Expressway S22 or Express Road S22 (in Polish ''Droga ekspresowa S22'') is a single carriageway express road running from

Elbląg Elbląg (; german: Elbing, Old Prussian: ''Elbings'') is a city in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland, located in the eastern edge of the Żuławy region with 117,390 inhabitants, as of December 2021. It is the capital of Elbląg Count ...

to the border with

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

Grzechotki Grzechotki (german: Rehfeld) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Braniewo, within Braniewo County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland, close to the border with the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. It lies approximate ...

Mamonovo Mamonovo (russian: Мамоново), prior to 1945 known by its German name Heiligenbeil ( pl, Święta Siekierka or ''Świętomiejsce''; lt, Šventpilis; Prussian: ''Swintamīstan''), is a town in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. Population figur ...

(), where it connects to a Russian road that continues to

Kaliningrad Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...

. The border crossing on the road opened in December 2010 and is the largest one on the Polish-Russian border, making S22 the key transport connection between the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

and the

Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad Oblast (russian: Калинингра́дская о́бласть, translit=Kaliningradskaya oblast') is the westernmost federal subject of Russia. It is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea. The largest city and admin ...

. The road follows the route of a German single carriageway

autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track' ...

between Elbląg (Elbing) and Kaliningrad (Königsberg) built in the 1930s, known informally as

Berlinka Berlinka (russian: Берлинка) is the informal Polish and Russian name given to sections of the unfinished Reichsautobahn Berlin-Königsberg, which was a pre-World War II German Reichsautobahn project to connect Berlin with Königsberg ...

. The old autobahn was completely reconstructed and opened as an express road in September 2008. In the course of the upgrade, the new modern carriageway was built in the space left for the second carriageway during original construction. At the same time, the original concrete carriageway was demolished almost along the entire length of the route, and only a few traces of it remain. All of the remaining original overpasses and bridges were demolished and replaced with modern works. Thus very few traces of the original German autobahn can be seen. The construction of the road cost 483 mln PLN, of which over one third was provided by the European Union. Rzeczpospolita article 03-02-200

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Route description

References

External links

Photos of the road before reconstruction
Expressways in Poland {{Poland-road-stub