Kaliningrad under Brezhnev: A Faithful Soviet Outpost in the Baltic or a Basket Case of Rootless Cosmopolitanism?

• In Event: Unofficial Trade and Business Practices in the Baltic Region in the 20th Century

Abstract

New archival evidence allows to paint a much more cosmopolitan, open and vibrant picture of Kaliningrad’s history than the stereotypical view permitted. My research on the world-wide travels, contacts and exchanges of Kaliningrad’s maritime milieu in the late Brezhnev era demonstrates that the city played a pioneering role in bringing the autarchic Soviet economy a step closer to the world market. This case study dealing with the grassroots black-market economy in the automobile sector demonstrates how the economic initiative of Soviet sailors, always on or beyond the border of legality, foreshadowed and - to a large extent – necessitated the revolution of perestroika a decade later.

Author

• Tomasz Blusiewicz, Harvard U