24 February 2024 ~ Patisson Markt Restaurant Kaliningrad Good Value
It’s one of two buildings that flank the entrance to what was once Königsberg Zoo, now the Kaliningrad Zoopark. Once upon a time, it was an old eatery with a distinctly Soviet feel. In 2004, I nicknamed it the Restaurant of Many Menus, for just that reason. In one would go and out would come the menus, several at least, weighty tomes, impressively, if not dauntingly, cram-packed with a plethora of traditional Russian dishes, all for one and one for all unashamedly non-vegetarian.
Not so today. Gone are the leatherette bound-in-brown gastronomical bibles, replaced by simple card menus that are pretty and neat by design and eclectic in their choice of nosh. Attractive in themselves, they are by no means incipiently necessary, since Patisson Markt operates on the self-service principal. All you have to do is skim your pre-selected tray along the polished metallic surface of the long zig-zagging shelf and construct a meal of your choosing from the many and varied selections of food displayed in the glass-fronted cabinets.
Above: The long serving counter cuts a dash of its own; a glass and metal complement to the unadorned concrete ceiling, all agog with pipes and wires, as if plaster board and trunking have yet to be invented.
The long zig-zag cafeteria counter offers a mouth-watering selection of savoury dishes, with more than enough vegetarian options to placate the non-meat palate. As a lover of simple food, it is not often that I can say that I was impressed with what was on offer, but here I most assuredly was.
That’s me saying that …
As might be supposed, meat and fish are everywhere, but Kaliningrad has at last come of age, and there are easily more than enough food variants not containing animal parts to placate and delight the fragile sensibilities of the staunchest vegetarian. As far as I am aware, this is as true of the sweets as it is of the savoury dishes. To my knowledge, none of the ice creams, tartlets, cakes, pastries and anything delicatessen are made with pork or beef, so if sweet-toothed things turn you on, Patisson Markt should flick your switch.
The carousel below provides a tantalising exposition of the delicious variety of food on offer at Kaliningrad’s Patisson Markt.
Patisson Markt Restaurant
This welcoming restaurant next to the zoo has come a long way since it was something entirely different. Various tweaks over the years, followed by a redefining makeover, have transformed a restaurant which was perfect for its time, including its bulky menus and traditional Russian grub, into bright and breezy, hip and buffet, thanks mainly to a design initiative that cunningly unites the naturalistic world around an alfresco dining experience.
I spy whilst eating apple pie (yum), an unusual-looking roof roundel. Whatever it is and whatever it may have been, it visually consolidates the foliate theme, that of nature’s outside in.
The naturalistic elements feeding this idea are simple but effective. Take open-ended, cubicle-type, high-standing shelving units, some made of wood others from ebonised steel, fill the compartments with logs cut to order, add convincing imitation ferns, plants and jars of pickles and arrange them in such a way so that each distils its own space from the generic space it occupies.
In any other interior context, the long and angular servery would focalise the content of the room, but hived off behind a light-blue-painted screen with pockets of shelving modules and open louvre window shades, it melts into the background, letting the props and various artifices manage mood and atmosphere.
Above: Louvre screen and windows … I’ve seen this done in the Kavkaz Restaurant: the knowing that you are inside but the feeling you could be outside. The blinds and trellised glass windows add an imaginative touch.
The open plan but cleverly screened nature of the long room together with its floor to ceiling windows, pleasantly partner to give a sense of bright and airy that is just seclusive enough to create the illusion of private dining without the feeling of being hemmed in. I don’t have to tell you how well it works, as I have told you that already.
The immediate room from the entrance lobby is the one where the former restaurant plied its trade. However, its ‘old-fashioned dine in secret whilst feeling uneasily bourgeoise’ has since been consigned to history, and I am perhaps the only one who remembers its enclosure and secretly mourns the loss of its War and Peace style menus, which have faded into obscurity long ago with my youth.
Nevertheless, of the two dining areas it is still the least ethereal. The luxury of light and bright resides in the long extension or knocked-through room on the other side of the building, which, through the conceits that I have described, bring the outdoors indoors, making the restaurant summer in summer and keeping it summer in winter.
Patisson Markt Restaurant
Patisson Markt is light on your senses and also light on your pocket. It is a ‘something for everyone’ place, even for a plain-and-simple-food man like myself, and for those with more discerning tastebuds there is plenty more besides, all with taste and quality but not at the price of a trip to the moon.
Opening times Friday & Saturday 9am to 12am Sunday to Thursday 9am to 11pm
And you should try these whilst you’re at it?
Mama Mia Restaurant There are pre-set lunches at a very good price. I had Greek salad, soup and pizza accompanied by cranberry juice. Café Seagull by the Lake Café Seagull is an excellent place for simply relaxing. The terrace and the restaurant windows look out over Kaliningrad’s ‘pond’. The cuisine, both in terms of presentation and taste, received top marks and the service could not be faulted. Balt Restaurant (Zelenogradsk) Recommend the Balt? I’d buy it if I could! Soul Garden (café garden complex) If you don’t go there, you’ll never know what you’ve missed! It’s unusual, and the view is well worth viewing.
