’s coastal route

Grandeur of scale, geometrical lines, functional columns, dentil moulding, cornices and balustrades, this building has the lot, and perhaps even a little more besides, for I have noticed that when modern Russian architectural design emulates the ideas of an earlier aesthetic period, imitation is not nearly enough when opportunity allows to surpass.

An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

A sight that may not be exclusive to this part of the world or to Russia generally, but is ubiquitous enough to place it in a national context, is the unfinished, ‘grey scale’ construction. I have not counted them, but there are perhaps as many unfinished hotels along this route as there are complete ones, although, given the success story of Russia’s incentivised holiday-at-home programme and, news just in, that most of the region’s hotels are already fully booked for the 2021 summer season, it may possibly not be long before these redundant-before-completion hulks are finally brought to life.

Unfinished hotel in Zelinogradsk
The view from here will be spectacular once they finish building it …

In addition to hotels, also on this route you will see the last remaining but inevitably fleeting glimpse of homes that hark back to the days when Zelinogradsk was Germany’s Cranz. Although these buildings, once reasonably grand but modest by today’s standards and made doubly so by their bold new companions, display all kinds of interesting and sometimes quite astonishing DIY distortions enacted during the Soviet era, their quaint construction and kinder presence on the environmental scale can still be felt and appreciated, and it is a great pity that given the premium placed on the land that these houses occupy that it is only a matter of time, I suspect, before they are rubbed out and in the name of progress replaced by more of the same by which they are surrounded.

German building Zelenogrask coastal route
A Cranz home being restored along the Zelenogradsk coastal route

This stretch of road, causeway, path ~ call it what you will ~ does not go on forever. In fact, it runs out rather abruptly, interrupted by a tall and fairly non-descript hotel and thereafter a series of ground and one-storey flats with, at the rear, integral garages, tiny yards cloaked with high walls and that decidedly late Russian phenomenon, the massy wrought iron gate translucently obscured by polycarbonate sheeting.

An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

At any point along this route, it is possible that you may wish to descend to the beach below, which is something that you can do thanks to thoughtful sequences of broad steps provided at regular intervals. There is one last chance to do the same at the front of the tall hotel, after which, if you want to proceed further, needs must that you hang a hard left. This takes you into a paved area fronted by what once must have been flats par excellence, but which have lately been dwarfed and left behind by one of the most amazing seaside residential developments ~ amazing both in scale and style extravaganza~ that has ever taken me by surprise whilst I was going around the bend.

But, in the last analysis, if, for some peculiar and indefinable reason, you are not taking this route to look at the buildings, then on the other side of the road, over the hedge, you will see the sea. In late summer, on this stretch of land, I have had the good fortune to witness some of the most sublime sunsets that I have ever encountered, which is another feather in the hotel cap along this particular road, track, path, walkway, esplanade or route. Call it what you will, if you are holidaying in this region don’t forget to travel it or, better still, book yourself an exclusive view from one of the splendid finished hotels. Either way, you won’t be disappointed.

Sunset: An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

Copyright © 2018-2021 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

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