City of Sovetsk: The most "Napoleonic" place on the territory of modern Russia

The small border town of Sovetsk in the Kaliningrad region can rightly be considered one of the most "Napoleonic" places on the territory of modern Russia. After all, it was here, as the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin considered great, that Bonaparte achieved his highest success.

Once, in the days of Prussia, it was called Tilsit.

One of the attractions of Sovetsk is the Queen Louise Bridge, which connects the modern Kaliningrad region and Lithuania. It was opened in 1907 for the centenary of the Treaty of Tilsit.

On July 6, 1807, trying to save her country, Queen Louise, the wife of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, met Napoleon in Tilsit at the home of the legal adviser Ernst Ludwig Sier. Unfortunately, this building was destroyed during the Second World War.

If the king had not entered so early, I would still have had to give up Magdeburg.

- Bonaparte quipped, commenting on the meeting with Louise later.

At the same time, the most significant event of stories Napoleonic Wars, which took place in Tilsit (modern Sovetsk), Bonaparte concluded an alliance with the Russian Emperor Alexander the First against the British.

At that time, the society of Imperial Russia perceived the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 as humiliating, since Napoleon literally forced Alexander the First to sign it, and the rupture of trade relations with England caused serious damage to the country's budget.

The house on the corner of Gagarin (formerly Deutschestrasse) and Herzen (formerly Packhofstrasse) streets is one of the main sights of Sovetsk. After all, it was here that Emperor Alexander the First stopped during the signing of the Peace of Tilsit.

The streets of modern Sovetsk keep the memory of those fateful times. Therefore, anyone who is fond of the history of the Napoleonic wars should definitely visit this place.