Published: 31 January 2022 ~ All White in Kaliningrad More Snow on its Way!
For the past three or four days the rain has been teeming down here in Kaliningrad. It has washed away the snow and left the city and my shirt, which is hanging on the balcony railings, looking gloomy and bedraggled ~ as I wrote in a previous post, Kaliningrad is far from its best during a rainy winter season!
I also wrote in an earlier blog that ‘It always snows in Russia ~ and sometimes it doesn’t’. Such flippancy becomes me, but affirmation that all is still well can come from the strangest of sources. A few moments ago, I consulted the BBC weather forecast and contrary to my expectations of alighting upon something inexcusably liberal-left, such as for the next seven days it will be sunny over the English Channel, perfect weather conditions for the Royal Navy to taxi across more migrants, I was heartened to discover that more snow was making its way to Kaliningrad. Good, white snow!
The fall may not be sufficient to make hundreds of snow-Its but, as winter still holds illimitable dominion over the calendar, until such time as spring breaks a little more snow is unlikely to offend a conservative outlook on how the seasons should conduct themselves.
All White in Kaliningrad More Snow on its Way!
To tide us over, I have selected and posted here a number of what I consider to be atmospheric ‘Kaliningrad in the snow’ scenes taken just before Christmas 2021 and after Christmas in 2022.
Those of you who are still children at heart will feel the magic in what you see; those of you who have grown up too quickly, grown too old without realising it or just grown out of it, will be excused for thinking snowballs but pitied for a species of short-sightedness that any number of trips to Specsavers is unlikely to resolve.
WWII Re-enactment at old German brewery in Polessk
Published: 27 January 2022 ~ Soviet Re-enactors take Polessk Brewery in WWII Battle
On 23 January 2022, the Polessk Brewery hosted a re-enactment of the battle for Labiau (Russian: Polessk), originally orchestrated as part of the Soviet East Prussian Offensive, which culminated in the surrender of Königsberg on 9 April 1945.
A better location for the re-enactment is hard to imagine. The grounds of the Polessk Brewery fall gently away from the foot of the brewery wall to the reed beds and banks of the River Deyma. Between the river and the brewery stands the solid remains of a reinforced concrete German gun emplacement . With the Soviet forces advancing from two separate points of the river, this genuine WWII obstacle provided the perfect place for the defending Germans to ‘dig in’ and attempt to repulse the invaders head on.
Germans (re-enactors) gather by the side of the ‘bunker’ before the battle commences #
As with English WWII re-enactment scenarios, attention to detail was paramount. Re-enactments have an entertainment value, but first and foremost they are educational, which is why their participants are known by the generic name of Living History Groups.
Re-enactors on both sides, those representing the German and Soviet forces, dress in authentic uniforms, each item of which, including field gear and insignia, is meticulously researched and worn in the way it would have been worn by serving members of each country’s armed forces during the Second World War.
Soviet re-enactors in authentic WWII Red Army gear #
The de-activated weapons carried and used by re-enactors are often not replicas but blank-firing originals, the cost of which is frequently more alarming than the sounds they make when discharging. The same goes for the rest of the entourage: uniforms, insignia and field gear come at a not inconsiderable price. Good reproductions, ie the sort sold through the militaria outlet Soldier of Fortune, can be expensive enough, but the real thing, especially the real Third Reich thing, can cost the proverbial arm and leg. (Sorry, perhaps not the nicest metaphor when used in conjunction with military re-enactment!) Nevertheless, at the end of the day, re-enactment is no different from any other leisure pursuit: in other words, it costs!
Soviet Re-enactors take Polessk Brewery in WWII Battle
Although the area covered by today’s Polessk re-enactment was extensive, spectator attendance was high and in order to ensure an advantageous viewing point it was necessary to arrive early and stake out your claim. Low ambient temperatures and snow on the ground did not seem to have deterred anyone, and with a fair proportion of Germans and Soviets wearing snow suits, the scene could not have been more suitably convincing.
Olga and I had chosen to stand at the lower end of the field, which gave us a pretty clear view of the start of the battle, with Soviet forces firing mortars at the entrenched Germans, followed by the infantry advancing slowly on both sides.
Small children had been warned that their ears would be subject to ‘loud bangs’, and although the reports of rifles and machine guns were bearable in the wide-open expanse in which they were discharged, no one was prepared for the heavy canon fire and punctuating pyrotechnics. As I wrote earlier, re-enactment is serious stuff!
As the Soviets advanced, Olga and I retreated to the interior of the brewery (well, I would, wouldn’t I!), where it was possible to witness the battle from an elevated perspective. If anything, the confrontation was more dramatic from this standpoint, since as well as the commanding view it gave us, the background commotion of battle emanating from a giant sound system placed at the side of the brewery wall rose tremulously from the ground below and rent the air asunder.
It was a nice touch at the close of the assault to see a triumphant Soviet soldier waving the Red Army victory flag from the stairwell window of the old Labiau brewery!
It’s a pandemic! I know, let’s sack thousand of NHS workers!
Published: 26 January 2022 ~ April Fools’ Day Mandate for NHS Workers
“Thousands of protesters flocked to central London to remonstrate against mandatory coronavirus vaccination for NHS staff1.” So reported the Express on Sunday 23 January 2022. But what have the others got to say?
Crikey, one thinks, the liberal-lefty press, the traditional banner carriers and left-wing collective social conscience for all UKers, who put the NHS and its workers above everything else, will have a field day about this!
Protect the NHS, Save the NHS, Support NHS Workers!!!!!!!!
Can you hear them? No, but did you hear that pin drop? The silence is deafening.
Where are the champions of the NHS now? Presumably, they are too busy stigmatising people who choose not to have a dodgy less-than-satisfactorily efficient and side-effect censored vaccine stuffed into their bodies.
