Fishdorf Country Guest Complex, Kaliningrad region, Russia
Published: 22 July 2022 ~ A day out at Fishdorf Country Guest Complex
In my last post about Matrosovo, we entered the village together, passing a pretty old German house and some rather malodorous cows (no problem, if like me, you are an afficionado of country smells!) and glancing warily at the high tin fence on the other side of the road, which has something inflatable thrust high above it, we rolled on, on our car wheels, until shortly confronting a T-junction. Here, I took you right; now I take you left.
Before doing so your attention will have been drawn to an interesting feature on your right. There, standing in what I can only imagine in Soviet times was a mown and tended green, but now badly in need of a lawnsman, is a typical example of socialist realism from the collective-identity genre: a statue, striking in colour and pose, of a fisherman and his son.
Small riverside communities such as Matrosovo would once have been greatly reliant upon the role that fishing played in guaranteeing livelihoods, and statues such as these, as well as performing an ideological function, were a way of saying thank you.
Above: Madam, kindly unhand that fisherman!
Across the way, by the side of the river, sits a typical Soviet children’s playground, with all facilities preserved and functioning ~ a marvellous sight to behold ~ and immediately left a municipal building, once the village shop, then and more recently, but now abandoned, the village’s House of Culture.
The road ahead, left at the T-junction, has nothing in common with the road leading into it, except, of course, it is also a road. The dirt-covered rubble track suddenly changes to new block paving, on either side of which stands modern buildings and proper fencing. I mean by proper fencing, not ugly sheets of tin but fences made from real brick piers inlaid with panels of wood, and the buildings that accompany them solid-state buildings of consequence.
A day out at Fishdorf Country Guest Complex
On the right is a restaurant with private carpark, whose grounds lead down to the river’s edge. It has a spacious veranda made of wooden decking and, closer to the waterside, rusticated bench seats with built-in tables for two, purposefully made and conveniently positioned for patrons to sit and gaze idly across the rippling river at the attractive commune of houses nestled on the opposite bank. The perfect place on a hot summer’s day for sitting, staring and eating ice cream.
Next door is an establishment designed for people in mind who do not abide by the maxim that if God had meant for us to swim (or do anything else in or on water), he would have given us gills. Here, all sorts of water-borne craft, including tandem canoes and sapboards, are available for hire, but if it is something bigger that floats your boat, there are always things you can row and even a canopied catamaran that will romp you along the river whilst you sit there for a fee in the smug and requited pose of completely paid-up passenger.
Above: Things to go floating about the river on
The establishment next door to the establishment next door is presently under construction. Perhaps it will be a bingo hall, or am I thinking Hunstanton? But next door to that, looking handsome, refined and sophisticated (Shame on you, you thought I was going to say me!), stands the eminently functional Fishdorf restaurant, which is almost immediately across the road from its namesake the Fishdorf Hotel.
Above: The self-explanatory Fishdorf Restaurant
Both buildings, the restaurant and hotel, are built in a charming, modern, East Prussian style. The Fishdorf restaurant boasts extended eaves, half-timber decoration, ‘distressed’ brickwork and lots of natural wood embellishments. The main building, the Fishdorf Hotel, is distinguished by the presence of a giant illustration on its gable end of a fisherman of old, suitably endowed with clay pipe, neckerchief, a pair of rolled-up wellies and carrying a whopping great fish. The ‘aged’ brickwork around the doors and windows, which cut a dashing contrast with the white and textured walls, is another memorable Fishdorf signature.
At the side of the hotel and prior to its reception area there is a large rolling gate, which would appear to conceal the hotel carpark, but in fact conceals a whole lot more. A suitable cliché at this point would be that it opens onto another world, the pertinence of which can be better understood by recourse to my previous post regarding Matrosovo village. For this particular roller gate does not just give access to the hotel carpark but access to the surprisingly ‘off the beaten track’, and all the more astounding for it, Fishdorf recreation park or, to revert to its official name, as noted on its website, the Country Guest Complex Fishdorf.
A family-oriented retreat
In trying to describe what Fishdorf is, apart from and in addition to a hotel and a restaurant, I run shy from using a word like ‘complex’, although Fishdorf use it themselves. I hesitate to use this word for fear of evoking impressions of spirographical mental states and complicated things devised from cold mathematical precision, since Fishdorf’s realm of influence is rooted in the natural world and the only precision one can accuse it of is the skilful manner in which its grounds and facilities have been mapped out to produce a certain appealing something that respectively lies between the ordered elegance and intrinsic sublimity of the formal and natural garden.
So, how does one sum up Fishdorf? What shall we say it is, exactly? We could try: A family-oriented retreat, secluded and steeped in nature, combining the best in formal and natural landscaping, where both guests and day visitors alike can enjoy a variety of outside leisure pursuits and other diverse recreations. Yes, I think I can live with that.
Fishdorf park
The extensive area that the park takes in is designed around two large and interconnecting ponds (don’t think village ponds, think lakes!), stocked with extroverts ~ both fish and frogs ~ which are either leaping out of the water and going splosh at regular intervals or putting in guest appearances and going croak whilst sitting on leaves. (I’ll leave you to work out which one is doing which.). At the centre of these two ponds, dividing it geometrically, is a pretty, single-span bridge of the arched, romantic kind, and around the ponds on every side the lawns trimmed to perfection are sprinkled with plants, shrubs, bushes and trees, intersected by meandering pathways and punctuated with globe lights.
Already you should detect that Fishdorf is an environment in which Mother Nature is everywhere and everywhere in excelsior. She graciuosly presides over a spacious open-air schema where wood is what it always is, versatile and wonderful, and used in so many different and in so many more inventive ways.
Above: Mick Hart on a garden swing ~ wood you believe it!
A day out at Fishdorf for lovers of wood
Garden swings with bench seats hewn out of solid tree trunks, their frameworks assembled from the curving boughs of trees, are studied by wooden toadstools peeping out of the long, trained grass, each stem of each toadstool carved with faces from folklore. Dotted here and there and sometimes assembled in communes, the alternative answer to a hotel room takes the form of standalone chalets, attractive little retreats successfully given the log-cabin treatment. To ensure exclusivity is complemented by privacy, rustic fencing, skilfully put together by weaving tall, thin, branches into a vertical plane and by using slightly thicker branches for horizontal stabilisation, screens and beautifies in one fell swoop.
Above: Cabins well-appointed
Above: Picturesque log-cabin accommodation
The visual affect is so thoroughly pleasing that you make a mental note that when you get home you’ll build one yourself and you’ll also include the wood-panelled gates, as you rather like the serpentine arch and find the naïve motifs with which the gates are illustrated seductively quaint, cute and engaging, perceiving something in them, indeed in the whole composition, that you faintly recognise long ago as lying between the covers of the books that you read in your childhood.
A day out at Fishdorf Country Guest Complex
By the side of a nearby pond, much smaller and more secluded than the two that share the bridge, an open-ended gazebo beckons. Unsullied by professionalism, or clever and artful in this suggestion, the wood used in its making looks as though it could have been cut and taken from the forest nearby and then brought together to form the function that it now fulfils using nothing but an artisan’s eye and the skills of one of those men of whom we have heard it said, much too often for comfort, ‘he can turn his hand to anything’ ~ don’t you just love such people!
In the same vicinity as the log gazebo an elongated wooden barrel, big enough to get inside, makes me think of Beer. But this is no beer barrel, mores the pity. It is in fact a barrel-shaped sauna in which, if you like it steamy, you can tarry at your leisure, perhaps between gruelling sessions swinging around on the tennis courts or charging about on the football pitches, which are visible from this point on the other side of the lawn.
If I was sauna inclined, which I am not, I would have jumped into the barrel and sweated it out, but I didn’t. However, had I for once been less than predictable, at least in matters like these, the incident may have passed without comment, considering that minutes before, estranging herself from maturity, Olga had shown little restraint in hopping inside a funnel-shaped object, made, of course, from wood, and holding a twig-ended broomstick retained by this odd receptacle, declared herself to be that infamous mythical figure from the annals of Russian folklore, Baba Yaga, the witch. Had my name been Bernard Manning, the impetuosity of this performance would not have left me stuck for words, but I decided not to become him today presuming for my impertinence that the broomstick could take off in a hurry and could get stuck right up … in the clouds.
Above: Olga Hart on her broomstick
One thing I can say is that I never knew until I came to Fishdorf how hungry wood could make you, and it had the same effect upon me. Whilst I presume that Fishdorf’s salient restaurant is the one across the road from the Fishdorf Hotel, on the other side of the roller gate, within the grounds of the park itself there is a second restaurant, plus a cafeteria à la carte, the latter cunningly equipped with a canopy-covered dining area designed to outwit the weather should it begin to act unseasonable.
It was here, overlooking a neat and expansive lawn, that I had my mid-morning snack and (sssh, please don’t tell anybody) an alcohol-free beer ~ well it was an extremely warm day and even though the sun was considerably over the yard arm … but why should I explain to you?!
Above: Non-alcohol beer on a hot day
For those who like it hot, and may or may not have issues drinking beer that is alcohol free, Fishdorf has extensive sauna and various hot bath facilities. For those who like to chill out, it has a combined poolside and children’s recreation area, where adults can recline on the recliners meant for reclining on and children can amuse themselves by flying up and down on any one of a number of colourful bouncy castles or for higher and more exciting plunges take a turn or two on the stupendous Aqua Park waterchute. (You may recall, gentle reader, my mentioning of something large and inflatable towering over a tall metal fence in my previous post on Matrosovo village; was this the item in question? Indeed, the very same.)
Above: Very large, indeed
As a river runs through it, the village of Matrosovo that is, there are any number of ways that a person can take to the water but, if like me, the only volume of water that you can cope with comfortably is enough to balance your whisky glass, you could do considerably worse than book yourselves a table on Fishdorf’s riverside dining area, which I believe is part of the restaurant ‘Cheshuya’, as described on Fishdorf’s website.
