8 December 2025 – Christmas past: roundup of Xmas and New Year posts
Rolling back the years to revisit comments and observations on Christmases past, looking back particularly on those coronavirus specials, no matter how grim we may feel about the world today and the game of blind man’s bluff it keeps on playing, as trust in the future wanes, almost universally, it’s enough to make you sing, “These are the good old days.”
Christmas past: a roundup of Xmas and New Year posts
👉Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations Win First Prize Published: 10 January 2023 As the Baltic resorts of the Kaliningrad region prove ever more popular with each passing year, why not do something outrageously unconventional and visit the same in the winter months? I am not suggesting you strip off and get down on the beach, although there are some that will and do, but at least with a hat and scarf on, you can enjoy what in England would be routinely and euphemistically described as the ‘bracing winter weather’. A time of unparalleled excellence to pay a visit to Zelenogradsk is in the lead-up to, or just after, the New Year celebrations. At this time of the year, the seaside town is inhabited with more festive decorations than in the summer crowds of people, and the visual beauty bestowed by these imaginative seasonal displays and the concomitant atmosphere they kindle add an extra sparkle of magic to an already magical destination. Here’s a runback to Zelenogradsk 2023 in all its Christmas and New Year glory.
👉Christmas in Gdansk Updated: 11 February 2022 | First published: 5 October 2019 This post, which was first published in October 2019, was, even then, retrospective, as it relates to my inaugural trip to Kaliningrad, Russia, in the winter of 2000. We entered Russia via Gdansk and spent Christmas and Boxing Day in Poland. This was Poland pre-EU. Gdansk was a rather different place than it is today.
👉Christmas in the Land of Vax Published: 3 January 2022 It’s Christmas 2021. The world has experienced two years of what by now has become a suspicious and widely discredited lunacy. In the UK, the socio-political and cultural landscape is ravaged, splintered by misinformation and disinformation (no change there then!), a situation exacerbated by poor executive management, media hype, dissimulation and social media-spread confusion. The country is split, yet again, into two opposing camps, broadly demarcated along an ideological faultline, with pro-vaxing liberals one side and anti-vaxing patriots on the other. Don’t read this post without your mask. Baaaaa ….
👉How to deal with a vaccinated liberal family member at Christmas Published 23 December 2021 Coronavirus. The UK media and the dictatorial liberal left have never had it so good. Among other intelligence-bending articles, a self-help guide emerges for liberals presumably agonising over how to react politely, although I’ve never met a polite liberal yet, to recalcitrant, heretic family members who refuse to kowtow obsequiously to vax-or-else hysteria. This post is my flip side to that deliriously daft dilemma.
👉Don’t let that man spoil your vaccinated Christmas! Published: 22 December 2021 As you can see, to vax, not to vax or to be dragged kicking and screaming by men in white coats and forced to vax were popular topics in their UK day (December 2021). The British government and the British media were yet to exploit Ukraine. Masking and vaxing had become the testing ground for a new hysteria yet to be deployed. It was the country’s political hot potato, destined to be dropped, however, suddenly and cynically, as soon as Ukraine hit the headlines. Immediately, Britons were urged, both to a man and a transvestite, to forget about their masks and change their social media avatars to the colours of their government’s underpants. Or have I got that wrong?
👉Zelenogradsk! Lit up like a Christmas tree Published: 24 December 2020 Removing my mythical mask and the anti-vaxing section of metal drainpipe I’d fitted over my upper arm, here I take a break from worrying about not worrying about the coronavirus scare, at least not worrying as much as I’m told I ought, and return to the simple, traditional pleasures of Zelenogradsk at Christmas time: its streets bedecked with decorations and also its bars as well.
👉Coronavirus & The Ghosts of Christmas Past Published: 23 December 2020 There’s nothing like a national/international crisis, especially at Christmas, to bring out the nostalgia in us. Here’s me, in the midst of coronavirus, harking back to simpler, happier times. The pandemic may now have gone – for the moment – but unless you were born too late and have therefore been placed on a diet of whatever it is they choose to feed you, it is unmistakably evident that Simpler and Happier packed their bags ahead of coronavirus and took refuge in the hinterlands of a perceived less treacherous yesterday, leaving behind a growing conviction that the UK state can no longer be trusted.
Beautiful Russian Christmas Cards from Kaliningrad
👉Important to Keep in Touch During Coronavirus Christmas Published: 17 November 2020 ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse’ – as cheesy as it sounds, they’d all been trapped by lockdown.
Once you understand Ded Moroz (Дед Моро́з) and yolka (елка), you’re halfway there
4 December 2025 – Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
They do things slightly differently in Russia at Christmas, or rather, they do things the same but at different times and with different names.
In Russia, Christmas falls on the 7th of January, not the 25th of December; New Year is acknowledged on the 14th of January, not the 1st of January; and New Year’s Day is the 1st of January. Hold hard! I thought you just said that New Year in Russia takes place on the 14th of January? Well spotted, that man! The reasons for this ambiguity are twofold: firstly, the Russian Orthodox Church uses the older Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar, the older being 14 days behind; and secondly, during the Soviet period, religious festive holidays were purposefully deposed in favour of secularity. Hence, in Russia, nothing remotely festive-like happens on the 25th of December, apart from me using it as an excuse to raise a glass or two; but, as in the UK and elsewhere, the 1st of January takes centre holiday stage.
In short, both Orthodox Christmas and Orthodox New Year continue to be observed and revered religiously, but Russia’s major and most popular public holiday takes place, as it does in the rest of the world, on January the 1st.
Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
Though Christmas, in the sense that we know it in the West, is conspicuously absent from the Russian yuletide agenda, certain Christmas traditions, such as decorated pine trees and Father Christmas, the bringer of gifts, have been carried over to the New Year festivities, the only difference being that Christmas trees are called ‘New Year’s trees’ and Father Christmas ‘Father Frost’.
The lead-up to the Russian New Year differs little from the UK, with one exception, which is that in Russia the New Year starts 11 consecutive times. Twelve midnight New Year’s Eve happens in Russia according to the time zone relevant to each region. Yes, Russia really is that huge.
In winter, for example, Moscow is three hours in front of the UK and Kaliningrad two hours. Such differentials used to play havoc with our Russian-themed UK New Year’s parties. We had no other option but to bring the New Year in three times in a row, viz., three countdowns to midnight and three choruses of ‘Happy New Year’, followed by three champagne New Year toasts. What else could we do?
Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
Russia’s New Year’s Eve follows a universal template, but as it is the most significant event on the country’s holiday calendar, you will be harder pushed than in the UK to find a place in which to celebrate unless you book really early. In my experience, bars, restaurants, hotels and the like, especially those offering New Year’s entertainment, can be fully booked by November or even, in some cases, fully rebooked from the previous year.
A ghostly scene. The Hotel Rus in Svetlogorsk awaits its New Year party guests, whom now will never come.
Organised New Year parties, ie those which come with a ticket price, are not everybody’s cup of tea or bottle of vodka. The emphasis of the entertainment is not so often spectatorial as it is participatory. An exuberant master of ceremonies, with little respect for the introverted, will enthusiastically fulfil the remit for which they are being paid by getting you up on your feet and making you participate in all manner of dotty games and bizarre forms of amusement. Even small stay-at-home gatherings carry with them no guarantee that they will be impresario-free. Thus, my advice, before you go, is to brush up on your dancing techniques, and if you have any acting skills, dust these down as well. Beer and vodka aforethought are a credible solution.
Wherever you are, be it at a slick entertainment venue or in someone’s private house, the ubiquitous television is sure to play a part. In this respect, the line-up is not so different from what you would expect to find on New Year’s Eve in the UK.
Get ready for an evening of star-spangled party-style shows, a celebrity bonanza. These rumbustious, glossy, champagne-soaked events, where the in crowd get to strut their stuff or merely dazzle the camera with their august presence and famous faces, only differ from their British counterparts insofar as they surpass them. Russian New Year TV shows have never been the same for me since Kabzon left this mortal coil, but these programmes seem to become each year a little more St Petersburg to Britain’s Peterborough city centre; they have a higher buttercream-cake ratio compared to Britain’s poor iced bun.
The New Year’s Eve ritual of counting down the hours, then the minutes and seconds to midnight is no less universal. On the much-anticipated knell of twelve, up goes the mandatory chorus, ‘Happy New Year!’, glasses chink, and it’s down the hatch.
