There are prestigious suburbs, like the cottage settlements on the Istra. There are prestigious ones, but not quite. Saint Petersburg, for example. And there are nondescript ones. Like the Biryulyovo Zapadnoye district, like the city of Kirov. Like Nizhny Tagil.
There is no city of Kostroma. There is a distant district of Moscow by the same name. Without a metro and without decent coffee shops. And there is no city of Arkhangelsk. There is the Arkhangelsk district, with a polar climate thrown in on top of its remoteness from the chic of Kamergersky Lane.
The best districts are those you can reach on foot from the Kremlin wall in about twenty minutes. Worse are those you get shaken about in a tram to reach. Worse still, those you take the metro to. Really bad – the suburban train. The very abyss – express branded passenger train No. 002M/001M, running on the Vladivostok – Moscow – Vladivostok route.
There are exceptions, like the already mentioned Petersburg, but even there things are not so simple. The pedigreed Moscow Petersburg is the centre that the fascists and modern architects (who are worse than the fascists) failed to finish off. One step to the side and you're already in Chukhloma. Or in Kologriv. That is, somewhere a Russian, given the choice, would never go.
Russians, as inhabitants of an empire, as citizens of the Third Rome, strive with all their might to move to their metropolis, to their native Rome on the Moskva River.
And once they have moved, they strive to push through as close as possible to the Kremlin and Red Square. A Russian's happiness is when one of the Kremlin towers can be seen from the window of his flat. Ideally, of course, the Spasskaya Tower, the one with the chiming clock. Or the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Or the Conception Monastery, set in the middle of golden Ostozhenka.
Accordingly, the degree of a Russian's unhappiness depends directly on the distance separating him from the "main sights of the capital". The farther from the holy Kremlin walls, the unhappier the Russian.
The most dejected and gloomy Russians live, one must suppose, on Sakhalin and in the Chukotka town of Anadyr, where, eyewitnesses say, the shops sell only vodka and frozen seal meat. This is so far from the Kremlin wall that happiness there is absolutely impossible. That is why the Chukotka Russians drink vodka desperately, chasing it down with seal stroganina. Cold as Arctic ice.
What place does Kaliningrad occupy in this hierarchy?
Finishing your evening stroll along the paths of the Alexander Garden, you won't end up in Kaliningrad. That is, you can't walk there. There are no tram lines. There is no metro station. The suburban train doesn't go there.
That leaves the plane from Sheremetyevo, the ferry from Petersburg and the branded train "Yantar" from the Belorussky railway station. Which, translated into the language of Russian imperial consciousness, means: the farthest of far-off places and the deepest of backwaters.
Hence, by the main Russian criterion – the criterion of distance from the Mausoleum – Kaliningrad is a bad suburb.
Like Samara, for example. Severnoye Butovo is an order of magnitude better. Severnoye Butovo has the Starokachalovskaya metro station, which points to an extraordinarily high level of imperial prestige. After all, from Starokachalovskaya to Borovitskaya, on leaving which you are greeted by a magnificent view of the Armoury, Kolymazhnaya and, of course, Borovitskaya towers, it is a mere twenty-five minutes underground.
On the other hand, Kaliningrad used to be a German city. If you look closely at the city's streets and squares with an armed eye, you can make out traces of the presence of the most punctilious European nation.
Besides, the European Union is right next door, and if you buy property in the city itself or in its environs which, according to imperial statutes, entitles you to a stamp in your passport, then you can travel without much trouble to, say, Poland. Or to Germany, for that matter.
Its actual proximity to Central Europe completely changes Kaliningrad's standing in the imperial table of ranks.
It has long been known that the closer a Russian Roman gets to the Kremlin, the less often he hears Russian spoken. Russians living by the Kremlin walls speak, think and write in English. In other words, they are already English. Either all but, or already. And if they have lived by the walls long enough, they no longer live by the walls at all, preferring London and New York.
A Russian who has made his way from the outskirts of the country to its very heart usually becomes a subject of Her Majesty the Queen of England. That's the logic.
In this respect Kaliningrad's closeness to foggy Albion and to the Old World in general makes it special. Kaliningrad is like Tverskaya, like Teatralnaya Square, like Kuznetsky Most, like Neglinnaya – one step away from Europe. And it is an economy-class step that anyone can afford. Not to London, true. To Berlin and Warsaw – but Berlin and Warsaw, as any Russian will tell you, provided he is absolutely sure you are not an agent of the Russian security services, are a hundred times better than Cheboksary and Yoshkar-Ola.
Hence the conclusion: Kaliningrad is Russia's second capital. Second, and secret.
Secret, because not every Russian knows what seditious thoughts await him in the coveted flat with a view of the Kremlin. For example: how many hours is the flight to the Côte d'Azur? Or: when does the Royal Ascot Race start this year?
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
