As fast the Berlin Wall came down, the EU has been building it back up. You can’t paint nice murals on the Fortress Schengen wall, but it’s just as effective at keeping people in.
Russians always complain to me, ‘We can’t go anywhere on holidays. What have we done?’ I try to offer consolation by saying [...]

While I’m in Kaliningrad, I’ll certainly be on the treasure trail. Kaliningrad doesn’t have many claims to fame, but one of them is rare and precious deposits of amber. The other is the last sighting of the Amber Room, looted from St Petersburg by the Nazis.
Created by Rastrelli in 1771, with carved amber panels, Venetian [...]

For Kaliningrad’s 750th anniversary (even though Kaliningrad only really dates from 1945) the town received a spanking new onion domestyle church in the main square. It was built right behind the square’s previous landmark, a statue of Lenin.
Some might think that Lenin’s association with Karl ‘Religion Is The Opium Of The People’ Marx would place [...]