As many as 70,000 NHS staff stand to lose their jobs if they do not cow-toe to the vaccine mandate. That’s Democracy for you folks! 🙄
April Fools’ Day Mandate for NHS Workers
The new rules come into effect on 1st April, which, unless you haven’t twigged it yet, is April Fools’ Day ~ it fits quite neatly, don’t you think, with the Omicron anagram ‘Moronic’. If justice never prevails ~ and let’s hope it will ~ at least those who we respect least (the WHO-Fauci-Witty-Vallance-&-Co alliance) could always turn their hand at writing Christmas cracker jokes to go with your face masks and lockdowns.
Whilst the usual NHS moral high-grounders are conspicuously invisible, the initiative to strike a blow for freedom of choice and rebuff the medical fascism of compulsory vaccinations was taken by a group of ambulance workers. Their website, NHS100k.com, launched in November 2020, is supported by healthcare workers across the entire NHS spectrum, both vaccinated and unvaccinated but united by the resolution that vaccination by force must be opposed at all costs. Their website states: “We stand united in favour of freedom of choice, bodily autonomy and informed consent.” What’s not to like?!
So, I ask again, why isn’t the liberal media that has been bellowing loud and long at us about protecting the NHS throwing its moral weight behind the plight of our NHS staff? Could it be because like everything else they shout about, when push comes to shove, they just don’t care?
Admittedly, mainstream liberal media has put itself in an awkward place. Its authoritarian approach to everything Covid, particularly vaccination, has gone even further than Brexit in flushing out into the open the incontrovertible truth that human rights, civil liberties, equality and the rest, indeed all the institutions that it and its adherents claim to cherish, and on which they presume to hold a moral monopoly, are little more than meaningless soundbites.
Endless cycles of lockdowns, compulsory mask wearing and three hurrahs for a plethora of tests are nothing compared to their Ace card, which is to force millions of people, including thousands of frontline NHS workers, to submit to a quick-fix fast-tracked vaccine that many don’t trust and don’t want.
Having played their cards so arrogantly, it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to make concessions for NHS staff, whose only desire is that they be granted the right ~ the human right ~ to choose bodily autonomy above biological invasion.
Clearly, the hole that the Liberarsey have dug for themselves is easier to stay in than try to climb out of. In other words, it is easier to stay shtum whilst hundreds of NHS staff lose their jobs than speak out for them. When, or if, it happens, these same self-styled media champions of the NHS will no doubt find a voice again, vilifying and condemning those who followed their intuition and insider knowledge of medical practices, and lost their jobs in the process, as selfish and irresponsible, when only a few weeks previously this once overwhelmingly clamorous, but now remarkably quiescent, media hailed the workers of the NHS, particularly its nursing staff, as brave and selfless frontline defenders in the crusading war against Covid-19.
A dose of the clap
There was a time when the Liberarsey, and their media cronies, at least aspired to the semblance of caring and, if nothing else, would clap for the NHS, but even something as simple as clapping is not that easy to do when double-standards and sheer hypocrisy have your hands tied firmly behind your back.
Listen?
No, that is not clapping you hear; it is just the sound of the blinds and shutters rattling against their collective conscience.
But tell me, are you really surprised that those NHS potato makers from the make-believe mainstream media have gone and dropped their political hotty into the turncoat shite? Of course, not … You’d have to be half-baked to swallow the nonsense they try to feed you.
Think! From the same people who brought you the EU, multiculturalism, open borders, candle-lit-vigils and boats across the Channel, comes the truth about Covid-19 …
“Protect the NHS!” they shouted. But then the gaunt, lean figure of Democracy, shuffling out of the crowd of clones, stepped up to take his appointed place at the podium … and not so much as a whisper could be heard.
Here’s a couple of videos that should be heard and seen. Whether you choose to agree with their content is entirely your choice. But choice you should have!
Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)
Published: 19 January 2022 ~ Cesky Medved Beer in Kaliningrad
Article 18: Cesky Medved
What’s not to like about a bear drinking a pint of beer? It’s so Russian. Look at him there on the label, that big cheeky grin and that foaming, frothing tankard. But wait! There’s something not quite right! It’s nothing to do with the bear. We all know that bears have big cheeky grins and drink beer. No, it’s the big beery head. Not the big beary head, but the soap-sudded head on top of the beer.
You see, Cesky Medved does not pour like that. It has no gargantuan head, in fact, it has very little head of which to speak. In fact, it’s as flat as your hat.
Ahh, that explains it, both the grin and the froth: our loveable old bear is not drinking Cesky Medved at all, he’s supping away at something completely different.
Here is a quote about Cesky Medved that was posted to a beer-review website. The website is Russian and (surprise, surprise) most of the comments posted there are in Russian. This comment may have lost something in its Google translation, but I am sure you get the drift:
“The aroma [of Cesky Medved] is artificial, candy-fruity. That’s what cheap fruity beer drinks smell like. (Malt extract?) … the same, sweet with sourness and notes of hop extract or oil … I don’t know what they use there, but the beer is very bad.”
To be brutally frank, this beer smells like … I don’t know what? When I first lifted the bottle lid and attempted to whiff it, I thought for a moment that I had forgotten to take off my face mask. (Please don’t mock. I am certain that there are some of you out there, and you know who you are, who live in your masks day and night!) But gradually, with the bottle shoved up my hooter as you would a decongestant, a pungency filtered through.
I would not describe the smell of Cesky Medved as sweet or ‘candy-fruity’, but rather more on the sour side with an indiscernible back-twang, the sort of thing you sometimes get when you are offered a drink of something and the cup that you are drinking out of has not been washed up properly.
What had not smelt strong in the bottle, however, had an accumulative effect as it was served to the glass. Thereupon, the more subtle scents evaporated, leaving in their wake a certain lingering muskiness.
As the beer poured hazy and as flat as a road-killed rabbit, the appearance and smell conjoined to produce a disconcerting thought, that of a cobbled-together recipe strained through last week’s gym sock. It did not help any that, with this thought in mind, just as I was about to take my first sip, there was Jimmy Saville peering at me from Google Images all sweaty in his track suit. “How’s about that, then?”
