27 Pobedy St., Neman, Kaliningrad Region, Russia, 238710
“The Mennonite Community House” in Ragnit was built in 1853. This once beautiful building, constructed in the late Romanesque style, was originally a prayer house for the largest Mennonite community in the territory of the present-day Kaliningrad region. Mennonites are a branch of Protestants. The building has a total area of 1,128.4 square meters.
Mennonites are one of the Protestant sects, named after their founder, Simon Menno. The Mennonites successfully combined deep religiosity with a high level of technical culture, which was reflected both in architecture and in the use of various progressive technologies of that time. For example, Tilsit cheese also owes its origins to the Mennonites. It was produced in East Prussia since the time of the Teutonic Order. The Mennonites brought their recipes to Prussia, and the fusion of Dutch and Swiss recipes became the basis for a new type of cheese. But the story of Tilsit cheese will be told separately.
The solid structure of the Ragnit Community House was built from brick and faced with stone. Its exterior strongly resembles the 13th-century order churches. The building did not serve long as a prayer house. Six years after it was built, the Mennonites sold the building to the city. At that time, Mennonite communities in East Prussia faced many difficulties. Authorities often denied them in various matters, there were problems acquiring land plots, and simultaneously a new wave of Mennonite emigration began—mostly to the Russian Empire. However, starting from 1887, Mennonite emigration from Russia also began, mainly to countries in the Americas.
From 1933 to 1945, the church housed the Parteiburg (“Palace of the NSDAP” - National Socialist German Workers' Party). According to some sources, anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann was tortured in its basement; he was imprisoned for some time in the East Prussian prison (from 1825 to 1945, the Ragnit Order Castle served as the East Prussian prison).
After the war, the building housed the sports complex of the Neman Central Boiler Plant (CBZ). Hans-Georg Ushkoreit, a German composer and professor born in Ragnit, in the 1990s, when the building was still in perfect condition, asked for it to be demolished as a former wasp’s nest of fascists, promising to build a sports complex for children on the site at his own expense as a gift to the city. Included in the authorized capital of OAO “Neman CBZ,” the building was sold to LLC “Aero-Print” based on a purchase agreement dated April 3, 2001.
On October 1, 2006, a fire broke out in the building. Currently, the “Parteiburg” is owned by former Vice-Governor Ledenev. The historic church lacks a roof, and the historic building is gradually falling apart, presenting a pitiful sight.
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