The cynic’s guide to speaking Russian fluently even if no one understands you … least of all yourself
10 February 2024 ~ Learn to Speak Russian in 1000 years
Whenever anybody hears about my associations with Russia, once they have voiced the usual prejudices and have stopped tutting and shaking their heads or staring at me in abject astonishment, I am often asked “Can you speak Russian?” They obviously don’t expect or want an affirmative answer, so I oblige them with, “Don’t be ridiculous! Russian is such a complicated language even the Russians can’t speak it!” Most Brits tend to take the answer at face value and, instead of having a chuckle, look at me with solemn sincerity and nod their heads in a sanguine way. Ahh, now it all makes sense.
That having been said, I remember remarking to our late friend Stas that in attempting to learn the Russian language, I was having difficulty following and even determining some of the rules. To this, he replied cynically, “Well, what do you expect? This is Russia not England. Which rules are you referring to?”
So, what is it that is so difficult about being English when it comes to speaking Russian? The quick, but insoluble, answer lies in the juxtaposition, English-Russian. Historically, the ‘West’s understanding of Russia, all things Russian and Russians themselves has been mired in myth, misconception, intentional and unintentional myopias and homespun mystery. Consider Winston Churchill’s cryptic comment: “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. By accepting his definition, Stas’s “Which rules are you referring to?” is meaningfully abstruse.
Nevertheless, if you take politics and the latent desire not to understand out of the equation, the fact remains that linguistically, grammatically, syntactically and the rest, the inherent dissimilarities that exist between the Russian and English languages are so obvious that gradually not being able to speak or understand it makes infinite more sense than otherwise.
In the course of my studies, I have arrived at the near paradoxical point where I can speak Russian, basic Russian, better than understanding it. Patience on the part of the second party helps, since patience is a confidence-builder. (Please be gentle with me; I am but a language virgin …) But patience is a virtue which, like decency and common courtesy, is fast going out of fashion.
In the real world (and that’s a scary place, isn’t it!), whenever I listen to, or listen in, on other people’s conversations, I very often catch enough of their words and phrases to get the gist of what they are talking about, and as I am constantly working hard on expanding my vocabulary, I’m getting slowly but progressively better. Besides, the way I see it, the effort and mental concentration involved in attempting to learn a second language, irrelevant of success, has to be good ooprasnernia (exercise) for my starry oom (old brain).
Did you know? Russian is the third most difficult language in the world to learn, superseded only by Mandarin and Arabic!
I am not sure how many different ways, scientifically proven or hearsayed, exist for learning languages. By all authoritative accounts, the one that rates most highly for success is being born into the culture of the language taught at birth, which, the experts tell us, is the language one will most likely master. However, exceptions to that rule exist. In Britain ~ especially in Britain ~ not everyone speaks their native tongue and many of those that do, either speak a different language or just speak gibberish (especially Liberals).
Conversational language courses
An all-time and back-dating favourite of year-dot language learners has to be the learn-from-recordings method. As an antiques junkie, I have often turned up old 78rpm record sets called ‘Conversational Courses’ that promised the would-be linguist that all it takes to learn the language of their choice is to drop the needle into the groove and listen yourself proficient. The fact that so many of these cased record sets have survived, and a disproportionate number with the disks in better condition than the protective cases themselves, would seem to suggest that the eager students’ initial enthusiasm quickly fizzled out on making the discovery that whilst sales talk may sell records it doesn’t necessarily a fluent speaker make.
Nevertheless, since the dawn of this methodology, which first saw light in the early 1900s, learning how to speak sales has never been less problematic. Every generation has been faithfully supplied with its version of the shellac-based miracle language-learning recording, along with the proven art and science that by combining the spoken and written word vintage dealers such as myself are destined to uncover in virtually every house clearance throughout the land a boxed set of language recordings and the booklets that accompanied them.
Thus, over the decades, we have seen vinyl ‘conversational courses’ supported by written work, books adorned with reel-to-reel tapes, partwork publications married to cassettes and, since the advent of the good old internet, a veritable explosion of visual aids, podcasts, YouTube videos and interactive learning programmes all purporting that they can provide a fast-track lane for learning languages. Not that this approach is resoundingly futile for everyone, it’s just the ‘fast and easy’ that you need take with a pinch of salt.
Four easy steps to learning Russian
To be frank, I have not the slightest idea which of the many language-learning techniques flaunted as the most effective has the edge on the other, but what I have gleaned from discussions on the subject, and from my own experience, is that in the world of learning per se, there are two preferred often separate approaches, the one being auditory, the other visual.
