I continue to talk about my trip to the Kaliningrad region. We started in the Neman (How the Teutonic castle "Ragnit" was blown up for filming a movie in the USSR) and move towards Sovetsk.
An illustrative situation happened when we left the Neman. We planned to see in the Michurinskoye village of the Neman region, the Altof-Ragnit estate, a cultural heritage monument. However, on the way, we read in the news that one of the buildings of the estate is on fire.
So we arrived at the smoking ashes.
The outbuilding of the Althof-Ragnit estate burned down. A monument of regional significance. It is possible that the grass fell. As a result, we heard such comments.
You can watch the fire process itself in the video above. This is what the building looked like before the fire:
Let's find out what kind of structure it is.
Promotional video:
Althof Ragnit is a large manor house of the Mak family at the entrance to the city of Ragnit, present-day Neman, from the side of Tilsit, present-day Sovetsk. They owned vast lands up to Neuhof-Ragnit (Kotelnikovo). The estate was built in 1860.
The Mac family had more than 1,500 horses, mostly of the Trakenin breed. Studs were located in Altof Ragnet and Neuhof Ragnit.
An extensive arboretum park with trees brought from all over the world was laid out around the estate. There was also a deep and clean pond on the territory of the estate.
The manor hosted annual East Prussian nobility meetings. Initially, 150 rare trees and shrubs were planted in the park: black pine, Jung's birch, meat-red chestnut, tulip tree, etc. In gratitude for the creation of a unique park, the inhabitants of Ragnit erected a monument to the Mac family, which has not survived to this day.
During the Soviet period, a fruit tree nursery known throughout the Kaliningrad region effectively operated on the territory adjacent to the park.
Also in Soviet times, the office of a successful state farm - the millionaire Michurinets was located here. The management of the state farm strictly monitored that the buildings, the park with unique trees, the pond were in excellent condition. Mummies with strollers loved to walk in the park, townspeople often came to go fishing, to relax.
The park around the estate nowadays bears the name "Michurinsky", as well as the street on which the estate is now located. Today, the remains of a park on an area of about 0.2 hectares and a pond located in a semicircle are still preserved, inside this semicircle there is an artificial hill overgrown with broad-leaved trees. The trees are 35-155 years old, in this park you can see tree species that grew during the ice age.
Now the estate looks like this.
In the 1990s, with the liquidation of the state farm, the complex of buildings of the Altof Ragnit estate began to fall into disrepair. A fire on May 10, 2014 turned the manor house into ruins.
By the decree of the Government of the Kaliningrad region dated March 23, 2007 No. 132, the Althof Ragnit estate received the status of a cultural heritage site of regional significance.
The features of interesting architecture are also noticeable.
Wooden finishing elements.
But all this will not last long.
The cultural heritage of this land is lost forever.
I will repeat the words of one of the cultural figures of the Kaliningrad region: "After this land became Russian, the whole history that took place here also became Russian."
But so far in the Kaliningrad region there is a policy of combating "Germanization".
Further on our route there was such a water tower.
And also an architectural monument.
About 50 pre-war water towers have survived on the territory of the region.
In connection with the technological progress of recent decades, most of them have lost their life perspective. The buildings are gradually decaying. Along with this, many of the towers, as original high-rise architectural structures, have become adornments of the region's cities. It's time to breathe new life into the old towers.
The appearance of the first water towers in the north of East Prussia is associated with the construction of the Eastern Railway in 1852-1860.
Of the existing ones, the oldest are the rectangular towers at the stations of Zelenogradsk, Polessk, Mozyr, built before the end of the 80s of the XIX century.
It would be interesting to see (although it probably has not survived already) at the current water tower of that time.
Towers of the next generation (late 80s - early XX century) - an octagonal brick base with a wood-sewn tank, can be seen in Zheleznodorozhny, Primorsk, at the station in Svetloye. Once such towers were used only on the Prussian state lines. From 1900 to the beginning of World War I, towers with a cylindrical top on a conical round base were built. Such structures are now at the stations in Baltiysk, Znamensk, Zheleznodorozhny, Gusev. All these types of railway towers had a height of 12-18 meters and a capacity of 50-100 m3.
Larger towers were built from 1916 to 1938. Their height reached 30 meters, and their tanks - 200 m3. Such towers still rise above the tracks in Nesterov, Sovetsk, Bagrationovsk, Chistye Prudy.
But most of all I was surprised by the huge, I'm not afraid of this word, HUGE sewage treatment plants near this tower.
I have no idea what the principle of these structures was.
But there are such vast basements.
Who can tell you what was in these basements? You can see more details on the video. Was the water settled there?
In cities and large enterprises, water towers began to be built about 30 years later than railway ones. From the very beginning, these were structures of considerable size (up to 50 meters in height and with a capacity of up to 1000 m3). The first such tower was built in Königsberg on the territory of the current Central Waterworks on Sovetsky Prospekt.
Photo: Ilya Krushevsky.
Most of the city and factory towers were built at the beginning of the 20th century, before World War I. This was primarily due to the rapid development of the water supply system.
The water towers in the resort towns had additional tanks: in Svetlogorsk - for sea water, in Otradnoye - for hot water. The towers of Svetlogorsk, Otradny and Baltiysk were equipped with viewing platforms for vacationers. It is interesting that the most modern (1927) tower in Baltiysk was built according to the project of the famous Koenigsberg architect Hans Hopp and was considered one of the best in Germany.
Photo: Ilya Krushevsky.
This is an atmospheric structure. Although I can't even imagine what fate awaits this whole complex and what can be done with it?
And across the river is Lithuania.
We stopped at the former military unit. The barracks were in the old Prussian stables (or barracks?).
In theory, these are also historical monuments, but if the Teutonic castle of Ragnit is not needed by anyone, then it is understandable that it will soon be razed to the ground.
