Author Archives: Captain Codpiece

Life in the UK – it’s all so peculiar

The topsy-turvy world of life in the UK

From the dress code and behaviour of Britain’s young ‘ladies’ to the conflict in the Muddle East, post-civilised Britain is a mass of contradictions.

30 April 2023 – Life in the UK – it’s all so peculiar

[This post appears in the ‘Meanwhile in the UK‘ category]

As sanguine and sagacious as you are, you would not, I am perfectly sure, have jumped to the conclusion that our esteemed Headmaster, Sir Keir Starmer, had completely dropped his marbles when he allowed the loony left, a motley ragbag of Labour MPs, cabbage-looking Greens and limp-wristed Liberal Democrats, to railroad him into disallowing UK airbases to be used for the deployment of US aircraft required for service in the Middle East. If Sir K knows nothing else, he sure does know his onions when it comes to choosing strategically between the preservation of the centuries-old US ‘special relationship’ and running the risk of riots, which, had he not capitulated, the anarchistic left and its unholy migrant confederates would have no doubt unleashed upon the streets of Britain..

Rampant riots on Britain’s streets, with their concomitant rape of the already endangered public purse, cost a third-world ransom and are, moreover, when televised for all the world to see, an embarrassing indictment of failed political leadership unless brought swiftly under control with the sort of robust measures that Britain never employs; the only exception being when those that protest are white, whereupon rest assured that every last man jack of them, as distinct from last man Ali, irrespective of sex or age, can expect their impudence to be met with the ‘full force of the law’. Another downside to be had from riots is that they are bad for happy endings as written at the ballot box; indeed, they incur the unfortunate consequence of lingering in the collective memory and then later, in wild abandon, leaping out in the voting booths as ‘Xs’ in rival MPs’ boxes.

Palestine What a State! By the UK in a State!

Bearing this conjunctively in mind with the volatile state of Britain and the clear and present danger of nationwide civil unrest, even the most vehement of Starmer opponents would probably have to agree that in refusing ‘bad-ass’ Trump’s request for U.S. planes to land on British concrete was the better part of valour, as also was, it might be opined, his subsequent refusal to send one of His Majesty’s rowing boats to assist with the tricky political task of de-mining the Hormuz Straits.

Now, the less charitable among you, ie those who refuse to read The Guardian on the grounds that it might incriminate their reputation and common sense, might be inclined to paraphrase my diplomatic articulation in preference for words less minced and state with convincing clarity that the Starmer way on this occasion, and indeed on many others, had less to do with standing up to Trump than it had with appeasing the migrant masses of whom he is, to borrow freely from Northamptonshire’s vernacular, most possibly rather ‘frit’, although we should ameliorate by admitting not without reason. But then what can one expect if one continues to fill the country day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year and forever until it’s goodbye to us with hordes of people who just don’t fit and from countries wherein is found Britain’s most implacable enemies? I wonder how much room there is behind the settee at Number 10 and if nationally it is large enough to accommodate us all when Elon Musk’s prediction of something akin to a civil war kicks off across our imperilled nation from ‘Hoots mon’ to Cornish pasties.

Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve

Much is made in parliament and in the eager-beaver media about the looming threat from historic adversaries, Viking-like would-be aggressors romping in from abroad (you notice I mention no names). There is so much bandied hype about a conventional country-on-country attack upon our sceptred isle, which, although it is not impossible, remains, at least for the moment on the bright side of improbable – let us take as our chosen analogy that it is not entirely impossible that one day ousted Prince Harry might actually wake up and also grow up, but that there is nothing so far in his behaviour to suggest that this possibility will ever transcend improbability.

Nursery rhyme heard from an open window of the Primary School for Blatant Publicity…

Prince Harry went to Ukraine
He isn’t a prince just an exported shame
And after he came home again
(Although he hasn’t got one.)
Nothing was changed; all was the same
The news of him of which we are sick
Make him, for the many, look like a dick.

Perhaps he should change his name to Prince Richard Head.

Life in the UK – it’s all so peculiar

Like the many that preceded them since the end of World War II, this Labour government, which you went and elected – alack a day and fie! – has no plans, no strategy and no backbone, absolutely no political will and, one keenly suspects, no real executive power to halt the migrant invasion from France or to send the buggers already here back to whence they came. As Elon Musk’s, we must conclude, credible prediction, that civil war is on its way takes root in the nation’s consciousness, all that the present government does is continue, as the Tories did before them, to apply to the vicious gaping wound the ointment of capitulation and the accommodating sticking plaster whilst casually sticking two fingers up at the concerns and ultimate welfare of the indigenous population.

Reform Mass Deportation Bill is the Way to Save UK

The normalisation of policies that contradict, confound and confuse the actions expected of government in pursuit, one would ardently hope, of an outcome that favours the country’s health in all its myriad forms – and these not by a long chalk from Starmer’s lacklustre lot alone but as a legacy laid down by a series of not-fit-for-purpose governments stretching back to the end of the Second World War – is red-carpeting the migrant march to the accommodation tune of a tidy eight million pounds a day, costing the British nation dearly, not only in misspent ackers but in the loss of the cultural sense of who we are, the bewilderment of what we are becoming and the fear of what will become of us. as personal and national security are compromised like never before.

Brits told Be Vigilant as boats sail in on tide of terror

Eight million pounds a day is an awful lot of money – an awful lot to spend on people whom we neither need nor want and could very well do without.Think of all the positive things that could be done with all that money. Think of the potholes in Britain’s roads that long to be repaired, of homeless Britons on British streets deserving a roof over their heads, of a most inadequate military, underfunded and demoralised; of new hospitals, new schools, funding for the NHS, real investment in real renewable energy (if you feel that you must think of this) and a thousand other etceteras, etceteras, along with so-ons and so-forth.

The British media is a spilt piss pot, an overflow of alarm stories bent on dunking us into the slops of the country’s parlous economy, rancid with predictions of an economic slowdown and a terminally stagnating GDP. And yet, with all this talk of the United Kidthem heading for the skids and becoming ever more potless, hardly a mention is made, you could say not surprisingly, of the exorbitant and unholy drain on the country’s faltering economy by the perpetual and perpetuated infinite migrant invasion. Bookmark how much it costs to house these delightful darlings: it’s £8,000,000 a day*! And this expenditure in a country where many of its inhabitants cannot afford, in the depths of winter, to switch the domestic heating on. Let me repeat that figure again for the liberal hard-of-hearing: £8,000,000 a day! (*These figures are taken from an assessment made in 2023, which equate to a total annual cost exceeding £3 billion.)

UK Utility Bills Fiasco: What a Gas Freezing is

The rocketing cost of home energy bills
Over the past five years, the annual surge in costs of domestic gas and electric bills has been successively and neatly blamed on a jamboree of circumstances ranging from coronavirus to Ukraine and now the war with Iran. I, personally, am glad about this because I have long distrusted my suspicions that the energy crisis is all to do with greed and that everything used to talk it up is nothing but excuses. The sticking point for me is that as each and every crisis that forms the basis for the hikes subsides or, as in the case of coronavirus, vanishes overnight, the higher cost of energy never returns to what it was before the crisis was invented.

There are among our energy companies, who seem to be raking-it-in, some who seek to explain away these sudden precipitous peaks by recourse to pious allusions to the investment they are making in the nicely named renewable energy, but I think we all know by now, or if we don’t, we certainly should, that the imposition of net zero, paying 30 pence at the supermarket whenever we need a shopping bag, and all those other touchy-feely save-the-planet schemes are hand-in-glove with another suspect cause, the humanitarian industry, that global ideological racket belying the altruistic motives of philanthropic billionaires (so-called), hidden-agenda NGOs and need-to-be-scrutinised charities. We’ll just stop short of coining the phrase ‘ideological gangsterism’.

Mass building projects, new towns, associated infrastructure and net zero defined

If you want to know what topsy-turvy means in its relationship to net zero and all the other save-the-planet rackets, just head off into Cambridgeshire and take a look at Peterborough – a sprawling conurbation of the most utterly reprehensible kind.

The same urban sprawl is possibly being masterminded for the rural area of North Bedfordshire. South Bedfordshire has already become a save-the-planet farce: a rotten, unsightly mess of sprawling Lego-type house developments and noisy traffic-spewed roads that crisscross and run in fume-ridden, thundering parallel across a blighted and shattered landscape. This kind of urbanised vandalism is a thin-end-of-the-wedge scenario that is about to be driven like a stake through the heart of North Bedfordshire’s slumbering countryside.

Already, thousands of wonderful new homes are poised to be built on the outskirts of Sharnbrook next to the A6, turning a small, grey stone village with centuries of rural history into yet another example of the corrosive link between profit motive, white flight and overpopulation.

New housing estate at Sharnbrook in Bedfordshire: more cars; more houses; more pollution. This is not saving the planet. — A fleet of ‘War of the ‘World’-type excavators are already tearing up rural Bedfordshire.

The A6, which at the best of times is already overburdened with heavy traffic, will, thanks to those lovely new homes and the masses due to occupy them, fall foul to a glutting influx of cars, the majority of which, with one or two exceptions in the shape of those funny whining things powered by electric that most of us don’t understand and more significantly cannot afford, will soon be belching CO₂ in ever-increasing volumes across the choking, stricken landscape. As the victim’s health deteriorates, a frustrating and clogged A-Sick will compel the rabbits in the new-build hutches, for which they have paid most handsomely, to seek out alternative roads on which to boldly go to get them into Bedford and beyond. Towards this competitive end, they will be rat-running their daily way through every local country lane in droves, forever in search of the Golden Fleece, the illusory traffic-free thoroughfare.

This same area of North Bedfordshire is also earmarked as the unlucky recipient of acre upon acre of environmentally unfriendly, ugly, intrusive solar panels; so many of them, in fact, that they will literally gobble up not only some of the county’s best and richest arable land but also turn what is today a truly beautiful example of English countryside at its most precious into a hideous plastic eyesore. Once the topsoil has been removed from century-old fields and meadows, it won’t be long before the relatively useless solar panels are pronounced dead and buried, like the arable land they’ve deprived us of, whereupon, hey presto, like a magician’s rabbit pulled out of a hat, all that sacrificed verdant land will turn, by a smoke-and-mirrors strategy, into a massive brownfield site, and before we can shed a validatory tear, up will sprout thousands of houses where wheat and barley used to be, like an overnight rash of toadstools.

Stop East Park Energy sign. Rural Bedfordshire threatened by acres of lost arable land to solar panels.

This scheme, and the scheming behind it, though it may look topsy-turvy to some, discounting, of course, the duped disciples of the environmental racket, is as plain as the nose on Pinocchio’s face.It could literally pave the way for those hundreds of thousands more houses which Labour so rejoices in, transfiguring, in this case, a magnificent part of rural Bedfordshire, as so many shires are being disfigured, into that deadly urban sprawl that once was the noted cathedral city of Peterborough.

Standing on the crest of the valley overlooking tranquil Bedfordshire, the question might enter your head, ‘Why would they want to bury such splendiferous natural beauty under piles of bricks and slabs of concrete?’ And the answer might come back to you, quietly but convincingly, carried on the melodious sweetness of freely given bird song and suggested to you in the whispering breeze, ‘To pave the way for white flight, as the UK’s major towns and cities devolve to third-world ghettos, the rich therein behind gated compounds and murder incorporated out on the streets. Is this England I’m describing or am I confusing it with South Africa? Perhaps, as E.A. Poe would say, ‘It’s all but a dream within a dream.’ Meanwhile, at the carnival, you pay your money and you make your choice!

