Author Archives: Captain Codpiece

Russia’s Love of Cakes Differs from the UK’s

A socio-cultural perspective on Russia’s cake habit contrasted and compared with and illuminated by one or two supplementary notes about having your cake and eating it in Great Britain

Revised 4 February 2025 | First published 26 March 2023 ~ Russia’s Love of Cakes Differs from the UK’s

Cakes. I don’t imagine for one moment that when somebody in the West mentions Russia, cakes are the first thing that spring to mind. Equally, I’m willing to wager that the UK media has written precious little lately, or written little at all, about the magnificent variety of cakes in Russia and the widespread availability of them in spite of those silly old sanctions.

They certainly would never divulge that the super-abundance of cakes in Russia is part of a western plot organised and funded by the Sorryarse Open Cake Society to swamp the Federation with cakes, similar to the way in which it is suffocating the western world with boat loads of useless migrants. I am not so sure about cake, but the spotted dick that they are creating is fast filling up with gritty currants.

Whoa now! Hang on a minute! Blin, yolkee polkee and blaha mooha! How dare you lump our delicious Russian cakes in the same inflatable dinghy with a gaggle of grinning third-world freeloaders destined for 5-star hotels at the expense of the British taxpayer!

Sorry, I stand corrected and in the same breath exposed. It is true that I am no Don Juan when it comes to loving cakes. However, as one of the last of the few true Englishmen, I concede to enjoying a nice slice of cake whenever the mood so takes me and, when the opportunity avails itself, regard it to be the perfect accompaniment to the English custom of afternoon tea.

Alice in Wonderland, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

All well and good, but neither affrontery apologised for nor my confessed willingness to embrace the odd iced cake rather than the swarthy migrant amounts to diddly-squat when it comes to explaining the cultural differences that set cake worship apart in Russia from similar proclivities in the UK.

Cakes are cancel proof

Cancel-proof, like most things pertaining to Russian culture, as the West is finding out and finding out the hard way, Russia’s love of cakes is in a sacrosanct league of its own. For example, it is not often, if indeed at all, that you will see men in the UK roaming around the streets with a big sticky cake in their hands. There is every possibility that you will see them holding another man’s hand, or, if you are really unlucky ~ or lucky if you are a professional photographer assigned to defining British culture ~ some other part of their brethren’s anatomy, but never a cake in hand. In the UK there seems to be an hypocritical subtext, an unspoken reservation at work, which, ironically, seems to imply that even in these enlightened times cakes and men together in public is tantamount to poofterism. Alack a day, but there you have it.

Russia’s love of cakes differs from the UK’s

Having thus established that men carting cakes around in public is not the done thing in Britland (but then what is and, more to the point, who is?), we arrive at a striking contrast. I’ve lost count of the number of times when entertaining at home (dispel all images of magic tricks, juggling, charades and karaoke) that on opening the gate to greet our Russian guests, at least one man will be standing there with a large stodgy cake in his grasp. As for dining out, I have yet to go to a restaurant with my Russian friends where rounding off a meal without a sumptuous sweet, most of which resemble cakes drenched in cream and syrup, would turn an everyday event into something of a precedent. Perchance it ever occurs, it would breach the unexpected like a hypersonic missile bursting through the dream of eternal hegemony. Cakes don’t come in on a wing and a prayer in Russia; they are part of the national psyche, in which whim and caprice can play no part.

The company Cakes R Rus is yet to be incorporated. The reason for this oversight is not immediately clear when cakes in Russia attract such popularity, but the greater mystery by far must be why in Russia are cakes so popular? It is a matter for conjecture, is it not, that often what presents itself at best as a half-baked explanation turns out in the long run to be remarkably overdone. Not so when it comes to cakes. Cakes are interwoven into every Fair Isled fabric of daily, popular and expressive life. Judge this on the merit that there are almost as many traditional sayings, remarks and literary allusions to cakes, and on matters pertaining to cakes, as there are cakes themselves. We will come to that in a moment.

Speaking from experience, all shops in Kaliningrad, that is to say all food shops, except the fishmongers, the butchers and the caviar sellers (add your own to contradict me), however small the shop may be, are guaranteed to stock one, two, even sometimes three, fairly chunky, big, round cakes, whilst supermarkets routinely offer flotilla to armada volumes of seductively sumptuous cake varieties, rich, lavish, opulent and sufficient in taste, size and price to float everyone’s cake-craving boat.

For the love of cakes

In addition to these generic outlets, Kaliningrad is no stranger to the small independent boaterie, sorry I meant to say bakery. There are any number of such bakeries (I won’t tell you just how many, for if I did that would be telling.), but the most noticeable because most prolific chain is undoubtedly Königsbäcker. Why not Kalininbacker? What a silly question.

Königsbäcker purveys pastries, pizza, bakes and cakes, and many of its cakeries ~ sorry I meant to say bakeries ~ also have on their walls not-for-sale super-large black and white Königsberg prints blown up from original photos of the ancient German city, showing it as it used to be before the British and Soviets blew it up ~ cake shops and everything else. These images are so poignant that they are enough to make you want to buy double the amount of cakes you would have bought had you not seen these pictures, purely for the placebo effect for which the comfort of eating cakes is renowned.

Prints of Konigsberg in Konisgbacher pastry shop. Kaliningrad

Now we have both stopped crying, I will try to explain how the Russian perception of cakes differs to the perceived role that cakes play in modern British society and why; and in the course of doing so, you may suspect that you have stumbled upon a hint that enables you to answer the question, why in Russia are cakes so popular?

Exactly how the Russian cake mentality diverges from its English counterpart is not as subtle as you might first think. So, for all you cake lovers out there, let me try to explain. Here goes!

First and foremost, bugger The Great British Bake Off, an awful television prog which is opium for the masses. Like coronavirus, which also kept people at home glued to their televisions, The Great British F!*off most likely foreshadows something more dreadful to come, such as The Great British Bake Off in the Nude and I’m A Cake Get me Out of Here, currently previewing on the Secretly Ashamed Channel.

The Great British Bake Off, which I always find time to switch off, lost all credibility for me when one of the female contestants was allegedly discovered substituting Viagra for self-raising flour. When the cake flopped, she was most disappointed. Aren’t we all when our cakes don’t rise. But her story had a happy ending, three to be precise, for when the show was over, after tea and cake with three of the show’s male competitors, she left the studio a satisfied woman. So satisfied, in fact, that she continues to pay her TV licence even to this day!

Anyway, Great Bake Offs or preferably no Great Bake Offs, my experience has it that the celebritising of cakes has very little impact on consumer purchasing habits. UKers may gasp in unison when confronted on the goggle box by Big Cake El Supremo, but it’s a different story altogether when buying down Asda or Iceland. Small synthetic packet cakes are the type that Brits on average go for, something cheap and abundant, over-stuffed with sugar and small enough to fit inside one’s pocket. (Hey you, watch out! There’s a store detective about! “And what of it! They can’t do nothin’. It would be a violation of our subhuman rights. Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! He! He!”)

**Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker’s man bake me a cake as fast as you can** (The cherished belief that all bakers are highly motivated individuals lends itself to scrutiny)

It occurs to me (which is the get out clause to ‘it occurs to nobody else and why would it?’), that cakes in Russia are rather more special-occasion items than tear open a packet of Kipling’s as quickly as you like and let that be an end to it!

Kipling’s individual pies are probably not as bad as so-called experts on synthetics would like us to believe, although when shady and disreputable store owners infringe the sell-by date, and this happens with greater frequency than it should in the UK, especially in shops run by migrants, the pastry tends to be dry and falls in embarrassing flaky bits down the front of your jumper. In winter, when it may, or conversely may not, be snowing, such socially unacceptable things may pass by virtually unnoticed, but once the Christmas jumper emerges in all its dubious glory into the glaring spotlight of spring, the shards of pastry in which you are covered can begin to look like dandruff. Mr Kipling may very well make exceedingly crumbly cakes, but to stop yourself from being conned and from looking more like a bit of a prick in your unfortunate Christmas jumper, particularly when it is splattered with pastry, choose your cake stores carefully and always check the sell-by-dates, especially if you have no option ~ and options in the UK are getting fewer by the boat load ~ than to buy from P. Akis Convenience Shores, a disproportionate number of which are concentrated in Dover. I wonder why that is?

Cake places revisited
🍰Telegraph Art Café, Svetlogorsk
🍰 Patisson Markt Restaurant, Kaliningrad
🍰 By Volga to Yantarny: Russian Easter and Beautiful Coast
🍰 Balt Restaurant, Zelenogradsk
🍰 Soul Garden, Kaliningrad
🍰 Mama Mia, Kaliningrad
🍰Croissant Café, Kaliningrad
🍰Telegraph Restaurant, Zelenogradsk
🍰Café Seagull by the Lake, Kaliningrad

Inspired by my last comment, I am tempted to ask, do you remember the 1970s’ individual fruit pie phenomenon, characterised first by square pies wrapped in grease-proof paper and later round pies presented on a tin-foil base? Tasty, ay! But, alas, like most things in life, they tended to shrink as time went by. Any road, can apple pies truly be classed as cakes? I suppose they can if you drop the word ‘pie’ and substitute it for ‘cake’, and am I stalling because I have bitten off more than I can chew in my self-appointed role as Anglo-Russian cakeologist?

Russia’s love of cakes is holistic

As I have already said (I hope you’ve been paying attention!), cakes in Russia are rather more a special-occasion commodity than tear open a packet of Kipling’s as quickly as you like and get them down you in one mouthful before the pastry crumbles. Kipling’s individual apple … (ah, we’ve already covered that …).

Moving on: I am not suggesting that they, Russian cakes, are strictly reserved for special occasions such as births, weddings and funerals, but they often come bearing people, such as to get-togethers at home, to private parties, social gatherings and events of a similar nature. They also occupy pride of place among boxes of chocolates and flowers as a way of saying thank you to someone who has rendered a kindness to another mortal soul or has performed some function in their official capacity above and beyond the call of duty.

In these contexts, the cake’s presentation shares equal importance with noshability, which possibly explains why Russian cakes, with their white-iced coverings, frothy cream crowns, candy sequins and fruit-festooned exteriors, make our traditional English jam and cream sponges look like poor relations; same bourgeoise boat perhaps but not at all on the upper-deck with their ostentatious Russian counterparts. Sigh, how ironically times can change and ostentatiously do, and with them cakes as well!

But let’s not leave it here! Whilst we, the English cannot compete with glitz, there is still a lot to be said for our good old-fashioned sponge cake, something that wants to make you sing not ‘There will always be an England’, because it’s much too late for that, but ‘There will always be a sponge cake’. There is something solid, enduring, traditional, something reassuringly staid and respectfully no-nonsense about plain, old English sponge cakes; something wonderfully neo-imperial, boldly neo-colonial, something so 1940s in the sense of stiff-upper lip that frankly I am astonished that these thoroughly English cakes have not been singled out for special ethnic-cleansing treatment by ‘take a knee’ cancel-culturists, or cast like so many heritage statues over walls and into ponds with the blessing of the left-wing British judiciary. Tell me, is it premature of me to feel even a little bit mildly complacent about the safety and sovereignty of the patriotic British cake? I’ll take a Tommy Robinson, please, he makes an exceedingly difficult rock cake for the soft under-dentures of the British establishment.

A socio-cultural perspective on cakes

The socio-cultural and historic significance of cakes may strike you as more than a mouthful, but history is replete with examples where the icing on the cake is the role of the cake itself. Spectacles such as birds flying out of giant cakes have been going on since the time of ancient Rome (not now, of course, due to animal rights laws) and scantily clad frosted women have been leaping out of oversized cakes since the 19^th century (not so much today, however, because of the feminist movement). I am perfectly aware of the existence of the Cambridge Stool Chart, but tell me, is the feminist ‘movement’ in some way linked to this chart?

**And you thought they were just coming in by dinghies!!**

Literary cake tropes have fared much better than their visual counterparts. Boris Johnson (You remember him, don’t you?), who had a cake named after him and in Kyiv no less ~ where else?, borrowed and modified the well-known phrase, ‘Have our cake and eat it’ in his bid to convince democracy of the benefits of Brexit. What he forgot to tell us, however, was that behind the political scenes the British and French governments had cooked up a migrant shuttle service ~ one-way ticket only ~ thus ensuring that after Brexit the cake would be ‘had’ alright, had and eaten by others, nibbled away like vermin at cheese, leaving nothing but crumbs for the British.

Slightly more famous than Boris Johnson but not, as far as I am aware, cake enriched by name, is Mary Antionette. She is credited with uttering the oft quoted and immortal phrase, ‘Let them eat cake!’, and although in all probability she said nothing of the sort, her disregard for, or indifference to, the plight of her country’s poor (typical of the French) is nowhere near as offensive as the Conservative party’s debasing betrayal of Britain’s Brexit electorate.

Boris ‘The Fruit Cake’ Johnson, sometimes referred to as ‘that Big Cream Puff’, is not the only man in showbusiness to have had an honorary cake named after him. Other cake-named celebs include no less than Elvis Presley, as well as such Russian personalities as ballet dancer Anna Pavlova and the first human to leave our world by rocket, Mr Yuri Gagarin, both of whom the West zealously tried to cancel just because their cakes were better than Boris’s, an all-show but nothing-of-substance confection cynically whipped up in Kyiv in order to keep the ackers flowing. Boris’s cake was made according to Biden’s recipe (that’s Biden as in empty chef’s hat not as in Master Baker). My question is, therefore, that with all this cake naming going on, isn’t it about time that somebody in Russia baked a cake and named it ‘Kobzon’ in memoriam of my favourite crooner? Come on chaps! How about it!

Whist I wait for this honour to be bestowed, we will hold our collective breath in anticipation of Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter, Adolf Hitler, oh and don’t forget our Tony ~ Tony ‘Iraq’ Blair ~ having cakes named after their illustrious personages. And what about a ‘Boat People’ cake to celebrate the end of Western civilisation.

And what is so wrong about that? A good many famous people and not so famous events and places have had the honour of cakes named after them. The most obvious being Mrs Sponge, who lent her name to the sponge cake. No kiddin’! No, its a historical fact! Her first name was Victoria. She lived the better part of her life at 65 Coronation Crescent. (Source: Alfred ‘Dicky’ Bird). Crossword Clue: 7 across ‘Queen’; 5 down ‘custard’.

Another famous namesake cake is Battenberg, relating to Prince Cake, and in the towns and locale category, that is to say where places not people have given their names to cakes, we have the English Eccles cake, which obviously gets its name from Scunthorpe, and a cake we all love to bypass, colloquially known as Sad Cake, named as legend has it after the UK town of Wellingborough. It’s a ‘going there thing’: so don’t!

The metropolis has its own cake, historically known as the White Iced Empire but renamed in recent years, if not entirely rewritten, and consequently referred to by those who would rather it remained as it was as Double Chocolate Black Forest Ghetto. Also known as Chocolate Woke or, by those who have not had their brainwashed heads thrust right up their arses (This is the BBC!) as the Liberal Upside Down cake. It is often confused with the Fruit-Bottom cake which, though far from all it is cracked up to be, sells like proverbial hot cracks during Londonistan’s Gay Pride month. If you have the extreme good fortune to be in the UK capital during that poof-pastry period, do make sure to skip lickety-split down to London’s Soho, the geographical and moral-less centre of LGBT fame, and treat yourself whilst you are there to a slice of the famous Navy Cake from Hello Sailor’s bun shop or a ‘once tried never forgotten’ Golden Rivet Muffin from the café El Bandido’s.

All of this, I am pleased to say, is a very long way away from Kaliningrad and its culture, and everybody who lives in Kaliningrad is also pleased to say, may it, with the Good Lord’s help, long remain that way.

Meanwhile, whilst you sit there wondering which of the world’s biggest cakes ought to be named after you, if there is anything in this treatise on Russian/British cakes which you think I haven’t covered, if you really feel that you must, then jot down the one or two points you believe I might have missed and consign your trunk full of comments to ‘Care of the Cake in MacArthur Park’ . It’s only right and proper since ‘It took so long to bake it …’

Please note: At the time of writing, Starmer hasn’t had a cake named after him yet, but according to one political commentator, a man who narrowly escaped debasing himself by appearing on the Great Bake Off, who understandably wishes to remain anonymous, when that great cake day eventually dawns Starmer’s cake is bound to be called something resembling CurranT, with the capital ‘T’ standing for ‘Taxes’ and some of the letters in between omitted. That one’s got me really foxed?

Image attributions

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party: https://picryl.com/media/alice-in-wonderland-by-arthur-rackham-08-a-mad-tea-party-c65b66

Vintage sponge cake: I found this image at <a href=”https://freevintageillustrations.com/vintage-sponge-cake-illustration/?utm_source=freevintageillustrations&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=downloadbox”>Free Vintage Illustrations</a> / https://freevintageillustrations.com/vintage-sponge-cake-illustration/

Girl jumping out of a cake: Image by <a href=” https://www.vectorportal.com” >Vectorportal.com</a>, <a class=”external text” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/” >CC BY</a> / https://vectorportal.com/download-vector/woman-jumping-out-of-a-cake-clip-art/22430

Nursery Rhyme Baker’s Man: I found this image at <a href=”https://freevintageillustrations.com/pat-a-cake-nursery-rhyme-illustration/?utm_source=freevintageillustrations&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=downloadbox”>Free Vintage Illustrations</a> / https://freevintageillustrations.com/pat-a-cake-nursery-rhyme-illustration/

What makes Kaliningrad Flea Market a Junk Buyers paradise?

I went, I saw, I bought … and I am still buying!

Revised 19 January 2025 | First published: 16 June 2022 ~ What makes Kaliningrad Flea Market a Junk Buyers paradise?

NOTE>: Kaliningrad flea market has moved! Follow the link to the new location here. Use this article to gain an insight and overview of what the market has to offer. The address of the new location can also be found at the end of this post.

In 2000, the first time I set foot on Kaliningrad soil ~ a giant step for a man who had never been to Russia before ~ one of the major attractions very quickly became the city’s flea market or junk market, as we like to call it.

Linked post > Beldray at Kaliningrad Flea Market a Surprising Find

In those days, the junk market was located at the side of Kaliningrad’s central market, a monolithic and cavernous complex consisting of all kinds of exciting combinations of traditional stalls, purpose-built units and multi-layered shops, selling everything from fruit and veg to jewellery.

To get to the market we would cut around the back of Lenin’s statute, which occupied the place where the Orthodox cathedral stands today (irony), and making our way along a make-shift pavement of boards raised on pallets, often treacherously slippy as winter approached, we’d pass amidst the wagon train of covered craft-sellers’ stalls, trek across the city’s bus park and, on the last leg of the journey, sidle off down a long, wide alley, which had rattling tin on one side and a towering building on the other. I have no idea why, as I was often in Kaliningrad during the sunny seasons, but my abiding memory of that alley was that it sucked wind down it like the last gasp of breath and was never anything other than cold, wet and raining.

Another ‘in those days’ was that the junk market extended along the side of the road, which is now a pedestrianised space between buildings ancient and modern and the latest super monolithic shopping centre.

Dealers could be found in an old yard opposite, plying their trade from a shanty town of stalls, all higgledy-piggledy, thrown and cobbled together, whilst public sellers set up shop on a narrow sloping scar of land, a grass verge at the side of a pavement worn down over the years by the restless itinerance of junk-seller hopefuls.

In our militaria dealing and 1940s’ re-enactment hey days, we bought twenty pairs of sapagee (high leather and canvas military boots) from a bloke stalled out on this piece of ground over several consecutive days. We also bought his Soviet military belts, the ones that he was wearing. On the last day of purchasing, we would have had his belt again had he more to sell, but all that he had left by the time we were through with buying was a piece of knotted string, which he needed to keep his trousers up.

When we left Russia at the end of a month’s visit, this was in 2004, border security couldn’t help sniggering when they found inside our vehicle twenty pairs of old Soviet boots, rolled up tightly, lashed down with string and packed away in bin liners. But he who laughs last, laughs longest. We hadn’t sneaked off with an icon or two or anything of any great value, but boots bought for a quid a pair that we could sell on in the UK at £35 or more a pop to WWII re-enactors and members of living history groups was unarguably lubbly jubbly. Whilst we wouldn’t get rich on the proceeds, it would certainly help to offset the cost of our trip to Kaliningrad. Dear, dear comrades, it shames me to admit what a despicable capitalist I once was.

When I first came to Kaliningrad (2000), I was buying stuff mainly for myself, but as I turned dealer, as most collectors are obliged to do to reclaim the space they live in, I did what all collectors must when the fear of decluttering wakes them in a cold sweat from their slumbers: I went out looking for more clutter, the justification being that I was no longer buying it for myself but selling it on for profit.

Believe you me, sooner or later (usually later), every junk hoarder arrives at a critical stage of consciousness, when they finally have to admit to themselves that buying old stuff is not just a compulsion, it is in fact a disease. After confession, however, absolution swiftly follows and, like all professional sinners, hoarders quickly learn that regular sin and regular confession go productively hand-in-hand. Thus, wherever it was we travelled to ~ be it Lithuania, Latvia, Poland or Odessa in Ukraine ~ the story was always the same: junk markets and antique shops loomed large on the itinerary.

What makes Kaliningrad Flea Market a Junk Buyers’ paradise?

Be it ever so difficult, if not impossible, for the likes of us to understand, but accumulating old stuff is not everyone’s cup of tea. Thus, the first victims of the development and progressive gentrification of Kaliningrad’s market area were the junk sellers. Speaking euphemistically, they were ‘politely asked to move on’.

I must admit (there you go, I am at it again, confessing!) that when I discovered their absence, I was truly mortified: new shops, block-paved walkways, tree-inset pedestrian-only streets ~ to be sure an incredible face lift, which no amount of Botox or timely plastic surgery could hope to emulate. All, I suppose, applaudable. But oh! Wherefore thou goest junk?!

As it happened there was no cause for alarm. All I needed to do was go around the bend, something that I am known to be good at, and there it was, as plain as the specs (the vintage specs) on your nose.

