Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia - An Englishman's Experiences of Life in Kaliningrad

Introduction – Expatriate Englishman in Kaliningrad

Hello and welcome to my blog Expat in Kaliningrad, which is all about an expatriate Englishman living in the Russian city of Kaliningrad.

For those of you who have no idea where Kaliningrad is, and let’s face it most don’t, Kaliningrad is the capital city of the Kaliningrad region, an area of land about the size of Yorkshire, England, which is part of the Russian Federation, sandwiched, and cut off from Mother Russia, between Poland and Lithuania. Some of you may recognise it as the venue where the Brits played Belgium in the 2018 World Cup, others, especially Daily Mail readers, will relate to it as the ‘most fortified’ or most militarised region in Europe. Whether you’ve heard of it or not, it is part of the Russian Federation, and it is where I live.

My name is Mick Hart. I am English born and bred. I first came to Kaliningrad in the year 2000 and moved here in 2019.

Expat in Kaliningrad

This blog is not intended to be a typical travelogue. There are many of those on the internet, and I have no wish to add to such generalisations as ‘Russian people are …’ or ‘Russian customs are … ‘etc, etc. I’m sure, however, that certain travelogue elements will no doubt emerge, ie which are the best bars in Kaliningrad, the best restaurants, hotels and so on, as guides like these offer such excellent opportunities to indulge oneself in meaningful research!! You will find such entries, once I have time to populate them, by accessing the ‘Categories’ menu on the right sidebar of the blog.

This blog is based on my observations, thoughts and experiences of daily life in Kaliningrad, Russia. It is personal and subjective and informed by diary entries that I have been writing for the past 20 years.

Expat in Kaliningrad

As an addicted, possibly obsessed, diary writer, who first started writing at the age of 14, I am able to draw from ‘archived’ material dating back to the time when I first visited Kaliningrad in the year 2000 and from more recent journal entries this year. I intend to start from the beginning but am not going to provide a chronological narrative from those diaries to the present day, as they would fill a book or two in their own right. Some of the entries in this blog will be extracts and others will be more focussed pieces, dealing with topics and subjects that I find interesting as an immigrant to this country and, more specifically, to this city and region.

Since I have an avid interest in all things past, I will also stray, no doubt, into the fascinating history of this city and the region in which it lies. Kaliningrad became Kaliningrad at the end of the Second World War. Before that the city was known as Königsberg. It was the capital city of the former German province of East Prussia and became the territory of the Soviet Union following proposals at the Potsdam Conference.

Another stimulus for writing this blog is to shed some honest light on what it is like to visit and live in this region away from the bright lights of hysteria that are relentlessly shone this way by attention-grabbing headlines in the West.

The UK media, for example, delights in labelling Kaliningrad as a ‘brutalistic concrete wasteland’ ~ the play on words derived from Brutalism, as in architecture, and brutal in effect. This description, in the way it is intended, is an anachronistic and imperfect one. It may have been relevant when I first travelled here in the year 2000, but even then it had less to do with the Gothic-Baroque city of Königsberg being raised to the ground by the RAF and subsequently decimated in the Battle or Siege of Königsberg, and more to do with the catastrophic effects of Perestroika in the 1980s and the dissolution of the USSR. Architecturally, the city of Kaliningrad that grew out of the ashes and rubble was, even in the politest of terms, no match for its predecessor; at best you could say that it was functional and presentable. But even this it failed to be when the money dried up in the 1990s and the buildings and the infrastructure sunk into dereliction. And yet this too, as bleak as it was, is an integral part of the evolution of this fascinating city, part of the rich and unique history of the Königsberg-Kaliningrad continuum.

Admittedly, at first sight, it does appear as if Königsberg has all but totally gone, but once you start to investigate further, with the help of the right people, you will be pleasantly surprised as to how much of the old city survived the conflagration of the Second World War and the subsequent, understandable, mentality to eradicate most things German. Even now, however, an argument bubbles just below the surface that too much Königsberg is an attempt by stealth at Germanisation. Calls for the city to take back its old, historic name of Königsberg are strongly opposed, and the supporting argument that thousands of Russian soldiers died wresting this place from Nazi Germany will, I am sure, prove morally decisive.

Be this as it may, in the year 2000, I was introduced to a handful of people who had the emotional connection and vision of conserving and, as far as possible, rebuilding parts of Königsberg. Today, I am heartened to find that their ranks have swelled and that, aided not a little, I suspect, by internet sites and forums, a new generation has evolved which is as keen on preserving the city’s past as it is proud of its development as a modern, attractive and vibrant city. The current administration, motivated by a combination of laudable conservation and commercial interests, has done and is doing its bit to turn the place around. Some criticise that is not enough; some remember how it used to be and how much has been done to improve and develop.

For me the Königsberg-Kaliningrad debacle is essentially immaterial. This city, this region is unique. It is invested with a spiritual continuity, something profound, that cannot be readily explained but is strongly perceived and which draws you into itself. Like all love affairs you may struggle to comprehend it, but one thing is sure, once experienced the profound soulfulness that it imparts stays with you forever.

This is how I see it. This is my narrative, from my first impressions of Kaliningrad (Königsberg) nearly two decades ago through to the present era. It is unashamedly personal and, by default, subjective but within these parameters honest.

Welcome to Kaliningrad, Russia!

This blog is dedicated to Viktor Ryabinin 17 December 1946 ~ 18 July 2019