One aspect of the New Year ritual, which thankfully we are spared in Russia, is that we are not disposed to suffer men parading in tartan skirts garbed in silly long socks, not long enough, however, to conceal their knobbly knees, whilst blowing up a barbaric device which looks and sounds like a tortured cat.
The New Year cometh
Midnight strikes, revellers shout, the Kremlin clock appears large upon the nation’s screens, the skies both near and far blister and flash with fireworks, the president makes his New Year’s address, the national anthem plays – a spirit-lifting anthem – and then it’s back to doing what Gaviscon and the gleeful makers of paracetamol would probably willingly sponsor us for should we ever forget how to DIY.
Some things, it seems, are different, and others never change no matter where in the world you find yourself over the festive season.
28 November 2025 – Zötler Bier Kaliningrad: Buy One and Get One Free!
There is a place in New Orleans, but I bet you can’t buy one beer there and get one free, whereas, in Kaliningrad there is, and you can.
Not that the prospect of two beers for the price of one is any inducement, but where, hypothetically speaking, would one find this establishment if one wanted to spectate this phenomenal practice? More to the point, what is this place called?
I am itching to write ‘Zotler Beer’, but the actual name of the beer restaurant, which, when spelt Germanely using an umlaut (ö), not to be confused with an omelette, is Zötler Bier, and just to confuse you more, there are two of them in Kaliningrad: one in the centre on Leninsky Avenue and the other somewhere else, in another part of the city, on Gorky Street to be exact.
This review concerns the Gorky Street establishment. I would like to say that it is tucked away, as the expression ‘tucked away’ is such a nice one, isn’t it? But as Gorky Street is a fairly busy thoroughfare, a more accurate description would be that it’s off the predictable tourist route.
Allowing for the fact that my three visits to this establishment have been lunchtime and early-evening encounters, on all three occasions Bavaria in Gorky Street has been a lot quieter and more sedate than its city-centre counterpart. So, if you want the same, or similar, and would rather have it quieter, Gorky Street is the place for you.
Zötler Bier Kaliningrad
Zötler Bier Restaurant, both of them, in fact, are often described by trip advising and restaurant review sites as ‘offering an authentic German atmosphere’; this description is not entirely true. What you get at both branches is a themed Bavarian fantasy that owes its quintessential German impression to the caricatured Bavarian interior and the presence of often comely waitresses dressed like German Heidis. I say, chaps, we are not about to argue with that, are we!
An olde-world décor is echoed in both Zötler Bier establishments, with retro half-timbered wall fretwork, replica metal advertising plaques, shelf-displayed and wall-mounted curios and framed prints of various kinds. The dark-wood veneering of the 1980s/1990s has primarily been eschewed in Zötler in preference for a light pine or beechwood, and the salient gimmick, which is Zötler’s branding icon, is the prevalent inclusion of semi-private booth seating created in the image of giant beer barrels. The visual impact that these seats have leaves a lasting impression. I am not suggesting that you climb into them from the top; their design is cross-sectional, each with a panel cutaway, making it easier to get into them than a Watney’s Party Seven.
From any angle, they look like giant, wooden fairground waltzers, the essential difference being that their only motion in Zötler is when you might have had one too many, which, of course, being something I’ve never experienced, I rely on you tell me about.
Pretending that you are sitting inside a giant beer barrel is as good a reason as any I can think of for going to a particular bar, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of all reasons. For example, meat eaters, of which I am not one, are lured to Zötler by its reputation for such Bavarian-billed dishes as fragrant pork knuckle with real stewed German cabbage and delicious sausages. The sausages are big, long, curling German ones. I cannot comment on the pork knuckle, as I haven’t caught sight of it personally. I saw a lot of knuckle in Rushden pubs, but they were usually attached to the end of very large tattooed hands and arms, some of which came flying in my direction even though I am vegetarian. “You wouldn’t hit a vegetarian who would rather be drinking out of glasses than wearing them, would you?” Pass the Band-Aid.
Once upon a time, there was an advertising slogan in the UK that went something like, “I’m only here for the beer!” According to Zötler’s website, the family-owned Zötler Brewery has been providing PAs like me (PA, as you know, being an initialism for a Perfectionist Ale drinker) with mighty fine beers since 1447 – that’s a long time, and I don’t mean since just gone a quarter to three.
Unlike Coca-Cola, there is no myth surrounding Zötler’s secret to brewing beers of a superior quality. This might be because Zötler’s ‘Three secrets of excellent beer’ is hardly a secret, although they publicise it as such.
The first secret that isn’t is pasteurisation, and that secret is no pasteurisation! “After the foam is poured into barrels and bottles, it should get into the consumer’s glass as soon as possible.”
I’m certainly with them on that one!
Secret number 2: “Shivers of our own production.” That’s not ‘shivers’ in the sense of what runs through one like a lightning conductor in full conduction mode when, having signed off a publication, you notice after the fact that the name of the sponsor is spelt incorrectly. (Don’t worry about it; it’s a publishing thing.) Zötler goes on to clarify, “In order for the product to be of the highest quality, manufacturers use shivers of their own production, which are applied only once. In comparison, many breweries use the same yeast 10 to 15 times.”
We’re really talking freshness here!
Secret number 3: “The purest alpine water.” This is not the sort of thing you wouldn’t want to hear. Elaboration: “The production is located at the foot of Mount Grünten, one of the most famous mountains in the Bavarian Alps. Locals attribute magical charm to the Alps and life-giving properties to the water.”
Do you know, I’m rather pleased to hear that, for it brings me round quite nicely to my opening paragraph, in which I state, somewhat glibly you might opine, that I have discovered somewhere where when you buy one beer, you get one free. Sounds too good to be true? Well, fact is sometimes better than fiction, and truth is often more true than a lie. At Zötler in good old Gorky Street, Kaliningrad, Wednesday, all day, is promotional Wednesday: for each beer you buy, you get another one free. All that extra life-giving water free!
I am notoriously poor at maths, which possibly explains why when I ordered four pints (half-litres to be precise) of Zötler’s non-filtered beer, at the end of the evening and the next day, as odd as it sounds, I had the distinct feeling of having consumed double that amount. I cannot attribute it to the pork knuckles or to overdoing it with a large German sausage, as I only had a baked potato. Would it make me a local if I attributed the experience of drinking and seeing double to the magical charm of the Alps and the life-giving properties of their special water?
Good beer. Good grub. Great Bavarian ladies. And all to be enjoyed whilst sitting inside a beer barrel!
Zötler Bier (Beer) Restaurants. Frequentable at any time, and on Wednesdays you drink in stereo.
25 November 2025 – Kaliningrad in Autumn: Turning over an old leaf
From the earliest time of recollection, autumn has been for me my favourite season. In the days before real climate change, as distinct from the racketeering kind championed by the EU (achieve Net Zero or else!), I remember encountering glorious autumn mornings, especially at Hinwick Lodge.
With the nip of winter already in the air and thin ice glazing the puddles, often, as we emerged bleary-eyed into the early-morning light, we would be greeted by a hazy, glistening mist, hovering as an apparition a few feet from the ground and stretching into the ether to touch a barely visible haloed sun. Trying its very best to do what precedence taught us it would succeed in doing by mid-morning, eventually and at last, the sun would break through the mist’s upper opacity, evaporate the lower density and bathe the broad sweeping riding that runs at the side of Great Haze Wood in a less than powerful but brilliant light. Soon afterwards it would come to settle, pouring more light and warmth on the open ground of the surrounding meadows, reaching out with the awaited promise of a seasonally atmospheric and sensorily singular wonderful day.
Kaliningrad in Autumn: Turning over an old leaf
As with Kaliningrad, which is a tree-rich city, the preponderance of woodland encompassing Hinwick Lodge gave vent to the certainty of much variegated and enchanting autumnal leaf colour from its ash, oak and hazel mix. In Kaliningrad, it is the leaves of the maple tree, relatively large with their three-to-five toothed and jagged pointed lobes, which in autumn change from green to yellow, auburn, red and orange, that contribute most effectively to the city’s colourful seasonal character.