The precise location of the junk market was ~ I use the term ‘was’ because rumour has it that the purveyors of indispensable high-quality items and second-hand recyclables may be made to move on again to make way for further civic tarting ~ parallel to the road at the back of Der Wrangel tower, thereupon extending at a right angle, along a sometimes dusty, sometimes muddy, tree-shaded stretch of embankment, skirting a remnant of Königsberg’s moat.

The better-quality items ~ such as militaria and Königsberg relics ~ are generally to be found on the stalls lining either side of the pavement. Here you can discover gems, although not necessarily, or regularly for that matter, at prices to suit your pocket.

German helmets & ceramics Kaliningrad Flea Market

The pavement-side sellers are mainly traders, people ‘in the know’, who are hoping to get at least market rate for their wares or substantially more, if they can wangle it.

Experience has taught me that in dealing with these chaps movement on prices is not unachievable, but don’t expect the sort of discounts that are possible to negotiate at UK vintage and boot fairs. Sellers in Kaliningrad are skilled in the art of bargaining and are seemingly absolute in their conviction that if you don’t want it at the quoted price some German tourist will.

The pavement Kaliningrad Flea Market — **A busy Saturday at Kaliningrad Flea Market**

If you are after military items, especially those relating to WWII and to Königsberg’s German past, then it is here, along this stretch of pavement, where most likely you will find them. Badges, military dog-tags, Third Reich medals and weapon relics are often quite prolific in this quarter, as is cutlery, ceramics and ceramic fragments, many backstamped with political symbols and the insignia of Germany’s military services.

A word of warning, however. For although Kaliningrad’s German heritage and the fierce battles fought there during WWII would reasonably lead you to expect a preponderance of genuine military relics, as anyone who collects Third Reich memorabilia and/or deals in this specialised field will tell you, counterfeit and reproductions abound. German WWII relics, both military and civilian, bearing ideological runes attained collectable status almost before WWII had ended, and a thriving market in quality replicas to service this growing interest emerged as early as the late 1940s.

Party badges, military decorations, particularly of the higher orders and those associated with the German SS, have been faked and faked extensively, and faked with such credibility that it is difficult to distinguish, sometimes almost impossible, the later versions from the real McCoy, particularly since many were struck from the same dies and moulds that were used to create the originals.

The rule of thumb when hunting out Third Reich bargains from dealers’ stock is that you are less likely to get a bargain than to experience a hard bargain, as the pieces acquired by dealers will almost certainly have been exhaustively studied and meticulously researched. However, if you are tempted to buy, pay attention to the item’s appearance. Remember that genuine military items dating to the Second World War are now well into their dotage ~ 80-years-plus ~ and just like ‘mature’ people will generally exhibit significant signs of age, age-related wear and tear and sundry other defects from natural use and handling.

The other thing to watch out for is a proliferation of similar items at any one time. When in the UK, I was a regular attendee at the Bedford Arms Fair, then held in the now demolished Bunyan Centre, you could guarantee each year that a ‘bumper crop’ of something or other would mysteriously materialise. What an alarm bell that is! For example, one year it was German army dress daggers. Every other dealer seemed to have some and all in mint condition; the next it was German flags. These looked and smelt the part ~old ~ with the exception of their labels, which did neither. So, beware! Before you part with your cash or touch your card on the handset, remember these two wise words: Caveat emptor!

When I buy German these days I do so not to sell on but mainly for nostalgic reasons, and because I am attracted by the historic value only, I am content to purchase military pieces, decorations, party badges and anything else that appeals to me that have been dug up out of the ground. Naturally, condition ranges from considerably less than pristine to battered, biffed, corroded and poor, but an item in this condition is more likely to be the genuine article than one that might be described as ‘remarkably well-preserved’. Moreover, you can usually buy such items at a price that won’t break your brother’s piggy bank (is that another confession?).

The same can be said for architectural pieces such as enamel and metal signs that are Königsberg in origin. Signs ~ advertising, military, street plaques ~ whatever they might be, are personal favourites of mine, since they make historically interesting additions to any thoughtful home design. In purchasing relics of this nature, the same rule applies as the guiding one proposed for determining whether militaria is genuine or not. Signs, whatever their type and whatever material they are made of will, in the main, have been used, thus commensurable indications of use and age should be apparent.

In the past four decades, as original signs, especially enamel ones, have grown in popularity and correspondingly price, various retro companies have been successfully plugging the gap in an escalating market, meeting demand with repro goods. Some of these shout repro at you from a telescopic distance, but as techniques in ageing evolve, it often can be hard at first glance, even after several glances and even after a detailed study, to separate the wheat from the chaff, particularly when impulsiveness knocks caution quite unconscious. And signs are not the only things that are being skilfully ‘got at’. I recall a ‘19^th century ship’s wheel turning up at our local auction house. It was so well aged and distressed that were it not for the fact that it was so thoroughly convincing, you could easily have talked yourself Into disbelieving that it was anything other than the genuine article.

This is what to look out for: Signs that are ‘uniformly’ aged or show wear and tear in places where you would most expect to find wear and tear but not to the extent that it dissuades you from going ahead with a purchase are to be placed at the top of the suspect list. The last thing you want to discover, after years of gazing lovingly at the antique sign in your home, romancing on the fancy that this was once on a Königsberg shop front, long imagining how eyes like yours lost in time and to memory alighted on it as yours do now, is to learn that your treasured piece of history was in fact knocked out in China less than a week before you bought it.

Königsberg antique enamel signs in Victor Ryabinin's art studio, Kaliningrad — **Original German/Königsberg signs** (photo taken Victor Ryabin Studio, c.2010)

Once authenticity has been established, anything to be had forming a direct link to Königsberg can only be irresistible, not just signs but home appliances, kitchen ware, tea sets, ornaments, furniture, garden tools, anything in fact, especially when that anything bears irrefutable provenance in the form of a maker’s mark. Metalware and ceramics embossed or printed with commercial references, ie references to memorable brands or specific retail outlets, are desirable collectors’ pieces. Old ashtrays, many of which are inventive in shape and size, are top whack in this category. Even if chipped and cracked, they still command high prices, and as for the best examples, which are usually in the hands of dealers, after you have exclaimed with astonishment, “How much!” in those same hands they may well remain.

Konigsberg relic at Kaliningrad flea market

For a less expensive and in-profusion alternative, you could do far worse than plump for bottles. Bottle bygones are dug up in their hundreds, possibly thousands, in Kaliningrad and across the region, but as there are as many different shapes, sizes and hues as there is quantity, it is not unreasonable to discover rare, curious and even exquisite bottles rubbing shoulders with the more mundane.

In the UK, old bottles from the end of the 19^th century to the 1960s are as cheap as chips (used to be, before the West sanctioned itself), but Kaliningrad is not the UK, so don’t expect to get bargains on a par. The trade here adjusts the market price according to the needs and instincts of German visitors, many of whom are easily swayed to part with more money than they seem to have sense for a fragment of their forbears’ past. But “Ahh,” I hear you say, “what price, philistine, can anyone put on nostalgia?” Must I confess again?

Mick Hart buys vintage bottle at Kaliningrad Flea Market

I have been known to part with as much as ten quid for an interesting and unusual bottle when it has caught my fancy, but this kind of impetuosity acts in defiance of common sense. If you haven’t got the bottle to part with that much, and you shouldn’t have (Frank Zappa: ‘How could I be such a fool!’), when visiting Kaliningrad’s ‘flea market’, turn 90 degrees from the pavement, head along the well-worn and sometimes muddy embankment, and there you will find bottles and a vast range of all sorts, spread out on the ground on blankets, perched on top of little tables, hanging even in the branches of trees, for this is the market’s bargain basement, home to mainly domestic sellers.

Königsberg antique collectable bottles from Kaliningrad market

I have bought all sorts of things from this part of the market that I never knew I did not need, not to mention clothes that I have never worn and never will wear. For example, I was once obliged to buy an old tin bucket, and I would not dream of wearing it. It’s far too nice a bucket to use as a bucket should be used; so, there it sits in our dacha full of things that one day I possibly may go looking for but will never dream of looking for in that old tin bucket. It’s the sort of bucket that dealers such as I typically find in house clearances ~ a bucket of flotsam and jetsam left behind by the owner when he up and decided to die; a bucket of odds and ends destined to take up valuable space; the accidental contents of which having absolutely no value at all, I would never be able to give away let alone turn as much as a penny on. I sometimes wonder if this is not the only logical reason why people fill their houses and barns with junk, viz to make more work for those poor sods whose job it is to clear them after they, the owners, kick the bucket. And what a lovely bucket, my bucket is!

Mick Hart with vitage Tin bucket near Kaliningrad fort

Now, where was I? Ahh, yes wandering around on the bank mesmerised by matter.

As I said at the outset of this post, Kaliningrad’s ‘collectors’ market’ is on the move again. Please don’t quote me on this! As Elvis Costello said, it could be ‘just a rumour that was spread around town’, but its veracity is tied to the echo that the strip of wooded embankment roaming along by the side of the Königsberg fort may soon be hosting its last tin bucket. There is a whisper in the air of landscape reincarnation and the rustle of leaves in a public park.

Likewise, I am not entirely certain where this cornucopia of memories, this junk market par excellence, is now officially bound, although the wind in my tin bucket tells me that it may be somewhere not far removed from the city’s botanical gardens.

To be perfectly honest with you (another confession may soon be required), I really harbour no desire to know the new location ~ what the eye doesn’t see the heart won’t pine after. Thus, the next time that I wake up at the market handing over my roubles, I won’t be able to blame myself for going there deliberately and for buying things on purpose. Take a leaf out of my well-thumbed book: never leave chance to anything else but intention ~ you can always confess in the fulness of time.

*Proposed location of Kaliningrad Flea Market at time of writing:

Gaidara Street 8 ~ a piece of land, I am told, that lies opposite the bridge on the way to Sovetsky Prospekt.

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

Obtaining a Visa for Kaliningrad, Russia

Revised 22 December 2024 ~ Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

Airspace Closures

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

Links
Is the Poland-Kaliningrad Border Open?
How to get to Kaliningrad from the UK

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

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

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

Russia Kaliningrad Tourist Information: Tourist Visa

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

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

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

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

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

2. An application form

3. One valid passport-type photograph

4. Payment for application

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

Their location and postal address is:

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

Applications for a Russian Visa are typically handled online now, and all the information and guidance that you need can be obtained by visiting this page: How to obtain a Russian visa in London in 2025 – Visit Russia

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

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

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

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

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information: Professional visa support company

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

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

To this end, please see the following:

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

####

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

####

You will need to include your National Insurance number

####

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

####

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

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

####

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

####

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

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

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

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

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

Visa advice pertaining to Russia: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/russia

Links to Airport/Airline websites

Airlines

Lot Airways
Web: www.lot.com

Aeroflot
Web: www.aeroflot.ru

Wizz Air
Web: www.wizzair.com

Rynair
Web: www.ryanair.com

Airports

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

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

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

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

Welcome Back President Trump to the White House

It turns out that Joe was not such a bad guy after all. He served a useful purpose in keeping Donald’s seat warm for him.

