Chernyakhovsk

History

It was founded in 1336, after the Prussian Crusade, when the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights Dietrich von Altenburg built a castle called Insterburg at the site of a former Old Prussian fortification. During their campaign against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the place was devastated in 1376 and again by Polish troops in 1457. The castle had been rebuilt as the seat of a Procurator and a settlement grew up to serve it, also called Insterburg.

When Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1525 secularized the monastic State of the Teutonic Order, Insterburg became part of the Duchy of Prussia and was granted town privileges on October 10, 1583 by the Prussian regent Margrave George Frederick. The town became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. Because the area had been depopulated by plague in the early 18th century, King Frederick William I of Prussia invited Protestant refugees who had been expelled from the Archbishopric of Salzburg to settle in Insterburg in 1732.

In 1818, after the Napoleonic Wars, the town became the seat of Insterburg District within the Gumbinnen Region. Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly died at Insterburg in 1818 on his way from his Livonian manor to Germany, where he wanted to renew his health.

In 1863, a Polish secret organization was founded and operated in Insterburg. It was involved in arms trafficking to the Russian Partition of Poland during the January Uprising. Since May 1864 its leader was Józef Racewicz.

Insterburg became a part of the German Empire during the 1871 unification of Germany. On May 1, 1901, it became an independent city separate from Insterburg District. It was captured by Russian army in 24 Augusut 1914 but German one retook in 11 September 1914. After World War I, the town was separated from the rest of Weimar Germany, as the province of East Prussia had become an exclave. The association football club Yorck Boyen Insterburg was formed in 1921.

During World War II, Insterburg was heavily bombed by the British Royal Air Force on July 27, 1944. The town was stormed by Red Army troops on January 21–22, 1945. As part of the northern part of East Prussia, Insterburg was transferred from Germany to the Soviet Union after the war as previously agreed between the victorious powers at the Potsdam Conference. The German population was either evacuated or expelled and replaced with Russians. In 7 April 1946, Insterburg was renamed as Chernyakhovsk in honor of the Soviet World War II General of the Army Ivan Chernyakhovsky, who commanded the army that first entered East Prussia in 1944.

After 1989, a group of people introduced the Akhal-Teke horse breed to the area and opened an Akhal-Teke breeding stable.

Administrative and municipal status

Within the framework of administrative divisions, Chernyakhovsk serves as the administrative center of Chernyakhovsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with five rural localities, incorporated within Chernyakhovsky District as the town of district significance of Chernyakhovsk. As a municipal division, the town of district significance of Chernyakhovsk is incorporated within Chernyakhovsky Municipal District as Chernyakhovskoye Urban Settlement.

Military

Chernyakhovsk is home to the Chernyakhovsk naval air facility.

Notable people

Twin towns and sister cities

Chernyakhovsk is twinned with: