Railway gates

Railway Gate (German Eisenbahnhof Tor) is one of the eight surviving city gates of Kaliningrad. The gate is located beneath the roadway of Gvardeysky Prospekt, near the monument to the 1200 Guardsmen. A pedestrian path passes through the gate, leading to the park located behind the monument.

The gate bears an inscription with the date of its construction — 1866–1889. It is located on the keystone of the gate. The Railway Gate was designed by architect Ludwig von Aster (who is also the author of the project for the Ausfall Gates).

The Railway Gate has two spans, decorated with pointed arches. The portals of the gate are adorned with shaped decorative bricks. On the sides of the arches are casemates with embrasures and loopholes. On the outer side of the gate, there is a guardhouse featuring strong embrasures for artillery and loopholes for shooters.

The gate is topped with parapets with wrought iron grilles, which fence off the Gvardeysky Prospekt passing over the gate.

A distinctive feature of the gate is the so-called "strabs." These are vertical double recesses of square cross-section arranged in the walls of the arches. In case of defense, sturdy beams were to be laid in them. The barrier thus formed resembled blinds. It was impossible to dismantle the strabs from the outside.

A railway leading to Pillau (now Baltiysk) passed through this gate. After the defensive structures of the city center were removed, the former rampart was converted into a street called Deutschordensring (now Gvardeysky Prospekt). Since then, the gate has been inconspicuous and rather resembles a tunnel through a road embankment.

After the construction of the Two-Tier Bridge over the Pregel River in 1926, railway traffic through the gate ceased, as a new railway branch was built. Nevertheless, one lane of the old railway was preserved until the late 1990s. Later, a pedestrian path was laid along the route of the former railway, leading from Moskovsky Prospekt through the Railway Gate to the park behind the monument to the 1200 Guardsmen.

There were other railway gates in Königsberg. The first were built after 1853 and were located near the Brandenburg Gate. A railway leading to Berlin passed through these gates. There were also several other railway gates, all of which were demolished by the 1920s.

Since May 2017, the Bessel Kaliningrad Planetarium has been housed in the Gate. Exhibitions, conferences, and other cultural events are held in the glazed arch. A museum is located in the left casemate of the gate. It contains displays about the second ring of ramparts and the history of the construction of the Königsberg Royal Observatory, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, his discoveries, and his contributions to the development of astronomy in the Russian Empire. The multimedia Planetarium is located in the left guardhouse of the Gate. It has a dome 5 meters in diameter and 12 seats.

Since 2022, the headquarters of the volunteer movement "Guardians of Ruins" has been located in the Railway Gate.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Железнодорожные_ворота_(Калининград)