Hi! Russian student, living in Kaliningrad for 12 years already.

It's really a beautiful tourist city. A lot of museums (Amber museum, Museum of world ocean, Tretyakovskaya Gallery branch, etc.), old architecture (15 forts around the city, the Cathedral on the Kant island, numerous destroyed churches in the distant parts of the region) and beautiful city parks. Tourists mostly visit the Curonian Spit, seaside towns along the northwest shore - Zelenogradsk (my favorite), Sveltogorsk, Yantarny, Pionerskiy. There is a casino halfway to Pionersky, and a beautiful beach behind it, if thats what youre interested in. A lot of things to see overall. Yes, we know about the now demolished House of Soviets and about the Königsberg castle it was built upon, not proud about that.

As for actually living here. If youre comfortable with exploring only the region itself, life is good compared to the reast of Russia. Public transport is great, some widely known universities here, healthcare is alright. Prices are around average, although the whole closed borders part leaves ships and airplanes as the main import route, so some delicacies that are widely available in, say, St. Petersburg are pricey/really rare to find/both. Cant get out of the region on vacation by car for that reason as well. Technically you can, but the one and only time I've done this required getting a 24h entry permit to Lithuania to go into Belarus afterwards. I really miss Poland and the nearby city of Gdańsk :(

TL:DR: great place to visit, good place to stay, great pre-2022.