Permanent exhibition of the Friedland Gate Museum

About exhibition

The Museum of the History of the City "Friedland Gate" is located in the eponymous city gate of Königsberg (1862), which has gone through an interesting historical transformation from a defensive fortification to a modern museum. In the 1950s–1960s it was even used as vegetable storage. Today the Friedland Gate building comprises six exhibition halls housing the museum's main exhibition, which tells how the city of Königsberg developed and how its people lived, from the knightly era to the period of the city's reconstruction by the first settlers after World War II. In the Knights' Hall you can see reconstructed armor: chain mail, helmets, shields, recreated using traditional techniques by skilled craftsmen. The displayed equipment of medieval warriors fully performs its protective functions. In the "City of Pure Reason" hall you will find antique engravings reflecting urban life in Königsberg from the early 17th century to the late 1930s, and the exhibition's theme is also revealed through lifetime editions of Immanuel Kant, the seal of the University "Albertina", costumes of soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars, coins, and silver tableware. While visiting the main exhibition you can also take a photo with a medieval lady, sit and enjoy a "Virtual Walk through Königsberg", see household items of early 20th-century townspeople, or drop into the historic Blockhaus building to immerse yourself in the world of Kaliningrad's industrial development through linocuts by Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Adolf Shevchenko.