Short answers, pulled from the story.
Pravdinsk was founded in 1312 by the Teutonic Knights at a ford across the Lava River after they subdued the local Natangian tribe in Prussia. It received formal town privileges in 1335 under Grand Master Luther von Braunschweig.
The Battle of Friedland took place on the 14th of June 1807, near the town then known as Friedland. Napoleon's French army, aided by Polish and Saxon forces, defeated a combined Russian-Prussian army in one of the key engagements of the Napoleonic Wars.
Friedland was renamed Pravdinsk in 1946 after the Soviet Union took control of the area under the 1945 Potsdam Agreement. The German population had fled or been expelled, and the town, formerly in the German province of East Prussia, was incorporated into Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian SFSR.
Some historical accounts identify Pravdinsk with Romuva, said to be the center of Baltic paganism. The Lithuanian name for Pravdinsk is still Romuva, and it was likely the town's Old Prussian name as well. Whether Romuva genuinely held that sacred role is disputed; early Christian chroniclers may have assumed a single pagan center by analogy with Rome.
Notable people from Pravdinsk include Celestyn Myslenta (1588-1653), a Polish Lutheran theologian and rector of the University of Konigsberg who attended the local school; Otto Saro (1818-1888), a Prussian lawyer and chief state prosecutor in Konigsberg; Florian Essenfelder (1855-1929), a piano maker active in Germany and Brazil; and Artyom Danilenko, a Russian professional football player born in 1990.
Pravdinsk is a member of the Friedliches Land (Peaceful Land) municipal association, which groups towns across central Europe that share variants of the place name Friedland. Members include two Czech towns named Frydlant, three German towns named Friedland, and two Polish towns historically known as Friedland.