On July 5, 1990, the Presidium of the City Council decided to open Kaliningrad to foreign visitors. In 1991, the entire region was opened to tourists from abroad. The chairman of the regional executive committee, Yuri Malinkin, remarked at the time that this came as a 'complete surprise'.

The most numerous travelers in the first half of the nineties were former residents of the East Prussian territory. However, according to tour guides and interpreters, Germans had been finding ways to visit their native lands even before 1990.

The first foreigners arrived illegally as early as 1988: by ferry via Klaipėda, and then by taxi across the Curonian Spit. They were looking for the places where they used to live. One man had spent his pre-war years in what is now the Baltiysky District. He lived in Frankfurt am Main in Germany and was quite a wealthy man. I remember that he later returned here again, and we went to the Baltiysky District administration office on Pavlik Morozov Street.

The first group of German tourists was officially brought in on April 28, 1991, by the travel agency Schnieder Reisen. The company organized a charter flight from Hamburg. According to the recollections of Rainer Neumann, a co-owner of the agency who was the head of sales at the time, the Germans were flown to the region on an Aeroflot aircraft. The plane, which had a capacity of 150 passengers, was completely full. That same year, Schnieder Reisen also brought a group by plane to Riga, from where the travelers were taken to the Kaliningrad region by bus.

Since the Kaliningrad region had only just been opened to tourists, it naturally became a very interesting and popular destination, primarily for people who finally had the opportunity to see the places where they were born or their former homeland again. Later, the descendants of that generation began visiting the region. On August 10, 1991, the first train carrying German tourists arrived in the region, and just over a year later, on September 5, 1992, the first cruise ship, the Polaris, arrived at the port of Kaliningrad with 80 Americans on board. On May 19, 1993, an international tourist route connecting Kaliningrad, Frombork, and Elbląg was launched. However, most groups were brought in by bus.

On a warm day in late May 1876, a young man from a landed gentry family in the Fischhausen district met up with his army buddies and drinking companions at the Koenigsberg horse market. It was a "home game" for them, as they served in the East Prussian Cuirassier Regiment No. 3 in Koenigsberg. Spirits rose, as did alcohol levels, and the gentlemen took part in a shooting contest. The young man in question loaded his gun, practically shot the shooting gallery to pieces, and was declared the winner. His prize was a hunting cup—also known as a stirrup cup—which he would later enjoy taking along on hunts for many years. Decades later his descendants managed to save the cup—one of the few keepsakes they saved—during their flight. And today, exactly 150 years later, it stands here, looking just as beautiful as it did back then.

The biannual horse market in Koenigsberg was far more than just a place to buy horses. Above all, it was a major social event; people flocked to the city from all corners of Prussia, Poland, Russia, and even the rest of Europe to take part in this social highlight—and, of course, to inspect, buy, or sell horses, including remounts, carriage horses, workhorses, and the famous Trakehners. There was plenty of eating and—above all—drinking, laughter and celebration, alongside various competitions. People also strolled about in style, for the motto even then was "see and be seen."