Country Guest Complex Fishdorf
Here, when all around you are clamouring to live the life of a fish, you can annoy your company by saying ‘I don’t do water myself’, and then watch from the comfort of your riverside table them doing something that you don’t do whilst you do something you do: I have it on good authority ~ the best authority, my own ~ that Cheshuya serves a very nice pint. So, let’s have a toast to the Fishdorf restaurant, one to the Country Guest Complex Fishdorf and also, whilst we’re at it, to Matrosovo itself.
Essential details:
Country Guest Complex ‘Fishdorf’ 238634, Kaliningrad Region, Polessky District, Matrosovo Village, 21 Levoberezhnaya Street
Room tariffs (Details can be found on Fishdorf’s website)
Prices per day vary according to the type and location of the accommodation required, which includes traditional hotel rooms, chalets and buildings capable of occupying multiple numbers of guests.
Services A full and detailed breakdown of costs for all amenities offered at the park both for residential guests and day visitors can be found on the park’s website. These include: Spa, Bath & Aqua Zone; River Vehicles (Kayak, Canoe, Catamaran, Boat, Sapboard); Adult and Children’s Bikes; Games (Virtual Reality & Air Hockey); Children’s Vehicular Amusements (eg, Electric Car, Electric Scooter); Fishing Permits and Bait; Gazebos (priced according to size and location).
Restaurants There are two restaurants listed on the website, Restaurant ‘Gans & Beer’ and Cheshuya Restaurant. The first has a banquet hall that will accommodate 150 people; the second can hold 45 people and is well-appointed with a veranda overlooking the river.
The menu is available through the park’s website.
Entertainment The many and varied entertainments offered at the park are covered on its website, including the Aqua Park, The Club (which has billiard and pool tables); the Bath Barrel Sauna, etc. For comprehensive details, see the park’s website.
Matrosovo Village Matrososvo village, charming and sequestered, nestles beside Matrosovka River. It is also the astutely chosen location of the Country Guest Complex ‘Fishdorf’.
Angel Park Hotel The Angel Park Hotel, Kaliningrad region, is a gift from the people of its past, an unaffected rural retreat that breathes new life into a timeless realm where history and the natural landscape flow together like the rivers that run through it.
Zalivino Lightouse The restored lighthouse on the shore of the Curonian Lagoon is a singular maritime experience. Imagine what life was like as a lighthouse keeper in the early twentieth century and enjoy the coastal views from the lighthouse lamp room and platform.
Fort Dönhoff Fort XI (Fort Dönhoff) is one of Königsberg’s 19th century fortresses, part of the former city’s monolithic defence system. Vast, intricate and painstakingly restored, it is a must for anyone fascinated by military history generally and by Königsberg specifically.
Polessk Brewery Lovingly restored, Polessk Brewery is one of the region’s historic treasures. Even if you are not a beer fanatic (is their such a specimen?) you cannot help but be enthralled by the neoGothic architecture and the German and Soviet timeline of this splendid and remarkable edifice.
On the third anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death
Published: 18 July 2022 ~ Remembering Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Königsberg
Photograph: Victor Ryabinin seated on the right at the far end of the table
On 30th June this year, the thought occurred to me that three years ago to this date in less than four weeks we would be deprived of one of the most significant people in our lives.
On this, the third anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death, I have rescued from my photo archives an image for this post that was taken in a Kaliningrad restaurant shortly after I moved to Kaliningrad in the winter of 2018.
This restaurant, situated below ground level not far from the Kaliningrad Hotel, had become a popular haunt of Victor’s and his inner circle, his coterie of friends and fellow artists, not purely for its Soviet theme, although this coalesced perfectly with Victor’s love of history, but also for the very practical and very reasonable reason that the food was affordably priced and, more importantly, it was one of those rapidly fading establishments where customers were permitted to bring their own alcohol with them.
In the intervening period between my last visit to Kaliningrad and my return in 2018, a revolution had occurred, not arguably of the magnitude and life-changing tempestuousness as that experienced in Russia in the early years of the twentieth century but nevertheless in drinking circles on the scale of one to 10 somewhere close to 11: Victor and his clan had largely renounced the drinking of vodka and taken to cognac instead.
In the last few months of Victor’s life, and our association with him, the new trend was so evidently established that whenever we would meet, I would refer to those occasions as a meeting of The Cognac Club.
Remembering Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Königsberg
Sadly, not only is Victor no longer with us, but the old haunt, the Soviet café, has also vanished from our living timeline.
For as much as it appealed to me, I am not entirely sorry that the cafe has ceased to exist. Knowing me and memories, it would have been all too tempting to return there and try to close the gap between what once was and nevermore can be. Life, as we grow older, is full of half-way houses where we hope one day we might meet again and mausoleums where if we do at least we won’t be alone, even if none of us know it.
The photograph I have used for this post was taken in the Soviet café at a time before we knew what it would eventually come to mean for us. Not every grain can be counted or heard as the sand runs down in the hour glass. Victor Ryabinin passed away a few months after this photograph was taken.
The memories you painted, all are good my friend …
or how we got there and how interesting it was when we did
Published: 11 July 2022 ~ On the Polessk Canal Road to Matrosovo Kaliningrad
Out on the single-track road that runs along the canal from Polessk to wherever it was we were heading, there’s a sense of going somewhere, which is good enough in itself. The canal, which links the rivers Deyma and Nemunas, provides a mostly parallel route to that place where, when we eventually got out of the car, I would call our destination.
The narrow road, no doubt constructed on the canal’s one-time tow path, is a cambersome experience, dipping, rolling and bowling along. The route takes in vast tracts of overgrown land which, at this time of year, is fifty shades of green, or even more, across and through which the Polessk Canal holds a straight and steady course.
Dotted along both sides of this sweeping tract of water, stand, in varying degrees of stability, old German cottages, typically composed as single-storey abodes but with attic space more than sufficient for filling up with all sorts of things.
On the Polessk Canal road to Matrosovo Kaliningrad
The canal road is like all roads of this nature, unambiguously elevated, and often the humble cottages built on the opposite bank to the water’s edge lie at a lower level. Those homes that abut the road are so close to it that an occupant stepping outside could in any unguarded moment find themselves swept away or knocked for six by a passing vehicle. The cottages in the hollow, in the cut below the bank, are exempt from this particular problem but arguably not from others; they can be so tightly sandwiched against the edge of the road that their windows are nearly contiguous.
They made stout hinges those Germans did!
At this time of year, the trees, wild bushes and virile foliage are so profusely laden with leaves ~ embracing, entwining and intimately enmeshed ~ that the houses seem to lose their way. It is not unusual, for example, to see entire portions of house appropriated by nature, swallowed up by all manner of creeping and climbing plants, whilst small trees and saplings jostling for space in front of the windows lead one to conclude that for all its idyllic rusticity subtract the picturesque and what you are probably left with is a multitude of sins, ranging from light-deprived interiors to issues with rising damp.
For the traveller, however, bouncing and bounding along without a care in the world, such phenomena, where they may or conversely may not exist, are of little or trifling consequence. One of the joys of travelling this road by car is that the presence of such houses often makes themselves known to you when you least expect them. The point at which two walls meet (the right angle of a cottage) can lean out from the natural shrubbery where nothing is, or seemed to be, only a moment before, followed quickly by a gable end and then the building in its entirety; only sometimes it does not, as you see as much and no more as the foliage permits.
A good many of these cottages are in states of disrepair that border on amazing qualities of things that refuse to fall down, their ability to remain standing testifying to construction techniques of old, where the need for durability and ‘everlasting’ strength are indubitably all that they should be.
The unifying deterioration is one, however, that could be remedied without considerable outlay, this is to say where painted walls have turned blotchy and brown with age and in some places on higher and lower planes where the substrate screed has fallen away, leaving irregular patches of brickwork exposed to view and the elements. In some instances, however, the pan-tiled or asbestos roofs have given up the ghost: rafters have resigned and the lot has sunk and plummeted inwards. This is not to say the ‘whole lot’. Indeed, the greater proportion of any one structure may have generally held its own against the concerted depletions inflicted by time, weathering, neglect and despair, thus rendering what remains if not exactly practicable to live in notwithstanding liveable.
As this condition is one that marks the fate of detached premises, you can imagine how much more acute the situation can be with regard to the semi-detached, where one half is maintained and the other lies forgotten, even to the extent of appearing, or actually being, abandoned. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish which of the two applies.
An old German barn with some signs of ageing and later additions
We travelled the canal route twice over one weekend, enabling me to get a closer look at two buildings in particular. One, a property with torn sheets of polythene flapping from collapsed windows, surrounded by blistered brick and flaking woodwork and bound by a garden resembling that of my friend’s garden back in Bedfordshire, only revealed its occupied status when on the second day of passing a venerable old rustic gentleman, swarthy faced and of matted grey beard, pausing conveniently at his rusting gate to gawp at the awesome sight of a motorised carriage with us tearing past in it, inclined us to believe that here indeed was the owner.
The second of the two buildings that prompted further attention was one which did so on account of its size and shape and also in possessing something more substantial and aesthetic in its character. I stop short of pronouncing it grand, speculating that it may once have been a school or chapel, its cruciform outline and the series of arches framing its entrance suggestive of civic importance and lending to it an air that asserted a presence more commanding than most.
One suspects that the majority of the buildings that I have described are hand-me-downs from the Soviet era, gifted on by folk who had been given them themselves by power of the authorities after Königsberg and its outlying region fell in World War II; in other words, they are family homes passing along and down the generational chain.
Houses that overlook the canal do so from large picture windows and some from the envy-making platforms of dark-wood fretwork balconies
Of course, the picture that I have painted is only one half of the canvas. Although they would be considerably less shiny and new, considerably less conspicuous should they exist in a hypothetical exclusivity created by the absence of their impoverished German neighbours, accomplished restoration projects and executive-status mouth-watering newbuilds share the same verdant space along the quiet, sleepy, secluded banks of this reclusive strip of water.