Crime matters

Yonder, about 12 months hence (my, but doesn’t time fly – ay up, think of the planet. I wonder how many of them do when they are up there in the sky), I was standing at the checkout in Bedford’s wonderful Wilko’s when a skanky individual – there are a lot of them about – looking like one of Kenneth Grahame’s weasels, went strolling out of the shop, his arms laden with unpaid items. Like the conscientious citizen that I am, and also to test what I had been told, I drew the attention of a store attendant to the undeniable fact that Wilko’s had just been robbed. Rolling his eyes up to the ceiling in a manner that suggested he would rather I had kept this to myself, he nevertheless pursued the thief and came back on this occasion with full retrieval of the loot. As for the robber, he went scot-free.

The new deal in the UK is that shop assistants and shop security can watch but cannot touch: shoplifting in effect has become a kind of spectator sport or retail-sanctioned voyeurism. Shop staff and security are corporately disempowered from apprehending shoplifters for fear the company may be prosecuted for violating the criminal’s human rights. Moreover, the unverified story goes that should you ring the Old Bill and report the crime of shoplifting, you’d simply be wasting your time as well as the cost of a phone call, as they, the UK police, rarely, if ever, respond to such incidents, unveiling the reason, at a guess, why Britain is currently overwhelmed by a shoplifting epidemic and suggesting to the intelligent that this in part explains why good-old Wilko’s Bedford branch closed down.

Female shoplifter. Shoplifting is rife in the UK

Understandably, as a customer, the daily scourge of shoplifting may not be as high on your list of concerns as it would be if you owned a shop, but crime in all its variations, particularly crime to the person and serious crime at that, has reached an all-time UK high, suspiciously coinciding with profound cultural changes in the nation’s composition, with disproportional representation in certain ethnic groups and by conflicting, hostile creeds.

To be chatful of it, you could say that crime in Britain is ‘rife’, and yet it’s a funny thing, I’ll have you know, and you may think so also, how Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, known as the FCO, is altogether exceptionally good at passing judgement on other countries, warning us not to go there for fear of falling victim to crime at street and also state level, but never tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth, in fact any truth it would seem at all, about the dangers of visiting and living in Britain, especially when that living and visiting pertains to the city of London, which as every honest fellow knows, grows more dangerous every day.

Golders Green Terrorist Attack [April 2026]
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/london-golders-green-stabbing-essa-suleiman-attack-terror-jewish-latest-update-b2968192.html

“Home Secretary says likelihood of an attack in the UK is ‘extremely likely”

It is always ‘extremely likely’ and will always be extremely likely, as ‘we’ve ’let them in and ‘we’ keep on letting them in.

“Suleiman is a British national born in Somalia who had a “history of serious violence and mental health issues”, police say.

So, what’s he doing here? They all seem to have ‘mental health issues’, don’t they?

Mr Prime Minister, Sir, and the rest of the British Establishment, why do you keep on letting them in?

If they weren’t here, they couldn’t be doing what they do, could they?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3ve2nr60xzt?post=asset%3A81999a10-ec0a-436c-ad97-47ff489f3aaf#post

‘Edith Binstock has lived in Golders Green for more than 70 years and says when she was young it “was the most amazing place to live in”.’

‘” I don’t know how it’s got to such a state… I don’t know when it’s going to get better. I doubt it.”’

I hope the left are listening …

In daylight, UK towns and cities look exactly what they are, but when night descends on Gotham, it’s best to scurry home, and once inside what used to be but isn’t any longer the revered and impregnable Englishman’s castle, quickly bolt and bar the doors. The real, fictional Gotham City had one distinct advantage: when the dregs seeped upwards to the surface, it could always call on Batman, whereas in Britain we think ourselves lucky if we see a copper from one week to the next, and when we do catch a glimpse of them, they are roaring rapidly past in their cars. What the eye don’t see, the report don’t mention.

But whilst visible policing may be a thing of the past and there’s no solution to crime, two things that we do have are a glut of fatuous politicians and a disingenuous media making blatant false assurances that there is no such thing as ‘no-go areas’ in our major cities. Of this they may be right. Take Londinstan, for example: here you can go wherever you like, just don’t expect to always come back, or always come back in one piece.

Where’s that policeman when you need one?

Life in the UK – it’s all so peculiar

No write-up on the topsy-turvy fragile state of Britain would be worth its weight in Asian barber shops without a word or several on the behaviour of Britain’s yoof, and in this respect I will not disappoint.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the ‘pleasure’ of spending an evening in a large Bedford pub, which shall here remain unnamed, although I know that my secret will not stop you guessing which one it is I am talking about.

The night it was a Saturday, and yoof were out in force.

This particular boozer, which is renowned for beer that is sensibly priced and grub that is affordable, acts on Friday and Saturday evenings as a meeting place and springboard from which, following an alcohol primer or seven and having strutted their stuff – their very noisy and raucous stuff – the country’s dubious future spills out of the frenzied pub onto Bedford’s bedighted streets like a carnival of zombies. The next stop for Hysteria isn’t exactly the Twilight Zone, but it’s as near as damn it is to swearing. They are heading off, one and all, and in all sorts of bold undress, to abandonedly disport themselves at one or other of Bedford town’s overpriced and over-rated cattle markets, which some, those we must assume deprived of the good fortune to have ever been, or have ever been taken, to anywhere half decent, like to refer to as nightclubs.

Mythological female creature, possibly a feminist — Does my arse look big in this mermaid costume

In observing this unruly and indescribable disembarkation, I asked myself the searching question, has anything really changed since the 1990s? The decade that tried to redefine woman.

Sporting hilarious bouffant hairstyles, massively square and padded shoulders and parroting to anyone awake enough to listen that their careers were all they lived for – even having children was a bind! But occasionally, if it had to happen, they would take time off to do it, providing they were back in the boardroom at 9am the following day – these larger-than-daft career women symbolised the prototype model for the upwardly shafted female; she who had been deliberately conned into giving up her home life for sitting in an office. Led to believe herself empowered, all she had really achieved was emancipation from common sense. Now she would face the grim task of juggling home and working life, while creating feral latchkey kids, stressing it out wage-slave fashion and giving it all to the taxman.

It was during this time, or shortly after, that perfectly innocent programmes, like the comedy On the Buses and the long-running Benny Hill Show, came under the feminist cosh. Indeed, poor old saucy Benny, after years of treating us and our fathers to a feast of tits and bums, was driven out of business by the ‘It’s far too sexist!’ Stasi.

New Woman, especially feminists, wanted it to be known that they were volcanic hairstyles and padded shoulders above the leering of mucky old men’ (although the old but rich and ‘toy boys’ appeared to be exempt). Sexual jokes and innuendoes were no longer to be brooked; the Italian pinch or pat on the bum became strictly a bridge too far, and as for those cheeky construction workers bound by tradition to wolf whistle whenever they clocked the cheeks of, or cast their eyes across, the various assorted feminine goods purposefully displayed to them, their interest in the freely on offer was ordered to cease forthwith; the whistling had to stop, although the setting out of the carnal stall continued unabated.

Now, I have no idea what goes through your mind when you first clap eyes on or meet a woman, but I’d hazard a layman’s guess that it has little to do with her credentials as a hot-shot exec female or whether she can or cannot hold an in-depth conversation on the philosophical works of Kant (Careful with that spell checker!) or has practical skills in woodwork. But the real question is, and has been since the 1990s, when PC first appeared, if, as we are led to believe, UK women regard themselves generically, that’s wholesale, as distant cousins to sexuality, demanding to be identified by their labour skills and brains, then why do so many still in this age of Ms equality, professional or otherwise, dress in what is defined traditionally as outfits worn by tarts (apologies to jam and biscuits)? Like charity that begins at home, sexual objectification begins primarily with the object itself, not, as alleged, the objectifying.

Anyway, getting back to this certain pub in a certain part of Bedford. Bedford isn’t Bedlam, and neither is this pub – on a Saturday night it is worse! You might want to call it a clusterf*ck! Liberals would describe it as a hip and vibrant venue, a popular haunt for the dynamic young – ‘inclusive’ and ‘diverse’, they would quoth – a lively, relaxed and fun-loving crowd just wanting to let off steam. And in this respect, indeed, they were. Some sights, I must confess, were steaming up my glasses, testing my resolve to define women in the new-age light as prescribed by liberal doctrine, but steel myself as I might to ignore what my eyes beheld and its impact upon my reprobation (Forgive me, Lord! For I am male!), I could not altogether resist Aphrodite’s timeless charms and the wish she would have me entertain to become, and instantly, younger – by about 100 years, I’d say.

Other ‘ladies’ there were who were steaming in a different fashion, and yet, although they were out to get the same thing as their nimble counterparts, as they lumbered around like steamrollers with huge, tree-trunk, cellulite legs clad in bum-hugging skirts or shorts that were much to short for them into which they had awkwardly squeezed, and sometimes squeezed far too tightly, making them look like sausage meat overstuffed in skins, I wondered if they would ever get what it was they were after or remain for the rest of their days in a limbo state of disappointment. It’s exactly times like these that I’m glad I’m vegetarian. Had Stan, Jack and Benny been here, they would have had a field day! And here’s the topsy-turvy of it, for in spite of all we’ve been led to believe about modern British women, I think I can honestly say that I’ve never seen so many females embracing objectification since I worked on the local pig farm. Ah, so that’s what it reminded me of: that terrible shrieking din of youngsters and the letting off of their clouds of steam!

Large female arse in panties with 'Yes please' written on them

The contention of to what degree, if any, women ought to be obliged to take responsibility for the manner in which they dress and behave in public, if not merely for their own safety, then out of common respect for Modesty, is an issue framed in the larger debate of whether a rights-obsessed society should encourage every member of it, from politicians to media moguls to the happy-go-lucky migrants to women out on the town, to adopt the type of double standards that circumvent and short-circuit moral codes of responsibility, shaping the world’s wise opinion of the kind of society that Britain wasn’t but now, sadly, has become.

And if the answer is ‘no’, then where should such standards trickle from if not from the highest office in the land? Should the backdoor to double standards be left off its Yale lock here, then the thief that covets morality will perceive the right to go amongst us, sacking and plundering without redress and mugging us at will.

From turning your back on an ally, to turning the other cheek, as Labour’s Rochdale councillors did as cheeks were being turned; to letting the boats come flooding in; to ignoring the rising tide of crime; to an attitude of ‘sod their morrows’ by endorsing Sodom and Gomorrah; to paying perpetual homage to the one-way god of rights – this, then, is the topsy-turvy life, a life of confusing contradictions, that we live in the UK today. Thus verily unto you I say, and I am sure you will agree, that in pausing to examine it, it is all so peculiar.

Image attribution

Map of the UK: https://www.needpix.com/photo/1420206/
Lion with black eye: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Vector-drawing-of-lion-with-black-eye/23181.html
Man worried about the bill: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Man-worried-about-the-bill-vector/2313.html
18th century ‘Topsy Turvy Woodcuts’ (stylised female figure): https://pdimagearchive.org/images/a6a3caa0-5f4b-475f-a1ae-461a345410ac/
18th century ‘Topsy Turvy Woodcuts’ (Death): https://pdimagearchive.org/images/9e11814b-ce52-497a-a726-bc29439b1f64/
Shoplifter: http://www.clker.com/cliparts/2/8/d/8/15161602671477924418shoplifting-clipart.hi.png
Serious woman: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Serious-woman-profile-vector-image/22941.html
‘Yes please’ knickers: https://freesvg.org/index.php/big-bootie

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

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Obtaining a Visa for Kaliningrad, Russia

Revised 19 April 2026 ~ Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

Airspace Closures

Russia has closed its airspace to airlines from multiple countries in direct response to airspace closures effecting its airlines, which were introduced by western governments opposing Russia’s military operation to ‘demilitarise and de-Natzify’ Ukraine. Airlines on the banned list are prohibited from landing in or flying over Russian territory. As a result, air travel disruptions are widespread. If you intend to travel in the immediate future, you should contact your airline or travel agent for further information.
Links to Airport/Airlines websites can be found at the end of this guide

Blog links
Is the Poland-Kaliningrad Border Open?
How to get to Kaliningrad from the UK
Gdansk to Kaliningrad by Bus

Useful links

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

To visit Kaliningrad, you will need to apply for and have been issued with a Russian visa. For those of you who are not sure what one of these is, it is an official document that permits you to legally enter a foreign country, in this case the Russian Federation. The visa is valid for a specific duration of time. It contains the date of entry to the country and the date of exit, as well as your name, travel document (passport) details and the purpose for which you are travelling.

There are various types of visa depending upon the nature of your visit, but, for the sake of this blog, let’s assume that you are visiting Kaliningrad as a tourist.

Russia Kaliningrad Tourist Information: Tourist Visa

A tourist visa will allow you to enter Kaliningrad and leave within a specified time frame of 30 days. This means that the maximum length of stay in Kaliningrad is 30 days and no more. It is important that you leave the country before or on the date of exit.

Before a tourist visa can be issued, you will need to have confirmation of where you will be staying throughout the duration of your visit. Two documents are required, commonly referred to as ‘visa support documents’, and they consist of (1) a voucher and (2) a booking confirmation.

If you are staying in a hotel, you will need to ask the hotel to send you a hotel voucher and confirmation of tourist acceptance. Once you have received these, you are then ready to make your application.

To complete your visa application, you will need the following:

1. An original passport, valid for more than 6 months, containing at
least 2 blank pages for your visa and entry/exit stamps

2. An application form

3. One valid passport-type photograph

4. Payment for application

Note: The Russian Service Centre (the Russian National Tourist Office) can assist you with all stages of your application, including visa support documents. You can contact them by telephone on 0207 985 1195 and/or visit this page on their website: https://www.visitrussia.org.uk/visas/getting-a-russian-visa/

Their location and postal address is:

Russian Service Centre
Russian National Tourist Office
202 Kensington Church Street
London W8 4DP

The Russian Service Centre in London is currently operating on an ‘appointment only’ basis. Please use the following link for further information: https://russia-visacenter.com/en/visa/united-kingdom/russia/contact-us

Applications for a Russian visa are typically handled online now, and all the information and guidance that you need can be obtained by visiting this page: How to obtain a Russian visa in 2026– guide & application steps

However, you will still be required to go in person to the Russian Tourist Office at 202 Kensington Church St, London W8 4DP, for biometric scanning. This sounds worse than it is. Biometric scanning means that you need to supply your fingerprints.

You can attend the office to submit your fingerprints Monday to Friday from 9am until 1pm. Click here for a map of the Tourist Office location.

Russian Tourist Offices (also referred to as Russian Visa Application Centres) are also located in Manchester and Edinburgh. However, the Manchester office has been closed for some time now, so that leaves you with the choice of London or Edinburgh. The address of the Edinburgh office is 64 Albion Rd, Edinburgh EH7 5QZ. Tel: 0131 661 7279. Visa applications operate by appointment.

Alternatively, if you don’t mind paying for it, visa officers can come to your office or home anywhere in the UK and take your fingerprints there. Click on this link for more information: https://www.visitrussia.org.uk/visas/getting-a-russian-visa/biometric-data/

The time it takes for you to receive your Russian visa depends on which service you pay for. Visas can be received within two days of the completion of the application procedure.

Electronic Visa (E-visa)

Yes, Russia does implement an electronic visa (e-visa) system for entering the Russian Federation. The citizens of sixty-four countries are eligible to apply using this fast-track system, but, unfortunately, as Britain is officially designated an ‘Unfriendly Country’ by Russia, those holding a British passport are excluded from this list. Visa applicants from the UK are thus requested to apply, using the old-fashioned paper route, via Russian Visa Application Centres in London, Manchester or Edinburgh.

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information: Professional visa support company

To make things easier for you, there are various visa-support companies that you can contact, which will take you through the entire process. My support company of choice is Stress Free Visas, if only because if you do get stressed whilst using them, you can have a good laugh at your own expense! Their website address is www.stressfreevisas.co.uk.

When using their service, you will be asked to fill out an application form online. It is as well to know what to expect before you start, since when they start asking you questions, such as ‘What is your inside leg measurement?’, it will be difficult to do so unless you have a tape measure already at hand. OK, it’s not that bad, not quite, but there is information that you will need that you might inconceivably not have thought of.

To this end, please see the following:

Q: Who is paying for your trip to Russia?
A: [If it is you, put ‘independently’]

####

You will be asked ‘information about your financial situation’. You will need to enter your ‘overall monthly income from all sources’ and various other financial details.

####

You will need to include your National Insurance number

####

You will be asked to enter ‘place of birth’ and ‘date and place of birth’ of your spouse

####

You will be asked to provide the following details about your parents:

Name
Date, country & place of birth
Nationality
If deceased, date & place of death

####

You will be asked to provide the name of the hotel you will be staying at, plus address and telephone number

####

And that, as Bruce Forsyth used to say, “is all there is to it!”

To assist you in all visa-related matters, here again is the web address for Stress Free Visas: www.stressfreevisas.co.uk

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information (Useful links)

Russian Tourist and Visa Offices

London
The Russian Service Centre (the Russian National Tourist Office)
202 Kensington Church Street, London W8 4DP
Tel: 0207 985 1195
https://www.visitrussia.org.uk/visas/getting-a-russian-visa/

Edinburgh
Russian Visa Application Centre
Tel: 0131 661 7279
https://russia-visacenter.com/en/visa/united-kingdom/russia

Note: The London centre offers couriers or mail-based applications as well as in-person visits. The Edinburgh Centre operates an in-person system only. All in-person visits must be booked in advance.

Visa advice from gov.uk

Poland: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/poland/entry-requirements

Lithuania: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/lithuania/entry-requirements

Links to airport/airline websites

Airlines

Lot Airways
Web: www.lot.com

Aeroflot
Web: www.aeroflot.ru

Wizz Air
Web: www.wizzair.com

Rynair
Web: www.ryanair.com

Airports

Khrabrovo Airport, Kaliningrad
Web: https://kgdavia.ru/
Tel : +8 (401) 255 05 50

Luton London Airport
Web: https://www.london-luton.co.uk/
Tel: 01582 405100

Gdansk Airport
Web: https://www.airport.gdansk.pl/
Tel: +48 52 567 35 31

Vilnius International Airport
Web: https://www.vilnius-airport.lt/
Tel: +370 612 44442

Art Depot Kaliningrad – beer for a one-track mind

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A little of what you fancy does you good – and so does a little more of it. With an essay prefacing the status of ales versus victuals and what a restaurant means to some when a bar can be seen by others.

10 April 2026: Art Depot Kaliningrad – beer for a one-track mind

As a seasoned pub-goer, nay, a patriotic supporter of what is undoubtedly one of the UK’s most important cultural assets, the British pub, qualified to say so from having lived a so-called pub lifestyle from the age of 14 and, during the time I was resident in London, reputed to have required an A to Z knowledge of London pubs, may I say without equivocation – and why not, indeed? – that the quest to boldly go and seek out hitherto unknown drinking venues, whilst as exciting as it is dutiful, does not rule out that there is a lot to be said for returning to the scene of the crime, which many a splendid bar or pub might unfairly be denounced as by stay-at-home abstemious naysayers and those who would rather drink from the bottle whilst sitting in front of the telly.

“Pubs and bars are like women; some are worth a second visit and some most definitely not” – The Sexist’s Guide to Male Dominated Traditions by Lord Wollocks.

When I first landed in Kaliningrad, in the year of our Lord (Wollocks!) 2000, there were so few bars to go around that if it hadn’t been for the Sir Francis Drake and the most exceptional 12 Chairs (R.I.P.), the only way of not returning to drink in them would have been not to go out at all.

Thankfully, in more recent years the situation has moved in the right direction. Kaliningrad is now a city with an eclectic range of bars, all of which would come in useful even if you never used them, which is something I would never do, as I use them whenever I can. ‘Roodly do’ is a phrase that inconveniently comes to mind at this juncture, not because I ‘roodly do’ use bars, but because it was a favourite catchphrase that rose to prominence in the 1980s through my aunt’s repeated use of it.

Thought I: “That expression will come in useful even if I never use it”, and, to prove it, although I have just used it, it has served no use at all.

Art Depot Kaliningrad

Now, some of Kaliningrad’s bars identify themselves as restaurants, which is a taxonomy I can live with, as the food that they serve is hardly limited to a humble packet of crisps bolstered by the insertion of an acquired-taste pickled egg, once standard fare in British pubs when I was too young to be drinking in them, although I always was.

The introduction of ‘pub grub’ was heralded in the UK as a major breakthrough by those who like to take solids with their drink, but its impact on the established consensus of what a pub should traditionally be was, like allowing kids to run riot in pubs, anathema to the old guard, among whose sagacious ranks I proudly claim to number. Indeed, Rolly Smith, a valued friend and respected drinking partner, confided that his father had condemned the arrival of food in pubs as a flagrant assault on the honoured conventions of that most noble of British institutions: “It’s only pigs”, he used to say, “that eat and drink at the same time!” Being a one-time pig farmer and now vegetarian convert disqualifies me from commenting on the veracity of this statement in recognition that a conflict of interests could lead to anything that I say being taken down, twisted round and used in evidence against me.

I can say, however, and should say, however, and therefore I will, that as a devoted beer drinker, food is often off the itinerary when drinking beer in bars and pubs. It is not so terribly difficult for me to apply myself to this golden rule, as food is an unfair competitor in the allocation of volume stakes when it comes to imbibing beer; moreover, whenever temptation may suddenly strike, I am reminded of the words of wisdom conveyed to us by Mr Rowbottom, my primary school headmaster, who sanguinely divided the world into two distinctive camps defined by him as eating compulsion, namely, those ‘who live to eat’ and those ‘who eat to live’, with my allegiance solemnly sworn to the minority sect of the latter. However, posit the question, if you must, ‘Do I live to drink?’ and it is not so easily answered.

The best thing to do with that, therefore, is to leave it gently dangling, turning at last, as you must be growing impatient, thinking, ‘Where is he going with this?’ to apply all that which has gone before to the subject of this post, which, as the title gives away, is Kaliningrad’s Art Depot Restaurant but which, according to my perception of it, is Kaliningrad’s Art Depot Bar.

Art Depot Kaliningrad – bar and restaurant

I am sure, to the vague extent that I can be sure about anything, that, as on my previous visit, I must have dined on something, and I am almost just as certain that whatever that something was, it must have been up to snuff, but the reason for my return was that I was desirous not of the food but of the range of beers that there are on tap and a second chance to soak them up whilst also imbibing the Art Depot atmosphere.

Art Depot Kaliningrad: a bar and restaurant occupying Ponart Brewery's former beer cellar

The novelty of having one’s drinks delivered in the rolling stock of a large model train is one of those things that can never grow old and goes exceptionally well with the vaulted cellar ceiling and the detailed dioramas of the railway stations and resident districts of the various Prussian towns to which the train delivers its vital cargo.

