Description of the attraction
The last of the seven surviving city gates of the old Königsberg is the Friedland Gate, built in 1862 (the date is recorded on the stone of the vault of the roadway). The red-brick fortification in the neo-Gothic style was erected under the direction of the architect F. A. Stüler, and the Berlin sculptor V. L. Sturmer. The name of the gate comes from the city of Friedland (now Pravdinsk), the road in the direction of which passed through this fortification of Koenigsberg.
Initially, the Friedland Gate was located a little further from the existing ones and was part of the second defensive rampart of the city. After the construction of the modern Friedland Gate (1862), the defensive complex of Konigsberg was the most fortified on this side. At the beginning of the twentieth century, having lost its military purpose, the gates were sold to the city, and traffic, due to the construction of a new road to Friedland, through them was stopped. After the war, the building was empty for a long time. In the 1980s, during the cleaning of the reservoirs adjacent to the gate and the cleaning of the territory of the South Park, many antiques and objects were discovered, which later formed the main collection of the museum of the same name.
Nowadays, the building of the Friedland Gate is a red-brick structure, divided by ledges (buttresses) into six parts, ending with pointed turrets with a decorative parapet. The arched openings are decorated with perspective portals, and the facades are decorated with rhombic patterns (mesh) made of bricks of two shades. Also on the facades of the gate are two restored (nowadays) statues: on the outside of the master Siegfried von Feuchtwangen - the founder of the Teutonic castle in Marienburg (Polish Malbork), and on the inside - the Balga State Commissioner Friedrich von Zollern.
Since 2007, the Friedland Gate has been considered a cultural heritage site of regional importance. In the building of the gate there is a museum of the same name, introducing the history of the formation of Koenigsberg and the construction of fortifications of the city. International knight festivals, evenings of ancient European music and photo exhibitions are regularly held on the territory of the Friedland Gate.