7 November 2024 ~ Welcome Back President Trump to the White House

I don’t often cry Hallelujah, at least not first thing in the morning, but 6th November was an exception. The pseudo-liberal left media on both sides of the pond almost had me believing that all was lost, almost had me believing in their lies, but for all their twists and distortions they had failed to sway the U.S. election: Harris was out of the running; Trump had won the day.

Consequently, what would have been just another grey, dull, overcast morning in damp and soggy England was miraculously transformed into an overwhelming sense of jubilation. The news that barnstormer Trump had, against seemingly insurmountable odds, risen phoenix-like from the ashes of liberal machinations, overcoming conspiracy theories, court cases, investigations, two impeachments, in-party opposition and at least two assassination attempts and then gone on to win the election and make history as only the second president of the United States to serve non-consecutive terms in office is surely a sign from on high that long entrenched liberal-left hegemony can and will be defeated.

Welcome Back President Trump

There are a number of reasons why Trump romped home to victory, but the bedrock of his success is the robust stance he is taking against the greatest liberal-orchestrated evil of our time, engineered mass immigration.

This affirmation by the American people that mass immigration is fundamentally iniquitous and has to be stopped is a cue for the people of Great Britain. If you are going to do it the democratic way, then kick out the Cons and Liebour and, before it is too late, vote in Farage and Reform.

In the aftermath of Trump’s triumph, it is virtually unbelievable that the lefty media are asking questions like why and how did Trump succeed? Are they really that thick? Do they really not get it?

Only pathological liars falling victim to their own psychosis could be bewildered by Trump’s victory. They’ll be asking us to believe next that mass immigration enriches us, rather than admit that it and the wokest drivel by which it is underpinned are the greatest existential threats to Western civilisation since the invention of Tony Blair.

It is reassuring to note that recent political developments show positive indications of the routing of the left: Brexit, Nigel Farage’s accession to Parliament, Viktor Orban’s defiance of EU dictatorship, right-wing political gains in France, anti-immigration riots in the UK and now the Return of Trump.

Trump’s election, his re-election, is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular in U.S. history. That Trump has endured and prevailed against inestimably powerful and pervasive forces of hate, malignancy and corruption, restores faith like nothing else could in a democratic system which, whilst much lauded by posturing liberals, is sadly viewed throughout the world as deeply flawed and bastardised.

Now Trump is back where he should be, there may be hope for the future yet.

All our yesterdays > Is Biden their Last Straw?

Image attribution
Red carpet: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Red-carpet-vector-drawing/15058.html

Kaliningrad flea market has moved to a new location

They said it would happen, and it has

4 November 2024 ~ Kaliningrad flea market has moved to a new location

The Kaliningrad flea market that has occupied the pavement area close to the Central Market, and in more recent years spilled over onto a ribbon of disused ground bordering the moat of the Wrangel Tower, has officially moved.

For me, as I dare say for many, the relocation of this sprawling and excitingly chaotic masterpiece of antiques, collectables, curios and junk, marks the end of an era. Not that we did not know that it was coming; plans to move the market on have been in the pipeline for years. Indeed, I wrote about the proposal in a 2022 blog post: What makes Kaliningrad Flea Market a Junk Buyer’s Paradise?

Kaliningrad flea market moves to a new location

We all know that nothing stays the same forever; Königsberg can testify to that. Nevertheless, knowing that change is imminent rarely compensates when it comes to pass.

There will be some, of course, who will breath a sigh of relief that most days, but on a Saturday in particular, they will at last be able to stroll without let or hindrance along the sidewalk next to the Wrangel Tower instead of running a zigzag gauntlet through sandwiched lines of dealers’ stalls agog with curious clutter-buggers.

I, for one, however, will miss the incipient urge whenever I visit the city’s Central Market (food market) to detour to the ‘junk’ stalls to see what they have on offer that I cannot live without, such as an old tin bucket, for example.

Mick Hasrt with his tin bucket bought from Kaliningrad flea market

There have been occasions when travelling by bus on route to somewhere else that I have accidentally alighted at the flea market. Of course, I have only gone to look, not to buy. So imagine how surprised I have been on arriving home to discover that whilst I was only looking a Soviet belt, a Königsberg ashtray, a kitsch ornament and an old German helmet have somehow jumped into my shopping bag.

Kaliningrad flea market has moved

I have not yet had the chance to work out which bus route one should take to get to the market’s new location. Gaidara Street 8 is its new address; a piece of land, I am told, that lies opposite the bridge on the way to Sovetsky Prospekt.

At the time of writing (4 November 2024), the market is not yet functioning. By all accounts, the site is vast, but a great deal needs to be done to bring it up to snuff, to make it seller- and buyer-friendly. News is, however, according to the market organisers, that the site will be ready and the market up and running in a matter of days not weeks.

Now, where did I put my Kaliningrad map? What have I done with my bucket?

387 Osobaya Varka beer in Kaliningrad good or not?

Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: 387 Osobaya Varka

Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad

31 October 2024 ~ 387 Osobaya Varka beer in Kaliningrad good or not?

Have you ever wondered why Baltika Breweries number their beers instead of giving them a name, for example Russian Sausage or Yalkee Palki. I read somewhere that it is a hangback to Soviet times when everything was numbered, ie School No. 26, Bakery No. 38, Factory No. 97, but perhaps the real reason Baltika use a number instead of a name is that it is easier to recall. Also, whenever one asks for one of their numerical brands, they have first to refer to the brewery name. I mean you can hardly ask for a ‘9’, can you, without running the risk of buying a pair of 9-sized slippers, or a packet containing a German negative. Nine, I mean no; when you ask for any Baltika beer with a number instead of a name, you have to append the ‘Baltika’ first, and, from a marketing point of view, this is rather clever.

Disregarding the fact that not many people ask for bottles of beer when they take them off the shelf (No theory is perfect!), Baltika may have smugly thought that they had the numbers game sewn up … and they had, until along came this little beauty: a beer that goes by the name of 365, sorry that’s a phone number of an old flame (Old Flame Bitter! That’s a good name for a beer!) I meant to say 387.

387 Osobaya Varka beer

387 (never start a sentence with a number!). Is it a bus? Is it a car? Is it a plane? No, the answer to the riddle lies, as revealed by Svoe Mnenie Branding Agency’s comment on the website packagingoftheworld.com, that this Russian brew was not named after Tyre Repair Centre No. 387, but because of 387’s vital statistics. According to what I have read, each bottle of 387 contains three types of malt – lager, caramel and burnt; it has taken eight hours to brew; and not less than seven days of natural fermentation. Put it together and what have you got? 387. Now that’s rather clever too, is it not!

More clever is the fact that the figures ‘387’ all but completely overwhelm the label and are produced in a clear, strong, attractive typeface with closed counters, thus ensuring that the beer leaps out at you from the multiplicity of brands seeking attention on any one shelf.

The little image of the Kaluga brewery projected in a contrasting orange colour on the collar label is also a nice, effective visual touch.

Heckler: “’ere mate, did you buy this [beep] beer to look at the label or to drink the [beep]?!”

We’ll have less of that, my good man! I thought we said no liberals?

Beer review links:

[Butauty] [Kanapinis (light)] [Kanapinis (dark)]
[Keptinis Farmhouse][Bistrampolio]

When I first bought and drank this beer on 12 September 2022, it cost me 79 roubles. The average price today for a 0.45 litre bottle would appear to be around 80 to 84 roubles. Can’t complain about that.

Beer 387 Osobaya Varka, to use its full name, weighs in at 6.8 per cent. For an old Englishman like me who is used to drinking beer at strengths between 4.1 and 4.5, that’s quite a hike, but who is complaining? Live dangerously. It’s safer than walking down many a street in London once the night has mugged the day.

As always (“He’s so [beep] predictable!” It’s that [beep] heckler again!), the assessment of a good beer and, indeed a bad beer, starts with hooter appraisal. Tops away and the smell genie that pops out of the bottle is strong, sweet and barley-like, with jostling hoppy undertones. The aroma is not lost between the bottle and the glass, into which the nectar happily settles to give a good mid-amber colour and a head which is ‘now you see it and now you don’t’.

The head fizzling out faster than a TARDIS escaping from Dover [see episode 28,000 of Dr Woke ‘The Invasion of the Third Worlders’] is as significant to me as paying my TV licence. I don’t want to have to shave every time I drink a beer. I don’t get the taste and high-volume foam connection, if, indeed, there is one.

Here we have a mid-hoppy taste; a malty taste; a little bit of fruity taste; culminating in a taste that owns up to its strength. The first sip loses nothing in the making, and there is a nice balance among the flavours. The finish is a ‘back of the tongue’ gripper, and the aftertaste in no hurry to let you down and scarper.

The beer is moreish, which is good news for the brewers and also for you, providing you weren’t so daft as to only buy one bottle!

Patric McGoohan’s Prisoner said, “I am not a number, I’m a free man!”

Beer 387 is a number. It is not a free beer, but, believe you me, it’s worth every rouble.

“AB InBev Efes is currently the biggest player on the beer market in Russia”
AB InBev Efes

BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: 387 Osobaya Varka
Brewer: AB InBev Efes
Where it is brewed: Russia
Bottle capacity: 0.45 litre
Strength: 6.8%
Price: It cost me 79 roubles (0.63p)
Appearance: Light amber
Aroma: Barley with fruit nuances
Taste: Starts mild-hop bitter; Finishes with a bite
Fizz amplitude: 3/10
Label/Marketing: Unique
Would you buy it again? There’s no reason not to

Beer rating

About the beer: 387 Osobaya Varka:
The brewer’s website has this to say about 387 Osobaya Varka:

A brilliant beer with rich and original flavour. Caramel malt gives a rich colour, whereas brown malt adds a rye bread aftertaste. This light beer is slightly stronger than average, which makes its flavour more complex and pronounced.

Brewer’s website: https://abinbevefes.ru/

Wot other’s say [Comments on 387 Osobaya Varka from the internet, unedited]
😊Excellent beer, for lovers of strong foamy drinks, good quality, easy to drink, no alcohol aftertaste! [Comment: No idea where he got the ‘foamy’ from!]
😊Yes, I have been enjoying this beer for a long time. It goes well with pistachios. It is cold and just right in the heat. Not weak and not strong…
😑 The taste is flat a bit sweet, a bit sour with faint malty finish. Too much carbonation along with alcohol make very bad mouthfeel. Really needs some food pairing. Avoid it.
[Comment: A bit bitty. Avoid bit.]
😊I forget what it tastes like, but I know I enjoyed it!

Telegraph Restaurant Zelenogradsk Wired for Quality

Over the wire the buzz word is Telegraph

25 October 2024 ~ Telegraph Restaurant Zelenogradsk Wired for Quality

“It’s all so confusing,” so says a friend of mine and quite often. He’s a scientist, now retired, so he should know. And he’s referring to life. When I echo his sentiments, “It’s all so confusing,” he invariably replies, “It often is,” and sometimes he will say, “… but it is also often quite exciting.” Sometimes, when reflecting on life, he opines, “It don’t make sense!” And although, ‘it’s all so confusing’ and also ‘often exciting’, it actually does make sense that there are two Telegraphs: one I wrote about recently, which is in Svetlogorsk, and the other of which I am writing now, this one is in Zelenogradsk. The Telegraph in Svetlogorsk is a cafe and an art gallery, whilst the Telegraph in Zelenogradsk a restaurant.