In Kaliningrad, a bar that delivers your bar order by train

Above: Art Depot’s train reversing back into Königsberg/Kaliningrad rail station, ie the bar, to load up with another cargo of beverages.
Below: Model architectural, urban and village district scenes lend to the unusual.

The horseshoe-shaped curved banquette booths ensure a plush, cosy, comfortable and intimate dining and drinking experience, especially should you be able to boast of sufficient friends or relatives to descend there as a group. But no matter how much you fall in love with any one seat and location, permit me to offer a little advice: on subsequent visits, be adventurous; go for a seat you haven’t yet sat in, as each location around the room has a unique perspective to offer.

On the evening to which the photographs here pertain, we were seated close to the bar, a location to which I am eminently suited, for not only did it allow me to feast my eyes on the beer stock and watch the barman playing the taps, but I also spotted a namesake whisky whose brand I was unacquainted with. Though not, as a rule, a spirits drinker, this Hart Brothers’ distillation was far too much of a bold coincidence to let it pass unsampled, and I am sure had both of my brothers been present, they would not have foregone the opportunity to have joined me in a wee dram.

Hart Brothers whisky at the Art Depot Kaliningrad Bar & Restaurant

You can’t get enough of a good thing

The Art Depot Restaurant is part of Kaliningrad’s intriguing Ponart Brewery complex, a restored 19th-century, multistorey, redbrick building with a superlative brewing history surrounded by an assortment of shops and other cultural amenities. Brewing has been returned to the premises (yummy); there are guided beer-tasting tours, and, preferably whilst your head is still clear, you can, if the mood so takes you, clamber into the viewing tower and survey the old industrial site and the district it inhabits.

I tend to put my faith in history, because I do not trust the present, and the future has all but expired. Beer and history have been going steady for as long as I can remember. So, let’s toddle along to the Art Depot Restaurant and raise a glass to both of them.

Here’s where the good thing is:

Art Depot Restaurant, Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad, Sudostroitelnaya st., 6-8
(on the territory of the historical quarter ‘Ponart’)

Tel (reservations): +7 (963) 295 74 95

Website: https://artdepo39.ru/

Opening times
Mon to Fri: 11am to 10pm
Sat & Sun: 12pm to 11pm

Art Depot Kaliningrad, a bar and restaurant with a railway theme

How to Get to Kaliningrad from UK

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UK to Kaliningrad

Updated: 28 March 2026 ~ How to Get to Kaliningrad from UK

Airspace Closures

Russia has closed its airspace to airlines from multiple countries in direct response to airspace closures effecting its airlines, which were introduced by western governments opposing Russia’s military operation to ‘demilitarise and de-Nazify’ Ukraine. Airlines on the banned list are prohibited from landing in or flying over Russian territory. As a result, air travel disruptions are widespread. If you intend to travel in the immediate future, you should contact your airline or travel agent for further information.
Links to Airport/Airlines websites can be found at the end of this guide

Jump to categories

Flights from the UK to Kaliningrad
From Khrabrovo Airport to Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad via Gdansk, Poland
Bussing it from Gdansk to Kaliningrad
Taxi services from Kaliningrad Central Bus Station
Kaliningrad via Lithuania
Links to Airport & Airline websites
Links to Bus & Rail Services
Links to Kaliningrad Taxis

How to Get to Kaliningrad from UK

Most people travelling from the UK to Kaliningrad are not going to do so by car, train, taxi, bicycle or hitching. Some of you might, but most of you won’t. You’ll want to come by plane, so that’s what I will focus on here.

Flights from the UK to Kaliningrad

As far as I am aware, there are no direct flights from the UK to Kaliningrad, and there has not been for some time.

The last time I flew back from Kaliningrad to London direct was many years ago. I remember it well, as I sat in the front of the plane looking through the open door to the flight deck. The date was 10 September 2001. It was most probably the last day that you would be able to do that on an international airliner.

I am told that the only ‘convenient’ way to fly to Kaliningrad from Europe is to fly to Turkey and from there to Kaliningrad. If you aren’t in the market for paying between £400-£800 pounds, then I wouldn’t bother.

If you do fly to Kaliningrad, you will land at Khrabrovo Airport. Once a relatively small red-brick building dating from the Königsberg era with a high wire fence, today Khrabrovo Airport is a modern terminal possessing all the usual facilities.

From Khrabrovo Airport to Kaliningrad

The distance from Khrabrovo Airport to Kaliningrad Central is about 23 km, and the journey takes approximately 20 to 30 minutes.

The easiest way of getting to Kaliningrad is by taxi. Look for the cubicles by the airport terminal exit, which offer taxi services. The fare to the centre of Kaliningrad typically costs between 700 and 1000 roubles (approx. £6.48–£9.26). Here is a price guide by destination,using licensed taxis (recommended).

The cheaper option is to travel by bus: fare 50 roubles (0.38 pence). The route number is 244-Э. Payment is made on the bus, either to the driver or a conductor. Buses run frequently, about every 30 minutes, between 7.00am and 8.20pm (Link to Bus Timetable). The average time of the journey to Kaliningrad’s Yuzhniy Bus Station is 40 to 50 minutes.

Kaliningrad via Gdansk, Poland

Wizz Air: How to get to Kaliningrad from the UK — (Photo credit: Serhiy Lvivsky)

The route that most of us take when travelling to Kaliningrad is to fly by Wizz Airlines from Luton London Airport to Gdansk and then travel from Gdansk to Kaliningrad.

Time was once that I would take a pre-booked taxi from Gdansk Airport to Kaliningrad. If you had contacts in Kaliningrad, which I had, someone could arrange this for you. In 2024, I was told that the journey to Kaliningrad from Gdansk Airport would cost you in the region of £200-300. This is a gigantic leap in price from the 100 quid that I was paying back in 2019. Why? Could the price hike be associated with border-crossing difficulties emanating from coronavirus restrictions, a by-product of Western sanctions or just plain old profiteering? Whatever the explanation, you might be of the opinion that the taxi option is no longer viable. Even if you like spending money, Poland is no longer accepting vehicles with Russian number plates crossing from Kaliningrad into Poland (now, where’s my screwdriver!) (Link to article on Poland’s extraordinary measures. It also mentions a ‘big wall’, so you won’t go climbing over that, will you, with or without licence plates! So there!)

🤔Is the Poland-Kaliningrad border open? (A personal reflection)

Bussing it from Gdansk to Kaliningrad

First from Gdansk Airport to Gdansk city bus station

I have travelled by bus to and from Kaliningrad via Gdansk many times now.

To do this, you must first take a bus or taxi from Gdansk Airport to Gdansk Bus Station, located at 3 Maja St, 12.

The bus line is 210. The bus fare is 4.80 zloty (0.97 pence). The service operates every 30 minutes and takes about 35 to 40 minutes to reach Gdansk city bus station.

After rolling out of bed at 4am in the morning to catch a flight from London Luton Airport, I am inclined to travel to Gdansk bus station by taxi.

There are plenty of taxis at the airport rank, and the cost of the trip is about 90 zloty (£21). The trip takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes.

And now, from Gdansk bus station to Kaliningrad

The bus ticket from Gdansk costs 155-190 zloty (approximately £31 to £38). There are multiple buses a day from Gdansk Bus Station, and the last bus leaves at 5.00pm. The approximate travel time is advertised at 3 hrs and 30 mins and 4 hrs and 30 mins, depending on the route, but in reality it often takes longer than this, due to the grilling you get at both borders, especially since the Polish border authorities introduced the practice of photographing everyone on board: Smile, please; we are going to make crossing into Kaliningrad extremely irritating for you. It will be inside leg measurements next! (Spoiler: On a couple of occasions, I was stuck at the borders for 8 hours! Make sure your sim cards are working, your phone is charged or you have a book to read!)

Catching the bus means buying tickets online in advance. By far the most straightforward and therefore best online booking service is Busfor.pl

Example of Busfor’s Gdansk to Kaliningrad page below:

How to get to Kaliningrad from the UK. The Busfor timetable.

There was a time when the bay from which the Gdansk>Kaliningrad bus service operated was Gdansk’s best-kept secret. You could try asking at the bus information office, but if they had that information, they would not be letting you have it. Later, they stuck a piece of paper on the wall, which revealed the bay to be number 11. Don’t be put off if when arriving at the bay you see the name Królewiec and not Kaliningrad. According to what I have read, in 2023 some bright Polish spark came up with the idea of renaming Kaliningrad or, as they put it, reverting the name to its historical Polish name. That’s helpful, isn’t it?

The facilities at Gdańsk Bus Station are bog standard. It does have a bog (it will cost you 5 zloty for a pee), but the metal tins that used to function as a left-luggage department have moved, TARDIS-fashion, from the interior of the bus station to a bit around the back of it (you will need zlotys to activate these), and the bus station cafe, which was basic but useful, as there are no other cafes nearby, has closed. There is a burger bar in the bus park, which, in winter, has a plastic sheet around it, where you can stand and wait for your order.

At the time of writing, you will have approximately two hours to kill if you catch, for example, the morning flight from London Luton Airport to Gdansk in time to catch the 3.00pm bus. My advice is to take a walk into Gdansk Old Town for great cafes and a historic atmosphere.

The buses dock at Kaliningrad’s Central Bus Station in the vicinity of the city’s South Railway Station. Change here for local buses, coaches to Svetlogorsk/Zelenogradsk coastal resorts and taxi services.

Public transport to the city centre is plentiful, including trolley bus services, mini-buses and trams. Note, however, that some buses operate on a no-conductor electronic-card basis. If you haven’t got a Russian bank card or a ‘Volna Baltiky’ transport card (the cheapest option at 33 roubles) use conductor-served buses. I have worked out (at least, I think I have) that the orange buses take card payments only. The mini-buses accept cash as well as cards. Approximate fare to anywhere in the city is 48 roubles.

Taxi services from Kaliningrad Central Bus Station: !!! Scam alert: Avoid the gaggle of taxis that huddle and hustle around the immediate vicinity where the bus from Gdansk to Kaliningrad terminates. The motley crew that operate these dodgy deals on wheels are to be avoided at all costs, unless you want to triple or quadruple the going rate.

Reputable taxi services are typically accessed via the following websites/apps:

Local taxis can be booked by telephoning 33-33-33
Airport transfers can be pre-booked using Utransfer

How to Get to Kaliningrad from UK

Kaliningrad via Lithuania

It was once possible to get a train from Vilnius, Lithuania, to Kaliningrad (the trip took about 7 hours). That service has been suspended now. As for travelling by bus, the information served up on the net is vague and conflicting. It seems that all direct intercity bus services have ceased, but, for 37 euros (£32), a once-a-day indirect bus still functions. Only consider this option if you are into long bus journeys, as the grapevine suggests that the trip from somewhere in Lithuania to Kaliningrad takes 21 hours. Bon voyage! See Omio.

Rumour has it that an alternative to the cross-border bus from Vilnius is to use local buses/trains, cross on foot via the Kibartai-Chernyshevskoe border and then use local buses/trains on the Russian side. I cannot confirm this, as I have not personally used this route, but it is one you might like to check out.

Panemunė–Sovetsk (where you can cross on foot!)
This is a foot-friendly (and no other type of vehicle) crossing from Lithuania into Kaliningrad, Russia, and vice versa.

It requires taking a bus or taxi or being dropped off by a relative or friend at the checkpoint, walking across and then continuing your journey on the other side by one of the three means cited.

