Kaliningrad is a land which makes an angle between Lithuania and Poland. Baltic Sea lays on the west. Lithuania in the north and Poland in the south-west (EU members, and probable future NATO inductees). It is part of Russian Federation but separated from the main land. This region is actually an exclave — an area without common borders and with no land connection to the rest of the country — as opposed to an enclave. It was known as Königsberg until July 1946, when Stalin seized this East Prussian capital city after WWII and deported the remaining German citizenry. It is the westernmost oblast (administrative unit/district) of the Russian Federation. Since 1992, it has also been referred to as the Free/Special Economic Zone “Yantar” (Amber), upon which were heaped the optimistic expectation of its blossoming into a booming “European Hong Kong”, brimming with foreign investors. Its strategic, ice-free port has long been the headquarters of the Soviet/Russian Federation Baltic Navy/fleet. Though still a heavily militarized site, the Baltiysk naval base is no longer the secretively ominous, off-limits stronghold it used to be during the height of the Cold War era. Even after the collapse of Communist rule, its inhabitants are loyally attached to Moscow, and do not want to split from their adoptive Motherland.

2002 dated coin features a Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle. 2003 dated coins features Kamov K-50 “Black Shark” assault helicopter, T-34 tank, MIG-29 Fulcrum jet and Katyusha truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher. 2004 dated coins feature S-13 submarine, BTR-70 armored personnel carrier, Sukhoi SU-37 fighter jet and 45mm Anti-Tank Cannon. Pretty radical and strange !