Tilsit

Tilsit grew on the southern bank of the Nemunas around a Teutonic stronghold known as the Schalauer Haus. Granted town rights in 1552, it became an important centre of Lithuania Minor, where German and Lithuanian speakers lived alongside one another. The river linked the town with the interior and the Baltic, while its castle recalled the Order's old frontier against Lithuania.

In 1807 Tilsit became the stage for negotiations that reshaped Europe after Napoleon's victories. Napoleon and Alexander I met on a raft moored in the Nemunas; treaties with Russia and Prussia followed. Prussia lost extensive territory, and the Duchy of Warsaw was created from part of its Polish lands. The town's name thereafter stood for a settlement reached between emperors on the river at its edge.