Telegraph Restaurant Zelenogradsk front entrance

Each Telegraph has a different function, but both are eponymously named after the same function their buildings had when the world was a different place.

The Telegraph Restaurant

The Telegraph restaurant in Zelenogradsk occupies the building of the old German telegraph and post office, which was established in the coastal resort in 1896. It is located at the top end of the high street. However, as the terms ‘top end’ and ‘bottom end’ are absolutely subjective, serving no useful purpose to man or beast, let me qualify its location by adding that it lies at the end of Zelenogradsk’s high street nearest the bus and train stations and not the end where the public park and sand is.

Telegraph Restaurant Zelenogradsk

The old telegraph building is one of those solid, stalwart red-brick affairs, instantly identifiable within the Kaliningrad region as being authentically German. In the summer months, a small area is set aside on the pavement next to the building for al-fresco dining and drinking; in winter, during the festive season, this same area is requisitioned for Telegraph’s contribution to the town’s impressive transformation into an imaginatively lit and magically decorated New Year’s holiday wonderland.

Whilst it occupies the ground floor of the former telegraph office, the contemporaneous Telegraph is accessed by a flight of steps. “It don’t make sense!” “It rarely does!”, with the exception of this region, where ground floors are often elevated above the basements below them to let in light from windows at pavement level.

On entering into the stairwell, the scene is set for the Telegraph experience. The walls are bare, stripped of their plaster, exposing the brick beneath. A black facsimile telegraph pole stands in sharp relief, and further along an illusory hole containing some kind of map twinkles in the muted light from illuminated markers. This introduction tells you in no uncertain terms that the Telegraph’s interior will not be run of the mill. It prepares you for an industrialised look with novel touches of retrospective modernity in keeping with the telegraph legacy from which it takes its thematic cue.

Exposed brickwork arch in the Telegraph restaurant

The two rooms, which are actually one room joined but visually separated by a deep, broad arch, continue the bare-brick look. The ceiling has a patchy effect, as though some of the plaster has fallen off, but as none lies on the floor below, we must chalk this up to designer licence. The lightbulbs in the industrial lampshades are the visible filament kind, they compliment the shabby chic, and the untrunked cable which supplies their power openly climb the walls.

The here and now in which we live may be the ‘wireless age’, but back in the day when the Telegraph building fulfilled its original function, the term ‘hard wired’ was literal. Appropriately, therefore, no attempt has been made to conceal the wires that link the bulbs. They travel across the ceiling in an exhibition of bold impunity.

The world of wires and plugs, the working environment of yesteryear’s telegraph offices is captured in some detail in the large, framed black and white photographs arranged around the restaurant’s walls. Study these at your leisure to see just how much times have changed.

Black & White photo of old telegraph office

Switchboard operators in a busy telegraph office

The theme of the mechanical age continues in the restaurant’s choice of tables. Old treadle sewing machines dating in manufacture and use from the 19^th to mid-20^th centuries make attractive tables once the machines have been removed.

The leading manufacturer of hand-operated and treadle machines was a company known as Singer, who suspended the Singer name in the mid-section of a wrought-iron framework, bridging the divide between whilst connecting the table’s end supports. The elaborate nature of the frame’s decoration is what gives the tables their appealing clout, and it is thumbs up to the Telegraph restaurant for retaining the tables’ pivoting foot pedals. Attractive features in themselves, should you be prone to tippy tapping, as in his youth was one of my brothers, these pedals will entertain your feet at the same time as you sit and eat.

Telegraph Restaurant Zelenogradsk

Telegraph is a restaurant, it isn’t really a bar, but it has a bar of sorts, and I like that. I never feel at home and cannot quite get comfortable drinking alcohol in a barless zone. Sitting in a restaurant, seated around a table without a bar in sight just doesn’t do it for me. I liken the experience to sitting in a car which does not have a steering wheel. Without a bar something is missing; most likely it’s the bar.

For all its designer emphasis on the basic nitty gritty, Telegraph is cozy. In the all-important lighting department, which is the principal component in any attempt at coziness, Telegraph scores 11 out of 10. Excuse me, whilst I correct myself, my maths are notoriously weak; I meant to say scores 12.

In one sense, this is not good. Telegraph is so terribly cozy that it’s hard to get me out of there. Thank heavens that buses and trains work to things called timetables, which is something else worth mentioning. Telegraph is but a short walk away from the town’s bus and train stations, making it, if you time it right, and I usually make sure that I do, the perfect stopping-off place on your outward journey and a convenient traveller’s rest at which to pause on your way in.

Talking of food, as we now are, Telegraph’s speciality is the promotion of Baltic cuisine. It must be up to snuff as the restaurant is duly cited in Wheretoeat [in] Russia 2024 and in December 2022 was awarded the regional title of ‘Baltic Cuisine’.

Another award that Telegraph deserves is for its truly handsome website, especially in the category of ‘best designed for ease-of-use’. Navigate to its menu pages for a comprehensive and mouth-watering insight into the range of dishes it has on offer. And just in case you are wondering if I intend to provide you with links to the website and to the restaurant’s menu, wonder ye no more. Here is the link to Telegraph’s website: https://telegraph.rest/ and here is the link to its menu: https://telegraph.rest/menu . And whilst I am at it, here is the link to its page on social media: https://vk.com/telegraph.rest .

Ah, but it’s a grand menu to get lost in, isn’t it? But now that you are back, ask yourselves a question, are you fans of quirky? I most definitely am, particularly when it involves valuing and sustaining dying traditions. Thus imagine my delight on discovering that the present-day Telegraph salutes its earlier namesake by enabling its patrons to buy, write and send postcards directly from its premises to anywhere in the world. Who needs digital messaging and who needs things like WhatsApp when you’ve a pen, a card, a stamp and post box! WhatsUp with that? Nothing!

Postcards can be sent from the Telegraph restaurant at Zelenogradsk

My scientist friend, the one whom I mentioned at the beginning of this post, has a variety of different catchphrases to suit or not to suit as the case may be the topic of almost every conversation. For example, whenever we discuss Britain’s existential threat, the not-accidental migrant invasion, he will with cynicism and irony ask: “Well, what can we do about it?” When we are feeling philosophical, ruminating together on the mysteries of time, “Where would we be without it?” And when we discuss giants of history ~ politicians, generals, luminaries of the silver screen, pop stars, authors, artists and the figureheads of the American mob ~ his concluding remark is likely to be “And it didn’t do them any good!”

Let’s try to apply these questions and statements to the Telegraph in Zelenogradsk:

What can we do about it? Go there!
Where would we be without it? Deprived.
It didn’t do them any good! Well, obviously it didn’t. Because they decided to go somewhere else when they should have gone to Telegraph.

You see, when you look at it scientifically, it all makes perfect sense!

The main thing

Telegraph restaurant
Kurortny pr., 29, Zelenogradsk, Kaliningrad region, Russia, 238326
Tel: +7 908 290-55-21
Website: https://telegraph.rest/

Opening times:
Mon to Thurs: 12 noon to 11pm
Friday: 12 noon to 12 midnight
Saturday: 11am to 12 midnight
Sunday: 11am to 11pm

Note: Reservations required

Mick Hart at the Telegraph Restaurant Zelenogradsk

A serious business: Should I finish my pint first and then drink my marzipan-flavoured vodka or vice versa?

Bistrampolio Beer in Kaliningrad is it any good?

Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus

Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad

25 August 2024 ~ Bistrampolio Beer in Kaliningrad is it any good?

Bistrampolio! It’s very much a mouthful, isn’t it! To the complacent, or could that be arrogant, English, who expect everyone else to speak their language, it sounds like a cross between a poser’s restaurant in old-time London’s Tooley Street and a disease brought on by inveterate mint eating. But have I got news for you: it’s nothing of the sort!

Bistrampolio is, for want of a better description, a chocolate stout. Its full name is Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus, but we won’t hold that against it.

It is brewed by Lithuanian brewers Aukstaitijos Bravorai, who seem to specialise in my favourite bottles ~ flip top ~ and win countless awards in my mind for best labels in their class, possibly because their labels exist in a class of their own.

Beer review links:

[Butauty] [Kanapinis (light)] [Kanapinis (dark)]
[Keptinis Farmhouse]

The Bistrampolio bottle is dark but not as dark as its contents. If you were to pour it into a glass, and where else would you pour it (?), and then swiftly turn off the lights, you wouldn’t be able to see it. No, honestly, it really is that dark. As black as your hat, which is green.

And even with a miner’s helmet with a torch strapped on the front, which you probably bought from eBay, you would only need to wear it, if you felt you had to.

A full body is easily found, and this beer certainly has one. If you’ve got a girlfriend like that, you’ll know perfectly well what I mean.

Bistrampolio Beer in Kaliningrad

I’m busy at the moment sampling what the brewers of Bistrampolio tell me is a beer containing five types of malts. That’s not one malt! That’s five! Another interesting figure, which ties in like a pair of corsets to the image of full-bodied, is its 6% O.G., making it not just a full body but an appreciably strong body.

The flavour is all there, and believe you me it’s rich, but, unlike many strong, dark beers, its consistency is light, not intensely glutinous, thus giving you, the drinker, the full malty, as it were, but in a rather surprisingly thirst-quenching way. Drunk chilled, as the brewers suggest, Bistrampolio hits the right spot from the top of the glass to the bottom.

Has it a good finish and an aftertaste to match? What sort of question is that? Has a globalist got morals? The first is a yes; the second a no. Bistrampolio is smooth, as smooth as the finest black velvet. Comparatively speaking (why not?), Guinness is to Bistrampolio what a horse-hair blanket is to silk. “On my sainted mother’s life, to be sure, to be sure, to be sure …” In the second place, there is no second place, for if Bistrampolio was a horse and I a betting man, I would be quids in on this one-horse race.

But enough of this idle banter! Switch the light back on and let’s have a proper look at her!

She’s dark, dusky, sultry; she carries the perfume of caramel malts with just the right hint of barley; and boy does she go down well.

With a pedigree like this (woof!) and an O.G. of 6%, she possesses the kind of darkness that I could gladly take a knee for, or anything else for that matter…

BOX TICKER’S CORNER
Name of Beer: Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus
Brewer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai
Where it is brewed: Lithuania
Bottle capacity: 1litre
Strength: 6%
Price: It cost me about 310 roubles (£2.71)
Appearance: Dark chocolate
Aroma: Rich malty chocolate
Taste: Handsome
Fizz amplitude: 3/10
Label/Marketing: Classic
Would you buy it again? I want to

Beer rating

About the beer: Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus
The brewer’s website has this to say about Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus:

“BISTRAMPOLI MANOR unfiltered chocolate dark beer. This 6% ABV beer is brewed with a combination of five malts – Pilsner Light, Munich, Caramel, Dark and Chocolate – which gives this beer a dark mahogany colour and a subtle dark chocolate bitterness and aroma. Serving this beer cool (about 12 ⁰C) reveals its true aroma and taste.”