At the time of writing this post, the best part of our Kaliningrad autumn, when the air is at its most crisp and the ground is at its most dry, has tipped its hat and hurried past. The view from my bedroom window is certainly different from what it was just a mere seven days ago. The first thrilling moments of a bright-lit, expressively dry November have fallen back in the queue behind the ever-more typical expectations of damp, rain and lately snow, the initial sprinkle of which, announcing the onset of winter, has itself in recent hours given way to larger flakes falling for longer durations.
It’s time to don those woolly hats that mess your hair up so completely and shake hands once again with one’s thick and welcoming winter gloves. But before I pull on my thermal pants and barricade my body behind my fur-lined snow- and windproof coat, let’s take a trip together and say hello to some of the city’s transformational autumn scenes, including, where we have captured them, landmarks in their autumnal garb.
It may be autumn, but there’s still a lot of floral colour and bright red berries to complement the leaves’ complexion.
Below: Stairway to autumn
This telephone box that isn’t blends nicely with autumnThe neoclassical manor house in Youth Park, KaliningradAmusement rides in Youth Park, Kaliningrad, against an autumnal backdropCafe in autumn: Youth Park, Kaliningrad
Below: Colour coding
Autumn navigation skillsCamouflage for autumnA natural collage of autumn leavesThe old, the new and the naturalWatch the birdieYou can bank on itWrangel Tower, Kaliningrad, autumnAutumn in Kaliningrad as seen through Königsberg embrasure
Mick Hart goes back to school … again (Not before time!)
17 November – ProSchool Kaliningrad: Can Mick Hart Make the Grade?
I recently did something that I thought I would never do: I went back to school. I didn’t go back to my old school, the Prince William in Oundle. They wouldn’t have me back. Besides, I was less there when I was there than I should have been.
English-language teacher Olga sprung this arrangement on me quite out of the blue, informing me that she had told her students that I would be coming into school ‘next week’ to say a few words to them. Words? I thought. What sort of words? Like, ‘Don’t neglect your studies, or you could end up like me, leaving school with zilch qualifications.’ Actually, the few words I would eventually say would be something along these lines, as the ‘lecture’ I would deliver would be a potted biography of my life during my years at school and after in the great beyond. “Good heavens,” I thought, “those Russian students are certainly in for a treat!”
The school I had been invited to is the combined primary and secondary school, Proshkola (English translation, ‘ProSchool’), which is based in Kaliningrad, Russia. You can read more about it in my previous post, Proshkola School, Kaliningrad: Inspiration in Action.
Public speaking
Although I have heard people say that I am an up-to-scratch public speaker, to be honest, I don’t much care for it. I do not mind the actual speaking — ‘It will be alright on the night’ is my fingers-crossed philosophy — but I’m not particularly overkeen on the preparation needed.
The last time I gave anything amounting to a public address was when I was required to make three on-stage appearances over a two-day period at the 2019 international classic and vintage car festival, The Golden Shadow of Königsberg. Following that event, I learnt lines for a short film in which I had a part called Last Tango in Königsberg, which ironically were overdubbed in Russian at the film’s post-production stage. Since then, my only speaking roles, if we discount pub banter, have been making toasts at Russian gatherings and eulogising when asked at funerals — something I am trying not to make a habit of.
I did, however, gain a distinction at a public speaking event in Oundle, but that was in another time and in a different world, 1970 to be precise. Olga suggested to me that I take this ‘historic document’, my public-speaking certificate, to show to the students at school, together with some school-day photos and other props that illustrated my illustrious educational history.
As the event was intended to be informal, we also took along with us various vintage cups and saucers, all bone china, of course, so that we and the students could partake of tea in the manner in which it should be enjoyed. One brave student went so far as to try tea the English way by drinking it with malacor (milk). I cannot for the life of me drink it any other way.
Apologising in advance for having the reputation of being one of the faster talkers in the West, I promised to ‘put the brakes on’, respectfully asking my young audience not to fall asleep or, should they not be able to help themselves, to disguise it as best they could. Heckling’s nothing to deal with compared to a barrage of snoring!
I prefaced my address by making what I consider to be an all-important distinction regarding my nationality and where exactly I hail from. “I am not British.” I said. “I am not from the UK. I am English. I’m from England, and that’s the way I like it!”
I could see from the look on their faces that they understood my every word!
It was a little more difficult explaining to them how I could have left school without obtaining a single qualification but would have received a doctorate had they awarded them for acting daft.
I also produced a school report from my days at Oundle Prince William School. Comparatively speaking, this report was not at all that bad — well, not as bad as some.
The report I value most, which is still in my possession, is one that I received from Oundle Secondary Modern School. (There was nothing modern about it!) ‘Chalky’ White, the school headmaster, wrote in that report, “If he would devote as much effort to his studies as he does to acting daft, then possibly he might get somewhere.” I didn’t, and I didn’t.
I left school to work on pig farms (good old smelly stuff), eventually swapping my dung fork for a sledgehammer when I embarked upon the demolition of Second World War bomber bases left behind in the late 1940s by the USAAF (the United States Army Air Force).
In 1976, I returned to education in order to take the ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels that I should have passed at school but didn’t. But it was worth it in more ways than one. My memories of Kettering Technical College, since renamed Tresham College, are better than gold-plated. In addition to fostering friendships with numerous Chinese and Malaysian students, fate introduced me to Richard Oberman, one of the most captivating and motivating English literature tutors I would ever have the good fortune to meet. His inspirational teaching and personal advice changed the trajectory of my life. He really was that influential.
ProSchool Kaliningrad
Proshkola (ProSchool) students are a commendable bunch. They indulged my efforts and never snored once. They certainly evinced greater levels of attentiveness and therefore scholarly promise than I ever aspired to when I was their age. (Belated apologies to Chris Lowe, Headmaster of Oundle Prince William School). ProSchool students and I overcame our shyness together. I in delivering my address, and they in asking me questions. Some of which I could actually answer!
I would like to offer my thanks, therefore, to ProSchool Director Alyona Pusko, for allowing me to return to school and for permitting me to strut my stuff in my own inimitable, if not flawed, fashion. My efforts did not go unnoticed. I earned myself a smiley face and the summation “his work has improved this term” on my latest report from Olga. I shall hang this document on the wall next to my public speaking certificate. 😊
Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Fyodor Dostoevsky — I feel a certain intimacy with either one and all of these gentlemen, not solely because I have read and admired their inimitable works, their acknowledged masterpieces, but also from the observation that these noted writers displayed a fondness to lesser and higher degrees for alcoholic beverages. That Tolstoy did not follow suit, at least by the time of 1850, when come his spiritual transformation he renounced the demon drink, could explain the reason why I am not so well acquainted either with his works or with the life of the man himself. As in matters of race and politics, people of a certain persuasion are often drawn to one another, finding comfort and cohesion in shared identities and experience.
Tolstoy Art Café Kaliningrad
Any prejudices that I might entertain towards temperance in general and temperate people in particular were swiftly dispelled, however, upon learning of a café in Kaliningrad bearing the name of Leo Tolstoy. Not thinking to inquire whether the said establishment had outlawed the sale of alcohol in deference to its namesake, I decided, nevertheless, that since Leo’s transformation had caused him to revise and relinquish the unnecessary primordial practice of sinking one’s teeth into flesh, whilst his denunciation of alcohol could be excused as an aberration, his conscious metamorphosis from carnivore to vegetarian proved in this particular that he could not be all that bad a chap, and, even should you not concur on this point, take stock that he wrote a book or two, and that anyone in my opinion who willingly devotes the greater percentage of their little life wrestling with the written word deserves, if nothing else, to have a café named in their honour. It does make you wonder, though, about the literary prowess of McDonald. (I know his brother; he has a farm.) We are all acquainted with the adage ‘never judge a book by its cover’, and McDonald’s, of course, are not real restaurants, but having more junk-food factories named after you than Colonel Sanders implies that Old McDonald’s bruv has to be one hell of a writer. Based on the same criteria, have you ever dined at the JK Rowling?
Tolstoy Art Café Kaliningrad: It’s a Novel Experience
Anyway, burger to thoughts of that nature, let’s first apologise to Leo and then get down to the nitty-gristle: What was it that I found and liked on my maiden voyage to the Tolstoy Café?
I could say, and if I did, I would be perfectly wrong in doing so, that should you not be specifically looking for it, the whereabouts of Tolstoy Art Café would be impossible to miss. Komsomol’skaya Street, which is where the café is located, lies in what was in Königsberg’s time one of the city’s most prominent suburbs. The same rings true today.
Here you will find row upon row of solid, upmarket German flats, punctuated now and again with imposing municipal buildings and villas of a stately nature. Being predominantly residential, the assumption that the Tolstoy Art Café would have no great difficulty in standing out from the crowd is to court an evident misconception. Despite the oversized painted portrait of Tolstoy’s well-known visage, the building occupied by the café, being set back from the road and, during the months of summer, being partially screened by trees, could lead without deliberate scrutiny to passing the image off as the competent endeavor of—and here I am being polite — what some would call a ‘street artist’, or, if it suits your understanding better, the work of a graffiti merchant, who, having taken his paints and spray can, has adorned the wall of a uniform townhouse with a likeness of his favourite writer.
Whether I could have found the café alone, working from directions only, is a metric that cannot be tested. I knew where I was going, as I was being taken there.
Tolstoy Art Café, Kaliningrad: A Literary Retreat
Tolstoy, I am now referring to the man, the ingenious, gifted writer, is not about graffiti, nor about temperance and not liking sausages; Tolstoy is a man of letters. OK, so the letters of which we speak don’t spell “Mine’s a beer” or “Order me up a Double Big Mac”, but they’re definitely of a type that professionally and epically, and to this I will also add lavishly, fill many a page in many a book — think of War and Peace. Thus, that the theme of the Tolstoy Art Café is irrefutably bookish is not the kind of revelation that is going to blow your socks off or knock the stuffing clean away out of your Christmas turkey. There are books at Tolstoy Art Café — indeed books and books and books — but the fact that they are there — and there, and there and everywhere — is only part of the story.
Stacked in blocks and bound in string, which once was the way of doing things when preparing books for shipment, is a nice twee touch of vintage, which the café carries off well. And books to be found where they should be, stood at attention on shelves, lend the place an erudite air. Yet, it is not books in themselves, as appropriate as they are to a café named after a famous writer, that generate true novelty. It is in discovering books where you would least expect to find them and in a capacity and aesthetic arrangement hitherto unexperienced where the known ordinary surpasses itself.
I’ll try you with a clue. Tolstoy was a brilliant writer, an undisputed literary genius. His intellect and imagination seemingly knew no heights. Millions of readers around the world admire and look up to him. In his exploration of human experience and his deep moral and philosophical insights, he stands head and shoulders above many of his contemporaries.
“Tell me something new!” you say. And as your eyes roll upwards in an intended show of exasperation, now you see them where you saw them not, up there on the ceiling.
Books and volumes of them, some presenting their covers, some with opened, fluttering leaves; some pinned to the ceiling, others suspended at different heights by string; not just thrown together but creatively arranged, pre-planned, choreographed, artistically assembled.
The sight of so many books hovering above like words of wisdom placed inconveniently just out of reach is enough to make the dullest fellow want to say, as though he means it, “I do enjoy a good read, you know, though most of it is over my head.”
Whilst this is patently obvious in the room with its halo of books, Tolstoy Art Café is two rooms bookish. The second room has soft seats and books on shelves arranged traditionally, which can be taken down and read at leisure as one would do in a public library.
But don’t book now! I whisper. To get into this furthest room, you must pass beneath an arch of books, as though entering into a sacred chamber where scholarly miracles are performed.
Underneath the arches ...
Meanwhile, in the first room, the one with the books aloft, look for the book entitled ‘Going through an identity crisis’. This refers to the room itself. Exposed brick walls with angled lamps that play with shadows and highlights trend towards industrial chic, but a plethora of retro wall plaques, framed disparate prints and the inclusion of a parlour piano tilt the impression unevenly towards a sense of sitting quietly somewhere in Tolstoy’s living room, unlike any he ever owned but fictitiously convincing enough to urge you to respect his views on abandoning meat and booze: “Just a couple of soda waters and a vegetarian sausage, please.”
Rest assured, however, that the menu is not so Tolstoy-friendly as to predispose you to any such subterfuge. If anything, it is plainly lacking in vegetarian options, as though Mrs Tolstoy is in the kitchen cooking up things she shouldn’t. The meat options may not sit well with the man who created Count Vronsky, but I have it on good authority that they are for the most part tasty dishes, reasonably priced and pluralistic.
Mercifully, the Volstead Act that Tolstoy visited upon himself is not inflicted on the eponymous café’s patrons, thus enabling me to sample, not only sample but also enjoy, a rather moreish wheat fermentation to go with my meatless pizza.
When I am out on the town, I’m not one who watches prices, so I cannot whisper in your lug if the fare at Tolstoy Art Café was underpriced, overpriced or just about the right price {“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom,”—so said Tolstoy himself} — but I am willing to bet my entire collection of vintage luncheon vouchers that if you are looking for somewhere different, which is also comfortable and atmospheric, a place in which to rest your bones, partake of a bite to eat, and drink a commendable coffee or (sshhh!) a beautiful bottle of beer, then, as Anna Karina once said, or was it five chapters in War and Peace, “… one must live and be happy.”
Happiness costs a mere 100 roubles (less than a quid) at Tolstoy Art Café, Kaliningrad
I am old enough to remember a time when ‘Happiness was a cigar called Hamlet”, but today, it’s a place called Tolstoy Art Café where creatives park their arts and others like to make such jokes as, “Do I need to book a table? Don’t judge it by my cover. Turn over a new leaf in your life and open a new café chapter. Bookmark my words, you’ll love it, I’m sure!
28 August 2025 – My Special Day Out in Svetlogorsk by Mick Hart
Don’t you just hate it when you mislay something? It’s so frustrating, isn’t it? This year I have had trouble remembering what I’ve done with summer. I recall someone saying, “Hooray, summer is here!”, and I recollect catching a glimpse of what I thought was it, but I looked away for a second, and when I looked back it had gone. Indeed, the past few days have seen rain and floods so portentous as to be almost biblical.
A couple of weeks ago — I won’t be precise — I caught summer in the act of sneaking up on me. In complete defiance of the official weather forecast, the sun was clearly violating the conditions of its parole: it was out and about and shining.
I hadn’t had my fair share for a while — well, you don’t at this age, do you? — you do? Well, lucky you! — I’m jealous of your suntan — so, I said to the missus, or she said to me — it’s one voice after all these years (ah, hem): “Why not go to Svetlogorsk for the day?”
Checking my diary for prior engagements and finding in my calendar that what was left of my life was free, I acquiesced (some people just agree), and before you could say, “I wished he’d get on with it!”, we were on our way to Svetlogorsk.
Had I found my bicycle clips, we would have gone by tandem, but there’s more to life than losing things, apart from life itself, so I consulted a very good guide written by someone of proven veracity, and taking myself at my word, we decided to go by bus.
My Special Day Out in Svetlogorsk
We weren’t working to any particular timeframe, which is a pretentious way of saying that we weren’t working to any particular timeframe, so we took a minibus, a 61, to the stop by Königsberg’s fighting bison, an imposing composition in bronze by none other than August Gaul, and walked the short distance from there to the bus stop situated on Sovetsky Prospekt (Soviet Avenue). Just as I wrote in my earlier post, and, of course, I never lie, within minutes of us being there a Svetlogorsk bus rolled in, and a few minutes later we rolled off in it.
A few minutes more saw the evidence laid before us that I was not the only one who had found a bit of summer amongst the wreckage of the season. It was just as I had written in that extremely well-researched blog post of mine: traffic build-up in the Kaliningrad suburbs on roads leading out to the coast.
Fifteen minutes into it and having been overtaken twice by the same snail in reverse, I began to wish that I had never written that post to which I keep referring; talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy!
In that post (There I go again! If I didn’t know myself better, I would accuse myself of bias!), I wrote that the time it takes to travel by bus from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk is one hour and fifteen minutes, and, though my eye for detail comes as no surprise, I somehow couldn’t believe that I had got it so terribly right! What I failed to mention in that excelent mother of all posts was that there is at least one bus on the Svetlogorsk route that doesn’t go where you think it is going; it does not stop in the centre. This bus enters Svetlogorsk’s outskirts and, just when you are slipping into a sense of false security, goes sailing off to somewhere else (“Next stop: Somewhere Else!”). So, if you find yourself on this bus (“Hello, Mrs Conductor, does it stop at the centre?” “The centre of what? The universe?”), you’d best get off as we did, at the stop in the dip near the lake.
This stop, hitherto unused by me, turned out to be more convenient than I first gave it credit for. On the way to the beachfront, it was our intention to call at the arts and crafts street market opposite Telegraph Café to collect and pay for a commissioned piece of leatherware. Could it be a pair of swimming trunks? Not telling you. Let’s just say that whilst most things shrink in the water, you wouldn’t want this one to ride up with wear.
The shortcut through the hills and wooded hillocks of old Svetlogorsk [sic] Rauschen made me wince at the outset as it was all uphill (funny that?), but the absolute joy of this route was that it took us through an interesting mix of dwellings old and new, from original German houses secreted in wooded gardens to glades containing mid-rise flats, adventurously medievalised by the inclusion of half-timbered uppers.
The other surprising thing about this shortcut, or cutshort as Olga sometimes muddles it, was that this ‘cutshort’ really was short. We emerged from the woodland shortly after entering it, and there, on the right, was the market. I don’t believe we’ve accomplished this before; we were exactly where we wanted to be and quickly.
The compact area set aside for traders at the confluence of two streets was packed today. Summer could run, but it could not hide!
Some stalls at this market are permanent fixtures; others are infills, with traders bringing their own folding tables, which is something that we sometimes did when standing at boot and vintage fairs in England. Ah, what memories such sights bring!
First sight of Olga was met with great enthusiasm by friends and associates alike; they also said hello to me. I was acquainted with most of these people, and as for those I had not met, well, introductions in Kaliningrad are evergreen experiences.
Speaking English in Kaliningrad
There was a time, when I first came to Kaliningrad, in the perestroika years, when the sound of someone speaking English, and the sight of an Englishman speaking it, transcended curiosity. The unwavering stares received had a polarising character: at one end of the spectrum, a deep suspicion lurked; at the other, the kind of fascination that vainer folk than I might have found quite flattering.
Eventually, I grew accustomed to the habit of being gawped at and even got to enjoy being regarded as an exotic object, apparently too much so, because as the years rolled steadily by and a new generation arrived on the scene, replacing the Soviet mindset with their internet view of the world and the more savvy grasp it gave them of the ways of different cultures, modesty forbid, but I missed the attention my simple presence had once so effortlessly generated. But one grows older, as one does, and as one does, one hopes, less needful of the spotlight. “I wanted so much to have nothing to touch. I’ve always been greedy that way.” (Thank you, Leonard.) And then, just when you least expect it, like some of the buses we travel on, the bell rings and it’s all change, please.
Hunkering down in Russia during the coronavirus period, which was a much-to-be-preferred option than returning to hysteria-blighted Britain, I discovered once again that the sound of someone speaking English and being English on Kaliningrad’s streets had overnight become something of an anomaly, more so than it would, given Kaliningrad’s exclave status, than in Moscow or St Petersburg, and that this trend would be intensified by developments in Ukraine as visitors from the West diminished, particularly those who wear cravats and speak with English accents.
But I digress (“Cor blimey, don’t you!”) Helloes, how-are-yous, introductions and curious observations over and with our business at the market done and dusted, we wended our way at a leisurely pace along Svetlogorsk’s charming streets, taking note on our way of the capital renovation that had rescued the Villa Malepartus from almost certain extinction.
A new café lifted on wooden decking at the entrance to the public space containing Yantar-Hall was designed to attract attention. We contemplated the prospect of offering it our patronage but decided not to after all, turned off by its ‘boom boom music’.
We continued our walk to the coast, strolling across the landscaped parkland be-fronting Yantar Hall, marvelling at the transformation from all it had been in my days, a soggy chunk of decaying woodland (there are some who would say that they liked it that way), and ended up for that bite to eat, which we would have had at the previous café had the volume been turned down, at the glass-plated, steel-framed and, on a bright and blue-skied day, aptly named Sun Terrace.
Strategically situated on the coastal headland on route to the Svetlogorsk Elevator, The Sun Terrace is the perfect place to pause and enjoy, as I did, over a pizza and coffee, twenty minutes of quiet repose. The sunny skies above, the green lawns all around, the garden beds with their shrubs and flowers, the birch-tree woodland backdrop, the little birds singing and chirping happily in the boughs and branches of trees – what more could one possibly ask for? Noise, it would seem, is the answer. A couple seated opposite us outside on the café’s patio was respectfully asked by the waiter if everything met with their requirements.
The male contingent replied that whilst they could find no fault with the food, the one thing lacking was music.
I wondered if The Sun Terrace were to act on his advice, what music they would opt for. Would it be, let’s hope not, the kind that had driven us quickly away from the café we would have frequented had it been less musical? Could it have been less musical? Hmm? There’s no accounting for taste.
No music is good music when that music is bad. So, Sun Terrace be advised: continue to do what you do well – provide the space, the food, and beverages and leave the music to Nature’s Orchestra.
As the Elevator’s website highlights, there is no better place to be than aloft inside its vast glass gallery if stunning views of the Baltic Coast are the sort of thing that floats your boat.
Olga likes to go there to take selfies for social media; I go there to take an interest in the luxury seafront apartments‘ latest phase of development. As you can see from the photo below, they, and the promenade on which they are based, have really taken shape.
Older than the Elevator but refurbished since my first trip on them in summer 2001 are the small suspended yellow pods, at one time Soviet red, which, capable of transporting in their enclosed and glazed interior two standing or seated passengers, are a cable car and ski-lift hybrid. Essentially, the vehicle is a funicular, conveying passengers to beachside level from the upper reaches of the steep coastal bank and, more importantly, back again. They offer a convenient and comfortable alternative to foot-slogging the uphill path that, once completed but with great difficulty, leaves even the fittest person pretending not to be out of breath.
The cable-strung contraption is a particular favourite of mine. Whenever I visit Svetlogorsk, I look forward to the prospect of sailing up and down in it, even if getting on and off, with its slightly alarming bounce and the need to open and latch two doors whilst the conveyance sways in contradiction, demands a certain degree of elasticity more suited to supple youth and to the rest-assured action of younger sinews.
The queues for this novel but practical mode of transport show no sign of getting shorter as bathers head for the only substantial open stretch of beach sufficient in capacity to accommodate their growing influx.
Svetlogorsk’s oldest promenade is still very much under wraps due to ongoing restoration, a programme that has effectively closed the greater percentage of the beach resort’s beach.
Meanwhile, at the new promenade, a ribbon of sand implanted at the point where the structure meets the shore provides an attractive, albeit limited, beach alternative. It is an integral feature of the coastline complex, which in essence, and for the present, siphons off overflow bathers from the opposite end of Svetlogorsk, but the reality on the ground is that by far the greatest proportion of sand is still very much off limits, pending the completion of the renaissance of the earlier promenade.
My Special Day Out in Svetlogorsk
Not being a beachy person, not even in the slightest (I haven’t been since Charles Atlas warned about the inherent risk of sand being kicked in one’s face.), the prospect of being barred from the beach is somebody else’s – not my – problem; whereas no bar on, overlooking or at an equitable distance from the beach, is very much my problem.
I have to say, therefore, that on my most recent visit to Svetlogorsk, I was well chuffed by the discovery that the portion of beach still open to those who like nothing more than to laze and swim, swim and laze, laze and … (It is fairly easy to see how writing about this aimless practice could become habitual, even if actually doing it could not.) has a small food and drink outlet held up to the sky on stilts.
For a man who has just descended by cable car, the challenge of climbing two flights of steps to buy a bottle of beer was a less arduous undertaking than perching on a wooden plank for the 25 minutes it took for my other half to grow tired of splashing about in the briny.
Strange things happen at sea, or so I have heard it said, and just to prove this point, whilst she was in the water, Olga made a new friend. She wasn’t a mermaid nor sea monster but a young woman with a delightful mien who had authored a book about Japan, possibly making her stranger than both those marine creatures put together, and though she failed, mercifully, to address me in Japanese, when she spoke she spoke the King’s English almost as good as Charles himself and nearly better than me. (I just can’t seem to stop these days using words like ‘like’ and ‘innit’. “Ee, mon, I haven’t the faintest where me gets de ‘abit from! It makes me eddy at me!”)
