The village of Bledau was founded in 1381. The first known owner of the village was the Prussian Nedrow. In 1553 Duke Albrecht of Prussia gave the estate village (Gutsdorf) of Bledau to Georg von Thalau. Other owners of Bledau included the chancellor Christoph von Rapp (1556–1619), Tiesel von Kaltitz, in 1646 Magdalene von Rapp, and from 1680 the von Korff family. In 1684 the manor house in Bledau burned down and was soon rebuilt.
In 1820 the Bledau estate was put up for auction. Its new owner was the commissioner of justice Wilhelm Ephraim Tortilowicz-Thierenberg. His heirs were the royal chamberlain Otto Tortilowicz von Batocki-Friebe (1835–90) and Adolf Tortilowicz von Batocki-Friebe (1868–1944).
In the 19th century Bledau was an estate forming a Gutsbezirk in the Landkreis Fischhausen (from 1939 the Landkreis Samland). The estate belonged to the parish of Cranz-Sarkau (Zelenogradsk-Lesnoy). As of 1874 the Gutsbezirk Bledau comprised the Bledau estate (Sosnovka), the estate Gutsbezirk of Groß Post (54°55'50'' N 20°47'24'' E), the Vorwerk Garbeck (territory of Zelenogradsk, 54°56'51'' N 20°30'05'' E), the Vorwerk Waldstein (54°56'10'' N 20°47'05'' E) and the Vorwerk Schulstein (Volnoye).
In 1929 a world record for the annual milk yield of a single cow was recorded on the Batocki-Friebe farm in Bledau.
In the 1930s Batocki-Friebe gave the manor house over to accommodate students of the University of Königsberg doing their practical training on the Bledau farm.
In 1945 the Cranz (Zelenogradsk) defence line ran through Bledau. The line was broken on 31 January 1945 by soldiers of the 292nd Rifle Regiment of the 115th Rifle Division, 103rd Rifle Corps, 43rd Army.
On 17 November 1947 Bledau was renamed the settlement of Sosnovka. According to other sources, it received this name only around 1975 and until then had been a nameless settlement. In 1977 the settlement had 26 houses, and a school for hard-of-hearing children operated in the manor house. At the end of the 1990s the settlement had about 80 houses. In 2002 it was removed from the register and incorporated into the town of Zelenogradsk. As of 2018 the settlement had about 205 houses, not counting the houses in the neighbouring allotment-garden partnership (SNT).
Coordinates of the settlement: 54°56'13'' N 20°30'28'' E
Population change of the Bledau Gutsbezirk and community: 1905 – 461, 1910 – 565, 1933 – 718, 1939 – 656 inhabitants.
Population of Garbeck: 1905 – 18 inhabitants.
Population change of the Groß Post Gutsbezirk: 1905 – 30, 1910 – 27 inhabitants.
Population of the Vorwerk Waldstein: 1905 – 24 inhabitants.
Population of Rodahn: 1905 – 35 inhabitants.
FOR REFERENCE
In 1874 Amtsbezirk No. 47 Bledau was established in the Landkreis Fischhausen, comprising two rural communities, Darienen (Verbnoye) and Rodahn (54°56'38'' N 20°31'50'' E), and three Gutsbezirke: Bledau (Sosnovka), Pomehnen (Karyernoye) and Steinitten (Novoye). Residents of Bledau (above all the owners of the estate from the Batocki-Friebe family) held the post of head of the Amtsbezirk in 1874–86, 1891–1917 and 1925–45.
Soon the Rodahn community was incorporated into the Gutsbezirk Bledau. The Gutsbezirk Steinitten apparently never became a fully fledged entity at all and by 1908 at the latest had become part of the Gutsbezirk Bledau. On 23 June 1887 the Vorwerk Pomellen (54°55'01'' N 20°33'17'' E) passed from the Twergaiten community (Nadezhdino) to the Gutsbezirk Bledau. On 27 December 1897 the Gutsbezirk Groß Post separated from the sizeable Gutsbezirk Bledau and became part of the Amtsbezirk Bledau. The Vorwerk Schulstein also passed from the Gutsbezirk Bledau to the Gutsbezirk Groß Post. On 12 July 1909 the Darienen community (Verbnoye) became part of the Gutsbezirk Bledau. As a result, by 1909 the Amtsbezirk Bledau consisted of three Gutsbezirke: Bledau (Sosnovka), Pomehnen (Karyernoye) and Groß Post.
On 30 September 1928 the Gutsbezirk Bledau was converted into the rural community of Bledau. The Gutsbezirk Groß Post became part of the rural community of Steinort (Primorskoye) in the Amtsbezirk Schaaken (Nekrasovo). The Gutsbezirk Pomehnen was abolished and incorporated into the rural community of Dorben (Gusevo). The Amtsbezirk Bledau now consisted of a single rural community, Bledau, and its composition did not change until 1945. The Bledau community comprised the village of Bledau (Sosnovka), the Vorwerk Garbeck (territory of Zelenogradsk), the Pomehnen estate (Karyernoye), the village of Rodahn, the village of Darienen (Verbnoye), the Vorwerk Pomellen, the Vorwerk Steinitten (Novoye) and the Vorwerk Schulstein (Volnoye).
Modern photo by Mikhail Ogorodnikov.
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