Kempt and curated, the freshly seeded lawns, attractive outbuildings and accessory dwellings blend neatly with the master home, offering tantalising glimpses into near perfection. Houses that overlook the canal do so from large picture windows and some from the envy-making platforms of dark-wood fretwork balconies, and always these and lesser properties whose gardens touch the canal have a jetty of some description and a motorboat moored nearby.
Such houses stand out like a sign saying, “See what you can do, if you’ve got the lolly!” Let’s take a break and put that idea to music: Dr Feelgood As long as the price is right. “If you’ve got no bread, you’re as good as dead”; “If you’ve got no loot, you just can’t shoot”; “If you’ve got no cash, then you’ve gotta dash”.
Off to Matrosovo in the Kaliningrad region
At the risk or repeating myself, I will say again that out on the single road that runs along the canal from Polessk to wherever it was we were heading, there’s a sense of going somewhere, which is good enough in itself. I suppose it is a fait accompli that sooner or later the canal veers off and that when it does it takes with it the narrow track that was originally its in the first place.
The road continues, but now is wide enough to accommodate oncoming traffic with ease. The wheels dip and the suspension rocks across the slightly less than level tarmacadam but soon rumble and jog respectively as the relative smoothness is abruptly replaced by sequential concrete sections. This type of construction always puts me in mind of a certain approach road that may still exist, and which was certainly there in the 1970s, on the way to Norwich, although in this geographical neck of the woods a road consisting of concrete slabs would, I guess, have been laid back in Soviet times.
I cannot remember exactly whether the road changed before or after we crossed a broad sweep of rapid rippling water, which I presume is the Deyma River, but there is no forgetting the bridge. It is a heavy metal-plate affair, with the ability to pivot on a mechanical mechanism. Lower than the road it services, when vehicles pass over the access slope it throws them slightly off-balance producing at the same time a mildly alarming clunkety-clank, likewise at the opposite end when leaving. The bridge appears to be solid enough but could do with a coat of paint.
On and on and on and on and then hoving into view is the signpost for Matrosovo. So, could this be where we were going and had we now arrived?
Matrosovo Kaliningrad region
On entering the village Matrosovo to the right you will see a quite substantial, attractive German house. It has been professionally reroofed using either terracotta tiles or their modern metal equivalent. The gable end, the end that faces the road, has a chevroned woodwork finish, and the house stands in its own grounds amidst a very nice cottage garden. Just beyond it, by the side of a silted brook, is something rather more down to earth, meaning decidedly earthy. A patch of ground, grazed relentlessly into dust is home to some rather whiffy cows and chickens as well as the paraphernalia required for sustaining them, such as wooden shacks full of hay and, scattered about in no particular order, various metal feeding troughs, buckets and the like. Suddenly I was young again, back on the farm in my youth!
On the whole, Matrosovo village has stood the test of time.
And now for something completely different; for across the road from this veritable Ponderosa looms an abnormally high metal fence and poking out above it is a rare, colourful if not grotesque very large plastic what-have-you ~ an inflatable how’s your father? It most resembles a bouncy castle but if that is what it is, it must have been made for giants. Moving on, as we were, we can discuss this curious contraption and other astonishing Matrosovo things at a later and more convenient date in my follow-up post on Matrosovo Park.
The road, that by now has turned into a dusty hardcore track, wends along a little until it meets a junction. Here you have a choice, which is either left or right, as before you lies the wide, the deep and the rather fast-flowing Matrosovka River, the mouth of the Neman River, destination Curonian Lagoon.
There are such a lot of waterways, rivers and the like, criss-crossing in these here parts that it is hard to determine who is which, but if at this point in my post you were to drive straight on the name of the river would matter less than the sound of going plop and feeling incredibly wet.
Avoiding this fate by turning right we followed a twisting hardcore lane with buildings on either side; this comprising the greater part of Matrosovo village, a village that instinctively feels like one with a genuine East Prussian heritage. (You have no idea what one of them feels like? Then you have to visit Matrosovo.)
Into Matrosovo
On the whole, Matrosovo village has stood the test of time. Yes, there are modern renovations of older buildings that could have been more sensitively restored in order to vouchsafe original features as well as newbuilds recently landed from the planet Super Affluent, but by and large along this meandering lane the houses of Matrosovo have managed to escape the worst excesses of insensitivity during periods when conservation was as alien a concept as ridiculous things like women prime ministers.
Matrosovo Kaliningrad region
The German cottages of Matrosovo are predominantly wooden-clad structures. Detached or semi-detached each possesses bilateral features and a sense of uniformity in the relative space that they occupy, both vertically and horizontally, with one or two exceptions. Some are super-simple, standard pitched-roof jobs, their longest dimension aligned with the road but can be gable-end facing, a not unusual arrangement, in fact typical in this region but inversely so in England. Others, a little more posh, have a large, pitched dormer-style window intersecting geometrically, which, in the semi-detached variation, is the dividing point between the two properties.
Not all of the houses in Matrosovo conform to the wooden-clad principle, but plank cladding is certainly prevalent. Where it is employed, it is usual for the cladding to stand proud along the upper portion of these buildings, sometimes with no embellishment, in other words it starts as a plank and ends that way, but others are pointed, like the upturned staves of a traditional picket fence, or even nicely rounded so as to form a decorative apron.
Wooden cladding with ‘pie crust’ finish
Hardly any of these domiciles, whether partly hidden behind the trees or exposed to view, have escaped the make-do-and-mend and aesthetic-free philosophy of Soviet DIYers, who during the era of their tenure thought nothing of tacking a porch on here or amending a section of pan-tiled roofing there, usually from the loan of a ubiquitous piece of asbestos or by recourse to any number of unremarkable materials but admittedly novel techniques that may have conceivably rectified but certainly not improved, and yet when they are beheld today cannot fail to gratify with their touches of eccentricity and unique dedications to social history.
A number of these establishments are still endowed, if only just, with their original German barns. Here, in the former province of East Prussia, German barns can be as big as their imperialist ego or as small as there … (please send your answer to Mick Hart on a postcard). In Matrosovo, they are generally, and may I say delightfully, less alpha in their bearing, but notwithsatnding no less endowed with the universal characteristics of the whoppers you find elsewhere.
Former East Prussian German barns are built on the following principles: The lower parameters are composed of red brick, which make them solid, sturdy and handsome to say the least, but the upper sections are made of wood, simple wooden planks nailed to a framework of beams and supports. The roofs, which are pan-tiled, are heavy and seem to press down forcibly, much to the detriment of the load-bearing structure beneath, causing the wooden mass to assume a splayed or bowed effect. But without wishing to delve too deeply into principals of design that are better left to the experts or for you to research at your leisure (I shall be asking questions, later, children) a revisionary approach implies that perhaps these barns are made this way to spread the load as needed.
A buckling barn of typical German construction
If so, time, neglect and Soviet hap-hazardry has tested them to the limit. Many have succumbed to various states of collapse ~ roofs stoved inward, walls buckling, bits missing, doors as unhinged as Justin Turdeau, and even when this is not the rule but rather the exception, proletariat bodgery is written on almost every surviving quarter like a vandalistic antecedent to the gunge that liberals delude themselves is ‘street art’ but those who live in the real world routinely condemn as graffiti.
Notwithstanding, the buckling barns of imperialist Germany are inspirational remnant art-forms from the hands of Father Time meant to give living artists something bold to emulate. They are a concomitant of hieroglyphics each one firmly rooted in its era, each with a story to tell for those who know how to read them. And what they may have ceased to be from a utilitarian standpoint they more than make up for in visual delight and empathising Romanticism.
Matrosovo Kaliningrad region on the Deyma River
Along the side of the village riverbank, at the back of the houses and land adjoining, old boats can be found, some which with their happy occupants would have come whistling in to dock many years before but, for reasons we may never know, have whistled nowhere since. Lamentably becalmed, strangled by waterside plants and the encroaching branches of trees, their fading blue and yellow paintworks (they are invariably blue or yellow) and weather-cracked mouldering windscreens project on the first encounter a sad and silly impression. Wanted once, will they ever be wanted again? There they sit, like single mums abandonned (even bereft of benefits), dull and dowdy, water-logged, without engine and nowhere to go. No matter where in the world you trek, be it by river or sea, rest assured you will always find that old boat sitting somewhere: becalmed, sad, no longer needed, possibly taking in water, largely forlorn, resolutely forgotten.
Up the garden path
Gardens, unlike boats, are not so easily forgotten but, like most things known to man, you can either devote your life to them or live your life and let them live theirs. In Matrosovo both philosophies and the nuances that derive from them are open to conjecture. It all depends on how you like your gardens: traditional, cottage, formal, pre-planned, secret, maintained, natural, exotic or simply not at all. They are all here in Matrosovo.
Lovely wooden shutters and a nice garden
Reconditioned and new houses tend to go for reconditioned and new gardens. Many contain supplementary/ancillary buildings and seem to go on forever. They remind me of our cat: they have been tended, pampered, revitalised, put down to new grass (even our cat has grass) and may contain a pond or two or a stream that runs gently through them embroidered by trees large and mature that attest to a natural border. (My word, that’s some cat you’ve got there, Mick!)
Yet Spick and Span is but one short band on the overall garden spectrum. Others have become repositories of overspill modernity, among which, and noticeably, is the human compulsion not to recycle when one can simply discard. Old tin buckets, fridges, enamel bowls and any number of garden implements and ornamental wares that have ceased for some reason or other to provide either the useful or novelty value for which they were intended, peep sleepily out from behind clumps of yellow dandelions, play hide and seek in the long wild grass or prop themselves up wearily against the separating sides and quiescent, weed-fringed borders of geriatric sheds that have seen it all and more and may just go on seeing it when we have long since gone.
Heaven forbid, however, that you would find anything of this nature in the exalted gardens of immaculate conception. But don’t worry; it does forbid. Not that the shuffling, folding, falling sheds complain. Like old folks that have been leaving home since the day that they were born but never got further than the garden gate and will never go anywhere now, except in one direction, they belong to a realm of static contentment upon which no amount of the present has neither the will nor authority to intrude.
On a hotter than usual summer’s day this then is the village of Matrosovo, offering all that the senses could wish for ~ a time-honoured rustic seclusiveness on the balmy banks of the Matrosovka River.
Next up: Would you Adam and Eve It ~ the contrast on the other side of the village! (Wait a mo, I’ve yet to write it …)
Updated: 8 July 2022 ~ First published: 8 July 2020 ~ Family, Love and Loyalty in Russia
On 28 June 2022, it was reported that President Vladimir Putin signed a decree officially establishing 8 July as the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity. The day is devoted to the preservation of traditional family values and encompasses the spiritual and moral education of Russia’s children and teenagers.
Each year, on 8 July, Russia celebrates family, love and loyalty. The celebration coincides with an ancient Orthodox holiday dating back almost 800 years, which is devoted to the saints Pyotr and Fevronia, who became symbols of devotion and family harmony.
Various events are held throughout Russia to mark the occasion. Cultural institutions, such as museums and libraries, run special programmes, which include lectures and thematic exhibitions. Interactive activities range from learning how to paint souvenirs to participating in yoga classes and, in the larger cities, concerts and firework displays are held. Medals for love and loyalty are awarded to those families whose marriages exemplify love, strength, devotion and family unity. Whatever the character or the scale of the event each embodies the same belief, which is that individual and societal stability, their moral and spiritual foundation, are inextricably linked to the conservation and promotion of traditional family values.
Family, Love and Loyalty in Russia
As a token of today’s emphasis on family, love and harmony, our neighbours left us a gift on the window sill this morning: chamomile flowers, which, according to the ancient tradition, represent innocence and fidelity, along with other garden produce of a more physically sustaining nature ~ which I was pleased to have with my dinner!
Whilst I can safely say that in the UK traditional family values share something in common with the Invisible Man (sorry, person), take heart! ~ in the UK we do celebrate International Women’s Day (from a purely feminist angle, mind), are tickled pink during Gay Pride Month and, oops, how could I possibly forget, Black Lives Matter. Time do you think, for a rethink?
Published: 3 July 2022 ~ Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions
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 else 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 say with any semblance of sincerity that, as the shadow slowly dispersed, the Kaliningrad populace breathed a sigh of relief for, quite frankly, and with no flippancy intended but wanting as always to tell it how it is, nobody ~ at least nobody that I am acquainted with ~ seemed to give a fig.
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 ascribe it to, if the residents of Kaliningrad were supposed to feel afraid, it didn’t happen.
Perhaps it was because we were all too busy laughing at Boris Johnson’s jokes, the ones about the situation in Ukraine never occurring had Vladimir Putin been a woman, which, Boris woked, was “the perfect example of toxic masculinity’ (By the way, what is the definition of non-toxic masculinity? Is it where you rove around without your pants on having painted your gonads rainbow colours? Or when go into hiding like President Turdeau whenever you hear a trucker’s horn?) and his suggestion at the G7 Summit that the leaders of the ‘free’ world (free with every packet of neoliberal dictatorship) should take off their clothes to equal the manliness of Vladimir Putin, to which Mr Putin replied, and I think this is something we can all agree on, “I don’t know how they wanted to undress, waist-high or not, but I think it would be a disgusting sight either way.”2 Er, I assume that Boris was joking ~ wasn’t he? ~ and joking on both accounts?
Alack-a-day if he wasn’t, they just might be some of the most stupid things he has ever said. That’s a close call, because occasionally, but very seldomly and most likely accidentally, Boris can say things that make some sense, not much and not often, but it does happen, which is more than can be said for anyone in the Labour party ~ or about any and all of their supporters. But you must admit, Boris, that the things you are blurting out of late do have a rather silly public schoolboy wheeze about them. Were you the President of the United States at least you could plead senility or, failing that, insanity. But beware! Keep on behaving like this and you’ll make yourself the perfect candidate for filling Biden’s boots when Biden’s booted out.
I suppose we should all just take a step backwards and feel thankful that in the pre-bender-gender days of Winston Churchill, the great man himself was endowed with more than his fair share of so-called ‘toxic masculinity’, had he not been, we’d all be speaking German now. Mein Gott!
We don’t. And the storm over Kaliningrad and the storm in a teacup, the G7 Summit, both failed in their endeavours.
Actually, I have been rather parsimonious with the truth, I mean about the storm in Kaliningrad. It did break and when it did, it surprised everyone. After a glorious week of sun, sand and sea weather, Kaliningrad and its region were suddenly plunged into the most frightful and persistent series of electric storms that I have ever experienced.
For three days and nights, the firmament’s guts growled, sheets of livid light flashed across the sky, and lying there in bed listening to it, as we didn’t have much choice, it was easy to imagine that the entire world was forked ~ forked with lightning!
Olga was in a right old tizz. To her it was a celestial sign, a sign that her tarot-card readers and crystal-ball gazers, whose predictions she believes implicitly and to whom she refers collectively as the esoterics, and whom I call snake-oil salesmen, had got it right: change was in the air, tumultuous change. This was the start, the new beginning, the tip of the dawn of a different world. As strange as it may seem, Gin-Ginsky our cat did not appear to have any opinion on it at all, or, if he did, he was saying nothing. He is a very diplomatic cat. He might also be a very crafty cat.
Considering him to be a little less slim than he used to be, Olga recently changed his food to a product branded ‘Food for Fat Cats’. This and the use of the word ‘light’ on the packet obviously implying dietary benefit. Our cat Ginger loves it. He scoffs it twice as fast as his usual food and in ever-increasing quantities. Every now and again he will look up from his bowl between mouth fulls and fix you with his ginger eyes as if to say, “I’ll show you!” Perhaps, the ‘Food for Fat Cats’ tag line is meant to read ‘Food to make cats fatter’? I must remember to warn him, if he ever attends a G7 Summit, not to take his shirt off!
Those of you who in the West, especially those of you who changed your avatars and are now ashamed you did so (but will never admit to it!), are dying to hear, I know, how badly the sanctions are biting here in Kaliningrad. That’s why I mentioned the cat: he’s biting his grub. But I would be Boris Johnson should I say that the price of cat’s grub has not gone up. But what other things have gone up (ooerr Mrs!), or are we all eating cheaper brands of cat food?
I know that an interest in this 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 net in search of hopeful signs that western sanctions are starting to bite. In a couple of instances, we, like our cat, are biting into different brand-named foods than those we used to sink our gnashers into, the reason being, I suppose, because the brands that we used to buy belong to manufacturers who have been forced into playing Biden’s spite-your-nose game: Exodus & Lose Your Money. Also, in some food categories, price increases have been noted. Pheew, what a relief. If these concessions did not exist then the whole sanctions escapade 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 about beer? Well, we are now. Some beer brands are absent, although the earlier gaps in shelves have since been filled with different brands from different companies and from different parts of the world. Those that are not the victims of sanctimonies, which is to say those that still remain, do reflect a hike in price, but as prices fluctuate wildly here at the best of times it is simply a matter of shopping around as usual.
So, there you have it. Not from the bought and paid for UK corporate media and their agenda-led moguls but from a sanctioned Englishman living in Kaliningrad, Russia, who is willing to swear on a stack of real-ale casks, honestly, one hand on heart and the other on his beer glass, that life in Kaliningrad under threat and sanctions has changed so little as to be negligibly different to life as it was in the days of pre-sanctioned Kaliningrad.
If I have disappointed your expectations, I’m sorry.
Note: Many thanks to Mr … er, I think his name was Mr Sober, who wrote to inform me that the bottle photographs originally included in this post bore no connection whatsoever to the beer that I was writing about. What better recommendation for Lidskae Staryi Zamak beer could you ask for!
Needing an excuse to drink beer is not an affliction from which I personally suffer, but with all these articles in the UK media obsessing on the possibility of WWIII and nuclear strikes, I thought it would be prudent of me to take cover in my local shop and dodging incoming sanctions come out with a bottle of beer, or two.
Leonard Cohen named his valedictory album, You want it darker. But I didn’t. I was looking for a light beer, which is to say a light-in-colour beer. The strength was of no importance, but I did want something with taste.
Having enjoyed the Belarus-brewed beer Lidskae Aksamitnae, I opted to try the light version, Lidskae Staryi Zamak. If I had wanted a strong beer, I would not have been disappointed, as Staryi Zamak weighs in at an impressive 6.2%, which is higher in alcohol content than its ‘black as the ace of spades’ brother.
They tell me that this is a bottom fermenting beer, which could mean different things to different people, but for beer afficionados and brewing types, this information has important implications, which neither you nor I will dwell on because we are far too busy taking off the bottle top and smelling.
“Hello, is that Nose?”
“Hello, Nose here.”
“Tell me Nose, what do you detect?”
“Beer!”
“Yes, well, that’s a good start. Anything else?”
“It’s pungent …”
“Still talking about the beer?”
“Yes. No, wait a minute, it’s grainy; yes, definitely grainy. No, hold hard, its … it’s fragrant, a teeny-weeny bit fragrant … Oh, what a to do! It’s so hard to smell anything with the wokist stench of fear rising from Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter …”
“What’s that, Nose. You’re cracking up. Did you say musky or melon?”
“Bottom fermenting …”
“We’ve done that one. I know, what about all three?”
“Ay?”
“Pungent, grainy and fragrant?”
“If you like. But he’s still a transphobe!”
Hmm, must be a liberal-left nose.
We won’t ask liberal-left tongue about taste. It will be far too busy in the coming weeks now that Elon Musk is taking over Twatter.
Lidskae Staryi Zamak Beer
To recap: here we have a 6.2% pale-straw coloured, bottom-fermenting lager, with a pungent, grainy, fragrant liberal-left nose.
Moving on to taste, all these things are present (except the liberal left, thank heavens). Lidskae Staryi Zamak is an interesting blend of flavours, sweet and bitter at one and the same time but rhapsodically blended with no ragged edges. The finish is light and hoppy, although the aftertaste becomes, owing no doubt to the strength, substantial, not heavy exactly but mature and rounded ~ shaped largely like most women after they’ve gone through the menopause.
Corsets nice to drink with food, but have you noticed how irritating some beer reviewers can be in this respect? It’s all very well to say that this beer or that beer goes well with whole roasted peacock, stuffed venison and absent McDonald’s but unless you are Henry the Eighth such lightweight delicacies may not be at hand (which is especially true of McDonald’s). I’ll settle for saying that you won’t go far wrong with a big bag of nuts, a packet of flavoured crisps and a bowl of olives.
Lidskae Staryi Zamak, not to be confused with You Big Hairy Wassock, which is a beer that is drunk in the North of England whilst wearing a pigeon and fancying flat caps (latterly scarves more likely), is a good strong and full-bodied beer but not so overpowering that it does not possess the potential to bring out the best in good-flavoured foods and selected piquant snacks.
Lidskae Staryi Zamak Beer
I like this beer as much if not more than I liked its black sister (or was that it’s black brother?), Lidskae Aksamitnae. I enjoyed it. It clung to the glass, as I did, and after a couple of bottles I also clung to the stair rail.
I was head over heels, with delight that is, which is a big improvement, I’m sure you’ll agree, on the alternative arse over head. And the overheads are by no means bad at 197 a bottle (we are talking payment in roubles, of course!).
😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS Name of Beer: Lidskae Staryi Zamak Brewer: Leedska piva Where it is brewed: Lida, Belarus Bottle capacity: 1.5 litre Strength: 6.2% Price: It cost me about 197 roubles (2.20 pence) [at time of writing!] Appearance: Pale Aroma: Subtle mix of grain and herbs Taste: Full bodied, rounded Fizz amplitude: 3/10 Label/Marketing: Traditional Would you buy it again? I am quite sure I will Marks out of 10: 8
*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.
Western Snactions turn McDonald’s in Russia into Vkusno i tochka
Published: 22 June 2022 ~ McDonald’s restaurants in Russia reopen under new name
Whilst the UK media hovers indecisively over what to replace its run of good fortune with, as interest in and editorial enthusiasm wanes for Ukraine ~ in the past two weeks there has been a flitting back and forth from woke stories about schools no longer allowing boys to wear skirts (have I got that wrong?) and hopes that a new strain of coronavirus may see the swift return of lockdowns, masks and vaccinations ~ Russia has been celebrating the replacement of the McDonald’s chain of restaurants with the inauguration of its home-grown version.
🍔McDonald’s, which had been selling burgers in Russia for more than 30 years, switched off its friers and suspended its business shortly after the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine before griddling off into the sunset. For some, the loss of McDonald’s in Russia was palpable.
Speaking entirely for myself, McDonald’s, or rather the fanfare that surrounds McDonald’s, has always been a mystery to me. In my day, old McDonald had a farm, not a burger bar. Or was that McDonald’s father?🍔🍔You probably won’t believe this but until the launch of Russia’s McDonald’s and the publicity it has generated, I had no idea what a powerhouse of Americanism McDonald’s was. To me it was up there, or down there, depending upon your point of view, with Wimpy, KFC, Little Chef, Burger King and the rest, all lumped together under the ‘frie’s’ umbrella, poor colonial-cousin substitutes for good old English chips and the good old English chip shops via which they are purveyed. Give me a portion of proper, thick-cut, chunky English chips any day than those itty-bitty American fries, that was my motto! In fact, it was the word ‘fries’ that actually did it for me in the sense of not doing it for me at all. Nothing in the world of fried foods, especially chips, has ever been the same since my brother rebranded chips and by extension British cafes with the decidedly unflattering nom de guerre ‘fatty fries’. However, as a patriot, resolutely opposed to continental affectations in all walks of English life, especially the realm of grub, words in fancy dress such as the now ubiquitous ‘French fries’ are pure anathema to me.
Another reason for avoiding McDiddles was possibly my conversion at a relatively early age to vegetarianism and a delicate constitution in the guts department. Given these two influential factors you can probably understand how blown-up images of Big Macs and Triple Cheeseburgers with an extra portion of fries on the side and a generous helping of onion rings had me longing for a lettuce leaf and reaching for the Gaviscon.
My apologies to die-hard McDonald’s fans:
*From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring—
*Edgar Allan Poe’s Alone (How much more Alone would he have felt had McDonald’s existed in his time and then like life itself ceased to be?)
With McDonald’s exit stage west, you would have thought that here was the perfect opportunity for Russia to turn off Americanisation and surge ahead with a nationwide chain of resturants selling wholesome, healthy, traditional Russian nosh. Obviously, there is no such thing in Russia as McDonald’s-phobia.
Conversely, a Russian equivalent of McDonald’s working in the West would have been tarred and feathered by now, which rather proves the point that there really is no Russian analogue to the West’s anti-Russian hysteria.
McDonald’s restaurants in Russia reopen under new name
In the absence of a McDonald’s phobia and facetiousness aside, I do understand both the historical and symbolic significance to Russia of the McDonald’s take-over.
When the first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Moscow on 31 January 1990, for some it must have seemed like the ultimate stamp of the American invasion but to others, to a new, western-enthused generation, it must have embodied the hopes if not of a brand-new beginning, then at least of a new Brand-named beginning.
What I did not know was that the first McDonald’s restaurant which opened in Pushkinskaya Square (Bolshaya Bronnaya Street, 29) Moscow in early 1990 lays claim to being the most frequented McDonald’s restaurant in the world. It is said that in its 30 years of existence it catered literally for more than 140 million patrons1.
Whilst the McDonald’s empire is a hegemonic feat of fast-foot globalism, the ability to fill its big Yankee boots in a few short weeks is a success story in its own right. It is little short of amazing that they, a consortium consisting of the Moscow government, federal authorities and the business community1, managed to take on the abandoned McDonald’s empire, rebrand, refit, restructure and rescue it in the time it would take for me to say, could I have a veggie burger please?
The 850 former McDonald’s outlets spanning 62 regions of Russia will open at a pace of 50~80 restaurants a week under the new Russian name of Vkusno i tochka (‘Tasty and that’s it’ or ‘Delicious full stop’), says the new owner, Alexander Govor2. A timely intevention that will not only re-establish the fast-food market in Russia and navigate its new course but also secure employment for thousands of people across the country.
When you take into consideration that the special military operation in Ukraine commenced a few weeks ago, on 24 February 2022, during which period the West has subjected Russia to economic warfare on an unprecedented scale, the transformation of a moribund McDonald’s into the rebranded Vkusno i tochka stands in testimony to the resourcefulness, resilience and ability to endure, which Russia as a nation has adroitely exhibited throughout its challenging history.
In stark contrast, I think it will be a long time if possibly not an eternity before I can procure equivalent success in the UK with Mick Hart’s McBorschkee’s chain of restaurants. Until then, its back to peeling spuds and heating lard for the chip van.
Updated: 22 March 2023| First Published: 12 April 2022 ~ Eastward Expansion of the West the Real Reasons? {Regularly updated}
Introduction
A daily brief, updated whenever I feel like it, providing links to news that you won’t see much of, if anything, in the UK about the US-UK confederacy and what it is up to and why on Russia’s borders.
Here you will find links to Russian news sources, commentators’ comments, snippets, video links, embeds and random musings updated on a daily basis but mostly not always.
Please feel free to share the links, embeds etc that appear in this post with your friends and colleagues as an antidote to excessive amounts of suspect UK downstream media. Like the vaccine, I suggest that you come back regularly for a series of boosters as long as your arm.
Keep the Faith and remember the maxim: The Truth Will Out in the End!! ~ Mr History
Quote> “The diplomat [Polish Ambassador to France Jan Emeryk Rosciszewski] is convinced that the Ukrainian crisis is a battle for the basic values and culture of the West, which is why “it is so important to win.” Comment> The inverse thus naturally follows that the Ukrainian crisis is a battle for the basic values and culture of Russia, which is why “it is so important to win.”https://ria.ru/20230319/polsha-1858972477.html?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop
Quote> “Twitter users criticized the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who said earlier that the European Union will make every effort to reduce the military potential of Russia.” Quote> “Help EU states to become prosperous again instead of spending our money on Ukraine and fomenting conflict,” wrote a Twitter user. Ursula von der Leyen criticized for saying about Russia’s military capabilities – MK
Quote> “There was no response from the Western ‘peacekeepers’ to Putin’s accusations against the West that the supply of weapons to Ukraine is inflaming the conflict, turning it from local to global, they preferred to remain silent.” https://regnum.ru/news/polit/3782811.html
The reason for the special operation in Ukraine was not the imperial ambitions of Vladimir Putin, but the attempts of Western countries to drive Russia into a corner by expanding NATO, political scientist John Mearsheimer said in an interview with the American magazine, The New Yorker. In the US, the main myth about Putin was dispelled – RIA Novosti, 20.11.2022
Comment [Mortimer, RT News article] > The world seems to be at an inflection point, like when a curve changes direction. So many formerly rock solid countries seem to be fragile and on the verge of collapse. The USA, most of the EU, and Israel – always fragile, is looking shaky as well. This feels like just before the fall of the Soviet Union, but this time it is the west’s turn. https://www.rt.com/news/564839-medvedev-warning-israel-ukraine-weapons/
Quote (Vladimir Putin)> “The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neo-colonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity, to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. The preservation of this annuity is their main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation. This is why total de-sovereignisation is in their interest. This explains their aggression towards independent states, traditional values and authentic cultures, their attempts to undermine international and integration processes, new global currencies and technological development centres they cannot control. It is critically important for them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United States.” https://www.rt.com/russia/563827-putin-speech-colonial-west/
Headine> Russia has dismissed any Nord Stream leak accusations against them as ‘stupid’
Quote> Accusations have flown across Europe and the world following the leaks, with Ukraine arguing Russia is to blame. Moscow dismissed the accusation on Wednesday.
“It’s quite predictable and also predictably stupid to give voice to these kinds of narratives — predictably stupid and absurd,” Peskov said. “This is a big problem for us because, firstly, both lines of Nord Stream 2 are filled with gas — the entire system is ready to pump gas and the gas is very expensive … Now the gas is flying off into the air. Are we interested in that? No, we are not, we have lost a route for gas supplies to Europe,”
Biden’s neoliberal administration is bringing the world closer than it has ever been to nuclear conflict. Tucker Carlson of Fox News nails the West’s insanity, noting that the United States could, if it wanted to, bring the conflict in Ukraine to a peaceful resolutionalmost overnight, but …
Quote> ‘Should the Donbass regions declare themselves as part of the territory of Russia, attacks upon them by Ukraine (as has been the case since 2014) would then be classed as attacks upon Russia. That carries far more serious repercussions in terms of the Russian constitutional statements about its ability to protect itself.’ Quote> ‘The implications are extremely serious. Russia has written into its constitution that the use of heavy and potentially nuclear weaponry is permissible should it need to defend itself. That will become clear should the Donbass regions declare independence and decide to align with Russia rather than Ukraine. At this point the opinion of the West ceases to matter. Ukraine attacks, especially those supported by Western provided military will be seen as acts of war which then permit the use of weapons of mass destruction.’ https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/russia-on-the-brink-of-war.html/
Comment in RT article by reader ‘Shivermetimbers’ “The west is again at it mincing and spinning Russia’s nuclear doctrine. Russia has repeatedly stated that they’ll use any means to their disposal if and only if she is under threat of losing it’s identity as a state under pressure from western forces. Meaning they’ll not put their hands up in case US/NATO seem poised to win a conventional war against it and violate Russian territory or place Russian troops under pressure.”
Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer
Comment> Looks like Daily Mail readers are a few jumps ahead of their liberal counterparts in their assessment of what people want from their politicians, ie putting their country and their people first! Elementary my dear Truss
Medvedev quote re Truss > “She will quarrel with everyone, fail everything and leave in disgrace, like her predecessor, shaggy Boriska. Well, in Britain, famous for its traditions, it seems that another one is appearing,” Medvedev concluded.” 🤣
‘According to Medvedev, the “new prime minister” Truss is an incompetent and mediocre Russophobe who has no elementary ideas about politics, but wants to defeat Russia in everything. In addition, according to the deputy chairman of the Security Council, the new head of government “mows” under Margaret Thatcher- the first woman to hold this post in the UK – but does not have her abilities, and also intends to overcome the energy crisis and food inflation, which became the consequences of her own “delusional sanctions exercises”. < https://lenta-ru.translate.goog/news/2022/09/07/feminitiv/?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Oh dear, the inevitable has happened, the UK has been Trussed!
Headline> What’s wrong with politicians in the West?
Quote> Professor Chossudovsky notes that Western politicians are quite capable of taking a fatal step for the planet, because [their ignorance and stupidity are] controlled by money.
As an example of a politician of a narrow-mind, the author of the article cites the head of the British Foreign Office, Liz Truss , who said that, if she becomes prime minister, she would not hesitate to give the order to use nuclear weapons .
Claims that Russia has been sanctioned by the world appear to be 85% short of the truth, with only the ‘world’ as defined by the neoliberal globalist collective participating.
RAND advises the US and its allies about the explosive situation on Russia’s borders and its need to proceed with caution and diplomacy. Quote> “RAND risk analysts note that Russia today has more than enough reasons to think of NATO as an aggressor. In response to this, the West will receive preventive strikes from the Russian Federation – and to say that this will be unjustified Russian aggression will no longer work.” https://military-pravda-ru.translate.goog/news/1731238-rand/?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Headline> Candidate for British Prime Minister, Tugendhat, offered to expel Russians from the country
Quote> Tugendhat (Is that his real name? Check his passport!) said: “People who pose a threat and undermine the security of the kingdom will not find shelter.”
Comment> Does something tell you, as it tells me, that this is probably not the best time in history for Boris Johnson to be replaced by anyone of a sabre-rattling disposition with ex-military connections and delusions of imperialist grandeur. In spite of its political tragedy, I’m quite fond of that little bit of land in northwestern Europe. Aren’t you?
Bottom-pinching country at rock bottom (Gay Pride is obviously not just for June!)
Comment> People in high places pinching other people of the same sex’s lower places, the NHS unable to cope because of over-population and the migration fiasco, the government mired in sleaze, ministers losing jobs faster than underwear descending during Gay Pride Month and no money left because its all been spent on exacerbating Russophobia. This, then, is the UK.
Quote> Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman: ““London threw all its forces into countering Russia and participating in hostilities in Ukraine. Huge financial costs, British mercenaries, instructors and key forces of the special services – everything is mobilized for Russophobia.”
Comment> … and now the PM has resigned. Fingers crossed …
Little Miss Bossy Boots, Liz Truss (aka “Look mum, I’m the foreign secretary!”), appears to be groping about for a way of mitigating the British government’s freezing of Russian assets (which could be described as daylight robbery) by transforming Number 10 and herself into a merry band of Robin Hoods, or should that be Robin Hoodies (innit!), who rob from the rich to give to the poor. Except in this case, it has nothing to do with the poor and needy and all to do with a needlessly poor excuse.
There’s nothing toxically masculine or even vaguely masculine about Johnson and his western cohorts
Thought of the day> When the British Prime Minister has nothing left in his arsenal (I think I’ve spelt that right) except the cringe-worthy lingo of liberal-lefty woke and feels impelled to resort to terms like ‘toxic masculinity’, you know the bell has sounded for the final miserable act in the comedy of transexualised errors which Britain has become. Boris, you have been fatefully cast: the UK is badly in need of restoring and conserving. A strong traditionalising Conservative leader is needed, not a neoliberal-pandering appeasing soggy cream poof! [Audience (Labour) clapping: “You’ve got to hand it to him, as gender-neutral cream poofs go he certainly looks and sounds the part!”]
Headline> ‘Reuters: Western politicians were surprised by the Russian salad on the menu at the NATO summit’
Comment> The symbolic significance of Russian salad on the NATO summit ‘Smart Food & Drinks’ menu says it all ~ isolating Russia is not an option! Apparently, the dish was so popular that it sold out in the first two hours!
Comment> Ukraine has provided the UK with the perfect opportunity to spend the sort of lolly on beefing up its military that the liberal-lefty lobby at last feels helpless to oppose. But who’s going to pay for it? Can we really afford it? And, more to the point, is it all a waste of tax-payers’ money? Quote> “Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in May that Moscow does not want war in Europe and that it is the West that ‘constantly insists that …Russia must be defeated.’ The end of the military operation in Ukraine, he said, would stop Western attempts to undermine international law and promote a unipolar world.” https://www-rbc-ru.translate.goog/politics/28/06/2022/62babf329a7947852ccbffe2?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Are you spinning like a top? If Western media spins anymore it will bradawl itself up its own … Headline from RT > Western media celebrates ‘Russian default’
Comments at end of article > tchort says: “The main stream media should worry more about losing their subscribers, than Russia’s default. Western media is now nothing but a comedians’ theater trying to validate its ridiculous narrative, and where investigative journalism has all but disappeared from the nation’s commercial airwaves.”
TANK says: “This stupid western game is like me going to the bank with the money, during normal opening hours, and they just won’t let me into the bank so I can give them the money. And then they blame ME for it. What a bunch of dimwits.”
Quote> German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, ““Putin appears to be afraid that the spark of democracy might jump to Russia …” Quote> The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, commented on the words of Scholz, noting that “German sparks” spread to Russia a couple of times. “We won’t allow any more fires,” she assured. Comment>The problem with the leap-frogging ‘spark of [liberal] democracy’ is that other rather unwanted things tend to jump about with it, such as social engineering, anti-social behaviour, rampant street crime, state-backed terrorism, BLM riots, loss of cohesive culture and identity, historical revisionism, degradation of sovereignty and patriotism, political correctness, woke and so much digitalisation and transsexualization that before you know where you are or who’s behind you, you are well and truly up Queer Street and on your way to a famous creek with no paddle ~ although the boats to Dover can do without as they’ve got the Royal Navy. Whatever spark it is that German Scholz is talking about, it’s not the spark of truth or decency. https://www-rbc-ru.translate.goog/politics/20/06/2022/62b0a6bb9a7947606308e96a?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
‘”The European Union has completely lost its political sovereignty, and its bureaucratic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, accepting whatever they are told from above, causing harm to their own population and their own economy,” Putin said.‘
‘“Such a detachment from reality, from the demands of society, will inevitably lead to a surge of populism and the growth of radical movements, to serious social and economic changes, to degradation, and in the near future, to a change of elites,”’
Now see (below) Neil Oliver’s videoed summation of the State of play in the UK today: ‘The State is no longer working to serve us and to protect our shared heritage‘
“The first act of violence in [Ukraine] was actually the Western-backed mob putsch which overthrew Ukraine’s lawful government in 2014” ~ Peter Hitchens, UK Journalist, Twitter, 22 May 2022
Quote> The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which unites the most developed economies in the world, called the UK the main victim of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine. https://lenta.ru/news/2022/06/08/loser/?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop Letter>Dear Mr Johnson, has the UK government taken complete leave of its senses …?