These facts alone were enough to qualify both her and her husband for an invitation to join us this evening at that well-known restaurant Wherever. We did not know where the restaurant was and would not know until later, when we would rendezvous with a friend and follow her to wherever it was that she saw fit to take us.
We met our female companion in the rip-roaring, rollicking centre of town, which, I am fairly certain, must be twinned with Great Yarmouth, where people crowd intently and to the beat of open-air music, sing, dance, eat and carouse as though they are on holiday, most likely because they are.
Although the restaurant to which we were taken was not familiar to me, the building that it occupied had, for as long as I could remember, been an object of admiration as well as one of intrigue. I could not understand for the life of me why such an obvious Rauschen relic, an edifice of historic importance, had lain for so many years in such a sad and sorry state of destitution. Shame on me, I know, but in the early twenty-tens, I had regarded its exotically planted but much neglected gardens as nothing more than a cutshort, though I always peeped inside the building whenever I went stampeding past on my way to wherever it was I must have been going, wondering why this rarified building, whatever it was supposed to be, seemed to have no other use than a place for stacking chairs. However, mystery on mystery, or simply a case of misplaced memory (it’s gone the way of the sun), for when we asked one of the waiters how long the restaurant had been open, the answer we got was ‘always’. It was a Delbert Grady moment: “You’ve always been the caretaker. I should know, sir. I’ve always been here.”
Anyway, to put you out of your inquisitive misery, the beautiful building’s restaurant goes by the name of Kurhaus. The building itself is restored-Rauschen, but the restaurant has more than a lingering flavour of what it must have been like to dine there during Soviet times. The absence of loud music is a blessing!
In describing my day at Svetlogorsk, I have unwittingly provided you with a blueprint for an excursion. It is easier to remember than trying to say ‘fiddlesticks’ fast, so put your map-head on your shoulders and get a load of this:
How to get there. Where? Precisely
Get off at the bus stop near the lake; turn left, then immediately right; keep a straight line at the back of the houses and climb the steps into the wood; keep on walking until you reach a broad glade ‘ringed’ with houses and flats; climb the steps or slope to the right; turn left at the top of the hill, past the flats with the wooden fretwork; then turn immediately right. (How are you doing so far?) From here you will see the open-air market and, across the road, the Telegraph café. From the café, hang a left and then immediately left again. The Starry Doctor Hotel is on the left and the Villa Malepartus a little further on your right. This street is a wonderful street complete with old and new-old houses of an extremely evocative nature, which any one of you or I would love to live in if we had the chance. When you reach the junction at the top of this road, Yantar Hall is unmissable — it is large, modern, futuristic and also, they tell me, multifunctional. Head along the winding path in front of this wave-like structure, and there you will find The Sunshine Terrace (as its name is written in English, you will find it hard to miss), and after you’ve taken refreshment there, it’s straight on to the lift.
To find your way to the cable cars, direct your feet towards the centre of town (you could try asking where this is!). The ticket office can be found to the right of Svetlogorsk’s railway station just inside a small, paved area where amber traders sell their wares. Treat yourself to some of this before you make your descent. (It’s more than a million years old, you know! Not the chairs, the amber.) And now that I’ve got you down on the beach, have a beer for me!
Revised 25 August 2025 | First published 14 October 2024 ~ Telegraph in Svetlogorsk Good Coffee Unique Art
Contrary to received wisdom, it is not always necessary or indeed advisable for travellers to stick to the beaten track. Verily, by doing so the chances of missing out on some hidden cultural gem or other, or hitherto unencountered esoteric and unusual experience, are magnified manifold.
Indubitably, there are some parts of the world, some sinister and dubious places, where keeping to the beaten track is less a question for tourism than an action guided by common sense in the interests of survival.
Take London, for example, that patchwork quilt of small towns wherein no boundaries lie. One minute, you, the traveller, can almost believe what the travel guides tell you, that London is, indeed, one of the world’s most civilised cities; the next, having strayed from the beaten track, that you are up S*it Creek without a paddle in, what to all intents and purposes, is the Black Hole of Calcutta. Is it Africa or Pakistan? There’s no point leaving the beaten track to be beaten in your tracks. Best to beat a hasty retreat.
Enrichments of this nature do not apply, thank goodness, to a small, secluded backstreet in the seaside town of Svetlogorsk on Russia’s Baltic Coast. Not officially known as ‘Off the Beaten Track’, Street Ostrovskogo (‘Off the Beaten Track’ is easier to say) is a quaint, leafy, meandering avenue that wends its way from Street Oktyabr’skaya (if you find it easier, ‘Off the Beaten Track’ will do).
In Svetlogorsk, the streets run off from a large, open public space in the centre of the town, which, during clement months, overflows with tourists eagerly taking advantage of the outside drinking and eating areas. One of the streets that travels from this lively, bustling hub is Ulitsa Oktyabr’skaya. It is the street you will need to walk to get you to the Telegraph café.
The route is a rewarding one. It takes you past a Svetlogorsk landmark, the 1908 Art Nouveau water tower, past the town’s pretty Larch Park with its copy of Hermann Brachert’s ‘Water Carrier’ sculpture ~ the original is in the Brachert Museum ~ past my favourite and recently renovated neo-Gothic/Art Nouveau house and onto the Hartman Hotel.
To say that you cannot miss Ulitsa Ostrovskogo would be a silly thing to say, because if your sense of direction is anything like mine … Sorry? Oh, it isn’t. Well then just look for a clothes shop on your right. You won’t be able to miss it, because your sense of direction is better than mine and also because in the summer months some of its garments are hung outside in order to make the shop more visible, and besides it is located within one of those charming old German edifices that have at their gable end an all-in-one veranda-balcony glazed and enclosed in wood. This then is the junction at which you turn for Telegraph. This is the end of the beaten track.
Halfway along this quiet backwater, at the point where streets meet chevron-fashion, stand a permanent cluster of market stalls. You didn’t miss the turning, so there’s no earthly reason you should miss these either, especially those with roofs, which give them the quaint appearance of modest garden summer houses. Here, artisans working in various materials, from leather and ceramics to metalware, together with artists of paint and palette, regularly gather to sell their goods. The range and novelty of their handmade products really are surprising and the quality of them consistently high.
The location of these stalls could not be better placed, since a little further on the left-hand side, you have reached your destination ~ Svetlogorsk’s former telegraph building, resurrected in recent years as an outlet for arts and crafts and as a coffee shop and art gallery.
Telegraph in Svetlogorsk
In addition to selling coffee of various kinds~ and very good they are too! ~ Telegraph deals in assorted teas, other delicious drinks, a seductive range of desserts, irresistible homemade cakes and the sort of pastries you’ll want to leave home for. It is also a cornucopia of distinctive handcrafted wares, including vintage and designer clothes, prints, postcards, vinyl records, decorative items for the home, and original works from local artists.
IIts comfy settee and low-slung armchairs, into which one’s body readily sinks, plus the light and airy but cozy ambience, make for a very pleasant environment in which to relax, unwind and shop. If you cannot find a gift in Telegraph, something special to treat yourself with or a Baltic souvenir, then there’s definitely something wrong with you.
An introduction to two of Telegraph’s artists
https://vk.com/album55604070_101203993 Lilya Bogatko works in the field of applied arts, designing and decorating ceramic goods with stylised naturalistic images. She prefers to work in monochrome, consigning her line-drawn black motifs to high opacity white grounds on tableware and ornaments. Her distinctive illustrations, many of which have a gentle charm that could grace a children’s storybook, possess an ethereal quality. Indeed, a fair proportion of her subjects, be they man or beast, float above the earth; they take to the air with wings. When her subjects are not animals, real or mythological, or people literally raised to a higher level of spirituality ~ have wings will fly ~ her stock-in-trade motifs are replications of Kaliningrad landmarks, such as the now defunct and liquidated former House of Soviets, the refurbished Zalivino lighthouse overlooking the Curonian Lagoon and Königsberg Cathedral.
Based in St Petersburg, Lilya is a regular visitor to Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region, from which she derives inspiration and consolidates her sales outlets.
https://vk.com/album-30057230_195486413 Pavel Timofeev has an arts and crafts workshop at Telegraph in Svetlogorsk, where he produces, among other things, leather purses and wallets, men’s and women’s leather bracelets with inscriptions on request, ornamented key rings and a range of fashion jewellery.
