Krasnoznamensk

Krasnoznamensk (Russian: Краснозна́менск, lit. Red Banner Town; German: Lasdehnen (1734-1938), Haselberg (1938-1946); Lithuanian: Lazdynai) is a town and the administrative center of Krasnoznamensky District in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the Šešupė River, 163 kilometers (101 mi) northeast of Kaliningrad, the administrative center of the oblast, and approximately 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) to the south of the border with Lithuania. It has a population of 3,522 (2010 Census).
The earliest surviving German language record of the settlement dates from 1521 under the name Haselpusch, meaning hazel bush in German, while Russian sources give the date of the earliest record as 1576 and other sources state that it was established in 1734. The village had a church by 1578, but it burned down in 1661 and the replacement building had to be taken down in 1869 due to severe structural defects. It belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia since 1701 and the German Empire since the unification of Germany in 1871, and was located in the province of East Prussia. In the early 18th century the town's name was changed to Lasdehnen, based on the Old Prussian language term for hazel bushes, and the current Gothic Revival church was built between 1874 and 1877. Four annual fairs were held in the town in the late 19th century. In 1938, during a massive Nazi campaign of renaming of placenames, it was Germanized to Haselberg (literally "hazel mountain") due to the Baltic origins of its prior name. By 1945, during World War II, Haselberg's ethnic German population had largely fled before the advance of the Red Army in 18 January. Following the end of the war Haselberg was included in the portion of the former province of East Prussia annexed by the Soviet Union that was organized into Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian SFSR. The historical regional capital of nearby Schloßberg (still commonly known by its pre-1938 name Pillkallen, now Dobrovolsk) had been severely damaged during the course the war, so Soviet authorities relocated Pillkallen's former administrative functions to Haselberg, which had suffered less damage. On 7 April 1946, the Soviets renamed the town as Krasnoznamensk, literally "Red Banner Town", and the following year became the administrative center of the new Krasnoznamensky District. The hazelnuts on the flag and the coat of the arms of the city keep the association with the historical name of the city.