The crossing is located in the town of Panemunė (Lithuania).

To cross, you will need a valid passport and a Russian visa (or e-visa).

It is highly recommended to check via the official Lithuania-Russia border crossing website before attempting to cross, to ascertain accessibility, as regulations could change.

📄Kaliningrad Visa Information when travelling from UK 📄

How to Get to Kaliningrad from UK

Links to Airport & Airline websites

Airlines

Lot Airways
Web: www.lot.com

Aeroflot
Web: www.aeroflot.ru

Wizz Air
Web: www.wizzair.com

Rynair
Web: www.ryanair.com

Airports

Khrabrovo Airport Kaliningrad
Web: www.kgd.aero
Tel: +7 4012 300 300
Taxi service: +7 (4012) 91 91 91

London Luton Airport
Web: www.london-luton.co.uk

Gdansk Airport
Web: www.airport.gdansk.pl
Tel: 801 066 808 / +48 525 673 531

Vilnius International Airport
Web: https://www.vilnius-airport.lt/
Tel: +370 612 44442

Links to Bus & Rail Services

Busfor
Web: https://busfor.pl/buses/Gdansk/Kaliningrad

Information on Bus Services between Gdansk & Kaliningrad
Web: www.rome2rio.com/s/Gdansk-Airport-GDN/Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad Central Bus Station
Web: https://avl39.ru/en/
Tel: (Information desk) +7 4012 64 36 35
Email: info@avl39.ru

Kaliningrad South Railway Station
Web: https://rasp.yandex.ru/station/9623137/suburban/?date=all-days&direction=all
(See also) https://kzd.rzd.ru/
Tel: +7 (4012) 60 08 88

Links to Kaliningrad Taxis

Reputable taxi services are typically accessed via the following websites/apps:

Yandex.Taxi
Maxim taxi
Local taxis, telephone: 33-33-33
Airport transfers can be pre-booked via Utransfer

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Awesome Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts

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Culture on a cold evening

Revised 23 March 2026 | First Published: 8 February 2021 ~ Awesome Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts

Can you spot the clue in one of the photographs providing evidence that this was first written in 2021? First prize: a face mask.

We recently received a kind invitation to attend an organ concert at Königsberg Cathedral. This was the first time that I had been to a concert there, and I was keen to discover if the sound of the cathedral’s pipe organ was as impressive as the organ looked.

With temperatures outside falling to as low as -17 degrees, we were surprised, happily surprised, to discover that in spite of the capacious size of the cathedral, it was warm and comfortable. For a building that had been reduced to a shell in the Second World War by RAF bombing and subsequently and painstakingly restored, the atmosphere and ambience are superb. Lighting is important in any environment, but particularly so in exhibition and concert halls, and here it cannot be faulted.

Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts

The colonnades, sturdy walls and Gothic vaulted ceiling served the acoustics well, the hard surfaces deflecting the quieter notes distinctly and the deeper tones with generous resonance. The organ rolled, rumbled and reverberated, the multiple dense sounds thundering spectacularly from numerous points within the building’s chambers.

I will admit that I am not much of an opera aficionado, but on this occasion I felt that the dulcet tones of the singer complimented and contrasted perfectly with the rich and varied tones of the pipe organ.

Related posts
Königsberg Cathedral Organ pulls out all the stops
Königsberg Cathedral: a story of survival

At the close of the concert, we chose to walk around the back of the cathedral, past Kant’s tomb. My wife, Olga, rightly commented that here, outside and within the cathedral, the spirit of the city of Königsberg lives on.

This was so true, and I felt rather guilty that I had not visited the cathedral more frequently since moving to Kaliningrad.

I confess that since the death of our friend Victor Ryabinin in the summer of 2019, I have been purposefully avoiding the cathedral and the surrounding area. The cathedral and Kneiphof Island are only a stone’s throw away from Victor Ryabinin’s former art studio and as such constituted the epicentre of his cultural and historical world. There were so many memories that I did not want to face, and so many more, like this evening’s, which he may once have contributed to but now never will ~ at least, that is, in person.

But you cannot hide forever, and I was glad that I had agreed to attend the concert this evening.

Even in the falling temperatures and with noses looking like beetroots, Olga managed to snap some photos of the cathedral on this very cold winter’s night, which capture the magical quality of the external lighting and how it is used to imaginative effect.

Brrrr: It was time to rattle back home on the number 5 tram and, once indoors, make with the cognac!

Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts:
Königsberg Cathedral website: http://sobor39.ru/

This was the concert lineup for the 6th of February 2021:

Titular organist of the Cathedral, laureate of international competitions, Mansur Yusupov

Soloist of the Kaliningrad Regional Philharmonic, laureate of international competitions, Anahit Mkrtchyan (soprano)

Music and song featured works from the following composers:

A. Vivaldi
A. Scarlatti
G. F. Handel
J. Pergolesi
J. S. Bach
V. Gomez
M. Lawrence,
A. Babajanyan

International Women’s Day Kaliningrad

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The perfect presents for Women’s Day

Revised 7 March 2026 | First published 6 March 2020 ~ International Women’s Day Kaliningrad

Just before the dawn of International Women’s Day 2020, we took a trip to the BauCenter, where I bought Olga a nice trowel and some other romantic garden implements. I thought these would make excellent presents, and I was right. The garden has now matured and looks very nice indeed.

Travelling across Kaliningrad today on our way to the garden centre, we marveled at how the city had swung into action in readiness for International Women’s Day on Sunday.

The city was festooned with flower-sellers, ranging from one person with literally a handful of flowers to stalls consisting of two and three tables profusely bedecked with all manner of blooms.

The flower-selling booths, which are there on a permanent basis, were, of course, also in full swing, helping to transform the city into a charming early-spring festival ablaze with refreshing and natural bright colours.

International Women’s Day Kaliningrad

To Kaliningradians, International Women’s Day is an important date in the yearly calendar. It is a celebration of femininity, a time to show appreciation for the love, devotion, work and commitment that women invest in relationships and the value they impart to motherhood and family. I remember last year [2019], even with the sleet and snow, how many men of all ages were out on the streets of Kaliningrad purchasing flowers to present to their wives and girlfriends.

I tried comparing International Women’s Day in Kaliningrad with its UK counterpart, but, try as I might, there was nothing to recall. Perhaps, on March the 8th, I had always been in the wrong place at the wrong time (ie, hiding in the pub), or, then again, perhaps buying flowers for one’s other heterosexual half is frowned on in the UK as an unforgivable act of sexism.

Hmmm, well, the last thing that I would want to be accused of is sexism. Perish the thought.

So, I refrained from purchasing my wife flowers this year (which makes it sound as if I bought her flowers last year), and instead I bought her a shovel and a trowel so that she could plant her own in the garden.

Which just goes to show that leading your wife up the garden path does not have to spark a gender war!

It’s 2026, and the garden is looking lovely!

Olga Hart's garden in 2025 — Trowelling on the appreciation

More on Daily Life in Kaliningrad

Russia Pays Tribute to its Men
Kaliningrad Leaves Autumn to the Leaf Suckers

Kaliningrad Zoopark Now and Then Then and Now

Going zoolally at Kaliningrad Zoopark

30 October 2025 – Kaliningrad Zoopark Now and Then Then and Now

On Kaliningrad’s Prospekt Mira, across the road from the city’s foremost Soviet hotel, a great imposing slab of a place called the Moscow, geometrically flanked by two curvilinear buildings, the one on the left containing the exemplar restaurant Patisson Markt, stands the beckoning entrance to one of Kaliningrad’s more exotic, historic attractions, known today as the Kaliningrad Zoopark.

Kaliningrad has had a zoo for years, even before it was Kaliningrad. The zoo came into being, took shape and became a permanent fixture exactly where it is today when Kaliningrad was Königsberg in the 1890s.

It would have to wait for more than a century, however, before Mick Hart would come along and bless it with his presence.

Königsberg Zoo entrance early 20th century

^ The entrance to Königsberg Zoo. How it was in 1913.

^ The entrance to Kaliningrad Zoopark. How it was in 2025.

Kaliningrad Zoopark 2001

My first visit to Kaliningrad Zoo took place in May 2001. My exact recollection of it is what you might call hazy (those vodkas the night before!), but I noted in my diary that it was an entertaining, atmospheric but rather rundown and whiffy place. To animal and zoo lovers, my appraisal of this valued institution embedded in the archived history of the ancient city of Königsberg may be considered rather unworthy, but you cannot be a pig farmer, as such was my lot in my youth, without becoming a connoisseur of the pongs of the animal kingdom, in much the same way that you cannot work in the media, as I did in later life, and not become familiar with the pong of humankind.

No longer linked with much affection to either end of the animal chain, the higher or the lower, my enjoyment of the zoo was initially inspired by its unique place in the history books, particularly that of its status as one of the few surviving large-scale landmarks not to be completely destroyed by the intense aerial bombardment and vicious urban fighting that took out most of Königsberg towards the end of the Second World War.

In 2001, the year when I crossed the zoo’s threshold for the first time, the main attraction was its resident hippopotamus. The connection was, and is, a historic, romantic and deeply iconic one. It follows the poignant story of Hans the Hippo, one of only four of the hundreds of animal inmates to survive the devastation wrought by the siege of Königsberg and the vicious hand-to-hand combat that took place in the grounds of the zoo itself.

Monument to WWII battle in Königsberg Zoo

^ It’s difficult to imagine, and you don’t really want to, that a fierce and deadly battle took place here, in what today is one of the most quiet and tranquil spots in Kaliningrad. This memorial commemorating that struggle reads: “On April 8, 1945, Hero of the Soviet Union, Lapshin, and his rifle platoon launched a surprise attack from two sides of the zoo, taking the bridge, killing 30 Nazis and capturing 185 more. This action decided the outcome of the Battle for the Zoo.”

It is not readily known what happened to his fellow survivors, a deer, a donkey and a badger, but Hans, who was found badly shot up in a ditch, was lovingly nursed back to life by a Russian military paramedic using that cure-all of all cure-alls, vodka, which he administered to the wounded hippo in copious amounts.

A hippo, a deere, a donkey and a badger. Statue at Kaliningrad Zoopark

^ A hippo, a deer, a donkey and a badger
This statue, constructed from metal plates and rods by a team of 15 different artisans belonging to the art group San Donato, commemorates the four that survived the wartime battle at Königsberg Zoo.

Having beaten all the odds, Hans went on to symbolize both life’s fragility and durability, becoming and remaining the zoo’s fabled hero and its number-one attraction until his death in 1950.

Since the passing of Hans, Kaliningrad Zoo has always had a hippo. I tried to unearth the name of the hippo residing at the zoo contemporaneous to my visit in 2001. Unsuccessful in this enterprise, I nevertheless have fond memories, all be they rather distant, of an enormous set of open jaws eagerly catching fish tossed between their gaping hinges from a keeper’s plastic bucket.

History of the Zoo
The origins of Kaliningrad Zoo predate my arrival on the scene by something more than a century. Conceptually they occurred in 1895, the year that saw in Königsberg, on the site where the zoo stands today, a German industrial craft exhibition. At the close of this event, it was suggested by the organiser, entrepreneur Herman Claesson, that the wooden pavilions erected for the occasion not be deconstructed but remain where they were in situ and the site that they currently occupied be used in the creation of a zoological garden under the auspices and administration of a group specifically founded for this purpose, which eventually would be known as the Tiergarten Society.

Initially, and throughout the early years of the 20^th century, the zoo became a major attraction and flourished in every sense. But this golden age would end abruptly, as did so many other things, with the outbreak of World War I.