His speciality is selling watches with watch-face customisation. The face design can be made to order, with the option of a leather strap in traditional classic or novel styles. The straps can also be personalised.
For examples of Pavel’s watches, please refer to the carousel that appears below this profile:
The room opposite Telegraph’s ‘sitting room’ is its designated art gallery, a well-lit exhibition space with enough wall and floor capacity to showcase umpteen works of local artists. On the occasion of my visit, the art form most conspicuous was assemblages ~ 3D compositions created by taking disparate pieces of whatever it is the artist has scavenged and then arranging or assembling them on a backboard of some description so that the configuration that ensues presents itself as a pictorial image or, from impressions of the whole or its parts, invites interpretation.
Victor Ryabinin, our artist friend from Königsberg, was the man who introduced me to assemblages. His interest in the potential of this technique as a medium for symbolism had him unearthing whatever he could from the remains of Königsberg’s past and putting the pieces together so as to excite in the observer a quest to uncover meaning, either the artist’s or their own.
Since Victor was profoundly immersed in and also deeply disturbed by the eradication of Königsberg, the assemblages that he built from the remnants of destruction often convey a personal sense of irredeemable loss, an inescapable sadness, a wistful but unrequited need for a less tragic end to the city which he dearly loved and in which he loved to live. Victor travelled outside of Königsberg more often and also further than its famous philosopher Immanuel Kant, but he possibly left it less than Kant or anyone else for that matter.
By contrast, the assemblages gathered together under Telegraph’s roof evinced none of this solemnity. They danced a confident riot of bright, effusive colours, orchestrating lively, often comic, images and energising expressive shapes, some fondly reminiscent of the enchanting kind of illustrations that adorned the pages of story books beloved of old-time children, others cleverly more obtuse or playfully cryptographic.
In vivacity of colour and their three-dimensional character, the assemblages reminded me of the kind of shop-front sign boards popular in the Edwardian era, and there was much at work in their composition to insinuate a vintage charm. But the incorporation of parts taken from obsolete engines, metal handles, steel rivets, goggles and the like, plus paraphernalia of various kinds possessing mechanical provenance and rigged to suggest articulation, disclosed a contemporary steampunk influence. Intriguing, all bewitching and also fun to boot, take any one of these assemblages, hang them in your abode and if until now you have felt that your home lacked a conversation piece, trust me when I tell you that this omission will be rectified.
In the Svetlogorsk we know today, cafes, bars, restaurants and places of interest to view and visit exist in appreciable numbers, but every once in a while, one stands out in the crowd: Telegraph is that one.
It may have exchanged its wires and needles for coffee and for art, but the function of the historic building as a centre of communication lives on in its role as a meeting place, and the message that it telegraphs couldn’t be more accommodating: Sit a while, relax, enjoy a beverage and a piece of cake and let your sensibilities flow with the positive vibes that emanate from all that you see and all that you feel around you and from what can be bought and taken home, because the chances are that whatever it is that tickles your fancy in Telegraph, you will never find another like it; the chances are it will be unique.
After browsing, binging, basking and borrowing (borrowing from your friends to pay for the coffee and art, “I’ll see you alright, later …”), especially on those days when the craft-sellers’ stalls are active, in finally heading off for home, you will say to yourself with satisfaction, what an enjoyable day I have had. I am so pleased I read Mick Hart’s blog and was urged by him to get up off of my … ah, to get off of the beaten track.
Telegraph ~ social and cultural space of Svetlogorsk.
Telegraph is a public and cultural space (a centre of urban communities), created by city residents for city residents.
We do not have a director, but we have a working group. We are a community of participants with common goals and values.
Telegraph is located on Ostrovskogo Street in house No. 3 (next to the Post Office).
There are four spaces here:
– a coffee shop (here you can try aromatic fresh coffee) – a living room with an exhibition of works by craftsmen (you can buy local handmade souvenirs) – a gallery (local artists hold exhibitions here) – workshops (pottery and carpentry) – a terrace and a lawn with the longest bench in the city.
Our space regularly hosts meetings of various communities. Any participant can propose an idea for their own project and find like-minded people who will provide the necessary support.
Telegraph exists outside of politics, outside of religion. We are open to new acquaintances/initiatives.
The Telegraph project team deals with city projects and development issues.
Co-working ‘Thoughts’ (Aptechnaya, 10); keys from the barista in the coffee shop; additional conditions by phone +79114839050
How to get from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk
18 August 2025 – From Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk
One of the things that I like about being in Kaliningrad is that it is not far away from the Baltic coast. The main resorts, Zelenogradsk (in German times: Cranz) is approximately 35km (22 miles), a 30-minute drive away, and Svetlogorsk (in German times: Rauschen) is 40km (25 miles), which takes about 40 minutes to drive.
Modern roads and upgraded transport links have improved travel to the Baltic coast no end since the good old days, when all there was in the way of major travel infrastructure was a couple of pre-war German roads with more than their fair share of potholes.
The problem is that whilst the region’s ever-developing tourism infrastructure is fuelling dramatic growth, the good news for the region’s economy is not always good for local travel, as there are days in the height of summer when vehicular demand for the Baltic coast can severely test one’s travelling patience.
Kaliningrad’s tourism record reads like a year-on-year success story, particularly with the impetus it received from restricted overseas travel during the coronavirus era and a continuation of that trend due to evolving geopolitics.
Domestic travel to the Kaliningrad exclave from Russia’s capital city, Moscow, and from other territories inside ‘Big Russia’ appears to have multiplied 10-fold over the past five years. To get a handle on this, you would need to review the statistics, which, with a grade 9 CSE in math, I am disqualified from doing. What does add up, however, is that whichever mode of transport you plan on using to get you from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk or Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk, be it private car, taxi, bus or train, during the height of the tourist season, it pays to avoid peak-time travel.
Here’s some handy information to help you on your way:
Distance from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and to Svetlogorsk by road
Significant disparity on the internet exists regarding the distance between Kaliningrad and Zelenogradsk. I don’t know why it does it, but the distance keeps on changing. Sometimes it is 40km (25 miles), sometimes 34km (21 miles) and sometimes 20km (12.5 miles). It just keeps getting closer or moving further away depending on who you would like to believe. Why not, then, believe me? Thirty-five kilometres (22 miles) seems to be where it’s usually at.
The time it takes to travel from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk by private vehicle or by taxi is another debatable issue. Some internet sites say 20 minutes; others, 40 minutes. I would hazard a guess that with a good backwind and favourable traffic fluidity, the journey should take no more than 30 minutes.
The distance between Kaliningrad and Svetlogorsk has a rather less shaky consensus. It appears to hold steady at 40km (25 miles), giving an average time to drive it of 40 minutes.
Taxi from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk General rule of thumb: beware of travel and trip advisor websites that purposefully conceal the dates on which they publish content. Case in point: A reasonably well-known travel website, which precludes publication dates, claims that a taxi from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk will cost you 600 roubles. To get there at that price, you will first need to take a time machine to a point in the distant past when things were a whole lot cheaper.
The average taxi fare from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk is 700-1000 roubles (£6.45-£9.20), with the lower end of the tariff being the least likely of the available options.
The average taxi fare from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk is 1000-2000 roubles (£9.20-£18.40).
Taxi Services: Whether you use an app, call the cab office, or hail a cab on the street, Kaliningrad is no different from any other city in the world: always agree on the fare before entering the vehicle. The majority, if not all, of Kaliningrad taxis are now meter-based, so if you take one off the street, the driver may just point to the meter when you ask the important question, “How much will it cost?” Whether you accept this answer will depend on how trusting you are and how well you cope with suspense.I, for one, am rather fond of a ballpark figure/estimate.
Buses from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk
The city’s main bus terminal is a short walk away from Kaliningrad’s Southern Railway Station (Kaliningrad-South) (Kaliningrad-Yuzhny).
It takes approximately one hour by bus from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk, about one hour and 15 minutes.
The bus fare to Zelenogradsk is approximately 100 roubles (90p)
The bus fare to Svetlogorsk is approximately 155 roubles (£1.43)
Buses to Zelenogradsk and to Svetlogorsk leave Kaliningrad Bus Terminal approximately every 20 minutes.
If you are catching the bus from the main bus terminal, you must purchase your ticket at the terminal itself. Automated gates are now in operation, and you will need to have your ticket at hand for scanning validation.
