Gvardeyskiy District: Tapiau Castle and the City’s History

Tapiau Castle in Gvardeysk is classified as a cultural heritage site of federal significance in Kaliningrad Oblast. The castle offers overview tours and immersive tours for small groups. Check the latest booking details before your trip. The two formats have different focuses: an overview or an immersive small-group tour. When planning your stay, you can take these differences into account when choosing your cultural activities.

Gvardeysk: The History of the Square and the Museum

Before the war, the central square in Gvardeysk was called Market Square. People traded and celebrated there. During the Soviet era, it was renamed Victory Square. The two names and the sequence in which they were used give the square its own historical dimension: they point both to its earlier role as a place of trade and celebration and to its later renaming. This makes it possible to explore the city’s history in a specific place without conflating the different periods.

The Museum of the History and Culture of the City of Gvardeysk displays a model of Tapiau Castle dating from the 13th century. The castle can also be encountered as a museum exhibit: the model presents the building in relation to its historical dating. The Lovis Corinth House Museum in Gvardeysk offers art workshops; confirm current availability before your trip. The castle tours, model, and workshops offer different experiences—from learning about a cultural heritage site to viewing a historical model and taking part in an artistic activity.

Nature in the wider destination of Kaliningrad Oblast

Beyond Gvardeysk’s cultural attractions, the wider destination of Kaliningrad Oblast includes its own nature and landscape attractions. The Curonian Spit is a 98-kilometer-long sandy peninsula, ranging in width from 350 meters to 3.8 kilometers. It forms a natural barrier between the salt waters of the Baltic Sea and the fresh water of the Curonian Lagoon. This transboundary Russian-Lithuanian World Heritage Site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000 in the “Cultural Landscape” category.

On the Russian side of the spit, there are seven ecological trails and three tourist excursion routes. The “Dancing Forest” ecotrail is located at kilometer 37 of the spit, four kilometers north of the settlement of Rybachy. The coniferous forest there is known for its bizarre, zigzag-shaped, twisted tree trunks. Six named ecotrails are open year-round, 24 hours a day; they may be temporarily closed due to weather or necessary restoration work. Check for current notices before visiting. The “Fringilla” ecotrail runs through the grounds of the Rybachy field station. From April to October, visits are possible only as part of a guided tour for groups of at least ten people.

The national park’s visitor facilities include a visitor center. It is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from May to September. From October to April, it is open five days a week, except Mondays and Tuesdays. As the schedule may change, confirm the opening hours with the park before your trip.

Another landscape highlight in the southeast of Kaliningrad Oblast is Vishtynetsky National Park. It encompasses extensive forest areas and covers more than 27,600 hectares. The national park was established on April 1, 2024, by Government Resolution No. 412, based on the nature park of the same name. The park is also known as the Rominten Forest and the Red Forest. Thus, the wider destination offers a large forest area as a nature attraction in its own right, alongside the coastal landscape of the Curonian Spit.

Discover more destinations: Svetlogorsky District, Svetly, Chernyakhovsky District, Pionersky, Bagrationovsky District, Baltiysky District, Nesterovsky District, Chernyakhovsky District.

View the wider travel guide: Kaliningrad Oblast.