What was it that he had carved into his gravestone in Scarborough before some well-meaning soul scrubbed it out? Ahh yes, I remember, “It was good whilst it lasted”! I am sure that this reference was to life in general and not to a glass of Cesky Medved.
I must say that with no head, medium fizz, a dish-water haziness and the smell of Saville’s socks, somehow Cesky Medved managed to be drinkable. Certainly, for the nominal amount that I paid for the pleasure, 110 roubles (£1.06) , I was not about to complain. No, I thought, I would save that for later, when, for example, I write this review.
My last word on the subject is that there are exemplary beers, excellent beers, good beers, satisfactory beers, tolerable beers, insipid beers and bad beers. This bear wasn’t that bad.
It’s a bear-faced lie!!
#########################
😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS Name of Beer: Cesky Medved Brewer: Baltika Breweries Where it is brewed: Yaroslavl, Russia Bottle capacity: 1.35 litre Strength: 4.6% Price: It cost me about 110 roubles (1.06 pence) Appearance: Light, unfiltered Aroma: You could call it that Taste: Acquired Fizz amplitude: 4/10 Label/Marketing: A cheeky, grinning bear Would you buy it again? Never ever say never Marks out of 10: 3.5
*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.
Kaliningrad via Gdansk My first visit to Kaliningrad: left UK 23 December 2000
Kaliningrad via Gdansk is one in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.
Updated: 18 January 2022 | First published: 16 August 2019
It’s 7pm, 23rd December 2000, and I am sitting nervously on a British Airways’ plane bound for Warsaw, Poland. I am one of those peculiar types that believes sitting in an aluminium tube with thousands of gallons of highly inflammable fuel at 35,000 feet is perfect insanity. Never mind about the well-meaning ‘statistically safest form of travel’.
But was it a nice place where I was hopefully going to get
to?
As I said in my previous blog post, I hadn’t flown since 1971, but here I was jetting off to Warsaw. From Warsaw, we would take a bus to Gdansk and then, after a night or two there, a train to Kaliningrad, Russia.
For a non-flyer I took a perverse almost masochistic delight in the journey, overcoming much of my fear with the aid of three or four vodkas and a very complacent brother, who grinned like a jackanapes all the way.
For my own part, arriving at Warsaw Airport was not only novel in that we had arrived but also for the officialdom that greeted us. Here we were in the East, where it pleased my literary and cinematographic prejudices to discover a far more officious and militaristic reception. In London, Heathrow, it had been all suits, ties and ‘ladies and gentleman’; here, in the East, it was visor caps, uniforms, side-arms and cold stares. Passing through passport control was a stereotypical dream come true: the steely eyed and expressionless face of the man inside his little glass booth, glancing first at my passport photo and then searchingly back at me.
Somewhat disappointed that I had not been mistaken for the spy that they had been waiting for, I was then treated to what for most people I should imagine is a dull and onerous routine ~ retrieving one’s luggage ~ but which for us, thanks to a certain bag in our entourage, proved to be most entertaining.
The bag in question was a cylindrical-shaped canvas hold-all with a rubberised waterproof base. In theory it was a great piece of kit, capable of holding, well, anything really, and, when empty, folding away into nothing. Problem was, however, that when full it was very bulky, extremely heavy and extraordinarily long and, although it was well-catered-for with various handles and straps, those little wheels, which are such an indispensable feature of today’s large travel bags, were conspicuously non-existent.
So there we were with the rest of them waiting patiently at the side of the carousel for our luggage to emerge. One by one our cases appeared, and we duly retrieved them. But where was that last, that special bag?
With about six people left around the carousel excluding ourselves, we began to grow concerned. But just as we began to fear that we may have lost our exclusive bag, we caught sight of it, coming out of the luggage hold from behind the rubber flaps ~ only it didn’t. It sort of popped out, sat there for a while and then nipped back in again.
Two or three large heavy cases then came tumbling out in a kind of jumbled confusion, quickly followed by another sighting of our long and lost bag. For some odd reason, it was making its exit and entrance at a compromising angle.
Moving closer to the exit point, we could clearly hear lots of huffing, puffing and cursing from behind the rubber curtains. Our bag was now sandwiched sideways across the gap, forming a blockade with the remaining cases caught on top and behind it. From what we could make out, a lot of frustrated energy was being expended out of sight behind the scenes and then, with a thump and a cry, our obstinate bag and the others that it had bullied came tumbling into view.
Whether our long bag didn’t think much of Poland or was simply a petulant creature, this we will never know, but It was evident from the large boot prints on either side of the bag that our ‘Sausage’, as it became to be known, had put up a hell of a fight!
By bus to Gdansk
After this trauma, we no doubt took a quick snifter or two of vodka from the hip flask that I had brought with us. It was now time to lug our luggage, including our recalcitrant Sausage, from the warmth of the airport to the snowy wastes outside.
The plan was to bus it to Gdansk. We were both looking forward to the journey, to relaxing on the bus, that is until we saw what it was that we would be travelling in. Being English, we can be forgiven for believing that we would be going by luxury coach when, in fact, the carriage awaiting us was a rusting, clapped-out minibus with mustard lace curtains that once no doubt had been white.
I don’t recall being too perturbed by the fact that almost everyone was smoking on the way; my brother was a smoker and I was prone now and then to indulge in the odd cigar. Looking back on it, it must have been a right old stinker ~ the curtains weren’t yellow for nothing, although my smell memory retains a distinct essence of diesel fumes more than it does tobacco.
It was a long journey, and we were very tired. It was snowing continuously and sometimes quite heavily, but this merely added to the stereotypical image that I had nurtured, and it pleased me for its novelty as much if not more than for the differences I noted as we trundled on our way: shops and road signage, all written, of course, in Polish; the filling stations whose names I did not recognise; and, when it was possible to see through the steamed-up windows, the distinctive change in architecture.
As the open road gave way to increasingly built-up areas we knew we were travelling through the outskirts of Gdansk.
We had in our possession a computer printout identifying the hotel where we would be staying and, according to the bus driver, we were close to where we wanted to be. We alighted from the bus, cramped and stiff, on the side of a dual carriageway teaming with traffic, shell shocked from travel fatigue but anaesthetized by vodka.
My wife to be, Olga, had arrived there some hours before us and, as luck would have it, I spotted her having a cigarette in the window of the hotel restaurant across the busy street from where we were standing. Remember those wonderful days? Having a cigarette in the restaurant! {Post-normal days’ comment: Remember those days before coronavirus, ie sitting in a pub or a restaurant!}
Thus, the first stage of the journey into Russia was complete. We would stay for three days in Gdansk, which included Christmas Day, and then, on the 27th December, leave Poland by train for Kaliningrad.
Woke up children! I don’t think Colston cares that much!
Published: 14 January 2022 ~ Colston Woke Statue 4 Scratch the Itch of History
Woke Watch PC UK! {Case 4}
Congratulations! Hoorah! Yippee!
Great celebrations throughout the land of Wokedom! Hark! Sound the bells in the Cathedral of Woke in joyous proclamation: Hurrah! Hurrah! The yobs who uprooted the statue of Edward Colston and tossed it into the side of Bristol harbour are not yobs at all, they are in fact national heroes. Ding Dong Ding, Ding Dong Ding … Clang …
Colston Woke Statue 4 scratch the itch of History
They went into court charged with criminal damage but emerged from it ~ let’s not say ‘whiter than white’ ~ vindicated. The jury returned a verdict of ‘not guilty’.
Were the four as triumphant as they looked or simply basking in the delusion that because they had been duped into playing the part of useful idiots somehow the verdict had transformed them into a credit to their generation?
Of course, a far simpler and more credible explanation in these blighted times is that the young clones (clowns if you want) received a pat on the back instead of a boot up the arse because they behaved with exemplary Wokism. If ever testimony was needed that ideological brainwashing works then it doesn’t get much better than this, excluding, of course, candle-lit vigils.
Indeed, in an article published by Metro1, one of the absolved, a female yoof with a ring through her snout, is showcased revelling in virtue-signalling limelight. How does it go? Every dog must have its day! Woof!
Reading from the usual script, we hear the same old tired and sanctimonious cliches about ‘equality’, ‘police brutality’ blah, blah, blah … and a telling remark relating the actions of the four Wokerteers to that of the suffragette movement, which seems to imply that not only is trial by jury a cornerstone of democracy but also so is violence and vandalism. Feel a bit miffed about something? Then why not go throw a brick or bust up a postbox? The suffragettes did! Good for them. Now women can vote, wear a ring through their snouts and run around pulling down statues. Take a bow whilst you’re taking that knee!
It is nothing short of hilarious that a blatant act of vandalism, excused by a woke jury, in a court of law administered by a woke judicial system, should be used by woke mainstream media as a rallying cry to campaign against wokism. (I mentioned the word woke once or twice, but I think I got away with it. No, really, ask my jury.)
Not convinced that the failure to prosecute these vandals is something to trumpet about in the name of racial equality, but I am more than certain that as justification for acts of vandalism it will open the floodgates to copycat incidents even more successfully than an ideological wedge rammed in the door of border control.
WOKE WATCH UK!
🤣Broken News Just In!😂
Ay up, news just in (13 Jan 2022)! The statue bashers are on the rampage! As I write this, I learn that a barncake has attacked the Eric Gill statue at BBC Broadcasting House2. Admittedly, it is a tad ironic that the BBC should have a large statue erected by a paedo adorning their headquarters when you consider the recent scandals surrounding Mr Saville and Co and more so in that the Beeb’s reporting of the four children who ‘rectified history’ and were given a resounding three cheers for their actions have since proved the adage that ‘what goes around, comes around’. Tell me, has Mr Gill’s statue escape with his winky intact? Ahh well, there goes another national monument to be replaced by something on the ‘right side of history’ ~ something black and gay should do the trick.
By the way, here is an extract from a MSM report3 on that incident. You’ll Ha! Ha! at the wokism in this!
“The protester … forcefully hammered away at the statue, removing large chunks of stone while the police stood and watched due to health and safety reasons. 😄
After more than four hours😄 , Met Police officers and the London Fire Brigade used a cherry-picker to bring the man down. Once on the ground, the police detained him. The protest comes just days after four BLM supporters🐑 were acquitted of felling a statue to the slave trader Edward Colston … A spokesman for the Met said: ‘London Ambulance Service checked the activist 🙄 [PC Plod: “You know, you should really wear goggles when defacing public and private property …”] before making an arrest on suspicion of criminal damage.
#
Statues, street signs, monuments, stained glass windows, historic buildings, antiques, objects of antiquity, paintings ~ there really is no end to the list of ‘victories’ waiting in the wings for self-styled woke revisionists.
I wonder what history will make of them when the future that they have made for themselves becomes the present in which they are trapped?
Meanwhile, let’s hope that the intelligent members of the jury who returned a verdict of ‘not guilty’ on the statue-shifting knee-takers have their garden statues (and everything else) very well insured.
L. Roy Woke & Sons & Sons & Sons Estate Agents Beautiful property, well appointed, four bedrooms … Freehold. No connection with slave traders, President Trump, Jimmy Saville, the Roman Empire, Brexit, a male Dr Who, rainbow-less skies, Rolf Harris’s didgeridoo and anyone not gender neutral. There are two statues in the back garden, but they shouldn’t cause any offence: one is taking a knee and the other is going ‘Baa’.
My first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000: 23 December 2000
See you in Kaliningrad Russia! is one in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.
Updated: 11 January 2021 | First published: 8 July 2019
I am not, and have never been, a traveller, so my first trip to Russia was as much a surprise to me as it was to everybody else.
The story of my first trip to Russia has been told so many times that it is almost legendary, but for the uninitiated it goes something like this. From my unlimited knowledge of the country, having grown up in the late 60s early 70s on Len Deighton’s and John le Carré’s Cold War thrillers, Michael Caine spy films and Callan, and having been force fed Solzhenitsyn’s novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, at school, as far as I was concerned Russia was the USSR and in deciding to go there I was off behind the Iron Curtain.
In the weeks leading up to my departure I took advantage of the internet, using computers in the offices of the publishing company where I was supposed to be working to research my travel arrangements and Russia in general. In those days I was not particularly switched on to the British establishment’s trashing of everything Russian, so I took all of the warnings and don’ts very seriously. Admittedly, it was not all fabrication. This was the year 2000 and the catastrophic after effects of perestroika were still ricocheting throughout Russia.
It was my intention to access Kaliningrad, Russia, via Gdansk, Poland, about which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) warnings were also dire. At this time Poland was independent. It had its own sovereignty and had not yet become a vassal state of the European Union.
The end result of my internet research was that I ended up with a hulking great Lever Arch folder bursting at the seams with the scariest stuff imaginable ~ not a reassuring read for a novice and nervous traveller.
Why Go?
My decision to fly to Russia had not been made on the basis that I wanted to discover Russia or anywhere, for that matter. As I said earlier, I was no traveller. The thought of flying was anathema to me. I had not flown since a school trip to Switzerland in 1971. But, in the summer of 2000, all that was to change.
I met a woman who was later to be my wife. Her name was Olga. Olga was an English language teacher. She was spending a month in London, having brought a group of Russian students on a cultural trip to England. We met, I showed her around London ~ mostly around the pubs of London ~ a relationship developed, and when she had to return to Russia as her visa had expired, and I was faced with the unthinkable prospect of never seeing her again, I decided that if she could not come back to England then I would go to Russia. That this decision was taken after several pints in Clerkenwell’s Wetherspoon’s pub in London is immaterial. I had made a promise, and I had to stick to it!
But I would not be going alone. My fear of flying was so ingrained that I needed a co-pilot. I found one in my younger brother, whose flippant, frivolous and devil-may-care attitude was exactly what was needed on a dangerous mission like this.
See you in Kaliningrad Russia!
What Brits don’t know about Russia you could write on a postage stamp ~ billions of them ~ but one thing we do know is that it snows out there: Russia is very cold.
I cannot recall a single Russian spy film or television series made in the West where there is not a surplus of snow and furry hats, so you can be certain that we spent the weeks leading up to the trip equipping ourselves for Siberia, filling our oversized bags with woolly jumpers, great thick socks, big hulking overcoats, thermal shirts and the must-have cotton long johns. As it happened, even though we were travelling to Russia’s westernmost point, where the climate is not dissimilar to England’s, on this occasion we had been wise to take precautions, as the temperature sank whilst we were there to minus 29C.
In addition to clothing baggage, there was another type, the kind that comes with security. Having read over and over again that we were likely to be robbed at knife point or, at the very least, succumb to spates of pickpocketing, we had taken every precaution and more.
Credit cards were stashed away in various places; credit card company emergency numbers had been written down in at least two pocket books; the names of family, friends and close associates, all of whom could help us if we found ourselves in a jam, were meticulously listed along with contact numbers and emails (where they existed!); and money? ~ we were taking US dollars, some of which I had cunningly concealed in a money belt.
The money belt that I would be using to keep my dollars safe was no ordinary, bog-standard traveller’s belt. Having read somewhere that savvy robbers went straight for the type of belt that you buy from travel-clothes shops, I had acquired from an old army friend an ordinary leather belt which had a zipped liner at the back into which notes could be threaded. This belt wasn’t additional; it was the one that held your trousers up; the notes were very tightly stashed in a thin threaded line, so you can imagine the difficulty of paying for something, especially in somewhere busy such as a supermarket! Still, the currency that I had stuffed inside the leg of one of my socks was not such a difficult enterprise.
After a
month of fretting and dwelling masochistically on what it would be like to be
plummeting earthwards in a doomed airliner, I was ready to say goodbye.
Before departing (I was inclined to say ‘leaving’), a close friend of mine did all he could to reassure me: “After all,” he said philosophically, “it’s not the flying you have to worry about, just the crashing.”
First Day in Gdansk is the third in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.
Published: 1 September 2019 | Updated: 9 January 2022 ~ Kaliningrad 2000: First Day in Gdansk
My brother likes breakfasts. He does not like getting up for breakfast, or, to be more precise, he would rather breakfast was at half-past-three in the afternoon, which for him it often is. For him breakfast is, de rigueur, a full fatty fry, otherwise known as a Full English, aka an overfull Englishman. So, when he emerged from his room this morning, impelled to do so by the fact that breakfast was included within the hotel tariff, the absence of three whopping great sausages, a load of greasy bacon, a fried slice or two, two fried eggs, beans, tomatoes and a loaf of toasted bread was not so easily digested. He soon cheered up, however, when he discovered the as ‘much as you can eat’ Polish buffet, a culinary experience typical in this part of the world and one which through its familiarity over the coming days would induce him to coin the catchphrase ‘cold meats and cheeses’ whenever the words Poland and breakfast were brought into close proximity.
We were only
in Gdansk for a couple of days, in transit, so to speak, so any sight-seeing
that we hoped to do would be at the very best fleeting. Apart from exploring
English breakfasts, my brother was a keen tourist, but he was not convinced
that cold meats and cheeses were nutritionally sufficient to ward off the worst
effects of the ever-sinking ambient temperature, so before heading off into the
great outdoors we bulked out our bodies with as much winter clothing as we could
and succeeded in looking dafter than we usually did.
Needless to say, our urban excursion took us into what today are well-known tourist destinations: Ulica Długa (Long Street) and Długi Targ (Long Market). Then, we knew nothing of these places. As I have said before, I am no globe trotter, but I am, and always have been, more than just a little fascinated by my mysterious fascination with time, with my love for history and need for the past.
Trip to Kaliningrad, Russia. Poland, Gdansk in 2000.
Of the history of Gdansk, I was sadly lacking, but I did know enough about architecture to understand that the great proportion of the 17th century buildings in the ‘old’ quarter, with their Flemish (Dutch), Italian and French influences, were predominantly reconstructions. Adolf Hitler and Co had made certain sweeping changes back in the 1940s and subsequent generations of architects, designers and town planners had embarked upon an adventurous and inspirational programme of rebuilding with (oddly enough) minimum attention to Germanic influences.
To what extent a reconstructed building, street, district can be said to embody the cultural-historic significance of its predecessor is a moot point. I personally prefer not to erase the patina from original antique furniture, but when it does happen the piece concerned can still retain historical value and suffer no detraction in its aesthetic appeal. Admittedly, it may no longer be the complete genuine article, but as long as it possesses something of its past it cannot be discounted, and on this day back in the year 2000 my novice traveller status, love for the past and for architecture left me with an impression of Gdansk’s historic district that was and is distinctly memorable.
My memory of atmosphere is possibly only challenged by the recollection of how cold it was on that day but also how wonderful it felt to leave the outside chill for the warmth, comfort and cosy interior of a welcoming café-bar and then, having fortified ourselves with hot food and red wine, to return enthusiastically to the crisp and snow-flurried streets.
St Mary’s Church Gdansk
Olga, who had visited Gdansk on three or four occasions prior to our visit, was eager to visit again the large ~ very large ~ church which was located in the district that we were visiting. The building to which I refer is, of course, the world-renowned St Mary’s Church, believed to be the largest brick-built church in the world, dating back to the mid-to-late 14th century. As with most of Gdansk’s buildings, this, too, was severely damaged during WWII and extensive renovation and rebuilding had been required to return it to its former glory. Fortunately, most of the ancient and valuable artworks contained within the church were removed for safekeeping early in the war and many have since been returned.
If a small English parish church can entrance me with its age and history, you can imagine how intensely mesmerised I was by St Mary’s Church, Gdansk.
Guide books would be doing St Mary’s Church a great disservice if they failed to mention the clock and the great views of the city afforded from the 78-metre tower (they always do mention these things, mind), but as one time traveller to another my advice to you is simply visit the church yourself and feel the history.
Time is fascinating and time was ticking on; we were getting peckish; the cold meats and cheeses were definitely wearing off and, apart from that, we all agreed that it was time to sup some ale. Until now, we had been drinking vodka, but only because of the difficulty of fitting an appreciable amount of beer into a hip flask, and having renounced grim lager many years hence, we were none too keen to start again now.
Vodka was not a beverage that appealed to me either. I had had a bad experience with it many years ago, when I was nine years old to be precise. One nice sunny day I had raided my mother’s drink cupboard, filled a bottle with vodka and undiluted orange squash and, together with a friend, had taken it on a picnic. Between us, we consumed the entire bottle. That evening I was at church, singing in the choir. Gothic churches are great places to commune with history, but they take on an altogether different aspect when they are spinning like a top. The hangover was also magnificent!
On the subject of bars (which we mostly are), whilst our Polish hotel had no such facility, on our return from wherever it was we had been, we happened on one but a short walk away, and this is where we ended our evening.
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day in Gdansk.
Gdansk 2000. On our way to Kaliningrad, Russia. Mick Hart & brother Joss …
Published: 6 January 2022 ~ The Terrible Doubt of Weeping Flowers Victor Ryabinin
The Terrible Doubt of Appearances or the Terrible Doubt of Weeping Flowers? ‘Whenever sad, draw a flower’, Victor Ryabinin wrote. If only he was here to show us how
***
Recently, a friend of Victor Ryabinin’s visited the flat where he used to live, she wrote:
“Yesterday we were at V. Ryabinin’s house. I looked at his diaries — amazing documents of the life of not one person, but of a country. Today I read poetry on one of the pages [of his diary] , and my heart sinks.”
It would appear that Victor had found the words he needed to express his own thoughts and feelings in a poem by the American poet Walt Whitman, Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances.
The following extract, translated into Russian by Victor, appeared in his diary:
Of the terrible doubt of appearances, Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded, That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known, (How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me! How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them,)
My wife, Olga, wrote on her Facebook page on the same day as she read the above:
“Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. It has always been the same. My friend Victor Ryabinin, who was not only a great artist but a great philosopher, invented a simple cure for depression. His motto was: “Whenever sad, draw a flower”.
The Terrible Doubt of Weeping Flowers ~ Victor Ryabinin
The photographs below are of the building where Victor lived and some of his stored artwork. They are reproduced here with the kind permission of Valentina Pokladova, who wrote:
“The shrubbery along the fence seems to remember the owner and sheds pearly tears …”
Published: 3 January 2022 ~ Christmas in the Land of Vax
It was very hit and miss, as though they had taken a leaf out of the government’s ‘How to Pretend that we are Dealing with Coronavirus Convincingly’ manual, the question should the Sheep family invite their relatives, the Woollies, from Scotland to spend Christmas with them or should the Sheep spend Christmas with the Woollies in Sockland?
Christmas was closing in faster than a new coronavirus variant, and with the distinct possibility that Boris might do a U-turn on vaccine passports using Plan B (which some unpleasant people say stands for ‘Bollocks’), it was be damned if you do, be damned if you don’t, and be buggered if anyone from government to Abdul knew what was going on?
One thing the Sheep were sure of was that they had better decide soon before more authoritarianism was brought to bear in the name of beneficent government. Two new strains, mainly on credulity, and 300 additional threats to society, had already been detected in two 5-star hotels, The Grinning Boaters and The Froggy Freeloaders, located on the outskirts of Dover.
Following this discovery, as reported by Nigel Farage, Downing Street immediately issued a warning that Christmas parties, possibly Christmas itself, may have to be cancelled, whilst a silly old chap who works for The Grimstarnian, Jenkinspoop, had nothing better to do than sit at home in his face mask and write an incredibly banal and spurious treatise on the UK’s need for unlimited mountains of migrants, as if he had never heard of Brexit and had no idea why the Labour party had been wiped out in the last election. A possible reason for his renewed confidence in the Kalergi Plan was the recent news that the neoliberals had set the democratic seesaw in motion giving Labour a nine-point lead. ‘Stupid, yes! But not that Stupid Surely!’, Bongo wrote, who had obviously no idea of what it was like to live in a democratic country, although he had booked his hotel and was on his way ~ at speed !
It was little Amanda Sheep who finally brought the question on where to spend Christmas to a decisive conclusion, recalling that the last Christmas they had spent in Sockland had been extremely close to putrid.
The jokes in the Christmas crackers were atrocious: “Question: Where’s the smallest airfield in the world? Answer: Up a Scottish kilt, two hangars and a spitfire!”; Uncle McSock got so sloshed on cheap whisky that he ended up with his sporran on his chin; his wife Agnus ‘Haggis’ McSock insisted on forcing noise out of an instrument that was the equivalent of blowing up the arse of a tortured cat; and the whole evening descended into chaos when someone mentioned Bonny Prince Charlie in the same breath as Nicola Sturgeon. The only person who seemed to be enjoying himself, little Mac McSock, sometimes fondly referred to as ‘Plastic’ or ‘Flashing’, spent the entire evening of Christmas Day locked in his bedroom, practising, or so his mother said, for the Edinburgh and Glasgow Caber Tossing Championship. Little Mac desperately needed a smaller ego, almost as much as he needed greater magnification in the lenses of his spectacles.
So, the Sheep remained in England (where else?), where things had gone from bad moral high-ground to sanctimonious worse-ground. Not only was it looking more likely that Boris and Sergeant Daftit were about to go Nazi on vaccine passports (conveniently given the blue light by Omicron) but had introduced more punitive measures in the interests of saving people so that they could spend the rest of their lives in mortal dread of ever going anywhere and seeing anyone again.
This course of action, Plan C (and, for the sake of proprietary we won’t divulge what the ‘C’ stands for, although it is obvious to the majority) has been launched in the name of Protecting the NHS, which by clever coincidence would seem to rhyme with ‘what a nasty mess’. In other words, the UK, like many other countries, seemed to be sliding reptiliously into vaccine passport dystopia. Not only would you not be allowed into pubs, restaurants and nightclubs without an electronic tracking vaccine passport, but added to the no-go list would be DIY shops, non-food store outlets, garden centres and sex shops ~ the latter prohibition would impact really badly on Simon Sheep’s Christmas present list ~ whatever would they buy granny now? (You see, she was a progeny of the progressive and permissive 1960s!)
Christmas in the Land of Vax
So, the Sheep stayed at home and in the tradition of the UK’s meek and tolerant had a ‘make do and mend’ Christmas as their forbears had before them. There are parallels to be drawn here, based on believing what you are told: One generation had gone to war believing that they were fighting to preserve their country (look at it today!); the present generation, who do not feel quite so entitled anymore, believe that in the new war between coronavirus and traditional freedoms our governments are fighting for us. Gullible and Naïve, the London department store, one street lower than Downing Street (is that possible?), were offering a multi-complex, multi-irrational, multi-cultural (am I repeating myself?) solution to getting into their store. Once, all you needed to do was open the door, but now it was lateral flow tests and PCRs (the only things missing are ‘I’ and ‘K’).
Before anyone could think of Christmas shopping, however, there was the house to decorate. Luckily the Sheeps were forward-thinking people. They had been first in the queue when coronavirus was announced and were fortunate enough to have a several bog rolls left from the 20,000 that they had stockpiled in the Great Panic Buying Bog Roll Bonanza of 2020, and big Boris Sheep, in between making plans from the alphabet ~ he would soon be on ‘Triple Z’ ~ recalling his days at public school, when he made enough Christmas decorations from his parent’s allowance to give Oxford the ring road it badly required, set about making paper chains out of used face masks.
The Christmas tree was an ingenuity stretcher, it almost made them wish that Christmas had been banned, as the leftist predecessors to the Religion of Woke wanted it to be back in the days of Sir Tony, but eventually Boris saved the day (sniggers and guffaws) with his Plan ‘Other Characters’ by suggesting that Keir Starmer come round and stand in the corner with his arms out ~ well he had to have some use. Then they dusted off their ancient decorations, including Ed’s Balls, draped the tree in sycophants and lush-living liberal lefties and stuck a great big gender-neutral fairy on the top. Good heavens, how he/she/it/other looked like Larry Grayson! ‘Shut that door!’ It’s too late Larry!
As the big day approached, with Big Pharma cashing in on the traditional uptake of the ‘day after’ pills, Big Tech on the volume of gadgets purchased, mostly during Black (whoops, you can’t say that) Friday, the Sheep family settled down for their second coronavirus Christmas.
As the whole family had been vaccinated more times than you and I have taken a knee, obtaining the components for the traditional Christmas dinner had been as easy as conning countless liberals to vote Remain and then later to remain in their houses.
Eating Christmas dinner with a face mask on had been a very messy business, especially whilst wearing a silly paper hat and a pair of rubber gloves, but at least the latter concealed grotesquely chapped hands from excessive hand-washing and the neurotic application of disinfecting wipes.
As the Sheep family live in Dover, shortly after watching the Queen of Coronavirus’s Speeches by Fool-Them-All Fauci, they retired to the lounge where from their bay windows they had the perfect view of the little boats arriving along the coast. Such heart-warming scenes to be sure! Scores of happy, smiling Christmas migrants gift-wrapped by the French and welcomed ashore by British policeman, who, if truth be told (but only by Sorryarse Fact Checkers!), were rather pleased to have been given this cushy detail, having spent most of the past 12 months either investigating mean tweets or bursting into people’s homes to see if the residents had their masks on.
After a nice glass of Dover Port, which gets more full bodied with every passing month, the Sheep family played ‘WHO Dunnit to Them’, a game by Public Health Charades, in which little Dick Sheep made then all howl with laughter at his superb rendition of a non-vaccinated white man banned from everywhere including his own country ~ they all had another booster shot after seeing that one!
They then watched WHO Dunnit on the television. It wasn’t a bad film, but the plot was so unbelievable, especially at the end where Herculean Plotdemic was about to reveal who the killer really was when thankfully a message popped up on the screen redirecting viewers to the true version of events and Herculean Plotdemic never got another job again, at least not in liberal-lefty lovie land.
They then watched the popular soap opera Coronavirus Streets, which was a touch boring as the entire cast just sat in their houses two-metres apart from each other, twiddling on their outsmart-them phones, and finished off with a quick game of pin the face mask on granny. By now they were getting tired, but fortunately the BBC were running a Dr Who Christmas Special (not to be confused with you know WHO!) and this programme certainly Woke them up!
At 7 o’clock the guests arrived. Only two out of 25 were allowed in, as the others hadn’t been vaccinated. Natural immunity and proven antibodies were no excuse. It was essential (for someone) that anyone coming into the house was vaccinated first, had a Visitors to Your Home DIY Vaccination Kit, played music from the Third Reich and wore small black moustaches, whilst the rest of the family chanted something from a liberal-left website about ‘Thank you for thinking of others and saving their lives for them’ at which everyone fell about for at least 30 proper seconds in a state of rapture bordering on orgasm. Little Dick hadn’t seen anything like this since Tony Blair was elected Chancellor and was then given a knighthood for turning the UK into a kebab shop.
The evening was not entirely ruined, however, as it was not snowing that heavily outside and the non-vaccinated, who were used to being outcasts, they had learnt to accept their place in the New World Order when smoking was banned in pubs and restaurants, accepted their lot cheerfully. Huddling up in the cold was no new thing for them, and besides it was a lot better than being pumped full of a biological substance that didn’t give young, fit, medically proven A1 footballers heart attacks.
Christmas in the Land of Vax
Every now and again, whilst partner dancing six feet apart, little Amanda Sheep would chuck a roast potato or some brussels sprouts at the non-vaxxers from the bedroom window, and her little brother Boris would serve them drinks through the letterbox, wearing rubber gloves, of course, and a hairstyle that he had got out of a Christmas cracker that looked like a face mask blown inside out.
After that they played hide and sneak: someone hid a coronavirus and the rest of the group had to look for it whilst telling the authorities on their mobile phones who had not had the vaccine. This game was as limp as vaccine-induced impotence, as hopeless as finding an ounce of sense in Boris’ haystack and even more ludicrous than trying to stop a virus with a face mask.
Arse Mask ~ the bottom line in Covid protection. As good as face masks but you’ll crack up whilst wearing them!
Pass the Covid Parcel was far more successful. It was understandable: half of the room wore red rosettes the other half wore blue. It didn’t matter if the music stopped or not, since nobody took any notice, they all kept humming the same tune whilst passing the parcel one from the other — quickly. The coronavirus version of musical chairs was much the same as pass the parcel. “Pass the what?” some wag cried, who was particularly good at inventing cockney rhyming slang. And then came charades, well no need to explain that one, the name speaks for itself, although there was something about Nightingale Hospitals, ‘now you see them, now you don’t’, that nobody understood, least of all those who established them, never used them and then dismantled them. Ahh well, it would make sacking unvaccinated healthcare workers easier!
The highlight of Christmas day was watching the anti-totalitarian riots in Australia and Canada, whereupon the entire family concluded that you would think that they would have something better to do, such as making Facebook avatars with ‘I have had my vaccine’ written in rainbow colours around them or having an interim jab between their twice-minutely booster.
Having to vaccinate at every tick and turn is inconvenient, especially when the nearest vaccination point is 5 miles away. However, using her discount coupon from The Grimstarnian’s Covid Virtue Signalling page, little Amanda Sheep trotted off to her nearest store, proudly presented her lateral flow test and returned home with Christmas stockings full of Do-It-Yourself Coronavirus Testing Kits, the perfect companion to the Candle-Lit-Vigil Kits, which she had also bought using Virtue Signalling discount coupons from The Grimstarnian’s media website.
Then came the presents: Dick was chuffed with his map to the nearest vaccination clinic, ‘Oohh, it’s just what they’ve always wanted’; the elder brother, Boris, was given his own mobile vaccination centre ~ thus being assured of a job for life ~ he was even given a white coat with ‘I am a WHO scientist’ written on it and a Junior WHO Scientist Kit, the same one that the grown-ups had used to identify coronavirus with. Dad was content to receive a bumper pack of Bile Beans. He had been having a lot of difficulty lately adjusting to the latest propaganda ~ all those new stains! ~ and his Scrabble ability could certainly do with some kind of pill that claimed to cure everything.
Mother’s present was spectacular. She was given a brand-new bottle of vaccination paranoia tablets and a year’s free subscription to The Independent. She also joined Facebanned, a new social media site where account holders were routinely banned, blocked, barred, re-routed, suspended and eventually arrested for crimes against stupidity and for inciting logic and common sense.
Simon Sheep was given a New World Order coronavirus tie, with a Bill’s Gatepost chip inside. The beauty of this tie was that every time you thought or said something that you were not supposed to think or say the tie slowly throttled you. Thanks, Bill, you’re a brick (whoops, there goes that Windows’ spell checker again!).
At the end of the day they all had high temperatures, dry coughs and were feeling absolutely dreadful, although no one went so far as to say ‘like death warmed up’, but at least they could blame it on the Christmas alcohol. After all, it couldn’t be coronavirus, the whole family had been double jabbed and each and everyone had fitted themselves out with a strap-on mobile booster drip which, although physically inconvenient, saved an awful lot of time in running back and forth to hospitals and clinics — time which they could use to their advantage in practising social distancing and trying on their latest face masks.
Yes, it had been a lovely Christmas, and there was nothing to suggest that it would not be the same next year … and the next … and the next … and the next …
