Isolated Russian outpost withers under confrontation with West

By Lidia Kelly KALININGRAD, Russia (Reuters) - The Baltic Sea outpost of Kaliningrad was once touted as Russia's future Hong Kong: separated from the mainland, with a special status that would allow it to thrive through trade. "The Russian economy has hit bottom, but who would have thought the Russians would start digging?" Pleshkov, 46, says, quoting a line he says he first heard from a German engineer who had come to work in Kaliningrad. Its entire German population fled, died or was expelled,