The site has been associated with the name of St. Adalbert of Prague, who was sent with soldiers of Boleslav Chrobry of the newly established Poland to conquer Prussia. St. Adalbert was beheaded nearby in 997 by the pagan Sambians after he destroyed their sacred oak grove. Several further attempts of conquest by Poles followed, but were successfully repelled. In 1254 the Old Prussian Samland territory was conquered by forces of the Teutonic Order, led by King Ottokar II of Bohemia, during the Prussian Crusade. Upon the division of the conquered lands, the Bishop of Samland had a castle erected at the site named Schonewik. First mentioned in a 1268 deed, it is one of the oldest in the region. A settlement was laid out from 1299 onwards and its citizens, mainly descending from Stralsund in the Danish Principality of Rügen, received a first town charter in 1305. As the episcopal residence of the Samland bishops, it was called Bischoveshusen or shortly Vischhusen from about 1325. The richly endowed Gothicparish church was one of the oldest in the province. When in 1525 Bishop George of Polentz waived his rights, his Fischhausen residence was incorporated into the secular Duchy of Prussia. On 12 February 1526, the Hohenzollern duke Albert, former Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, married Princess Dorothea of Denmark at the Fischhausen Castle chapel. The fortress became the residence of his mentally disabled son Albert Frederick until his death in 1618. Afterwards, the castle decayed and was finally demolished by order of King Frederick I of Prussia, who had its stones used for the expansion of the nearby Pillau fortress. Upon the re-organisation of the Prussian lands after the Congress of Vienna, Fischhausen became the administrative seat of a district within the Province of East Prussia in 1818. A station on the East PrussianSouthern Railway line from Königsberg to Pillau with a branch-off to Palmnicken on the Amber Coast was inaugurated in 1865. According to the German 1939 census, the town's population was 3,879. During World War II, the Soviet Red Army advanced towards Fischhausen after the capture of Königsberg. The town was captured after a battle on April 21–24, 1945; during the fighting the medieval town was almost completely destroyed. After the war, the town was transferred to Soviet control and in 1946 it was given its present name. It finally lost its status as a district seat and was incorporated into Zelenogradsky District in 1947. Part of the newly established Baltiysky District since 1996, it was demoted in status to that of an urban-type settlement in 2005. In 2008, its town status was restored.
