Strait of Baltiysk

The Strait of Baltiysk is a strait enabling passage from the Baltic Sea into the freshwater Vistula Lagoon, located in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. The constructed strait separates the Sambian Peninsula and the Vistula Spit, and is at the northeastern side of the lagoon.

The strait is the shipping connection from the open sea to the important Russian ports of Baltiysk and Kaliningrad in the northeastern lagoon, as well as to the Polish ports of Elbląg, Braniewo, Tolkmicko, Frombork, Sztutowo, Krynica Morska, and Nowa Pasłęka in the southeastern lagoon.

In 1497 a storm surge dug a new gat, then called the Neues [Pillauer] Tief or Pillauer Seetief (New [Pillau] Deep, Pillau Sea Deep), through the Vistula Spit. In 1510 another storm surge widened and deepened that gat to navigability. It measured 550 metres (1,800 ft) in length and 360 metres (1,180 ft) in width. In 1626 King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden landed with 37 ships next to the gat, at a spot already slightly fortified, transforming it into the Pillau Fortress (), and holding it for ten years (till the Treaty of Stuhmsdorf), also in order to pressurise his brother-in-law George William, Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg, to support him in the Polish–Swedish War and the Thirty Years' War. The Swedes extended the adjacent Pillau village and built its first place of worship, a Lutheran church. In 1638 the Duke moved his residence to the close-by ducal capital Königsberg in Prussia.

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