Visa deal brings Kaliningrad closer to the West

The new year is well underway, yet Kaliningrad - a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea - is still in hibernation. On a cold winter day, a car rolls past the Mamonovo-2 checkpoint only every 15 minutes on average. There are no queues, and all traffic lights have been switched to green. The Russian customs official has a strict expression on his face, but only casts a cursory glance into the boots of cars passing his booth.
If the Russian enclave located between Poland and Lithuania is freed from visa restrictions with Europe - as the Kremlin wants - things could change. The enclave with about half a million residents is hoping to become a tourism and business hub. Visa restrictions are already being loosened with neighbouring Polish areas, turning Kaliningrad into a test for free movement between Russia and the European Union.
The Grzechotky/Mamonovo-2 crossing could cope with far more traffic than at present. It is the largest and most modern crossing point on Kaliningrad's border with Poland. The high-tech terminal, as big as an airfield, was opened just a year ago at a cost of 20 million euros (26 million dollars). The facility linking Russia's western outpost with EU motorways will be put to test when a visa-free zone comes into force in June. The zone will cover the entire administrative region of Kaliningrad as well as the Polish areas of Elblag and Olsztyn.
Residents of these places will no longer need to present a visa to enter or leave the enclave. For the first time, the EU is giving Russia an opening to its free-movement Schengen area. Eventually, the Kremlin wants the EU to scrap all visa restrictions with Kaliningrad.
Berlin lies only 600 kilometres to the south-west, while Moscow is twice as far away. Kaliningrad - which used to be the German city of Koenigsberg - was conquered by the Soviet army and almost completely destroyed in World War II. Its strategic location on the Baltic Sea placed it off limits to visitors during the Cold War and afterwards. Kaliningrad was known as an impoverished spot, awash with smugglers and crime. Today, the situation is changing. Coaches shuttle daily between Kaliningrad and large cities in Germany, Poland and the Baltic.
Many Kaliningrad locals take the bus to Gdansk to go shopping. Those with cash to spare enjoy weekends at the picturesque lakes in the Masuria region or at Polish coast resorts. There is such a demand for visas that EU consulates in Kaliningrad can hardly keep. "Kaliningrad is suffering under the visa requirement," says tour operator Lyubov Kotshetkova. "Europe is on our doorstep, but we live as though we have been shut out. There is a feeling that the West does not want us. But where is Russia more European than here?"
The traffic goes the other way too, as Poles cross the border to Kaliningrad for cheap petrol. Packets of Jin Ling cigarettes, Europe's most popular illicit smoke, are on sale at the duty-free shop. "We've got a lot to offer here, the history of the old city of Koenigsberg, plenty of amber, and the Curonian Spit (Unesco World heritage site)," Kotshetkova says in an invitation to potential tourists.
Others have business links in mind. "Without freely passable borders and more open regional links, Kaliningrad will never be able to realise its potential as a special economic area," says Alexandra Smirnova, a former regional economy minister who now manages the Avtotor automobile concern.Critics of the new visa arrangement fear an upsurge of visitors in search of illegal products, leading to huge traffic jams into the territory, which is traditional contraband country.
In the 1990s, thousands in the region made a living by smuggling cigarettes, fuel and vodka to the West, while customs and border police turned a blind eye. Poland's entry into the EU brought stricter checks, and smuggling declined sharply. Some observers doubt whether the new travel freedoms will benefit anyone other than the border traders. "The area of Poland which can be reached without a visa is too small" to boost tourism and trade, says Aristide Fenster, the German consul to Kaliningrad.
Kaliningrad governor Nikolai Zukanov sees the visa-free zone as a beginning, and hopes for a similar arrangement to lift visa restrictions with Lithuania too. "This would be a big step towards freedom from visas between Europe and Russia," he says.