Take me, for example, at the risk of sounding voyeuristic, I can categorically state that I am a visually dominant learner. In other words, I memorise what I see better than what I hear. Whilst this propensity doubtlessly has its advantages, ie there’s a lot to learn from peeping through keyholes, I cannot help suspecting that when it comes to learning the spoken language any advantage attributed to a photographic memory is relegated to second place.
Illustrative of this could be when someone shouts F..k Off! Assuming you are a visual learner and the recipient of this imperative, if at the time the instruction was given you happened to have no visual contact, learnability could be gravely compromised, depriving you of the resolve to act, whereas a learner in the auditory class would get the message loud and clear, quicker than you could see Jack Robinson, and presumably without hesitation would swiftly arrive at the understanding that he or she is longer required.
Learn to speak Russian the visual way
To learn a language by the visual method, it is necessary to write out the phonetic spelling of each and every particular word and commit them to memory. Writing them repetitively after the fashion of writing lines at school for having been caught doing something you should never have been caught for, eg “I must not whinge when I am made to write lines at school, because that is what woke people do”, is a good way of hammering home the words you are trying to learn. You can also mimic your auditory peers by saying the words out loud.
Sometimes, on those occasions when I am secretly being big headed, I will take the words that I have photographed cerebrally and think the pictures through until they form and move in streams of language, thus creating sentences in my mind which I can ‘speak’ at the pace I would normally utter them. In this way, I am learning language according to my visual penchant and also listening to myself in an auditory fashion, although the only one who knows this, and the only one who can hear me doing it, is nobody else but me [a peel of fiendish laughter!]
Whoever we are and however we do it, when we come to speaking a second language, that is speaking language out loud, mistakes inevitably happen. It is only natural and also unnatural, for example think of Biden. The sounds of our own language, our native language, are familiarly attributable, whereas the sounds of a second language are, particularly during the early days of learning, mere alien substitutions, seemingly made to trip you up. Sometimes, when I am actually speaking Russian, that is speaking Russian to Russian people and know I have made a mistake, I simply think ‘Good moaning’. It always brings a smile to my face. To paraphrase the great bard, “To err is to be stupid”. And he really does have a point.
The numeric problem
Numerically challenged, and there are few so numerically challenged as I, (I got a grade 9 CSE in maths), getting my head around Russian numerals is like trying to comprehend why inadequate people need lots of friends on their social media page.
On a day-to-day basis, my latent numerical deficiency exposes itself at worst when I go to the supermarket. It’s all well and good to boast that I can count to one hundred in Russian, but as the Russian currency routinely extends into thousands and multiples thereof, I can find myself at the checkout till in a right old two and eight (and they said he couldn’t count!).
Luckily for me, the local supermarket checkout ladies are willing to make allowances. They see this silly old bugger, an Englishman, heading their way with his burgeoning basket of produce the cost of which he cannot add up let alone put into words, and they know it’s back to primary school.
There is one till in the local shop the payment screen of which is a close-guarded secret to customers. Without this visual aid, all I hear is a ‘grr, grr, grr’ as the shop assistant asks for payment. How I get around this problem is to think myself Squint Westwood, hand the lady a fistful of roubles and then on receiving the change, along with my receipt, walk away looking tall as if I have done something clever.
But enough of this idle waffling. Let’s consider some of the inherent difficulties the English person will encounter in his or her attempt to master spoken Russian.
If I were to say to you, and I am going to, ‘masculine, feminine, neuter’, you, being English, wouldn’t be too surprised, although you might feel inclined to ask, ‘Don’t you mean gender-neutral?’ and ‘Would it not be more inclusive to give equal preference to the non-binary?’ To which I would typically reply, “Don’t be so daft, you silly old leftie.”
In the context of the Russian language ‘masculine, feminine and neuter’ are the three categories of noun gender. So, how does one know which words in Russian belong to which gender? The ‘Learn Russian the Day Before You Thought of Learning It’ books, tell you that the secret lies in the last letter of the noun. Thus, masculine words end in a consonant or the letter ‘й’; feminine words in the letter ‘a’ or ‘я’; and neuter in an ‘o’ or ‘e’. However, if the last letter is a ‘soft sign’ ‘ь’, it might be masculine or it might be feminine. “Ah, so, the Russian language suffers from the same problem we have in the UK when it comes to gender identity!”
Not exactly, but one thing for certain is that my way of visual learning does not like it. To best enable my memory to flag which noun goes with which gender type, I have had to create a table and separate the different nouns into three vertical columns headed up by the three noun genders.
To give you some idea of the complications involved, let’s now take a look at the way in which possessive pronouns work with gender. For example, the seemingly innocent and simple word ‘my’.
In Russian, there are three permutations of the word ‘my’, each governed by gender association. Thus:
My (+ masculine noun) = Moy My (+ feminine noun) = Miya My (+ neuter noun) = Miyor
I see.
No, you don’t, because there is in fact a third form and that comes into play when the word ‘my’ is used in conjunction with plural nouns. The plural form of ‘my’ is ‘miyee’.
And, if that isn’t bad enough for native English speakers to get their heads around, each possessive variant changes according to who is doing the possessing, ie ‘my’, ‘your(s)’, ‘his’, ‘hers’, ‘its’ ‘ours’ ‘theirs’. Easy peasy, no it ‘aint, because there are two types of ‘your(s)’: the first used when you know somebody well and the second used when you don’t; in other words, type 1 is familiar and type 2 formal.
I cannot understand why nationals of the West have difficulty understanding their counterparts in the East, can you?
Unlike the Cold War of days gone by and the disavowed cold war of today, the language cold war has been going on for centuries and shows every sign of abating never.
Now let’s take a look at verb endings but, for the sake of brevity, in the present tense only. The endings of verbs, and indeed other words, in Russian tend to change faster than couples at a swingers’ party. That prompts the example ‘To love’.
‘To love’ in Russian is the same as ‘to like’. I’m not sure how you navigate the difference with a verb like this, when, for instance, you are talking about your history teacher. ‘I like/I love my (Moy? Miya? Miyor? Miyee?) history teacher’, but let’s not go there and press on with our verb-ending example.
The infinitive of ‘to love/to like’ in Russian is ‘Lubits’. And here are the variations:
I love = Ya lubloo You love = Tey lubish He/she loves = On/Ana lubit You (formal) loves = Vey lubitye We love = Mey lubim *They love = Anee lubyat
*Note that the ending here has a ‘yat’ sound, but don’t be fooled by this. Mysteriously, and for no apparent reason other than with some words it sounds phonetically better, the ending ‘yat’ can turn to ‘yoot’, as in ‘they sell’: ‘Anee pradayoot’. And don’t forget that here we are dealing with the present tense only. There are different forms and rules for the past and future tenses.
When making the comparative transference of English to Russian and vice versa, the two languages throw up all sorts of interesting and perplexing anomalies. The above are just two examples.
Here is another: ‘to have’.
Now, based on what has been said already, you might think that ‘I have’, ‘you have’ etc, would follow the same pattern as that already demonstrated, as in ‘Ya’, ‘Tey’, ‘On’ etc. But, as far as I can make out, not so.
My understanding of this usage goes something like this:
I have = oo minya yest You have = oo tebia yest He has = oo nevor yest She has = oo neyor yest You have (formal) = oo vas yest We have = oo nas yest They have = oo nihu yest
What was it my late friend Stas said, “Which rules are you talking about?”
The word for ‘what’ in Russian is ‘shtor’. So, you would naturally presume that the question, “What is your name?’ would begin with ‘shtor’, but that’s where you’d be wrong, because the word ‘shtor’ in this phrase is substituted with ‘kak’, which means, among other things, ‘how’. So, the question ‘What is your name?’ becomes ‘Kak tebia zavoot?’
It couldn’t be simpler if you wanted it to be.
So, let’s recap on what I stated earlier about the two fundamental and essential approaches to learning a second language (because after learning a second language, only child prodigies and masochists go on to learn a third and more).
There are two types of language learner and some of those are bi (It’s not what you think, I hope!) Some people are auditory learners, they learn not only language but almost everything around them by listening, or, as you might say in colloquial terms, ‘ear-oling’. Others are visual learners; they remember what they have clocked with their eyes. Often auditory learners and visual learners live in entirely different learning dimensions, but there are some, as in all walks of life, that are apt to swing both ways.
Unfortunately, where language is concerned and, by extension, in every other sphere of my life, I am a visual learner. In other words, I retain things through visual memory. This can be extremely useful in certain circumstances but a bugbear in others, and it is my belief that when it comes to learning languages the auditory learner has the edge. For a visual learner like me, a person who retains things better by sight than by ear, the only sure-fired way of retaining language, ie memorising vocabulary, is to write down the word in English and then visually, as well as audibly, memorise the phonetic version.
The visual language-learner at work
I have been told that I should listen to auditory recordings in Russian and watch more Russian films, films with subtitles, as an aid to learning, but so far, as well as eavesdropping on Russian conversations, I have attained little success.
Consequently, I now find myself in the peculiar position of being able to speak basic Russian better than I can understand basic Russian: ‘shtor?’ But one continues and perseveres.
One method of vocabulary expansion that is often ridiculed, but which in my case works, is to associate the sound of the Russian word I am learning with a word I know in English.
Here are some examples of words that I have learnt using the ‘association method’:
Ootoog (iron, as in clothes iron) think ‘YouTube’ Gavyadinner (meat), easy-peasy (Have yu dinner) ~ similar to Cockney rhyming slang Shootka (joke) (shoot yer) Paul (floor) I think of one of my favourite uncles Pay lee sauce (vacuum cleaner). I think ‘pay for your sauce’ and sometimes ‘Lea’ as in Lea and Perrins Simpatichnee (handsome). I pick up my smartarse phone, suck in my cheeks, angle my head, press the button and think “Me, Me, Me!” (In spite of the fact it’s not me at all.)
