German Field Kitchen and Third Reich Coins: Discoveries of RGS’s Searchers in Baltic Fortress

The Baltic Fortress. Photo: Ekaterina Bykova
The Baltic Fortress. Photo: Ekaterina Bykova

The fourth field season of the long-term complex joint expedition of the RGS "Secrets of the Amber Land" to search and identify objects of military equipment history and fortifications in the area of responsibility of the Baltic Fleet has ended in the Kaliningrad Region. The main tasks were research, cleaning the territories and indoor locations from wartime rubble and debris, as well as inspection of the citadel and its water moat. Read about the results of this year in our article.

“This season started in April and lasted all summer,” said the head of the expedition Danila Ivanov. “Volunteers, divers, and search specialists worked in the Kaliningrad Region. Speaking about the results of this year, I would like to note that the last two weeks were the most informative for us. We found components for the First World War German field kitchen: the upper part with a skewer attachment and a shoulder tank for carrying liquids. Human remains were also found on the territory of the fortress.”

The fortress in Baltiysk is an ancient citadel in the shape of a pentagon with sides of 80 meters. Every corner is a bastion bearing its own name. The structure consists of an inner courtyard, which once consisted of barracks, warehouses, a prison, workshops, a church, a priest's, a governor’s, and a commandant’s house, as well as an arsenal.

“The expedition ‘Secrets of the Amber Land’ is in its fourth year,” said Natalya Belyakova, Director of the Expeditionary and Tourism Development Department. “We are not just clearing an ancient fort, but we are examining in detail every square meter of the casemates, recording the data obtained. The digital double of the fortress allows you to save information about the fortress in its entirety. In case of loss of an element, it can be restored in its entirety. The Society's specialists, with the support of volunteers, have already created a 3D model of the fortress and a virtual tour of the dungeons. So the history of this unique object is obtaining new details. Thanks to the expedition, knowledge about the fortress has significantly expanded. A new compelling point of attraction for tourists and all those interested in military history has appeared on the modern map of the Kaliningrad Region.”

This season, the explorers began work on the Albrecht Bastion – it is located on the left side of the main entrance. The bastion is named after the last master of the Teutonic Order and the first Duke of Prussia. During the work on the Albrecht, a total of 11 coins were found, presumably dating back to the period of the Third Reich. They are poorly preserved, so they are difficult to identify – mechanical and chemical cleaning is required.

During the expedition, volunteers worked on water, at a point near the Faulwinkel gate bridge. This is the gate of the fortress located in the southeastern curtain wall and leading across the bridge to the ravelin of the same name. The expedition members extracted soil and bricks to allow the boat to pass under the bridge and so that the water can circulate in the moat.

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The finds of this season. Photo: Danila Ivanov
The finds of this season. Photo: Danila Ivanov

“One of the main tasks of the expedition was to clean the moat of debris and silt accumulated over decades – everything that was collecting there for a long time,” says diver and member of the RGS Sergei Zhdanov. “During the cleaning process, we raised finds that allow us to ‘plunge’ into the past: the shell of a mine from the Great Patriotic War, glassware produced in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, fragments of German baggage carts, metal. I had to work underwater in extremely difficult conditions. Despite the shallow depths of the moat, up to 5-6 m, visibility was zero. Divers had to operate in the century-old sediments mixed with broken glass and rusty iron, the sharp edges of which could damage underwater equipment at any moment.”

The underwater explorers worked in pairs: a belaying diver and a working diver. They connected with each other using a line, this is a rope that allows, using special signals, to exchange information and helps to act in non-standard situations underwater.

“At first, we removed large debris by lifting it to the surface manually or with a basket,” adds Sergey Zhdanov. “Then we used an ejector device, with which the soil was fed to the surface, where it was sifted through a special net. We collected garbage that needed to be disposed of in bags and took it out, and reinforced the bank of the moat with stone, brick, and soil. Valuable finds were transported to the expedition camp. The complexity of the moat cleaning work, its labor intensity and seasonality indicate the need for this expedition to last for many years. This will help to systematically restore the history of the 17th century fortress, one of the most important fortifications in world history.”

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Divers remove silt and debris from the bottom. Photo: Danila Ivanov
Divers remove silt and debris from the bottom. Photo: Danila Ivanov

The expedition of the RGS "Secrets of the Amber Land" has been held in the Kaliningrad Region since 2021. First, experts studied the German archives: diagrams of the city and fortress from the beginning of the 18th to the end of the 19th century. At the second stage, the RGS volunteers cleared the territory and premises of the fortress of debris and foreign objects. After that, it was scanned with a laser, resulting in a 3D model of the object. It will allow to recreate any elements of the structure, even if they are destroyed by time. In addition, volunteers, students, and young scientists created two audio guided tours for an initial self-guided tour of the fortress.

In 2023, the foundations of an ancient church – a small Lutheran church – with churchyard burials of the 17th-18th centuries were discovered on the territory of the fortress . Specialists from the P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences conducted magnetometric and sonar surveys of the water moat and determined the depths to the silt cover of the bottom, its relief, and identified metal accumulation sites. As a result of a selective underwater search, the explorers took out two training naval mines of the first half of the 20th century from the moat, an electrocar of the AEG brand produced in 1942. A system of collectors was found in the fortress courtyard, which served to drain water from the fortress territory into the moat, and underground communications were also discovered outside the fortress.