Talpaki

The Kaliningrad - Chernyakhovsk highway passes through Talpaki (further this highway goes to Minsk ). In the village, a road branches off from the highway to Sovetsk .

Talpaki lie on the right (northern) bank of the Pregol , next to the confluence of its tributary , the Glubokaya River, in the Pregol. In Talpaki, there are bridges across the Pregolya and the Deep, and the gateway to the Pregol (gateway number 2).

Talpaki is an ancient settlement. Even before German colonization (XIII-XIV centuries), the Prussian village of Talpaken ( Talpakken , Taplavken , Taplaki , Dablak ) was located on the site of the current village. Translated from the Prussian language , this name means approximately “warm place”.

In 1336, the Taplaken fortress was founded near the Prussian village by the German knights of the Teutonic Order . The fortress occupied a strategic position: here the road from Konigsberg was divided into two roads, one of which led to Insterburg (now Chernyakhovsk ), the other to Tilsit (now Sovetsk ). The place was beneficial from an economic point of view, as there were deposits of salt (in the Middle Ages, salt was a valuable, expensive product).

In 1376, the fortress was captured and devastated by the Lithuanian prince Keistut . After that, the Germans rebuilt the fortress in stone. During perestroika and modernization, the fortress gradually turned into a small castle . Over time, the castle lost its military significance and began to look more like a large rural manor.

Around the castle peasants settled. By 1820, there were 24 villages near the castle with a total population of about 250 people.

In 1946, following the results of the Second World War , the village was renamed Talpaki ^[4] .

In Talpaki, the ruins of Taplaken castle have been preserved. Part of the ruins is used as a residential building, other parts are abandoned and are gradually being destroyed.

1. ↑ ^{1 2} 2010 All-Russian Population Census. Kaliningrad region. Table 10. The population of urban districts, municipalities, urban and rural settlements, urban settlements, rural settlements (neopr.) . Date of treatment November 28, 2013. Archived 2013-11-228.
2. ↑ In the village of Talpaki, officials want to close the high school // Portal of the North-West of Russia (Neopr.) (Unavailable link) . Date of treatment May 11, 2007. Archived on September 28, 2007.
3. ↑ What will happen to the Talpak school? // TV channel Russia-Kaliningrad (unopened) (unavailable link) . Date of treatment May 11, 2007. Archived October 20, 2008.
4. ↑ Talpaki - Taplaken until 1946 (neopr.) . www.prussia39.ru. Date of treatment June 6, 2019.
5. ↑ 2002 All-Russian Population Census. Kaliningrad region. The size and distribution of the population (neopr.) . Date of treatment February 3, 2014. Archived February 3, 2014.

• Photos and the history of the castle "
• A brief history of the village, from the official site of Kaliningrad
• Castle photos

• Kaliningrad region. General geographic map. Scale - 1: 200 000. Federal Service for Geodesy and Cartography, 1995.