And then there is ‘morzhit bates’ (possibly). I’ll leave you to work out the word association for that one.
Learn to speak Russian using rude words
Go on, you are dying to ask: What about rude and impolite words?
According to language specialists, obscenities are the first words of any new language learnt. I bet you know all of those, Mick. Well, no, as it happens, I don’t. Although I have been told some of the mucky words in Russian, I haven’t taken enough interest in them to remember them with any degree of accuracy. This can only work in one’s favour, as by lacking usage confidence one is hardly likely to run the risk of bringing them into play.
All languages contain comparatively much longer words than the native language equivalents, and these can arrest the speed of learning: ‘Padbarroardock’ is a good example, the English equivalent of which is ‘chin’. Then there is ‘nearcartourrayear’, ‘some’; and ‘zharkvartayviushi’, which means ‘fascinating’, which is conveniently close to frustrating. The consolatory fact about long words is that once you have taken the trouble to learn them, they lodge themselves in your mind.
I find that the stress in most Russian words fall within the word exactly where in the English equivalent you would not expect it to be. For example, take the word ‘Bagati’ in Russian, meaning ‘rich’. My natural predilection is to place the stress on the first part of the word, ‘bag’, but in fact it should be at the end of the word, ‘ati’. Similarly with the word ‘savings’, ‘zbier rear zhen eeya’. Every part of my linguistic soul screams out to place the stress on ‘zbier’, but correct me if I am wrong, and I was, the stress occurs on ‘zhen’. Similar with the noun ‘woman’, ‘zhensheena’. Put the stress on ‘zhen’ and there’s nothing simpler, but shift it along to ‘sheena’, and the word becomes as difficult as the object that it references.
Learning to speak Russian, and to understand Russian when people (Ludi) speak to you, can be ‘troudnay’ (difficult/problematic) and very often ‘raz dra zha ushi’ (annoying) when the stress belies anticipation.
Given the assumed and more often than not justified complexity of language learning, it is not surprising that the language aids that people instinctively reach for are those which attach importance to the concepts of ‘fast’ and ‘easy’. The proliferation of technological language portals are still matched by a prodigious number of learn lingo fast books.
Forget them. Learn Russian in Five Minutes or Learn Russian Instantly Whilst Standing with Your Trousers Down on the Edge of the M25 may seem an appealing and credible way of doing it, but why would you, unless, of course, you happen to bear an uncanny resemblance to your worst best friend. For most people, excluding the most linguistically gifted, learning Russian is going to be hard graft. It takes perseverance, commitment and dedication. I haven’t a clue where these are coming from, perhaps they arrived in a boat at Dover, but I am grateful for their assistance.
Russian is a hard nut to crack (I’m talking about the language, but …). In fact, the only other language that might prove considerably more difficult for English people to learn has to be American. This is especially true whenever Democrats open their mouths. They just never seem to make sense. So, if you are English and off to America remember to take your translation app. And if you are English and off to Russia, remember what I have told you.
Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Kanapinis (dark)
Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad
30 January 2024 ~ Kanapinis Dark in Kaliningrad How Good is It?
Leonard Cohen named his valedictory album You want it darker. Certainly, there were two periods in my own life when I wanted nothing more. The darkness of the two epochs were not exclusive to themselves, they commingled with each other, but the impulse to which they responded rose to prominence at separate times and the realm of human existence in which they dwelt could not be more distinct, or instinctively categorical, for one had to do with thought and feeling, the other with carnal desire.
As for the first, my predilections were helped not a little by the dulcet tones and soul-venting lyrics that Mr Cohen excelled in, but the inspirational spring that fed the river of melancholia arose from the deep and dark Romanticism of the celebrated American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The second instance I will leave unread, preferring for the moment to consign it to the incubation of your fetid and, I suspect, already bated penchant for perversion, and whilst you are trying to work it out, we will think of and also drink another outstanding beer, one that is dark but sweet not bitter.
Kanapinis Dark, easier to drink than to say!
The beer in question, and there is no question in my mind that in the land of beautiful beers it is the half-sister of Aphrodite (clue!), is the dark and dusky version of a Lithuanian beer whose unalloyed and succulent pleasures I sought to describe in my last review. I refer, of course, to that wonderful brew Kanapinis (light).
Kanapinis Dark in Kaliningrad How Good is It?
Santana Abraxas sang, “I’ve got a black magic woman” (clue!); Leslie Phillips, that smooth, saucy old English philanderer of the British silver screen, was forever forgetting the Black Tower (clue!) and forgetting to put his trousers on; the Rolling Stones told loyal fans they wanted to ‘paint it black’ (clue!); Deep Purple rocked ‘Black Night’ (clue!); Black Sabbath were black by name and also black by nature (clue!); and in the blackout during the war to numerous men-starved English women Americans came as Errol Flynn and left as Bertold Weisner (clue!).