Despite reopening when the hostilities ended, in the depression-riddled years that followed, the zoo never fully recovered the popularity it had once enjoyed. The Tiergarten Society, which had successfully founded and run the zoo from the moment of its inception, was dissolved in 1938, and on its dissolution the administration of the zoo and the future that awaited it passed into the hands of the City of Königsberg.

They loved a zoo and a circus in the late 19th century

The latter years of the 19^th century witnessed international animal trade on an unprecedented level, supplying zoos and circuses with a source of public entertainment, an educational resource for the scientific community and a lucrative business for entrepreneurs.

When Königsberg Zoo first opened its gates, it offered its awestruck audience the opportunity to come face-to-face with something of the order of 900 different kinds of animals curated from no less than 260 global species. Although figures vary from source to source, estimates of the number of animals held by Kaliningrad Zoo today cite something in the region of 2,300, drawn from as many as 300 species, comprising mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, amphibians and invertebrates.

Whilst Königsberg Zoo, based on its animal population, was, at the time of its incorporation, by no means the largest zoo in the world, with 40 acres of land at its disposal, it was no diminutive enterprise. That figure has remained constant, but the increase in its animal populace is matched and superseded by its daily bipedal visitors.

On 11 October 2025, it was announced on a Kaliningrad News* site that the next 956 visitors would take the zoo’s visitor total to an impressive 700,000. The zoo’s director, Svetlana Sokolova, wrote in her Telegram channel that the 700,000th visitor could expect to be a prize winner.

Kaliningrad Zoopark Now and Then Then and Now

Considering the extent to which Kaliningrad itself has evolved over the 25 years that I have known it, it comes as no surprise that in composition and infrastructure the zoo’s improvements are commensurable.

Such development is not solely reflected in the facilities of the animal kingdom but also in the amenities for those people who come to the zoo to be stared at by the animals.

Today’s Kaliningrad Zoopark, as well as showcasing creatures great and small, also presents the perfect habitat in which to unwind and relax. Beyond the city’s hustle and bustle, the secluded grounds of the zoo stand as a parkland haven, a nuanced natural retreat replete with tree- and shrub-lined walkways, quiet meandering paths, quaint historic bridges, green and floral sheltered spaces, and, depending on what time of the year you visit, pumpkins.

^You’ll turn into a …
Either a lot of Cinderella coaches or Stingy Jack’s secret stash; whatever the allusion, who could resist a photograph with so many lovely pumpkins — certainly not our Olga.

Kaliningrad Zoo is a family venue, catering for young and old alike. There are plenty of places to picnic in and, if making sandwiches is not your thing, eateries of various kinds. Plus, in the unlikely event that your offspring should get bored, there are swings, slides and other playground distractions that ought to be more than enough to keep the little darlings occupied and prevent them from behaving like grizzling grizzly bears.

On the subject of bears, grizzled or docile, a series of dramatic declivities sloping down to the winding channels that follow the flow of the Pregolya River are an invitation to explore the zoo on foot. They provide the route to the bear enclosures, a rugged quarter of rock and gullies, mined with caves and passages in which, should the fancy take them, the bears can take refuge and hide (bears can be self-conscious too, you know). There are also plateaus at different levels where they can lounge, lie, preen and pose quietly to their bear hearts’ content.

A little further on this descent, at a point where the path zigs left at a zag of 90 degrees, a large compound presents itself for inspection by the curious. It is about the size of a football pitch but asymmetrical by design, and on all but one of its four sides has steep, overhanging cliffs. The side where it is cliffless has, in place of a wall of rock, a natural tree-trunk frame containing a viewing window, presumably made of reinforced glass. It explains itself in an instant. Lying but a few feet away on the other side of the glass is a lazy, lounging lioness. She is staring away from the window, seemingly oblivious to the meaty snacks observing her, but the thing to remember with predators, be they animal or human, is that though the eye of instinct may be closed, it rarely ever sleeps.

It is quite a walk, this walk to the base of the valley, but once you’ve hit rock bottom, there is space enough to catch one’s breath on any one of the Zoopark’s little curved bridges. Here, you can rest for a while, and gazing into the trickling water, ask yourself the question, because it is so tranquil, did a desperate, violent struggle for life, a dreadful and bloody war, really take place where I am standing? The answer seems to ricochet across the time that’s spent, tearing a piece of complacency from your tiny moment of living consciousness, making life all at once both undeniably precious and, should you dwell too deeply on it, undeniably senseless.

Now that you are where you are, all you need to do is climb back up to where you were. With 40 acres to traverse, the way to spare your legs is to hop aboard the zoo park’s train. This little colourful engine, with its open-sided flatbed platform, doesn’t rely on tracks for navigation. It trundles along on a nice set of wheels, effortlessly transporting effort-avoiding paying passengers around the park from A to B and to almost every other letter in the Zoopark’s personal alphabet.

The Kaliningrad Zoo, the one that I knew back in 2001, is not the zoo that I know today. On reprising my visit last autumn, in September of 2024, I was, I admit, quite frankly surprised by the extent to which I enjoyed the experience, both the animal exhibits and the off-the-beaten-track sojourn in the idyllic parkland gardens. However, had Hans the hippo’s ghost been present, I am sure he would have been less than amused by the greeting proffered by his modern successor. It really was a case of “Do you think my bum looks big in this Zoo?”

Kaliningrad Zoo. It's bottoms up from the hippo!

^ I genuinely believe that they are trying to tell us something?
I wasn’t sure if I had missed the notice on the way into the zoo which explained that today was a special themed event run by the animals entitled ‘Turn the other cheek’, or whether their unified display of wildly, and sometimes widely, differing sized posteriors was a planned act of concerted cheekiness. My first prize goes to the cuddly bears; my second to the bare-arsed cheek with which we were presented. As the zoo is billed as a family experience, please feel free to ignore this remark.

^Are you looking at me?!

Aquarium at Kaliningrad Zoopark — Tanked up

Big fish at Kaliningrad Zoopark — Tanked up

^Something fishy going on
Some fish can be quite frightening, can’t they? There are so many fishermen in Kaliningrad, I was rather surprised on entering the aquarium that there weren’t some in here dangling their rods.

Capturing the past. The architecture at Kaliningrad Zoopark

^ Refreshments
Kaliningrad Zoopark is not a refreshment-free zone. Unless you have eaten alreday in Patisson Markt, you will find no excuse not to take some sort of refreshment during your stay in the park. I like the way in which the zoo’s serveries, such as the one shown here, echo the distinctive architectural style that once was Königsberg’s signature.

Königsberg style restored at Kaliningrad Zoopark — Gorgeous Gothic finials

A natural habitat at Kaliningrad Zoo — Gorgeous Gothic finials

^Last two photographs
If your Russian is not as rusty as mine, and your eyesight younger, you may be able to make out from the photographed information board what exactly this building, reconstructed as a faithful replica to its lost 19^th century origina,l was. You can’t? Well, take a look at the pictures. The original was constructed in 1903.

^ It’s green and it’s woody
No prizes for guessing why Kaliningrad Zoo is called Kaliningrad Zoopark. It’s green; it’s woody. There are lots of benches on which to sit and lots of trees to sit next to and under and lots of shrubs to admire. Kaliningrad Zoopark sits where it does; a quiet, natural, leisurely retreat in the middle of a modern city teeming with life and traffic. The zoo takes you off the streets and keeps you out of mischief.

The main thing

Kaliningrad Zoopark, Prospekt Mira, 26, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, 236022

Tel: (8) 401 221-89=14

Opening times
Monday to Sunday 9am to 5pm

Admission
https://kldzoo.ru/visit-and-tickets/prices-and-tickets/

Kaliningrad Zoopark Website
https://kldzoo.ru/

Reference
*There are 956 people left before the record 700 thousand visitors to the Kaliningrad Zoo – Kaliningrad News

Image attribution:
Konigsberg Zoo entrance with carriages c.1913: https://picryl.com/media/tiergarten-konigsberg-eingang-e8aeb3

Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions

Do I detect an air of Pofik!?

Edited 30 September 2025 | First published: 3 July 2022 ~ Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions

It cannot be pleasant being the least liked prime minister in British history, but it should be remembered that Kier Starmer and his crew are only where they are today as a result of 14 years of Tory ineptitude, non-stop party infighting and off-the-chart bungling and incompetence. If the Cons hadn’t been so obsessed in beating Labour at its own wokist game, and Badenoch is a symptom of this absurdity, the foundations that they laid which paved the way for Labour’s accession would never have lost us our country.

This post, originally published in July of 2022, was a response to two inseparable misconceptions: first, that with work Boris Johnson could overcome himself and somehow run the country; and second, that Western sanctions would critically undermine Russia’s economic stability, which has proven to be far more resilient than the UK and its allies evidently anticipated. Here is that retrospective.

With Lithuania threatening to blockade Kaliningrad by restricting transit of goods from mainland Russia by train, the Latvian interior minister gleefully announcing that this proved that the West was poised to ‘take Kaliningrad away from Russia’¹ and the prime minister of Poland making so much noise that it is difficult to tell whether it is his sabre rattling, his teeth chattering or something more personal knocking together, it looked as though once again the storm clouds had begun to gather over the former region of the Teutonic Order.

I cannot, however, say with any semblance of sincerity that, as the shadow slowly dispersed, the Kaliningrad populace breathed a sigh of relief, for, quite frankly, and not flippantly, but wanting as always to tell it exactly as it is, nobody — meaning nobody with whom in Kaliningrad I am acquainted — seemed to give a flying f*ck!

You can put it down to whatever you like: the Russian penchant for c’est la vie, faith in themselves and their country, a growing immunity to the West’s mouth and trousers or perhaps the absence of a corporate media that makes its fortune by pedalling fear, but, whatever you attribute it to, if the residents of Kaliningrad were supposed to feel concerned by the slew of sanctions and the threat of isolation, then think again, as it didn’t happen.

Perhaps the intended fallout never occurred because we were all too busy laughing at Boris Johnson’s jokes. For example, the one about the conflict in Ukraine, which, says Boris, would never have happened had Vladimir Putin been a woman. Woked the Downing Street clown, It’s the “perfect example of toxic masculinity,” causing me to ask myself what exactly is masculinity when it is detoxified? Is it where you rove around without wearing any pants with your gonads painted rainbow colours, or when you go into hiding like President Turdeau does whenever he hears a trucker’s horn?

To increase his chances of success in obtaining future employment with Robert Brothers’ Circus, Boris jocularly suggested during the G7 Summit that the leaders of the ‘free’ world (free with every packet of neoliberal dictatorship) should, to equal the manliness of Vladimir Putin, take off all their clothes, to which President Putin replied, and I think this is something we all can agree on, “I don’t know how they wanted to undress, waist-high or not, but I think it would be a disgusting sight …”² It certainly conjured up an image far more frightful than any threat that the collective West had yet devised and had a far more psychologically damaging impact than the predictability of waging war with the globalist weapon of choice — sanctions.

Alack-a-day, as unthinkable as it is, if Boris wasn’t joking, then his latest remarks well might be some of the most stupid things he has ever said. However, it doesn’t necessarily follow. Occasionally, but seldomly, and most likely accidentally, Boris proves to himself, and others who care to listen to him, that if he tries, really tries, he is capable of utterances that seem at face value to make some sense, not much and not often, granted, but like miracles and wishes that sometimes can come true, the fantastic has been known to happen, which is more than can be said for anyone in the Labour party ~ or about any and all of the Labour party’s supporters.