Buses to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk also leave from a stop opposite Kaliningrad’s Northern Railway Station (Kaliningrad-North) (Severny Vokzal) on Soviet Avenue (Sovetsky Prospekt). If you are not working to your own strict timetable, you can wander down to this stop, check the destinations of each bus as they dock, select the one you want, hop aboard and buy your ticket.
The last bus from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk leaves at 21:30.
The last bus from Zelenogradsk to Kaliningrad leaves at 21:30.
The last bus from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk leaves at 22:30.
The last bus from Svetlogorsk to Kaliningrad leaves at 22:30.
The line number of the bus to Zelenogradsk is 141 and to Svetlogorsk 118.
Train from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk The journey by train from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk takes approximately 35-45 minutes, and from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk, about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Trains depart from Kaliningrad’s Southern Railway Station (Kaliningrad-South) (Kaliningrad-Yuzhny) multiple times per day.
Stops on the way are displayed visually on a screen in each carriage and delivered audibly by an automated voice, which is conveniently broadcast both in Russian and in English. When travelling by train to Svetlogorsk, please be aware that the final destination is Svetlogorsk-2, so don’t alight at Svetlogorsk-1 unless this is the stop you are aiming for.
The train fare to Zelenogradsk-Noviy Station is approximately 100 roubles (92p)
The train fare to Svetlogorsk 2 Station is approximately 125 roubles (£1.15)
So, there you have it. Whether you drive it, bus it, go by taxi or take a train, Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk are right on Kaliningrad’s doorstep. Follow my advice, and I guarantee you’ll know you’ve arrived when you finally get there.
Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Tapkoc Belgium Blond Ale
Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad
6 August 2025 – Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale
With the name Tapkoc on the collar label, and beneath it, on the label proper, the picture of a piddling cherub (Manneken Pis) with ‘censored’ slapped over his naughty bits, who could resist the play on words? We could, fellow drinkers, because, dear beloved, we are gathered here today to conduct the serious business of reviewing Belgian Blond Ale.
Trusting that the brewers would never be so brave as to brew a beer with ‘told you so!’ in mind, I left Cultura Bottle Shop with Tapkoc nestling in my nice brown paper bag, confident that what was in a name and upon a label had nothing to do whatsoever with what was in the beer or what it would taste like.
Heaven forbid that I would be so lax as to invite accusations of vulgarity, but I sincerely believe that no student of the English language can claim to have mastered that language until they have complete understanding and appreciation of the many idiomatic expressions and the daily uses to which they are put. Take ‘piss’, for example — no crudity intended — not to be confused with ‘taking the piss’, which is something I’d never do.
The impolite word ‘piss’, together with its derivatives and associations, has extremely versatile usage in the English language, a fact no better illustrated than when it is used in conjunction with the gentlemanly art of beer drinking. Take note (make some, if you like): the expression ‘going on the piss’ is a common phrase in the United Kingdom. Precisely translated, it means ‘to go on the beer’, of which an elaboration would be to indulge in a beer-drinking session. Not that in England beer is considered urine; on the contrary, since the dissolution of Watney’s piss water, beer is held in high esteem by many, even exalted by some. For example, when we say in England that we have been on a ‘piss-up’ or ‘pissing it up’, it’s not something we are ashamed to admit to; quite the reverse, in fact. ‘Piss artists’ are rather proud of having been ‘on the piss’. We regard it not in terms of disapprobation but as something of an achievement. In other words, when the English say they’ve been ‘pissing it up’, the connotation of shame is rarely present.
People who have been ‘on the piss’ may feel a little embarrassed when they are forced to admit in consequence that they ended up ‘totally pissed’ and in the process disgraced themselves, but by and large they are not ‘pissed off’ to have ‘pissed it (their money) up the wall’ and ended up quite rat-arsed. Please note, however, that whilst many who go ‘on the piss’ invariably end up rat-arsed, they are rarely ever, if ever, referred to by themselves, their relatives, friends or colleagues as ‘rat-arsers’.
The English are nothing if not reserved, preferring, if at all possible, to avoid the more debasing title of ‘pisshead’ in relation to their drinking habits but have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting the synonym ‘piss artist’ — a name which many practitioners wear as though it were a badge of honour.
Excuse me, once again, if only for excusing myself, which some may infer as a sly attempt to circumvent self-censorship for the sake of being crude and wanting, like a naughty boy, to see the word ‘piss’ in print (well, it makes a change from writing sh…hhhhh!) It’s just that ‘piss’ and the past tense ‘pissed’ have such astonishing versatility within the English language, almost as much, but not quite, as another adaptive English word, which is ‘fart’, but we won’t fart about with that at the moment. We will leave that for a later lesson and get down now to the serious business of tasting this Belgian blond, coz if we carry on like this, getting pissed will be out of the question.
Tapkoc Belgium Blond Ale won a Bronze medal in the ‘Light Ale’ category of the competition for brewing products ROSGLAVPIVO-2023 and a Gold medal in the international competition Beer 2024 in Sochi. [source: https://tarkos.ru/catalog/blond-el/]
Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale
So, the beer with the piddling Belgian boy claims to be a Belgian blond ale. What exactly did I make of it?
At first sniff, the blond Belgian releases a lovely bouquet of tangy, hoppy notes, accompanied by a deeper, rounded sound. No, this is not the follow-up English lesson that I mentioned earlier. The aroma of this beer is a nose-fondling melody. It’s not quite a symphony of scents, but it pulls out the organ stops similar to the way in which Gobbo Fletton, our village church organist, did during the 1960s, that is, forcefully but in no particular order.
I was relieved, as much as the boy on the bottle, by this reassuring revelation. And yet, as the beer didn’t smell like p…, what exactly did it smell of? Potato juice or pastry? As pale and pallid as it certainly is, someone had come along and put body in this beer (which is different from somebody’s body), and the part that was the most pleasing was that it packed a bit of an oomph. (No, this is not the follow-up lesson to which I alluded earlier.)
In the glass, Belgian Blond has a hazy fantayzee look, which, for a blond beer, is often interpreted as a sign of honest-to-goodness, natural quality, particularly if the fruit-basket scent is oranges and lemons, say the belles with large melons. The chorus line of different notes is as revealing and provocative as the 19th-century music hall Can-Can. Can they? Yes, they can. Have they? By Jove, they have. The fruity exterior cleverly masks a deceptively deep, dense flavour, which may or may not be innocent or, failing that, have been put there on purpose.
Storm in a teacup or pee in a pod? I have no intention of pissing about or pissing off the brewers; Tapkoc is no clone. For a start, and at the finish, Belgian Blond is a six-percenter, and I seriously doubt you will find anything anywhere which subtly brings together such a pleasing piquant taste and underlying strength. If the motive for drinking it is still unclear, perhaps we had better call Poirot. He was Belgian, was he not?
Ah, now you are taking the — guess the penultimate word competition — p…
And my last word on the subject? Writing this review was easy. In fact, it was a piece of — guess the last word competition — p …
BOX TICKER’S CORNER Name of Beer: Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale Brewer: Tarkos Brewery Where it is brewed: Voronezh, Russia Bottle capacity: 0.5 litre Strength: 6% Price: 130 roubles (£1.20) Appearance: Blond Aroma: So much to choose from Taste: An interesting and not unflavourable test of the taste buds Fizz amplitude: 5% Label/Marketing: Statue of a small boy urinating Would you buy it again? It’s already happened
Beer rating
The brewer’s website has this to say about Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale: A rich golden ale with a subtle, ethereal aroma of spices, created by Belgian yeast. The strong beer gives a noticeable warming effect and stimulates the taste buds but does not overload them. It is an ideal accompaniment to exquisite dishes. Website: https://tarkos.ru/
Wot other’s say [Comments on Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale from the internet, unedited] 🤔 It’s OK, but it smells like cardboard. [Comment: That’s because he’s got a cardboard box stuck on his head.] 😉 The beer may not be quite in style, but it’s interesting, and I liked it. [Comment: You can’t say fairer than that.] 😑 I don’t get the joke about the name Tapkoc and its relevance to the peeing cherub. [Comment: An unassimilated migrant living in the UK] 😎 Unusual in everything – from the label to the taste. [Comment: He’s got it!]