Kanapinis dark is one of those brews that contains no additives. Water, caramel, barley malt, hops and beer yeast, that’s what’s in it. The brewers, Aukštaitijos Bravorai, have remained faithful to the traditional brewing method for many years, honouring the original recipe, open fermentation and a lengthy and assiduously monitored maturation process.
The Kanapinis siblings, the pale and the black, remind me of black and tan, not the one you can’t say in Ireland but the one you can make in a glass. They co-exist as though in the unification of innate quality, they are irredeemably colour blind, as though no one or the other vie to be thought of as anything more, and thought about together, as a lovely potable, quite inseparable, palate-tactile portable pair.
Taking the top off a Kanapinis ~ and remember, Kanapinis has one of those lightning toggle tops otherwise known as a Quillfeldt after the excellent chap who invented it ~ the air apparent is aerosoled with a sweet and musky smell, an enticing natural blend infused with heady caramels subtly tinctured with flavoursome malts, and when the beer pours into the glass it does so with a rich, a prepossessing chocolate head, the sort of thing that would be hard to sip if you had recently taken to wearing an RAF moustache and had as yet to learn proficiency in how to manoeuvre it properly.
“Please excuse my presumption, sir, but do you possess a licence for that hairy thing above your top lip?”
Without a Freddie Mercury or anything of the like to impede your drinking progress, the frothing foam incurs no danger, and once you have taken the plunge and dived headlong right in there, having sampled (and thus pre-judging) the quality of its paler version, the first sip is exactly as you know it should be, and had no doubt it would be. It is as promising as it smells, as seductive in taste as it looks and as satisfying from fart to stinish as any beer that you’ve ever made love to, and you can’t say darker than that!
Kanapinis Dark in Kaliningrad How Good is It?
Frank Sinatra, I’m sure, would be monotoned pleased to hear you say that Kanapinis goes ‘all the way’. Still, there’s little to choose between the two sisters, as both are full-bodied brews, and if ever colour was not an issue, then here is the perfect example: Sup! Sup! Sup! Ahhh!
If I had to choose between light or dark, the choice would be a difficult one, but should you care to bank roll me to a bottle of the dark stuff, I would thankee most kindly, sir, and do my best to get stuck in.
Old beer drinkers never shrink (except on the worst occasions) when it comes to revealing their true colours.
BOX TICKER’S CORNER Name of Beer: Kanapinis (Dark) Brewer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai Where it is brewed: Lithuania Bottle capacity: 1litre Strength: 5.3% Price: It cost me about 288 roubles (£2.62) Appearance: Dark and charcoally Aroma: Musky malts and burnt caramel Taste: Yum Yum Fizz amplitude: 3/10 Label/Marketing: Pop Art/Cartoon Would you buy it again? And again
Beer rating
About the beer: Aukštaitijos Bravorai | Kanapinis The brewer’s website has this to say about Kanapinis dark:
“CANNABIS unfiltered dark beer: This beer is brewed using only natural ingredients ~ water, malt, hops and yeast. The combination of caramel malts used in the production of this beer gives this beer a rich ruby colour and a light burnt caramel bitterness.”
Wot other’s say [Comments on Kanapinis (dark) beer from the internet, unedited] 😑Taste is close to aroma, but with harsh yeasty note. [Comment: Yeasty note, yes; harsh, no]
😐Kanapinis Dark is, frankly, so-so. If you can still feel the taste in the first half of the sip, then there is practically nothing left of it. [Comment: A man with a rather peculiar tongue!]
16 January 2024 ~ Honey House Kaliningrad is the Bees Knees
Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow wrote the lyrics, and the Beatles commercialised it. It was called a Taste of Honey, and the memorable refrain went, “A taste of honey / A taste much sweeter than wine.”
Frank Sinatra got it right when he sang, “You can drink the water, but I will drink the wine.”
OK, so no contest between wine and honey and wine and water, but water is good for washing wine glasses and honey is delicious and, they say, extremely good for you, especially when it is not compared with wine but used as one of the main ingredients in the preparation of mead.
Honey House Kaliningrad
The Murd House, not to be confused with the English ‘Murder House’, roll out Vincent Price, is an excessively large, palatial and unmissably bright yellow-coloured mansion of a place, which, in spite of its flamboyance, is oddly concealed along an early twentieth century street in an erstwhile suburb of the East Prussian city of Königsberg.
There was a time that as big and as bright as the building is, it still achieved relative anonymity, due to its partly concealed location. For example, a mid-rise block of flats makes it virtually invisible to cars passing by on the main drag. Thankfully, about three years ago, some bright spark came up with the idea of pinning a large sign on a nearby fence with ‘Murd House’ written on it and an arrow pointing in the right direction, an initiative one hopes that has gone some way towards alleviating comparative obscurity.
