The Kaliningrad Zoo was founded in 1896 as the Königsberger Tiergarten in the German town of

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was ...

, which in 1945 became part of Russia and was renamed

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 ...

. Thus, the zoo is one of the oldest zoological gardens in

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 ...

, and one of the largest. Its collection, which extends over 16.5 ha, comprises 286 species with a total of 2130 individual animals (as of December 31, 2020). The Kaliningrad zoo is also an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

. Sights include not only animals, but also rare plants like a relict

ginkgo ''Ginkgo'' is a genus of non-flowering seed plants. The scientific name is also used as the English name. The order to which it belongs, Ginkgoales, first appeared in the Permian, 270 million years ago, and is now the only living genus with ...

tree which was coeval with the

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

History

German period

The site of the modern zoo was home in 1895 to the Northeast German industrial and craft exhibition. Its supervisor Hermann Claaß proposed keeping the wooden pavilions to make a zoological garden. On August 22, 1895 the "Tiergarten Society" was created to realize the plan. The zoo's solemn opening took place on May 21, 1896. At that time, the collection had 893 specimens representing 262 species. In 1912 an ethnographic museum was established in the grounds of the zoo. In the 1930s this was moved to Mt. Hexenberg north of Hohenstein (now

Olsztynek Olsztynek (german: Hohenstein in Ostpreußen) is a town in northern Poland, in Olsztyn County, in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. It is the administrative seat of Gmina Olsztynek. It is part of the historic region of Masuria. Geography Ol ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

). The zoo lost its prosperity when the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

began and was closed on August 17, 1914. All available buildings were used by the military as warehouses for uniforms. The zoo opened again in 1918, but was unable, in the post-war decline, to regain its former glory. The collection diminished severely and consisted in 1921 only of 565 animals. In 1938 the zoo became the property of the city of Königsberg, and the Tiergarten society was dissolved. After the war, the last director of the Königsberg Zoo, Hans-Georg Thienemann (the son of Johannes Thienemann, the well-known ornithologist and pioneer of

bird ringing Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight s ...

) became director of a zoo in

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in ...

, the sister city of Königsberg.

After the Second World War

Only four of the zoo's animals survived the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

: a deer, a donkey, a badger and a hippopotamus. The hippopotamus was injured in the fighting, but recovered later. In 1973 a patronage program was started in which Kaliningrad businesses would sponsor installations or animals in the zoo. In 1980 enclosures were built for mountain animals.

Statue

The first zoo director, Hermann Claaß, retired on May 31, 1913. Walter Rosenberg built a statue in his honor, which was erected on the main avenue of the park on June 13. After the war the sculpture disappeared and was rediscovered only much later, in a private residence on Vatunin street occupied by the Gosstrakh. The discoverer, A. Novik, was the late director of the

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (russian: link=no, Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ), ), usually known as Komsomol (; russian: Комсомол, links=n ...

40th Anniversary park, a known regional specialist, and the founder of a pre-war Königsberg museum. The pedestal of the statue was discovered in a playground on the intersection of Ogaryov and Kutuzov streets. In 1990 the monument was reassembled and re-erected in the zoo on its former spot.

Talking raven

A "talking raven" lived in the zoo.

Financial difficulties

In 2003, the zoo suffered from a lack of funding, sometimes even to the extent there is not enough food for the animals. Many of the animals survived by scrounging food from visitors."Russian zoo fights for survival"
BBC News Online, 9 November 2003.

Collection

At the present, the Kaliningrad Zoo contains 2264 animals representing 315 different species. *

Mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur ...

s: 59 species, 292 specimens. *

Bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s: 84 species, 572 specimens. *

Reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates ( lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalia ...

s: 42 species, 97 specimens. *

Amphibian Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbo ...

s: 17 species, 59 specimens. *

Fish Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...

: 105 species, 1195 specimens. *

Invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chorda ...

s: 8 species, 49 specimens. In particular, the collection includes 56 species that are listed as threatened species in the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biolo ...

: * Mammals: 27 species. * Birds: 11 species. * Reptiles: 7 species. * Amphibians: 3 species. * Fish: 8 species.

Photographs

Image:Skazochny gorodok.jpg, The remains of the "Fairy-Tale Town" Image:Kaliningrad Slonovnik.jpg, This building in the zoo was built as a restaurant in 1911. After the war, it was rebuilt as the elephant house. It was recently restored and now houses the zoo's administration. The building is protected as a historical monument.

References

External links

* {{authority control Zoos in Russia Buildings and structures in Kaliningrad Tourist attractions in Kaliningrad Oblast Zoos established in 1896 1896 establishments in Germany Cultural heritage monuments of regional significance in Kaliningrad Oblast