Chistye Prudy, Kaliningrad Oblast
Chistye Prudy is a rural locality in Nesterovsky District of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. The settlement is located about from the Russian border with Lithuania.
Tollmingkehmen was mentioned in written sources in the 14th century. In 1589, it became a center of a parish. Many famous people worked in the parish including Kristijonas Donelaitis, the author of the first Lithuanian poem The Seasons. Donelaitis was a Lutheran pastor of the German and Lithuanian inhabitants of Tollmingkehmen in eastern Prussia for 37 years. He built a new church which is now reconstructed into his memorial museum.
It was an important cultural center in the Kingdom of Prussia's Lithuania Minor region and had a sizable Prussian Lithuanian minority until the early 19th century, which was assimilated by the German population. The last Prussian Lithuanians fled during the last months of World War II or were expelled with the other inhabitants of East Prussia after 1945.