In Russian the word ‘Murd’ means honey (There you are, you see, there is a connection!) In English, ‘Murd House’ becomes Honey House or the House of Honey.
Honey House Kaliningrad
Whilst in itself vast, the Baroque pastiche that is the Honey House would dwarf a good sized supermarket, and whilst I have no idea what goes on in the majority of the building, I do know, as I have used it often, that secreted at a corner of this extraordinary building sits one of the best stocked honey shops in Kaliningrad.
Kaliningrad’s central market is hard to beat for almost everything, and that includes honey. It has a spacious and brand-spanking-new food hall that is exclusively given over to many different types of honey, sold in many different sized tubs. But the Honey House’s diminutive size is nothing if not deceptive. This small shop stocks an unbelievably exciting range of honey. Consider this, if you will: Acacia Honey, Mountain Honey, Yellow Sweet Clover Honey, several varieties of Buckwheat Honey. And these are just a small sample of the different kinds of honey offered by the Honey House, either scooped into tubs at your behest or sold in prepacked jars. How do those clever bees manage it!
The products purveyed by the Honey House are not confined to different flavoured honey, it also sells chocolate, confectionary, breakfast cereals, honey straws, biscuits, cosmetics and a whole lot more, all rich in the magic versatility of one of the healthiest natural substances known to man, honey.
Not that alcohol holds any interest to me, I’m strictly sarsaparilla, but the Honey House even purveys an alcohol-infused beverage simply known as Honey Drink, which to you and me is mead. Have I tried it? Have I ever put on a pair of shoes?
Why don’t you put on yours and buzz off down to the Honey House.
The Honey House The House of Honey/Honey House/Murd House (take your pick) began life in 2000, the objective being to popularise beekeeping in the Kaliningrad region. Initially, the mainstay of the enterprise was to provide beekeeping farms with equipment, medications and breeding material.
Today, the Honey House is a bio-shop, which means that it only sells natural products. Thus, products bearing the ‘Slavyansky Medovar’ trademark guarantee consistently high production standards and tasty food from natural ingredients.
Also available from the Honey House: Bee-keeping equipment Medications for bee keeping Bee-keeping clothing Hives and components
and:
Fragrances for candles Candle-making moulds Candle extinguishers
The main thing:
House of Honey Ulitsa Nekrasova 18А, Kaliningrad Kaliningrad Oblast, 236016
Updated: 13 January 2024 | First published: 15 September 2022 ~ Upper Pond, Kaliningrad, new Garden Cafés
A few moments ago, you said in your bestist Russian, ‘Short pashalta’ (bill please), hopefully paid when you got it and have just legitimately left the Seagull by the Lake café, which was the subject of one of my earlier reviews. Turning right, you are now strolling along the side of the Upper Pond opposite a cobbled Königsberg street in the direction of Youth Park.
If you keep walking, you will arrive at a point where the presence of a fenced garden reduces the pavement to a narrow strip. Pedestrian activity is fairly busy here, and as the walled and railing boundary to your left, hedged in with dense confers, prohibits leeway, in order to make headway you will have to play kerb-hop, which is like kerb-crawling but without the fringe benefits.
When the walled and confer garden slips away, at the point where the pavement widens, you would, had you been walking here in the spring of 2022, have found yourself confronted by a disused café/restaurant, a rectangular slab of a building, covered all over in wave-like crustations, one corner surmounted by a metallic lighthouse, another by Captain Ahab, as I saw fit to anoint him, looking proudly over the rails of his elevated quarter deck with a massive globe, the world, at his feet.
Captain Ahab aloft the old Prichal Restaurant // Demolition in progress 2022
Before demolition commenced // Roofless in September 2022
Forever curious and not a cat, I wondered in my previous post on Ahab, whatever would become of him and the gardens that he presided over. Both the marine-themed café/restaurant and its gardens had been sinking steadily, year on year, into dismal destitution. Decay had moved in where trade had left off, and decay, dreariness and impending doom were the avatar of its fate.
The oriental garden went West first (every pun intended). The reed-thatched roofs turned green and mouldy, fell in upon themselves and then collapsed. The shrubs and bushes, once the beneficiaries of a culture of assiduity, exploited the dearth of supervision and in its absence had reverted, like children bestowed with too many rights and a woeful lack of moral guidance, to the clarion call of the wild.
And yet, even at its height, when all in the garden was rosy and the restaurant to which it belonged, although a most peculiar spectacle, was not quite the eyesore it eventually became, to contemplate the whole with anything else but regret was a feat so tremendously difficult that it challenged you to do so in contradiction of every tenet you had ever considered complied with good taste.