Brewer’s website: aukstaitijosbravorai.lt

Wot other’s say [Comments on Bistrampolio Dvaro Alus from the internet, unedited]
😑 Smooth and very drinkable. Just slightly sweet overall. Not a roast bomb.
😐 The taste is sweet, malty with a noticeable rag.
[Comment: Is he drinking it through his underpants?]
😊The aroma is persistent and tasty. Damn, really tasty. The aroma is clean and chocolatey.
[Comment: Now here is a chap who tells it as it is!]
💪F*ing Handsome!
[Comment: My brother! He’s got a way with words, but rarely gets away with them …]

UK Anti-Immigration Riots Herald New Dystopian Era

In case you are wondering should you travel to the UK, my advice to you is you’d be safer as the target in a circus knife-throwing act. And it’s nothing to do with the ‘far right’ and all to do with immigration.

12 August 2024 ~ UK Anti-Immigration Riots Herald New Dystopian Era

Travel Warning Issued: Stay away from the UK

What a great idea! What a cunning plan!
Was it the new government’s
or the evil far right’s?
Apparently, several countries, including the likes of Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia, are warning their natives not to travel to the UK as it is a dangerous place. I have to agree with them, but it is nothing to do with the riots. Now all we have to do is to get countries spanning the entire continent of Africa, Pakistan and the whole of the Middle East to issue similar warnings ~ even Rwanda might join in ~ and like stranger things which happen at sea, perhaps the ‘little boats’, which are anything but little, will sail away to somewhere else, like Never Never Land, and never return again. Amen.

After 27 years of being forcefully told that multiculturalism and diversity are the best thing since the Black and White Minstrels disbanded, and you’d better believe it, keep your mouth shut and only say what we want you to say, the lid has finally blown off the UK pressure cooker. Perhaps now at last the UK can stop looking for bogus invasions from fictional enemies abroad and address the home-grown threat from the immigrant invasion. Sorry? What was that? You doubt it? So do I.

The British media and the newly appointed Labour government are at such frenetic odds to divert the British public from the root cause of the riots, the immigration crisis, that if the situation was not so egregiously dire, and as we have seen in the past few days so dangerous, it would make good comedy. The UK is disintegrating and everyone and everything is to blame except for failed multiculturalism, perpetual immigration and an endless sludge pump of stifling woke.

Social media is to blame, especially Musk’s ‘X’ (just because he dismantled Twitter’s left-wing hegemony and then scrapped the platform’s silly name for another silly name); Farage is to blame, because he tells it as it is (I blame it on that suit he borrowed from Tommy Robinson.); GB News is to blame, because it raises questions and highlights issues that the lefty mainstream media would rather not confront and evidently has no answer for; white Britons are to blame because some of their compatriots have taken to the streets to vent their anger and frustration, when they should be playing the white man, complying and capitulating and taking whatever shit is shot in their direction by the establishment’s anti-white fan. It would not be so bad if it was aimed at everyone else, but unfortunately it seems to them that they are the only target.

Who will not be blamed, until history exposes them, is the UK’s political elite and the puppeteers, their globalist masters.

How UK mainstream media plays down and manipulates the truth
This is an exercise you can do at home. Go to UK Google News and search on ‘stabbing’. This will give you a list of articles. Read these articles and see if you can find the identity of the person (people) being stabbed and the identity of the person (people) doing the stabbing. This is a simple test for mainstream media obfuscation. Often, the articles seem to be hiding something ~ and we know what that something is!

Also, watch video news reports carefully. For example, some of the mainstream news videos of the alleged assault by two policer officers at Manchester Airport. Here, the bias is often conveyed almost subliminally in the tone of the narrator. It is a weary, sorrowful, injured tone, as if the person doing the talking has contracted a virulent dose of the bed-wetting liberal lefties. Both techniques are employed to a mutual end, but one plays with your focus whilst the other attempts to infect your thoughts like a virus through your feelings. Read. Watch. But above all be sceptical.

Recent things to consider:
* What started the ethnic riots in Leeds: Google answer: anti-police sentiment.

* UK serviceman stabbed: A hard left newspaper standfirsts its report with the usual get-out-clause, the attacker could have a mental health issue. Well, yes, all of these enrichers who have nothing better to do in life than roam around stabbing people, blowing people up and, for an encore, blowing themselves up have, by definition, mental health problems. The question you should ask yourself, and your politicians, is, why do we keep importing them?

* Police officer kicks assailant in head: Did you know it happened at Manchester Airport? Airports are prime targets for terrorists. Terrorists fit a certain profile. They could be carrying weapons. When people hit you, you generally hit them back, and after all they are the Police Force.

** Southport dance-class killings: Media focus switches from victims and perpetrator to accusations that ‘false claims about the attacker’ went viral. The riots start, and who, what and why are submerged beneath blanket MSM coverage of the threat we face from the ‘far right’. “I say, Binky old boy, I don’t think I’d know one if I saw one. They must be pretty rare, not like those ethnics and lefties, what! They take to the streets like boats on water!”

Attention: Diversion Ahead!
The heartfelt sigh of relief from certain ruling quarters and the leftist MSM when the riots kicked off in the aftermath of the Southport carnage could be heard all over the country, especially in the capital. If you are of a cynical mind you might suspect that this diversion was the one they had been waiting for.

The leftist mainstream media were off the chocks like a 1970s’ streaker on ice: “Far Right Riots!!!” they shrieked. The government seized on this diversionary tactic to condemn the rabble in no uncertain terms, vowing to bring them to justice Edgar J Hoover style (He looks a bit like him, don’t you think?) Strong and stronger words were uttered!

In keeping with the modern idiom, the mainstream media did not report, it ranted, raged and fumed and then it slammed and blasted, and at the height of this hullabaloo the issue of and the evils of relentless immigration were quietly, oh so quietly, swept beneath the liberal-left carpet. Whilst all this was going on, whilst the ‘anti-protesters’, Hope Not Hate, Unite Against Fascism, Stand Up Against Anything That Makes Us Sound Incredibly Virtuous (emphasis on the ‘incredibly’), and all the other touchy-feely left-wing Marxist groups (who seem to act like fascists themselves), were getting the full-praise treatment from an extremely grateful establishment and the nasty far-right fascists the full force of the law, over the Channel in France, gangs of Sudanese cut-throats were swotting up on their riot techniques, using knives and machetes to ensure a place in the boats waiting to bring them to easy-touch Britain, where, once ensconced in their free hotels, they will sleep the sleep of the privileged and awake the following morning to face the full and formidable force of a traditional English breakfast. There! Let that be a lesson to them! It serves them right for coming!

Next stop, Britain’s streets!

How and when did it all go wrong? Queen Victoria asks.

It all started going wrong at the end of the Second World War with cheap imported labour. Then, as now, we were told that immigration was good for us, a bit like eating one’s greens (ay up, that sounds quite racist!). It was beneficial for the economy. Then as now it was beneficial, but only for the few. In the short term, the few cashed in; in the long term the rest of us paid the price. We continue to pay the price today, but the stakes are considerably higher.

Now, several decades later, with the zealous help of the pseudo-liberals, a country of unparalleled excellence, a country to be proud of, has been thrown back into the dark ages, its towns and cities trashed and transformed into something resembling third-world ghettos.

And so the riots start

In the days leading up to the riots, Britain witnessed a series of precipitating events. First there was the ethnic riots in Leeds. Cause, we are told, anti-police sentiments. Don’t like the police much, time to the smash the city up. Then came the stabbing of a UK military serviceman, targeted, it was suggested, because he was in uniform. It has really come to something if you dare not wear your uniform in the country that you serve; is that what I hear you say? Believe it or not, it is policy. Members of His Majesty’s Armed Forces are advised not to wear their uniforms when in public places. Yep, Britain really is that dangerous. I have even stopped wearing my Girl Guides’ uniform.

The next provocation to hit the mainstream headlines was the Manchester Airport incident, in which a police officer was accused of kicking a man in the head. A video taken at the time shows that he and his colleagues had been assaulted. The attack was violent and sustained, and the officer fought back. One tends to do so when assaulted, and besides he has a job to do. He works in the British police force. That’s ‘force’, spelt f-o-r-c-e, for those who are liberal dyslexic.

The officer accused was suspended pending investigation, a thousand apologies issued, and the ethnics and their lefty chums took to the streets in force on the evidence of a video selectively edited and quickly posted on social media platforms purporting to show police brutality.

The final spark to the tinder box that set a montage of riots in motion was the brutal killing of three young white girls at a community centre in Southport.

Police at airports
Whilst we wait with anticipation on the verdict of the police officers’ conduct at Manchester airport that sparked ethnic protests that we don’t hear much about, I must say that it is reassuring to know in a country like ours, soft-touch Britain (soft for some), where the green light is routinely given for access to all kinds of people about which we know next to nothing, that our airports, which are prime targets for ruthless terrorist maniacs ~ Killers with a capital ‘K’ ~ are protected day and night by brave police and security forces, who have an extremely difficult and dangerous job to do. The last thing any of us want, who would rather not be obliterated whilst waiting in the departure lounge, is an airport overseen by demoralised, disempowered police, who, if and when the balloon goes up, are hamstrung when they need to act by the disconcerting thought that pillocks might be filming them on smartphones, and what will be the consequences if, heaven forbid, they have to use force. Let us hope and pray, therefore, that the result of the inquiry into the conduct of the officers protecting Manchester Airport does not jeopardise all of our lives by rendering airport police, and all police for that matter, even less effective than they have become in recent years through the disservice done to us all by the imposition of social media and winging wokist policies.

Much was made by the leftist media in response to the riots that followed in the wake of the Southport atrocity that false claims on social media relating to the stabman had triggered public disorder. But citing misinformation spread by social media as the definitive cause of the riots is a bottom-scraping exercise. As tragic and catalytic as the barbaric act in Southport is, the significance of this incident in relation to the riots is commensurate with the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

The riots, strictly speaking, are not a manifestation solely of recent events, as one-sided and tragic as they unequivocally are, but stem from an accumulation of deep, of bitter frustration, conjoined with a sense of national unease, that free-for-all immigration and the woke by which it is enforced is rotting British culture, contributing to the country’s crime wave, making the streets unsafe, advantaging foreign terrorists and turning British subjects into second-class citizens in their own country.

Since the on-stage debut of Tony Blair, Britons have been forced to accept wide and penetrating cultural changes, none of which they asked for, did not want and do not want; forced to pretend they are being ‘enriched’ ; forced to live in a shadowy world of rising crime and terrorism to which the only official answer is go home, hold hands and have candle-lit vigils. The end result, to coin a phrase, are riots waiting to happen.

UK Anti-Immigration Riots ~ Stop the Boats!

It is understandable why one faction of the pseudo-liberal cabal refuse to exit their little world and admit that it’s all gone terribly wrong. These are those who simply need to feel good about themselves, who crave the accolade of being enlightened, who refute the perils of mass immigration because every now and then Mrs Patel, from the house next door, makes them onion bhajis, and Mr Bingbongo, on the opposite side, speaks to them of religious conversion. Better get to it quick, I say! These are the liberal lefties who, though many of them mean well, have proven themselves to be as daft as they are insufferably gullible, who swallow, hook, line and sinker, the misinformation fed to them by those who owe them no greater allegiance than whatever it takes to exploit their simple childlike naivety.

