Paul Goble
Staunton, July 15 – Almost two million ethnic Germans in the decades just before and just after the collapse of the USSR left Russia and the other former Soviet republics to live and work in Germany. Now, a small fraction of them are purchasing property in Kaliningrad, the non-contiguous part of the Russian Federation that formerly was Germany’s East Prussia.
Exact figures are not available, journalist Yuliy Akhmedova says, but some 54,000 people who moved abroad in those decades have decided to return to Russia and chosen to live in Kaliningrad (newkaliningrad.ru/news/briefs/community/24075573-oblvlasti-za-16-let-v-region-pereekhalo-54-tysyachi-relokantov.html).
What percentage ethnic Germans form of these returnees is uncertain, but realtors there tell Akhmedova that it is significant (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/07/15/obratnopereselentsy).
Realtors say that those choosing to buy property in Kaliningrad because it is closer to Germany where their children or other relatives still live. But these realtors also add that most people who do return to Russia or the other former republics choose to go back to where they lived before rather than selecting Kaliningrad.
One reason Kaliningrad attracts perhaps more than its share is that its regional government was the first in the Russian Federation to provide special subsidies to those who choose to return – on these and their size, see kommersant.ru/doc/6649073 – although the number of returnees since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine has declined.
And realtors add that many of the Russian Germans who are buying property in Kaliningrad are doing so not with the intention of moving there immediately but rather to have a reserve in case they decide to leave Germany at some future point.
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