History
Since the Viking age the Baltic Sea was an important trade and war road. In the Middle Ages Scandinavian Vikings fought against the Pomeranian Slavs for the sea’s control. At the end of XIV century the Teutonic Order controlled the southern and eastern Baltic coastlines. Later the Hanseatic League became the strongest economic power in the northern Europe. The Baltic was used for trade routes between this union’s cities. In the eighteenth century, when Russia and Prussia became dominant in that region, there was a lot of trade not only in the Baltics but also in the North Sea region. The part of World War I took place in the Baltic Sea. During the Second World War Germany used the entire southern and a part of the eastern coast to occupy Poland and the Baltic States. In 1945 the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for people who sunk in the biggest sea catastrophe of all time. Russian submarines drowned 3 German refugee ships: Wilhelm Gustloff, Goya and Steuben, over 20,000 people died. In 2005 a group of Russian scientists reported about more than 5,000 sunken planes, warships, etc., most of the World War II. When in 2004 Poland and the Baltic States joined the European Union, the Baltic Sea became almost an internal EU sea.
The Baltic Sea tempts the attention by the abundance of sunken ships. Today there is still a plenty of the drowned items not found or no one diver has been near to them. It makes diving in the Baltic Sea very interesting because people can feel like freight forwarders and researchers.