At the command end of this miserable chain there exists a more insidious, a more invidious clan ~ you know who you are! ~ who will be rubbing their hands with glee as they witness the breakdown of law and order and the scenes of devastation playing out on Britain’s streets.

They, the ones in the shadows, the ones that pull the strings, have worked long and hard for things to go this way. They have lusted after division, and now at last they’ve got what they craved for. Like the average useful idiots, they sing the praises of multiculturalism, the wonders of diversity, but for them they have a different meaning in which peace and harmony play no part.

The newly elected Labour government and the usual media outlets which continue to push this far left agenda, as powerful as they are, are clearly out of their depth. Using the old distraction technique, they blame the riots on far-right thugs, thus focussing on the symptom rather than the cause, and in the process deliver the threatening message, ‘speak out of turn about immigration and we’ll slap an extremist label on you!’

When they speak they preach to the converts of old, Guardian and Independent readers, who, like drug addicts craving their daily fix, need to hear those magic words ‘far right’, and hear them loud and often. It binds them to their fantasy. For the rest of us, however, the truth is plain to see. Ninety-nine per cent of the British population are not, as a leftist journalist recently claimed, happy with mass immigration and the radical changes it has brought to our country. In fact, each and every one of us face a riot every day, a sad, a sickening, emotional one, which we struggle to contain, as we angrily watch from the sidelines a country that once had no equal being fly tipped into the swamp.

Allow me to put this in context: A few days ago, I attended a classic car show, where I met and spoke to a lot of English people. Car talk apart, the conversation inevitably shifted into a higher gear when someone mentioned the riots and from there into top gear when the state of the country was broached.

“It [the country’s] gone to the dogs,” one man spat. (I think he said the ‘dogs’.)

“I no longer think of it as ‘my’ country,” another cursed. I think this man was Indian.

And still another asserted, and he did not mince his words: “The UK is a s*it hole!”

A man who purported to be a former officer of the law, recently retired, got wind of our conversation. Standing in front of the fatty-fry van where we all were queuing, he swore an oath on the sign that said ‘Fish ‘n’ Chips the Great English Meal’, which was backed by a union jack, that he had to leave the police force as it was systemically anti-white British and sabotaged by the ‘yoke of woke’. I asked him to pass the vinegar. I believe he already had.

In the three hours I spent talking to people at this event, if there was anybody there who harboured a Guardian, Independent or Observer point of view that mass immigration is a wonderful thing and that the Britain we live in today is a safe, morally stable, decent, civilised liberal utopia then no one was letting on.

No one condoned the riots, but they evidently understood, more than the government wants to, the reason why they happened, and none were willing to buy the snake oil pedalled by mainstream media.

One person to whom I spoke did confess, reluctantly, with an air of self-conscious shame, as if he was looking for absolution, that he voted Labour at the last election, because there was something wrong with him. But when he came to his senses, he realised his mistake. Labour, he had realised, is the party of immigration. The Tories were simply inept, but Labour have an agenda, which is to flood the country with undesirables. “We’ve got enough of our own,” he declared, “So why do we want to import them?”

Another chap, who was busy observing a T-shirt printed with ‘Bald Lives Matter’ ~ My brother, between a mouthful of chips, looked self-consciously down at his stomach, no doubt wondering if ‘Fat Lives Matter’, whilst a friend wondered, or should have been wondering, if a case could be made for ‘Tight Lives Matter’, as he hadn’t paid for his chips, I had ~ declared, philosophically, in a broad Northamptonshire accent, “They [the establishment] are frit of ‘them’. ‘Them’ being you know who. That’s why we have this two, er, what do you call it, two-tyre policing and why hardly anyone gets arrested when foreigners go on the rampage.” He was actually more specific in naming who these foreigners are, and his expressions were liberally [pun intended] peppered with lots of f*cks and c*nts.” Now, if I had been a ‘counter-protester’ an ‘anti-fascist’ or (God forbid!) a craven apologist for Black Lives Matter (wait a minute whilst I take a knee ~ what a twat he looks!), I might have dismissed this impudent white man as a raging f*cking fascist and ignored whatever he had to say, riot or no riot!

I looked away at that point, as though I was trying to find in the not too distant but mythical future a T-shirt with the caption, “British White Views Matter”, but I must have been looking in the wrong direction, towards London and onto Downing Street, because no matter how I strained my eyes, my hopes and my imagination, the only thing that seemed to matter was that it no longer mattered to me, at least not as much as it will for those who though they are young today won’t be young tomorrow, and for those, the most unfortunate, the waiting-to-be-born, who will never know anything but the horror of tomorrow. Perhaps this is their silver lining: for them it will be as it is; not as for us, as it was.

UK Anti-Immigration Riots caused by liberal lies

I looked again and what I could see, as plain as the House of Commons, was an awful lot of bullshit, the sort that could easily nurture the roots of the UK’s civil war, as predicted by Elon Musk.

Civil War in the UK: Will there or won’t there be?

I, personally, do not think there will be a civil war, at least not in the accurate sense of the term, because a civil war presupposes two opposing sides each identifying with itself as distinct from one another, and this is unlikely to happen in the situation we have in Britain, because diversity has done away with absolute cohesion, which is, as I am sure you know, one of the more subversive reasons for engineered diversity.

Moreover, the people who really count, or should stand up and be counted, the British white middle class, have their ‘I’m alright Jack’ arses firmly and forever perched upon the non-comital fence, preferring to hide in the dangerous belief that saying and doing nothing is the better part of valour. Besides, they, in the mind they inhabit, are far enough removed in their leafy suburbs and quiet rural backwaters to be spared the worst of whatever goes down in Britain’s towns and inner cities, and their take on the situation is that as long as they keep on looking anywhere rather than where they should be looking, never revealing what they think, never saying what they feel and on no account what they fear, this, they keep their fingers crossed, will be the saving of them. They are wrong.

As for the left-wing faithful, the useful voting idiots, they will still be parroting the same old simpleton mantras with which they have been indoctrinated even when it is all too late, when, like the obedient sheep they are, they are led away to the slaughter. And even then as the curtain descends, the truth will refuse to occur to them that the ‘far right’ was never their nemesis. They betrayed themselves with their own ideology, poisoned themselves in the end with the lies with which they had poisoned the country for years.

No, I see the UK ending up somewhere between the twilight world of dystopias Sweden and South Africa, with the chauffeur-driven rich ring-fenced and body guarded inside their gated compounds, whilst out there on the streets, the no-go areas echo nightly to gunfire, screams and wailing sirens, and should you really have no option but to walk from A to B, you do so at your peril and never without your stab vest.

Already when dusk descends on Britain’s towns and upon its cities, we bolt the windows and bar the doors. The zombies are out on the streets at night. Has anyone seen a copper?

(By the way, has anyone else, I wonder, noticed that the countries worst impacted by ‘come one and all’ immigration are those that traditionally see themselves as paragons of liberalism? Just saying …) Sectarian violence, lawless streets, an escalation of knife crime, gang warfare by race and religion, flashes of inter-ethnic conflict, the dirty business of vigilantes and an endless cycle of civil disorder and riots policed by robo-cops, possibly even standing armies, this could well be Britain’s future, but civil war, not yet.

UK Anti-Immigration Riots Herald New Dystopian Era

Mr Starmer’s answer to this apocalyptic vision is to form a ‘standing army’, a militia ~ er, but where is the money coming from to fund this standing army? We cannot even afford more coppers. (And the way we treat our coppers, will anyone want to do the job?) I feel a tax hike coming on. But I do not see that standing army.

The UK’s New ‘Standing Army’

The task of this new yeomanry, be it fictious or not, is to ensure that Britain’s rioters ~ rioters of a particular type ~ feel ~ make no mistake ~ ‘the full force of the law’ (PC women Melons and Bristols, this is the news you’ve been waiting for!). So, does that mean, may I ask, that this is the end of policing as we know it: “Now let’s sit down, have a nice cup of tea and discuss the problems you might be having?” “Thank you Mr Whitey Policeman, wait a moment whilst I adjust my machete. Do you think you could hold it for me?”

In case it has escaped the new prime minister’s notice, may I gently remind him that Britain already has a standing army, it’s called the British police force. They do a lot of standing, particularly during pro-Palestine rallies, at Black Lives Matter riots and at stab-fest events like Notting Hill Carnival. They also do a lot of standing whenever they cannot avoid anti-social behaviour ~ which is every day and everywhere. I hasten to add that it is not their fault; it is not what police officers want to do; it is what they are told to do. The thin blue line has never looked thinner.

“It’s a sh*t hole!” cried the Englishman. For once, it was not his country to which he was referring but the town in which he lived. “We don’t have to wait for a riot in [name of town withheld], we have one almost every night. The town centre is plagued by gangs of nasty little shits kitted out in hoodies and ski masks. They dig the flowers out of the planters and chuck them at passing cars. A few weeks back, they were up there, up there on the roof, slinging mud and masonry down into the High Street. The police arrived. Did nothing. They just stood in the street and watched!”

Police officers are not to blame for ~ excuse me whilst a borrow a phrase ~ this non-two-tier passivity. Like teachers, with whom they balance precariously on the literal knife-edge of Britain’s frontline, they are victims of insuperable woke and ultimately the lightening rods for all of society’s liberal left ills.

A funny thing is happening
The government, using the mainstream media’s trumpet, keep blowing hot with riots that never materialise. The ‘expected riots’ are named by area, large crowds of ‘peaceful protestors’, ethnic and seen-to-be-doing-the-right-thing whiteys, invade the areas named and stand there on their own for hours with no one to be peaceful with. What a waste of banner-making time! Well, it keeps them off the streets … Oh, wait a minute. Then, the next day, or even shortly afterwards, along from the 1950s comes that stern school master Mr Starmer and takes the credit for backing the rioters down, who, apparently, dare not show in case they become the hapless recipients of the ‘full force of the law’.

I imagine the police are wondering what exactly the full force is, as, for the past 30 years, they have been schooled to deal with offenders with the kid gloves of a social worker and the diplomacy normally reserved for a job in public relations. However, you would do well to remember this, that if you are taking part in a riot and your shirt is brown and moustache faintly similar to that of Mr Hitler’s, then the rules of the game are likely to change and definitely not in your favour.

So, what we need, my dear Mr Starmer, what we desperately need, is not a ‘standing army’ but a competent, well-equipped, non-woke-manacled nationwide series of riot squads, and we need them fast and everywhere, up and down the country. But we need them to be impartial. It is essential they are fair, because if the only arses they kick are white ~ and remember YouTube is watching ~ then Mr Elon Musk’s prediction of the imminence of civil war may well be brought to fruition quicker than you anticipate, and if that day doth suddenly dawn, then we’ll all be standing by Liz Truss Door, ready to follow her example, preferably wearing full-force roller skates that will guarantee our exit like, if you’ll pardon my use of colloquialism, shit off a shiny shovel. Play it again, Harry Corbett: “Bye, Bye, Country, Bye, Bye.”