Nevertheless, Boris old boy, you must admit that some of the things that you have been blurting out of late do have a rather silly public schoolboy wheeze about them. Now, were you the current President of the United States at least you could plead senility or, failing that, insanity. But be careful and beware! Keep on behaving in this childish manner and you’ll make yourself the perfect candidate for filling Biden’s boots when in a not long time from now Biden’s booted out.

Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions

I suppose that in moments like these, those of us who are old enough to remember, should simply take a step backwards and give thanks that we lived in the England of old, in the days of pre-gender bending. And though for most Winston Churchill has passed from living memory into history, note that the great man himself was endowed with more than his fair share of so-called ‘toxic masculinity’, even more, perhaps, than that which queerly circulates among whatever it is that charges around playing women’s rugby. And heaven be praised that Winston Churchill was such a toxically manly man, for had it not been so, we’d all be speaking German now. Mein Gott!

We don’t. And the dark clouds over Kaliningrad, like all the threats and nonsense leaching out from the G7 Summit, were nothing but storms in a teacup. The only positive outcome for those of us in the West who are rapidly losing faith in ever being blessed again with a real man for prime minister is that Boris kept his trousers on.

And yet, so as not to be accused of having been economical with the truth, I can confirm that a storm did break. After a glorious week of glorious weather, Kaliningrad and its region were suddenly plunged headlong into the most frightful and persistent series of electric storms imaginable.

For three days and as many nights, the firmament’s guts growled flatulently. Sheets of livid light flashed across the sky and, lying there in bed unable to sleep because of it, it was easy to imagine that the entire world was forked ~ forked, that is, with lightning!

Olga was in a right old tizz. To her it was a celestial sign, unequivocal confirmation that her tarot-card readers, crystal-ball gazers, soothsayers and the like, whose predictions she believes implicitly and to whom she refers collectively and in glowing terms as esoterics, whom I call snake-oil salesmen, had got it bang to rights: change was in the air; portentous and tumultuous change; a new bright dawn was coming.

Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions

As strange as it may seem, our normally vocal cat Gin-Ginsky had nothing to say on the matter, or if he did, he was keeping it to himself. He is a rather diplomatic cat. He doesn’t make jokes like Boris Johnson, which means he remains in favour and, unlike Boris Johnson, makes him rather easy to live with.

Considering him to be a little less slim than once he probably was, Ginger, not Boris Johnson, we recently changed his food to a brand called ‘Food for Fat Cats’, as recommended by those in the West who keep their clothes on at G7 Summits.

The word ‘light’ on the packet implies this food has dietary benefit. Ginger seems to love it. He scoffs it twice as fast as he did when eating his former brand and in ever-increasing quantities. Every now and again he will look up from his bowl and fix you with his ginger eyes as if to say, “Fat cat, indeed, I’ll show you!” Perhaps, the meaning of ‘Food for Fat Cats’ is ‘Food to make cats fatter’? I must remember to warn him that if he ever attends a G7 Summit not to take his shirt off!

Those of you who in the West, especially those among you who changed your Arsebook avatars to the colours of the Ukrainian flag and are now ashamed you did but never will admit it, are dying to hear, I know, how badly the sanctions are biting in Kaliningrad. That’s why I mentioned the cat: he’s biting into his grub. But I would be Boris Johnson should I lie and say that the price of cat food has not increased incrementally since the waving of the magic wand of sanctions. What other things have gone up recently (ooerr Mrs)? Have all of us in Kaliningrad been forced to change our diet? Are we all eating cheaper brands of cat food?

I know that an interest in this topic exists because lately a lot of people have been tuning into my post Panic Buying Shelves Empty. I can only presume that this is down to Brits kerb-crawling the internet in search of hopeful signs that western sanctions don’t lack teeth.

Instances exist, I will admit, when we, like our cat, are biting these days into different brand-named foods than those in which we used to sink our gnashers before sanctions were pulled from the hat. The reason being, I suppose, because the brands that we used to buy belong to manufacturers who have been forced into playing Biden’s game, Exodus & Lose Your Money.

Price increases in some food categories have been duly noted. Pheew, what a relief, I hear you say. If this was not the case, then the sanctions’ ideology would be more embarrassing than it already is for leaders of western countries who are ruining their own economies by having introduced them.

Were we talking beer? If we weren’t then, we are now.

With the advent of the sanctions, some beer brands are noticeably absent, although the earlier gaps in shelves have since been filled with different brands from different brewers from different parts of the world. Those brands untouched by sanctimonies, which is to say those that still remain, do reflect a hike in price, but as prices fluctuate wildly here during the best of times, it is simply a matter of shopping around as one always does, sanctions or no sanctions, for products that do not mug your pocket.

So, there in essence you have it. Not from the bought and paid for UK corporate media, agenda-led by globalist moguls, but from an honest-to-goodness sanctioned Englishman reporting from Russia’s Kaliningrad, who is willing to swear on a stack of ale casks, with one hand on his heart and the other on his beer glass, that life in Russia’s exclave under threat and sanctions has changed so little as to be negligibly different to life as it was in the days when sanctions were but an evil twinkle in the eyes of those whose machinations have ultimately let them down.

If you wanted to hear that the sanctions are working, I’m sorry I disappointed you.

References
1. Russia threatened NATO with a “meat grinder” when trying to take Kaliningrad Russian news EN (lenta-ru.translate.goog)
2. https://www.rt.com/russia/558107-putin-boris-johnson-response/

Image attributions
Thunderbolt: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Mr-Thunderbolt-cloud-vector-image/31288.html
Fat man: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/fat-man-clipart_4.htm

Palestine What a State! By the UK in a State!

*The UK in a state recognises a state as a state

Not to understate it too much, but, I say, Sir Kier, is that armada of boats steaming towards the UK from Palestine?

25 September 2025 – Palestine What a State! By the UK in a State!

If you are a liberal lefty, a member of a certain ethnic group embedded in the UK or part of the applaud-everything topsy-turvy left-wing press, you are most likely celebrating Starmer’s decision to recognise Palestine as a state. There are many others, however, which include, not surprisingly, Israel’s Netanyahu, who regard this latest suspect move by Starmer as hoisting up the white flag to terrorists and their aims. ‘Netanyahu slams Starmer as ‘rewarding terrorism’ — The Sun.

Now, see here!
Brits told to be vigilant as boats sail in on tide of terror
Reform Mass Deportation Bill is the Way to Save UK
Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve

Palestine What a State!

The left-wing governments of France, Australia and Canada would argue differently. They are not recognising Palestine as a virtue-signalling gesture to consolidate the leftist vote or to appease ethnic groups of whom they are frightened shitless (it’s much easier to pick on and intimidate ‘unprotected groups’, ie white British); neither are they doing such to win votes in the future from this rapidly expanding ethnic tribe. Their message to the world is, ‘We are doing this for humanity.’ It’s very much the same message as one we are more familiar with: we are standing with Ukraine in the name of sovereign democracy.

Their now follows a small, but significant cough, ‘Ah, hem!’ Not to be confused with Amen, because that’s something in the West that very soon we will not, along with a whole lot of other things, be permitted to say, although now we have started to say what we should have said but didn’t a long, long time ago, of course, we’ll go on saying it.

Here’s a man who knows his onions!

“Britain only recognised Palestine because it is ‘flooded with foreigners’” — Marc Rubio, The Telegraph

My concern is that shortly after Starmer’s announcement, I heard what I thought was an ill wind, or was it the sound of dinghies inflating somewhere in the desert?

Excuse me, Mr Starmer, sir, does your recognition of Palestine mean that we can expect to see in the not-too-distant future a flotilla of refugee boats crammed with Palestinians bearing down on Dover?

Palestine What a State!

Everybody knows what the UK corporate media wants them to know about this momentous conferment, but has anyone asked the terrorists living and thriving in the UK what they make of it all? Are they eternally grateful for the fair play and moral decency exhibited by Keir Starmer and his western cohorts? “What jolly good fellows they are! Time to play the white man!” Or are they much too busy patting each other on their backs for what they regard as a job well done, celebrating the rewards of terrorism, and interpreting Palestine’s new-found statehood as a reassuring sign of weakness, of Starmer and the Labour Government’s willingness to bottle it, back down, capitulate and ultimately surrender?

This toilet roll symbolises Britain going down the pan as we surrender all to mass immigration.

And if perchance this is their reaction, and there’s a good chance that it is, to what extent, I ask myself, has this latest leftist folly empowered and emboldened those who choose the path of terrorism to threaten our existence?

Hang on in there, Britons! It looks like it’s going to get a whole lot worse before it, if ever, gets better.

Thought for the day … and every day from now on
Headline: ‘Sir Sadiq Khan has lashed out at Donald Trump, calling him “racist, sexist, misogynistic and Islamophobic”.’ — GB News

Comment: Apart from saying how original was that (I bet you’ve never heard those words before [lefty in a tantrum]), in this day and age, as things stand and are about to fall in the UK, being called any or all of these things must be treated as a badge of honour, provided they are directed at you by someone who thinks they are liberal, and particularly if that someone is the Mayor of Londistan, Sadiq Khan.

Something to remember
The liberal media is at pains to argue in its defence of Khan and immigration that crime rates in London, although they have increased, are significantly lower than those in most major cities in the U.S. This is a meretricious comparison, because crime rates in US cities have always been significantly higher than in their UK counterparts. If you don’t believe me, ask Al Capone.

The comparison that needs to be made is that of crime rates not only in London but also across the UK in the decade preceding the year 1997, which is the year when that nice Mr Blair opened the floodgates to mass immigration, and the incidence of crime since, and, where London is concerned, the crime rates in the capital before Mr Khan took office and the levels of criminality under his stewardship as mayor of London. It would also be of interest to gain access to official records showing serious crimes committed in London and the UK as a whole, broken down by ethnicity. A similar breakdown of criminal acts committed at public events like rallies, demonstrations and riots based on the same criteria, with an additional reference to political groups, would also be a useful indicator of the direction Britain is going in terms of nationwide law and disorder, although due to political bias and partisan reporting, a statistical record of this type would have questionable validity.

Now here’s a good idea!

US President tells PM to use military to stop the boats – Daily Mail

And now something from Migration Watch Newsletter:

Small Boat Migrants Now Outnumber British Military

The Great God AI tells us:
Migration Watch UK is an independent, non-profit think tank and campaign group founded in 2001 that advocates for lower, more controlled immigration levels in the UK, arguing that current levels are unsustainable and put excessive demand on resources. The organisation conducts research, provides analysis, makes policy recommendations, and engages with the public and policymakers to reduce net migration and ensure it is properly managed.

Here is their website > Migration Watch UK
You can read candid and authoritative news here about Britain’s mass immigration fiasco and sign up for Migration Watch newsletters to keep track of the lunacy as it unfolds and escalates. It may help you to plan your escape!

*Epilogue: The humanitarian motives for recognising Palestine as a state are, of course, quite laudable. However, even though the significance is purely symbolic, it’s how your more-than-average terrorist chooses to interpret the reasons behind the UK government’s actions, and the influence it brings to bear on the terrorist mindset going forward, particularly in its ramifications for future terrorist attacks perpetrated on British soil, that remains the worrying factor.