Comment>Who is Bishop Richard Williamson? Well, if you do a Google search for him you discover that he is a renegade, a ‘Holocaust denier’, an extremist, an ‘inciter of hatred’ etc, etc, etc. That alone should tell you that he is a branded enemy of the neoliberal one-world state. The Pope doesn’t appear to like him because he has openly condemned the Roman Catholic Church for selling out to liberal secularism. The western globalist cabal don’t care much for him, possibly because when he refers to the leaders of western governments he does not use sugar-coated terms like humanitarian, tolerant, democratic or free-world loving philanthropists but criminals.
When I first saw the, let’s face it, badly edited video embedded below, my initial reaction was, is this something from Monty Pythons, but there is no mistaking the sincerity and clarity of Williamson’s take on our liberal masters and what they are up to in Ukraine ~ and everywhere else for that matter. There are other illuminating videos out there in which Williamson describes and lambasts western society’s planned and steady moral decline. His accent on traditionalism as an essential pillar for social stability and his unfashionable view that respect for authority is an essential prerequisite of that stability is tantamount to heresy in the ‘progressive’ world of Woke, and I do not suppose for a moment that his rational beliefs that women attempting to adopt the roll of men or to become men is tragic and that it is parents who should rule their children not children rule their parents wins him any plaudits among the usual suspects.
In the video that follows, Bishop Richard Williamson states that Russia is the last obstacle to the One-World Order. Note, you will see that whoever made the video has captioned it, “You won’t believe your ears!” In fact, not everyone’s ears, eyes and minds are intimately connected to their television licence.
Comment> There is not much that western governments are good at. Telling the truth is particularly hard. But where they do excel is in their attempts to cancel culture. I should know, I’m English and we have hardly any culture left. That’s probably one of the reasons I like living in Russia. Quote> [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov] ‘“The West has declared a total war on us, the entire Russian world. Now no one hides this, it reaches the point of absurdity, to the very culture of the abolition of Russia and everything connected with our country. Under the ban of the classics: Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky , Tolstoy, Pushkin. Figures of national culture and art, who today represent our culture, are also being persecuted … healthy patriotic forces have consolidated [in Russia, and President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy is based on] … broad national consensus”’ https://www-vedomosti-ru.translate.goog/politics/news/2022/05/27/923932-lavrov-zapad?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Why does the UK media treat the British public as if they are stupid? Is it because they have insurmountable faith in their own duplicity?
Comment> Wonders will never cease, but considered journalist Peter Hitchens may have rocked the neoliberal globalist boat with this one. The last thing the UK wants to be accused of is that it has within its midst journalists of integrity and independent thought. Time for the UK masses to disappear quickly back under the bedclothes, behind the biased safety of their learnt-by-rote media mantras or (where they seem to dwell perpetually) up their own …
Quotes from Mr Hitchens’ article in Mail Online> “Not since the wild frenzy after the death of Princess Diana have I ever met such a wave of ignorant sentiment. Nobody knows anything about Ukraine. Everyone has ferocious opinions about it.”
“Look, I respect those who take Ukraine’s side in this war. They have a valid point of view which I happen not to share. But what I object to is the wholly one-sided nature of public opinion here. It is so bad that it is a positive disadvantage to know anything about the subject.”
“The UK media coverage of this event strove mightily not to mention the neo-Nazis and to avoid using the word ‘surrender’.”
Comment> America is projecting itself as an exceptional power and an indispensable force for good in the world, but Russia intends to save itself from this ‘goodness’. It is not the first time in history that we have saved ourselves from totalitarian ideologies – Nazi Germany, the Napoleonic Wars, the Tatar invasion. And it does not matter that Russians are routinely disparaged by Western Europeans as savages and barbarians. We want to protect our beliefs and values, which are based on Christianity, no matter how outdated and how outvalued such ethics are held by the West. We mean to and will save ourselves from the threat of the West’s satanic globalism, from its mass consumerist self-absorption and twisted posthuman delusions. And so it is with my head held high in the midst of Western Russophobia that I am glad and proud to say that “I am Russian.” (Thank you Yorshik for your contribution to my blog. MH)
The Eurovision Wrong Contest It’s come to a pretty pass when all you’ve got left in your ammunition chest is the Eurovision Song Contest. Should it be renamed the Eurovision Pong Contest, because something certainly stinks. It smells a bit like ‘past its sell by date’, but at least it shows that the world (the western world that is) of entertainment is singing from the same song sheet as UK/US western media. Obviously, Sandy Shaw got it right when she won the Euro-must-be-daft-to-watch it Song Compost in 1967 with the aptly and prophetically named ‘Puppet on a String’.
‘Make It Up as You Go Along’ Western Media The most unsurprising of eventualities regarding Russia’s 9th May Victory Day was that contrary to the West’s media predictions that Vladimir Putin would announce mass mobilisation to facilitate total war in Ukraine, it didn’t happen. Nevertheless, this did not stop my brother from advising me by email that I should get a sick note from mum, as I used to do when I was at school, explaining to Mr Putin that I was very sorry, but I couldn’t possibly march in army boots with a bad leg like mine. As this expedient turned out to be unnecessary, I was able to reflect more fully on what it was that the West could learn from the sincere and heartfelt devotion of the Russian people to the sacrifices made by former generations of their countrymen during WWII in the interests of preserving their country’s sovereignty and for Russia’s right to continue to live without interference and threat from the West. This exercise in cogitation brought forth the simple but inevitable conclusion that it was not so much what the West could learn as what it should remember, not only about the facts pertaining to WWII but to any and every period enshrined in the past. The greatest and unforgivable crime against the inalienability of history is the immoral attempt to rewrite it, however futile such an attempt unavoidably proves to be.
Headline >The Guardian: Britain is using Ukraine for a disgusting game Johnson using Ukraine as a diversionary tactic to refocus the public’s attention away from his failings as Prime Minister and the Conservative party’s internal conflict for change of leadership. That’s a take on the role that Britain has assigned to itself with regard to Ukraine that we can all relate to. You cannot blame the British public for their willing participation in this game. It is not often that they get the chance to rattle the sabre and wave the flag. Patriotism and white flight are outward bound third class, making way for boat loads to Dover and the pathetic and steady accretion of woke. Link>https://www-pravda-ru.translate.goog/world/1703851-konservatory/?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Quote: ‘US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington would “keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet” the military needs of the Ukrainian government, while urging other countries to also contribute to the cause.’
Comment: That’s very altruistic of the US. Let’s hope that it does not eventually lead to Earth being raised to Heaven ~ or at least in that direction …
Desperately trying to be more zany than each other is the sort of thing that gets alternative media sources a bad name. You might conclude that if they cannot take themselves seriously who is going to take them seriously (snigger). However, once you’ve cut through the silly voices, pop-video props and comic-strip presentation, nuggets of interest and sometimes rich seams of mind matter seldom mined by western masses are there to be had and processed. Forget how he says it, but listen and reflect upon what this chap has to say (see video below): https://rumble.com/vw8q9n-ukraine-and-russia-what-the-media-wants-you-to-think.html
Now here’s a chap from America who claims that the conflict in Ukraine didn’t start recently but is in it’s eighth year (see video below). I wonder what the BBC and fact checkers make of that! 😉
“Sanctions are a tax on independence.” ~ Sergey Lavrov
There is something so solid, reliable and dependable about Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia. It’s such a treat when you contrast his cool, sometimes blunt but always level-headed presentation with, for example, the comic braggadocio of our Boris, the shop-window plasticity of US politicians and the smug narcissism of oily Turdeau clones. My wife tells me that Lavrov is also fond of cigars. You cannot fault a man who supports the noble art of cigar smoking!
At the end of this panel there is an article link featuring an interview with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, conducted by TV channels RT, NBC News, ABC News, ITN, France 24 and the PRC Media Corporation, which took place on 3 March 2022, regarding the situation in Ukraine.
Four quotes by Lavrov from that interview:
“Each country has the right to choose alliances. However, no country can strengthen its security at the expense of the security of any other country. No organisation can claim dominance in the Euro-Atlantic space, which is exactly what NATO is doing now.”
“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the thought of nuclear war is constantly running through the minds of Western politicians but not the minds of Russians.”
“No one has listened to us for 30 years. The West is perfectly aware of our concerns. Endlessly ignoring them with such arrogance has not worked and will not work. Only naive people could have thought otherwise.”
“I assure you that we will deal with whatever problems the West creates for us out of its determination (I emphasise once again – not to ensure their own security, this isn’t about the security of the West at all) to use Ukraine as a tool and a pretext to prevent Russia from pursuing an independent policy. There are few countries left on Earth that can afford such a luxury. Sanctions are a tax on independence, if you like.”
If you only ever read one article published in Russian about the situation in Ukraine, then make it this one!
“There are only a handful of Western journalists on the ground in Donbass, while the Western mainstream press is rubber-stamping fake news about the Ukrainian crisis using the same templates it previously exploited in Iraq, Libya and Syria, says Dutch independent journalist Sonja van den Ende.”
Since Russia launched its special operation in Ukraine to protect the republics in the Donbas region of Ukraine and its own country by negating the potential for NATO to use Ukraine as a base from which to attack Russia, Russian media as well as Russian posts and comments on social media relevant to the Ukrainian situation have been banned in the UK, presumably for the purpose of concealing the West’s involvement in the events that led to the conflict and to present a one-sided version of that conflict in order to influence public opinion and to promote and maximise mass hysteria. All that we are seeing now is a continuation of the West’s policy to subjugate and marginalise Russia, everything else is just a means to an end. ~ comment from reader of my blog expatkaliningrad.com
Eastward Expansion of the West the Real Reasons?
Katie Hopkins, political commentator, proving once again that she has the balls to say “what other people think but are too scared to say”:
Published: 10 June 2022 ~ Victor Ryabinin Pushes Boat Out with Bronze Aged Fisherman
At last, on Saturday 4th June 2022, the memorial plaque that we commissioned in 2021 linking Victor Ryabinin, friend and Königsberg artist, to our physical representation of his famous painting ‘Boat with Flowers’, which occupies pride of place next to the Soviet fisherman statue, was given a home. The reason it never got attached last year was that we could not make up our minds where the plaque should go. The original plan was to include it within the boat and statue ensemble, possibly secured to a large flat-surfaced rock, screwed to the side of the boat or mounted on some plinth or other. I was easy with any of these three options, but Olga opined that the plaque would be hidden, which would rather defeat the object.
Thus, the location of the plaque was put to the vote, resulting in the unanimous decision to secure it to the side of the house, beside the garden gate. Our friend with the drill and bolts, Mr Chilikin, performed his side of the operation, whilst I, having just returned from the shop with two bottles of beer, provided inestimable assistance by holding the plaque in place.
Victor Ryabinin
When you lose someone as dear and as vital as Victor, time has a perplexing way of flying and standing still at the same time. This July will see the third anniversary of Victor’s death. It seems like only yesterday, ten thousand days or more.
I am not ashamed to say that once the plaque had been placed, I did shed a few tears, but being a real Englishman, not a cheap British counterfeit, in order to maintain the myth of the stiff upper lip, I managed this in private.
Of course, once the plaque had been ‘unveiled’ a toast ensued involving vodka, after which an intuitive silence fell on those of us present, the shared but unspoken thought being that had Death not exercised its non negotiable right to inopportune subtraction, doubtlessly Victor would have been with us today, and no plaque would have been necessary, just another glass. Life goes on, as they say, though never quite in the same old way.
This year our boat is not looking anywhere near as well-stocked and verdant as the one in Victor’s painting, so project two is to rectify that discrepancy as soon as humanly possible.
Before getting down to the serious task of celebrating what was without argument the most glorious summer day this year, Mr Chilikin also made good his promise to turn our fisherman bronze. You may remember that last year’s restorative work on Captain Codpiece, our statue, had garnered criticism from a certain outspoken babushka, to wit that his new coat of paint appeared to be designed to make the feeble minded do something remarkably silly, like go down on one knee. Hence, there was nothing for it: either we had to delete one letter in the ‘Codpiece’ name and add two more in its place or pursue the original plan, which was to make him bronze.
The latter option being the best in good taste all round, though the former was chucklingly good, Mr Chilikin got to woke, I mean work, and with the catalysing infusion of a couple of homemade vodkas gave Codpiece a new look that would make any alchemist jealous.
In the 1960s, the fisherman had been silvered, but that was long ago. The Soviet era passed, the silver wore away and the fisherman’s concrete superstructure began seriously deteriorating. We repaired him, coated the concrete in a special sealant and weather-proof solution and painted him in a dark matte ground with hints and highlights of bronze. Finally, succumbing to the criticism that he was as dark as a midnight mushroom, we turned up the bronze, although some might say that relative to the new beginning he is fullfilling an act of destiny and turning into gold.
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” ― Oscar Wilde
Published: 6 June 2022 ~ Word War III the Latest Media Plandemic
So, do you do it and, if the answer is yes, do you do a lot of it? I do ~ musing, I mean.
And isn’t there just so much to muse on?
Let’s take Ukraine, for example. When I say take, I don’t mean as in takeaway ~ which, someone suggested, is what the Poles want to do ~ I use the term figuratively, as in example1.
I am sure you will agree that it is an excellent example, as it is virtually impossible these days whenever the need for musing arises not to have a muse or two about what it is the West is up to out there in Ukraine.
The one place where you won’t find that out is in the British media, because Britland’s media is far too busy making (you could say ‘manufacturing’) news than reporting it. They did it to you with Brexit; they did it through the Plandemic; and now they are doing it to you again with Ukraine. Why does the British government and its media lackies want to scare you shitless?
10
The simple answer, but not the whole story, is to get you to buy newspapers and to click on their websites, thereby enabling them to fleece gullible advertisers. Terror sells ~ but there is more to it than that.
It is ironic don’t you think (well, do you think?) that UK media is obsessed with speculation as to whether the crisis in Ukraine will result in World War III (it has certainly resulted in Word War III), which, incidentally, should it happen would make it hard to find the UK on the global map (not trying to frighten you, or anything), but continues to support UK government policy to pump shipment after shipment of arms to Ukraine, thus bringing the threat of Armageddon closer. Such irresponsible profligacy costs the British taxpayer dearly for something that to all accounts gets itself blown up soon after it arrives on foreign soil2.
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If the Labour Party was not so riddled with woke, someone ~ someone who is not scared to be called misogynist ~ could come right out with it and tell the foreign secretary ‘Liz don’t Trusst her’ that she is not fit for purpose and that perhaps it would be better for everyone if she just went home where she could try to do something useful like whip up a batch of scones. That something from the Labour party could then add that the money the UK is throwing away on its latest imperialist misadventure could be put to better use, such as donated to its favourite political hobby-horse the NHS, if only to finance the extra burden that will soon devolve to this commendable institution from the influx of merry migrants that keep grinning their way on boats to Dover. The logic is elementary but fundamental: more people in an over-populated country means less NHS to go round.
8
I know that there are an awful lot of Brits musing on the immigration fiasco, most of whom will never go beyond musing as they are afraid to voice their opinions, and I fully understand why. It is all so tiresome, is it not, having to prefix every honest syllable you utter with, “I’m not racist, but …” And after all, why should you bother? It is obvious that Britain’s political elite don’t or else the little overcrowded boats would not keep bobbing in. But then the difference between Britain’s political elites and you is that when the sh!t hits the fan, which it will (look at Sweden!) the elite will be going the other way and you’ll be left in the line of fire.
This tragedy is no longer one which is waiting to happen. It is already underway. But let’s not muse on that. Our current muse turns on the question: Is the British establishment placing the lives of every citizen in the UK at risk by openly suppling weapons to Ukraine, by its bellicosity towards Russia and by playing lapdog to the United States?
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When nuclear war was first mentioned, which, in case you didn’t know was by the West and by the Brits, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, had this to say:
“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the thought of nuclear war is constantly running through the minds of Western politicians but not the minds of Russians.”3
Since then, however, the unthinkable, which also used to be the unspeakable, makes guest appearances on a regular basis throughout the UK media, so much so that if it wasn’t for Britain’s endemic violence and the UK’s cops losing the fight against street crime, the possibility of nuclear war would even eclipse these subjects.
Given the extent of the media-led psychosis and the paranoia it has imbued, it is hardly surprising that there are people in the Russian Federation who have begun to respond in kind4.
6
Time, do you think (well, do you think?) for British people to stand up for themselves, to instruct their ‘democratically elected government’ and its malignant media that enough is really enough.
There are, however, other ‘atomic bombs’ that haven’t gone off as planned, for example sanctions.
I sometimes get the impression that I am the only one that the West has sanctioned! Recently, someone sent me some money from the UK, and it arrived in Russia worth half as much as it was before the liberal globalists set out to cripple Russia’s economy! Am I missing something here ~ apart from half my cash? Did the West unleash sanctions deliberately to make the rouble stronger? Last month, the pounds weakness in relation to the rouble meant that I could only buy half the amount of beer that I would normally buy? Now, that is serious! Meanwhile, according to my family and friends in Britland, the cost of living is soaring and the standard of living collapsing. Ahh, but I hear you say, there is madness in our government’s method.
5
We all know by now, or should know, that the sanctions have been successful, at least in punishing every Tom, Uncle Tom, Dick and Leroy in the US and UK, but not, it would appear, in Russia. The civil unrest hoped for and orchestrated with the assistance of a certain ‘philanthropic billionaire’ has not materialised, and Russia’s special military operation appears to be going as planned. Political analysts opine that whilst the West may delay Russia’s progress in Ukraine, it will not stop it from achieving its goals5.
The extent of the West’s frustration is encapsulated in the ever-self-explosive rhetoric embarrassingly evacuating from the oratory orifice of the Polish prime minister, who appears to have ordained himself as the Archbishop of Anti-Russian Hysteria. Notwithstanding his ‘personal shame’ ~ ‘the personal shame of the Polish Prime Minister’6 ~ at least he looks good with his 1960s’ hairstyle and specs, but even those have not proved sufficient to dissuade neither US nor British governments from continuing to spend billions on military equipment bound for Ukraine, where off it goes to get blown up. Someone commenting on a media site waggishly asked, wouldn’t it just be a lot less trouble and considerably less expensive to blow these shipments up before they leave the US and the UK, thus saving the price of the postage?
4
Every crisis known to man {LGBTs, Its and Others} ~ or should that be ever manufactured by man? ~ has been a godsend for profiteering of one kind or another.
Evidence suggests that the UK establishment is profiting from the conflict in Ukraine by using it as a cover for the miss-management of its economy7: terror and hysteria make superb attention conductors. The strategy is not new. It’s merely a resuscitation of the old Theresa May ploy, “It’s ‘highly likely’ the Russians have done it!” Move along, please, nothing to see (or believe in) here.
But even exploitation, or so it would seem, is not what it used to be. I must say I am rather surprised that someone in high office has not yet implemented Plan A as a means of reassuring Brits that should the UK government over play its hand in Ukraine, thus sparking a global disaster, surviving a nuclear holocaust may yet be possible providing that mandatory lockdowns, mask-wearing, compulsory vaccinations ~ and WHO knows what ~ are rigorously adhered to.
3
I am convinced, however, that the endless stream of third-world migrants pouring into Dover is a crucial component of the UK’s defence strategy, guaranteed, I imagine, if not to act as a shield against incoming missiles to effectively deter any kind of invasion other than the migrant one, which the UK establishment appears to support. For surely nobody in their right mind would want to take possession of a country ravaged by migrant unrest and migrant-related violence, plagued by woke, cancel culture and, buggered if I know what else, ahh that reminds me, gay parades.
2
I’m not suggesting that lockdowns, mask-wearing and mandatory vaccinations would be any less effective than they have proved to be for anything else, but better the devil you know than the ones that make work for idle minds.