It may already seem to Mr Starmer, who, and let’s be fair about this, has not been in the hot seat long, just long enough to get his trousers scorched ~ and how! ~ that he finds himself in a rather bad place: the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, why did he give up that paper round! But nothing could be further from the truth. If he did but know it, the place he is in is the right one, and the timing could not be better. He has been given a first-class opportunity to rise to the challenge of statesman, to address the ills of the country, to strike a humanist balance, to patch up divisions across communities (where they can be patched), to become a prime minister like those of the past who dealt with the present in terms of the future, one who puts the people first, all of the people first and fairly. Would you rather go down in history as the man who got it right, or join your political peers and predecessors, ineffectual and out of touch, who one by one have fizzled, or are in the process of fizzling, out, leaving the political table, as though everyone knew it was them who farted and never did anything else. Or, even more damning than this, be remembered as that man who, when given the chance to save his country, blew it. He locked himself in the liberal mindset and, ignoring the value of those people whose forbears built this country (Can people such as these really be replaced by hoards of swarthy young men who come bouncing rudely into England mounted on top of inflatables?] effectively signed the UK’s death warrant.

Try listening. It might help!

The key to stopping the riots and the general sense of unease that is spreading like a rampant pestilence across this once great Christian land is to use it to close and lock the gates at Dover. Stop the boats. Stop the immigrants. Listen to what it is that legacy Britons are saying. Ditch the Machiavellian creeds of disgraced Prime Minister Tony Blair. Withdraw the UK from the ECHR, tear up that beguiling document the Convention on Human Rights, return to police their pre-woke powers, rid the streets of crime, tackle the sprogs who blight our neighbourhoods, stop and search regardless of colour, stand as firm against ethnic rioters and the PC blackmail that oils their cogs and defends them from arrest as you would against those nasty far whites, show the country as a whole that the day of the limp-wristed, bed-wetting lefty and his media misinformation network has run its evil course, come to an end, is finished, kaput, is over. It sounds like an awful lot, but it really is not that difficult. All you need is love for your people and, unlike your immediate predecessors, to be a proper prime minister.

Over to you, Mr Prime Minister, it really is your call.

Right Wing Thugs, Political Prisoners, Martyrs or Robin Hoods?
The only way to restore real law and order in the UK, as distinct from soundbite law and order, is to ensure that it is applied fairly and without prejudice right across the board. Calling white rioters the ‘far right’ and then banging them up with disproportionate sentences is a sure-fired way of turning them into martyrs. As it is, a good many of the anti-immigrant protestors will wear their prison sentence with pride and will be regarded throughout the prisoner fraternity as patriots, political prisoners, ordinary people wrongly, unjustly convicted for standing up for their families and the preservation of their sovereign country against what they, and a good many like them, see as a repressive socio-political system out to destroy all they hold dear.

If they are to ‘feel the full force’ of the law, then come the next ethnic riots, as come they surely will, the same condemnation and same stiff sentences had better be applied, or off we will go again on the embittered and violent merry go round, with more rhetoric, more harsh sentences, nothing gained and everything lost. It is advisable to consider that those involved in the riots who are facing the law’s ‘full force’ have brothers, family, friends, compatriots, colleagues, and that everyone of these, together with YouTube and social media addicts, will be watching very closely to see if the accusation of two-tier policing can be equally applied to the country’s judicial system.

If a partisan link can be established between government, police and the courts, they, the ones subjected to the full force of the law, may begin to see themselves, as may the voting white majority, as latter-day Robin Hoods, come to save, at the risk of their personal liberty, white tattooed English maidens from an embarrassing fate worse than death (For heaven’s sake think of the pups!), pitting themselves heroically against the evil wiles of the Sheriff of Shock-it-to-them: “The full force of the law, I tell you!” [An elastic band twangs off stage] and his globalist boss King John, aka Big George Sorryarse, the most philanthropic of migrant traffickers the world has ever known (and Hungary disowned). Where will it all end? Usually, after crossing the Channel, in luxury five-star hotels. Cheap at half the price, I say; only £8 million a day.

Meanwhile, not in hotels but languishing in Britain’s prisons is the country’s heritage population, who, before they made a name for themselves as ‘facing the full force’ rioters, were only guilty of thinking and stating, “The migrant invasion has to stop. They really should go home.” They really do have a point, don’t they.

>>>>> / >>>>> Is the UK in Multicultural Meltdown? <<<<< / <<<<<

Image attributions

White Cliffs of Dover: Image by Wolfgang Claussen from Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/white-cliff-dover-england-rock-4411680/
Do Not Enter sign: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Do-not-enter-traffic-sign-vector-image/16637.html
T Shirt: https://www.wpclipart.com/clothes/shirt/tee_shirt_front.png.html
Ear: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Gray-ear-illustration/80532.html
Copper: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Stern-policeman/74485.html
Toilet roll: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Toilet-paper-roll-in-green-vector-illustration/22039.html
Robin Hood: <a href=”https://www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/robin-hood”>Robin Hood Vectors by Vecteezy</a>

Some videos on the subject

Manchester kicking video: Ex-police sergeant furious at ‘no respect’ for officers – ‘Do as you’re bloomin’ told!’ (gbnews.com)

Königsberg Artist Beyond the One in a Million

Thoughts on the fifth anniversary of the death of Victor Ryabinin

18 July 2024 ~ Königsberg Artist Beyond the One in a Million

I am asked by the curious both in my native country, England, and in Russia, why my blog is dedicated to Victor Ryabinin.

Surely, a blog written in English whose target audience is presumably English people could have been dedicated to any one of a number of English friends or colleagues with whom I am close or hold in high esteem?

To answer this question, I turned to the many people whom I have crossed paths with, and some with whom I have crossed swords, and drew the conclusion that outside of my family circle only three people, excluding Victor, qualified. One is my friend of 44 years, Mel (Melbourne) Smith; the other his brother, Rolly Smith; and the last, but by no means least, Mr Richard Oberman, my former English literature tutor, who taught at Kettering Technical College, aka Tresham College.

Mel and Rolly Smith are two of my life’s most colourful characters. They were an investment in experience which paid dividends in friendship. Without them I would have foregone so much by way of excitement and laughter that an omission of this magnitude would have been nothing short of criminal. Looking back, with the help of my diaries, the exploits that we shared have taken on a legendary status, made more so by the retelling of them. Of all the things in life that cannot be overvalued, friendship, laughter and camaraderie are difficult to compete with. Theirs is the currency in which we trust: the gold standard.

Richard Oberman was a master of his vocation. Dry humoured, slightly off the wall but always in control, he would play his classes like a fiddle. As good a psychologist as he was a teacher, he would deftly juggle his act using the stick and carrot approach to win his students over. He was our general, we were his troops, and like every astute and accomplished leader he brought us on by steady degrees to trust, obey and admire him. Displaying an in-depth knowledge of and an absolute love for his subject, better than any who would teach me later at university level, by the encouragement he gave and the respect that he engendered, he opened up a future for me to which before I had been oblivious and in the process of doing so changed the course of my life forever.

Set against this exquisite triumvirate, Mel, Rolly and Richard Oberman, who and what was Victor Ryabinin?

Königsberg Artist Victor Ryabinin

Victor Ryabinin was born in Königsberg, where, like the great German philosopher Emmanuel Kant before him, he worked, lived out his life and died. He shared with Emmanuel Kant a genuine, singular love for the city, and though he travelled quite extensively whereas Emmanuel Kant did not, he shared the convictions of the city’s academia that Königsberg was a spiritual magnet drawing into its centre intellectual and artistic excellence from the highest minds and most sentient hearts and from every sphere of imaginable talent.

Victor Ryabinin, the artist and historian, charmed all who came in contact with him. His professional and bohemian side possessed an aura of mystique and an intuited profundity. Like most creative minds, a managing ego must have been working somewhere behind the scenes, but wherever he kept it hidden it never got the upper hand and through all the years I knew him, he was never anything less than open, honest, affable, modest and perfectly unassuming. Indeed, Victor Ryabinin, the man, epitomised the best that human nature can offer. He was everything you could want and more than you could hope for. He was an ambassador for humankind.

Victor had a gentle heart, a warm welcome, and no edge to his character. He had a wonderful sense of humour that was often self-effacing (he said that those who could laugh at themselves had a right to laugh at others). He was endowed with a gravitational presence, a generous sense of spirit and had the most enchanting art studio, where I, for one, never painted but sat with him for hours on end, talking history, eating gherkins, smoking cigars of a cherry flavour and drinking beer and vodka.

Victor’s company never grew old. Victor himself never grew old. He collected years like the Königsberg relics with which he adorned his studio, but the years, like all who knew him, respected his ageless spirit. Driven and sustained by an endless curiosity and an endearing fascination for everybody and every new thing, this was perhaps the secret elixir by which he kept himself ever young.

The grim irony of his dying just nine short months from the time when he, more than anyone else, brought me to Kaliningrad, and the way in which his death, inconceivable and unexpected, swept away the blueprint of my future, came as a stark reminder, as it had with the death of my friend Mel Smith, that whilst we may all be unique and some of us exceptional, those most precious to us are simply irreplaceable, so that when they up and leave arm in arm with death a sizeable chunk of our present and more, much more, of our future leaves the table with them.

Victor Ryabinin disclosed that he would reach out to such people who possessed the qualities that he lacked. This statement alone reveals the modesty and humility that endeared him to so many, for it is difficult to imagine what those qualities could have been that he failed to see in himself whilst everyone around him saw them with such clarity.

If throughout my life I had taken a leaf from Victor’s book and leant towards those people whose qualities I lack, I would, to paraphrase my old friend Cohen, have “leant that way forever”.

In retrospect, my choice of friends would appear to have been determined on criteria not dissimilar to that adopted by Molly Fox, my former boss at a publishing house, who once confided in me that she no longer filled job placements on applicant suitability but according to their eccentricity, interest value and personality.

If ever a man could tick these boxes, and the many more besides by which exceptionality can be measured and companionship appreciated, then Victor Ryabinin was that man.

I have yet to meet another like him. I know I never will.

Königsberg Artist, Victor Ryabinin's tombstone

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg-Kaliningrad

“I first met Victor Ryabinin in the spring of 2001. A friend of my wife’s, knowing how much my wife liked art and how fascinated I was with anything to do with the past, suggested that we meet this ‘very interesting’ man, who was an artist and a historian.” ~ by Mick Hart

An artist who can hear angels speak

“The first year of Victor Ryabinin’s life could have been his last. There was an epidemic in Königsberg which wiped out hundreds of children, both German and Russian. The military doctor who came to visit the Ryabinin family broke Victor’s parents’ heart when he delivered the verdict that there was nothing to be done to help their child. ‘A day, perhaps two,’ he said, ‘and the child will die’.” ~ by Boris Nisnevich

“One in a million? Perhaps just one …”

“At first sight, from a teenager’s point of view, he was this small and funny man, but very soon our attention was attracted to his methods of teaching. He was a breath of fresh air in my understanding of art. He was so alive in comparison with many of the other teachers. He ignited our imagination” ~ by Stanislav Konovalov ~ student and friend of Victor Ryabinin