From the 15th century onwards, the Knights largely resettled the lands with Samogitian and Lithuanian colonists.

[10] The settlement itself was first mentioned as Stallupoenen, or Stallupönen, in 1539, named after a nearby river called Stalupė in Lithuanian.

[citation needed] At that time, with the secularization of the Order's Prussian lands in 1525, Stallupönen had already become part of the Duchy of Prussia, a Polish fief which in 1618 was inherited by the Hohenzollern margraves of Brandenburg.

Because of the Lithuanian minority living there, Lithuania tried unsuccessfully to obtain the town from Germany after regaining independence following World War I.

[citation needed] During World War II, the Germans operated a subcamp of the Stalag I-A prisoner-of-war camp for Allied POWs in the town.

The region was transferred from Germany to the Russian SFSR in 1945 and made a part of Kaliningrad Oblast.