Kaliningrad et al.

Kaliningrad is not easy to find.  Seeing “-grad” and thinking Russia, you spin the globe in its direction.  It stretches east and west…somewhere in that vast domain lies Kaliningrad.  But before you get lost somewhere in the steppes or Siberia it would be useful to know that it does not lie in Russia.

Kaliningrad lies five hundred kilometres west of Russia, a slice of land inserted between Poland and Lithuania with an area roughly the equivalent of Barcelona’s.  Importantly it has access to the Baltic Sea which is why, at the end of World War Two, after besieging and wresting it from the Germans, Russia was determined to keep it.  The Allies’ leaders had little argument with Russia’s actions: it had, after all, suffered enormously from Hitler’s forces, Stalin was intent on some form of reprisal and none other of its real neighbours had interest in incorporating it. Originally part of East Prussia and known as Konigsberg, those Germans there who had survived were expelled by the Russia which then imported over four hundred thousand of its own to establish a Russian identity.  Since then it has been the base of their Baltic Fleet and, until 1991, was off-limits to foreigners.

Unlike Vladimir Putin’s current advance into Ukraine, that of Stalin’s into Kaliningrad is free of such negative association and it now exists as one of those peculiar geographical anomalies which quizmasters cherish and quiz pundits relish.

It’s worth spending more time with the globe.  Children know this: it not only spins but also displays most colours under the sun, some with intriguing shapes. When told that what they see was once upon a time an amorphous mass called Pangea, they must be rather pleased that long before they came along, it had broken up into bits and the people on them had got it in their heads to make the world a more colourful space. 

Children also know that some of the best stories have secrets which, with a delicate pull on the tail of the mouse in the ebony inlay, opens a room hidden from others’ eyes.  There’s no need to find such a mouse on the globe, but you will need a magnifying glass or a super-sized orb.  Equipped with either, you may find Nauru, a twenty-one square kilometres of volcanic deposit somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.  814,000 times smaller than The Russian Federation, against which it may compete in the Olympic Games or sit with in the United Nations, it gained independence as a country in 1968. At that time it was reckoned as having the highest GDP per capita in the world, based on the income generated by the export of its massive quantity of phosphates essential for fertiliser products.  Its economy stands now in a sorrier state but, though dependent upon foreign aid, remains a state. 

What makes a country a country?  Some answers are obvious: borders and the recognition of such by other countries, an independent authority to legislate and institutions to do such; then come the trappings: a flag, national anthem and, of course, a passport.  Even the smallest country in the world, the 100-acre Vatican State, has a passport, though its present head of state, Pope Francis, being “a man of the people” retains that of his motherland, Argentina. However, when it is observed that fighting ferociously over territory and for power has been the common practice of history, it seems strange that the big dogs have left room for the handbag variety.

Perhaps it simply comes down to having a good supply of quiz questions.  Which country has zero unemployment?  Monaco, second smallest state, plus it has the highest population density per square kilometre.  And San Marino, to prove that their status goes far beyond printer-tray dimensions, boasts of being the oldest constitutional republic.  Founded as a monastery by a sermon-preaching stonemason in 301 CE, it can also claim the fact of being the first country to elect a communist government democratically in 1945. Befriended by Napoleon en route to Italy, who even offered to expand its territory,(which it declined) it granted Abraham Lincoln honorary citizenship, an offer he accepted.  At the end of World War 2, the Allied forces did fight the Germans on its territory, but its sovereignty remained intact, the victorious Allies leaving after two months’ occupation. Monaco and San Marino have also ensured that the appellations of their citizenry, Monegasques and Sammarinese, make it into the quiz bag.

Andorra, landlocked high in the Pyrenees by Spain and France, has little to fear from its neighbours.  Its defence: minimal taxes and excise duties, resulting in the cheapest liquor euros can buy.  Mix that with its having been under a feudal system of government until 1993, a 700 year long “Pearage Agreement” of the Spanish Bishop of Urguell and the French head of state, and you have a most unusual cocktail.

When the Nationalist government of South Africa concocted its ideology of separate development, apartheid, and attempted to fool the indigenous black population into believing that the parcels of land they were told to live in and govern were real countries, this fiction fell at the opening hurdle: were they permitted to foster relationships with countries of their own choice, such as Russia, China or Cuba?  The tiny Vatican State has its own department of foreign affairs, the Secretariat of State, which deals with whichever state it chooses; it also has an independent military force, the Swiss Guard, which answers to the Pope alone, and, being Swiss, will always remain neutral.

Presented with an historical overview of the world, a visitor to this planet may prescribe breaking up the present configuration of countries into a myriad of such, each with its own colour and shape, and so prevent the earth from continually turning red from the wars are waged upon it. The problem with this is that any attempt to do so would result in more blood being shed – as would happen were Oranje or the Western Cape to attempt secession.

It’s not an easy job to found a country.  Even if you buy an island and found a republic, international red tape will sink it before the flag is up.  At this stage of our history it is probably best to leave the anomalies which exist as tiny nations just as they are, admire their histories and remember their facts.