Image attributions

White feather: https://stockcake.com/i/elegant-white-feather_293405_59625
White Boxer Shorts: http://www.clker.com/cliparts/G/z/X/k/z/1/white-boxer-shorts-hi.png
Flag: http://www.clker.com/clipart-drapeau.html
Toilet roll: https://vectorportal.com/download-vector/roll-of-toilet-paper.ai/23375

Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve

We thought it. Elon Musk said it. He said it at the Unite the Kingdom Rally

21 September 2025 – Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve

The British establishment and its leftist media were clearly stunned by the huge number of British patriots who gathered in London last week to voice disquiet, dismay and disgust at the political elite’s indifference to, or perceived complicity in, the erasure of the UK’s culture by the immigrant tsunami. They were also mortified when Tommy Robinson, recently released from what some have described as Britain’s Gulag, bounced back into the limelight to be joined on stage by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who, guested in by satellite link, warned the British nation in no uncertain terms that their once revered and illustrious country is on the verge of collapse and that every Briton should be prepared for the violence that is coming.

Unite the Kingdom Rally

Unite the Kingdom was without question the largest and the most successful anti-immigrant rally ever to hit Britain’s streets. Both the liberal political elite and their media cronies were caught with their pants down, most likely in the same room.

Usually, over-vocal and brimming with far-right cliches, on this auspicious occasion, the shell-shocked liberal media seemed to be having difficulty in deciding what ammunition to use.

The rally’s composition alone, full of happy, cheerful British folk, including mums and families, many bedecked from head to toe with colourful Union Jacks, and the carnival atmosphere of it all, tossed the media’s only grenade, the one that goes off with a far-right phut, squarely back into the lap of the propaganda arsenal from whence it had been half-heartedly thrown.

A re-arming exercise would take place later, but during the rally’s opening salvos, the biased UK media and London’s leftist hordes were hopping around on a lame back foot.

Naturally, once the crowds had dispersed, it was time for the usual roll call of how many law-enforcement officers had been injured in the line of duty. Correct me if I am mistaken, I think it was 26. (How can anyone do that job, bound and hamstrung as they are by our insufferable climate of woke?!)

Britain’s poor, old, beleaguered bobby
Sympathy where it’s due, please. Unlike our police force of old, today’s police are as much victims of a dysfunctional ideology as the rest of us. They have a very difficult job to do under the cosh and jackboot of woke. The coppers that I have talked to cannot wait for the day when the force becomes a force again instead of being a cross between a public relations bureau and a branch of the social services. The UK police force like the UK education system urgently needs to be rescued from the weed-ridden liberal landscape that Britain has become, pruned downwards from its political top and replanted in unpolluted soil. The police that I have talked to are as desperate for change as you and I.

In the days following the most successful anti-immigration rally in British history, much would be made of the injuries sustained by the boys who were once in blue but who, like most of us in the UK today, would feel considerably safer on Britain’s streets if permanently clad in full body armour.

The injuries that the police sustained at the Unite the Kingdom rally are, of course, deeply regrettable, but they pall into insignificance compared to the year-on-year assaults which occur as regular as clockwork at that vicious, vile, stab-happy fest, the murderous Notting Hill Carnival — the public disorder event of the year, which carries on regardless for reasons that must be obvious to you.

The Villains and the Victorious

The biggest villain at the Unite the Kingdom rally was not the odds on favourites, Tommy Robinson, nor Katie Hopkins, who with customary zeal and vigour delivered to the establishment the kind of resounding kick in the nuts which the establishment having duly received would like to pass on to Elon Musk. Yes, you’ve got it, children, the naughtiest man at the rally was Uncle Elon.

It is, however, one thing, to put the ideological boot into a working-class lad like Tommy Robinson and to threaten and intimidate a woman (although, I, for one, would not want to try to intimidate Katie Hopkins!), but quite another altogether to attempt to muzzle and bring to the liberal heel one of the world’s most prominent figures.

Apart from daring to show his face at a media-proscribed ‘far right’ rally, speak candidly with its attendees and on their terms, understand the fears that bind them and align himself with their noble cause, Elon had the brazen temerity to vocalise in public what every Briton thinks but many are afraid to say — such is the yoke of liberal woke — that racial-religious-leftist violence is coming to Britain’s streets big time and that something like a civil war is imminent.

The UK media were quick to twist the words of Mr Musk, disparaging him for inciting violence, when all he said, in fact, was that given the state of Britain today violence seems inevitable, and when that violence comes all one can do to survive is respond to it in kind. Elon said nothing more than any self-defence instructor tells his practitioners every day: when there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, when your backs against the wall, fight or die are your only options.

Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve

Elon Musk’s prediction of violence coming to Britain because of deep and divisive cultural changes inflicted by mass immigration, in which the UK’s political elite are regarded by some, by many, to be both instigative and supportive, are by no means uncorroborated. In 2023, David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies, published an essay in two parts called Civil War Comes to the West¹. In this disturbing treatise, he identifies mass immigration and the multifaceted cultural malaise derived from its imposition as principal flashpoint factors in the causation of an internal conflict that will be violent, intense, widespread, sustained and tragic.

This is the ‘violence’ that’s on its way as defined by Elon Musk. Nothing more; nothing less. He may have had the balls to say it, but I bet you thought it first.

“Western governments under increasing structural civilisational distress and having squandered their legitimacy are losing the ability to peacefully manage multicultural societies that are terminally fractured by ethnic identity politics. The initial result is an accelerating descent of multiple major cities into marginally ‘feral’ status …” – David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World, King’s College London

“Things are manifestly worsening right now. They are, however, going to get very much worse—I would estimate over not more than five years. That is because of the combination of two other vital factors. The first is the urban versus rural dimension of the coming conflicts which, in turn, is a result of migrant settlement dynamics. Simply put, the major cities are radically more diverse and have a growing mutually hostile political relationship with the country in which they are embedded.” – David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World, King’s College London

A couple discuss on the phone Elon Musk Violence Speech

On 16 September 2025, the headlines screaming from your TV screens, emblazoned across the front of newspapers and cluttering up the internet, when not just parroting the words ‘far right’, were obsessing, touchy-feely-like, about the disconcerting way in which the Unite the Kingdom rally had ricocheted detrimentally like a bullet in a cowboy film across the length and breadth of Britain’s normally happy, fully assimilated, interethnic communities.

A new dramatic word, along the sensational lines of ‘slammed’ and ‘blasted’, entered the liberal media’s lexicon, as PM Starmer proclaimed that the Unite the Kingdom rally had sent a shiver through communities.

Yes, that’s right folks, ‘shiver’.

“Plastic patriots”, said our plastic prime minister, by openly voicing their desire to preserve their country’s cultural integrity [he didn’t say the latter bit] had sent shivers through Britain’s colonised land [he didn’t use the word ‘colonised’]. He also did not state specifically whether this shiver was felt elsewhere or was exclusive to liberal-left circles, including the seat of government.

Sounding more like Captain Mainwaring than he has ever done before, and believe me that’s quite difficult, The Standard cites the plastic PM as saying, through his official spokesman of course (shouldn’t that be his ‘official spokesperson’!) that the words of Mr Musk “threatened ‘violence and intimidation on [the streets of Britain].” Adding, “I don’t think the British public will have any truck with that kind of language.²”

But, Mr Prime Minister, Mr Spokesman and your mealy-mouthed media mouthpiece, that is exactly one of the major issues that the rally was addressing: the violence and intimidation that is already on our streets. It is a language we could well do without, but, alas, it is all around us. It needs to be addressed, now, or has that slipped your notice?

Perhaps what Musk should have said was not that ‘violence is coming’ but that the violence which is already here is going to get a damn sight worse unless something effective is done about it and done about it quickly. Or, he simply could have said, ‘You ‘aint seen nothing yet!’

That same Standard article quotes Mr Miliband, who is Labour’s Energy Secretary (now, he’s doing a grand job, isn’t he!), as winging away on LBC, “Who the hell is this guy?” Ed, if you weren’t referring to Starmer, Elon’s the man whose got more money and more respect than you’ll ever have. Ed went on to say, according to the article, that “Just because you’re a billionaire, it doesn’t give you a right to … tell us how to run our country.”

Well, I hate to be a far-right fly in the liberal left’s hypocritical ointment, but billionaire or no billionaire, he has as much right as anyone else to voice his opinion openly.

We may not have much of one left, but at least we like to go on pretending that we live in a democracy, and that the cornerstone of this pretence is the right to say what we want to say, the strategic erosion of which, in case it escapes your two-tier notice, is another major reason why the Unite the Kingdom rally took place and why it is universally regarded as such a towering success.

It can’t happen here!!!

Now look here, liberal lefties, what is difficult to understand? The comments made by Mr Musk were neither ‘dangerous’ nor ‘inflammatory’; he was not inciting violence; all he did was merely reiterate what Professor David Betz has said, which the Mirror also echoed, that Britain’s ‘feral cities’ are bringing us closer to civil war³.

Readers’ comments at the close of the Mirror’s article hit the proverbial immigrant nail fairly and squarely on its boat-landed head (just a metaphor, you understand; no intention of inciting violence):

Marod June 3, 2025: “It would not be Civil War as it does not fit the description: ‘A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society, or nationality fight against each other for the control of political power’.

Townsrwt June 4, 2025: “Not a civil war. Drugs gangs taking over citys … towns even villages [which will] be like Haiti or parts of South America.”

Let it be known, therefore, that the ‘violence coming to Britain’ will not be a ‘civil war’ but a war to preserve or destroy our culture. Let it be known as a cultural war (er, hypothetically speaking)

Getting back to Starmer’s shiver, whatever fallacious ripple is said to have run through Britain’s communities, it is nothing compared to the seismic tremor caused in recent years by bad political actors and their inadvertent or planned bad management of the immigrant-multicult fiasco. I am sure that legacy Britons shiver with far more credibility at the heinous changes in our society that are turning our towns and cities into worse than third-world no-go areas. I don’t recall a time in my youth of exploding vests and rucksacks, summary knifing and machete attacks, young girls stabbed in community halls, lorries driven into crowds, assaults on police at airports and nationwide grooming paedo gangs conducting rape on an industrial scale whilst those in authority turn their heads and look the other way. This is not the Britain that used to be. It’s not the Britain we want today. It cannot be the future Britain or Britain will have no future.

Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve

I do hope that those of you who have condescended to read this post will not, as the PM’s spokesman said, ‘have any truck with my language’. Whether they come in trucks or by boat, let’s hope and pray they are dealt with swiftly. At present, we cannot stop them from coming, we cannot get them out, but what we can do, and what we do do, is to put them up in expensive hotels and give them free housing and benefits. The far right, who are not far right but every-day, ordinary British folk, are tired of political gimmicks and games that have no hope of succeeding. They no longer buy the Blairist line ‘diversity is good for you’. They know what it is; they’ve got it; most of them wish they hadn’t and would like to turn the clocks back. Enough migrants are more than enough. We don’t want more, full stop.

This is not the time to vote for the parties your fathers and grandfathers voted for; then was then, now is now. Stop the migrant invasion. Save Britain from the hideous future that Elon Musk et al envisage.
Vote Reform and save your country.

References
1. https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/civil-war-comes-to-the-west/ https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/civil-war-comes-to-the-west-part-ii-strategic-realities/
2. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-prime-minister-tommy-robinson-nigel-farage-elon-musk-b1247863.html
3. ‘Military expert gives chilling British ‘civil war’ warning over ‘feral cities’ – Mirror,3 June 2025

Image attributions:
Tug of Door: http://www.clker.com/clipart-520843.html
Cheerful family: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Cheerful-family-saying-goodbye/74068.html
Man on phone: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Man-on-the-phone/71458.html
Woman on phone: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Woman-on-the-phone/41314.html
Boats coming in: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/People-ride-banana-boat/88891.html