Indeed, if an oriental garden overlooking a man-made pond, which once belonged to the German city of Königsberg in what used to be East Prussia but now is Russian Kaliningrad, set against the side of a curious but somewhat tawdry building, which would look decidedly more at home in an amusement park on the north coast of England, failed to provoke the question WTF is going on? ~ then you might as well give up entirely, welcome the immigrant boats at Dover and, Heaven forbid that you could be so reckless, put your faith in the Labour party. On the other hand, with a little charitable latitude of thought, there is room for the hypothesis that having sailed the seven seas, Captain Ahab, believing by appearances that he must be off the coast of China, decided to drop anchor.
It looks like Chinagrad?
Not that it matters a fig. The garden, with its reed-thatched gazebos, which went the way of neglect ahead of Ahab’s building, possessed a certain twee appeal, and there was unity of composition in the design of the man-made structures, the choice of materials used, the natural blending of bushes and shrubs and the seemingly inorganic, but actually carefully planned arrangement, by which each and all of its components had been scrupulously laid down.
Then ~ I believe it may have been early in 2021 ~ a large tree came crashing down in the wind, smashing its way through the wall and railings. And the garden once so cultivated, so trimmed, so neat and expressly inviting was reduced from what many believed to be an object of mastered near perfection to the most inexpressible mess.
In the twelve months before Ahab and his Mablethorpe arcade hit the demolition skids, the beautiful gardens that were, but which, alas and wistfully, entered the realm of no more and never will be again, began to be ruthlessly cleared, and as the sounds of chain saws died away, replaced by the rhythm of hammers and the high-speed whines of angle grinders, it was clear to the not-so-innocent bystander, me, who was gawping there and quite on purpose, that alterations were underway.
Roadside view of garden, September 2022The garden as it appeared in September 2022Pond in the garden next to Upper Pond, Kaliningrad, September 2022Small terrace, work still in progress, Upper Pond, Kaliningrad, September 2022
Even as a passer-by, I saw shrubs being pruned, new vegetation planted, pavements taking shape, and two large and rather bland slope-roofed garden sheds rising above the perimeter, and, at the centre of all this make-good mayhem, Patrick McGoohan’s (The Prisoner’s) dome, or so I was pleased to fancy, only to be brought down to Earth with the phlegmatic explanation that the dome was an igloo geodesic constructed around a stainless-steel frame comprising triangular sections which supported a membrane of stretched PVC. Just as I said, The Prisoner’s dome, the home of the New Number Two (Didn’t see Rover, however?).
Hello, Hello, Hello and what do we have here?
The Phoenix that has arisen from the ashes is quite unlike anything that I have ever beheld. To say that there ‘aint no rhyme or reason in it’ is not necessarily pejorative. You see you’ve got these two big wooden sheds, one selling snacks and coffee and the other with a floor to ceiling plate-glass window through which youngsters sit a-gawping; a large geodesic igloo thingy; a piazza with tables and chairs; two small elevated terraces snug-fit to the lake side; and a long lake-facing and canopy-covered seating area, providing space for several groups sitting on low divans, each around their own personal coffee table.
The latter seating area is a peach; the haunt of the delectable; mainly affluent trophy girls who ostentatiously flaunt themselves by sharing the pipes of their hookahs.
Hookahs: everyone should try one!
These single or multi-stemmed smoking instruments, which cool and vaporise tobacco smoke prior to inhalation by passing it through a water reservoir, were better known to the pioneers of 20th century hipster fashion by the nickname hubbly bubbly pipes.
During the swinging sixties, hubbly bubblies were chiefly associated with the facilitation of opium consumption (naughty!); today, they are the limelighters for a new generation of fadists, some young, some not-so-young, but agelessly would-be trendy (Some believe just by smoking the hookah they qualify for this perfumed club.). They puff away conspicuously on these rather flamboyant instruments, using highly scented shisha tobacco (different flavoured molasses). Now, throw arty-farty lighting into the mix and the smoke exhaled appears to change colour. Wow, even more people will see you! And don’t you look extra cool!
Health experts disagree. Forever seeming to forget that life is bad for your health and is never almost but always fatal, they share no interest at all in egocentric fashion, routinely condemning the hookah as just another sure-fired way of inviting lethal respiratory problems to call time prematurely on an existence already imperilled and grievously overtaxed by vice. What a hookahless bunch of killjoys!
The Mercure from the terrace
On my first visit to this wonderous place, where one can eat, drink, relax, gaze out over the pond and attach one’s self to a hookah or two, it seemed as if whoever had thought of it had forgotten to give it a name. I therefore decided to christen it the Discombobulated Gardens? But since that ambiguous day in 2022, I have learnt that it goes by the name Soul Garden.
On my first and subsequent visits to Soul Garden, I gave the hookers a miss, content to sit back on the terrace, staring out and into the pond at the bold, mirrored and distant reflection of the irradiated Mercure Hotel, whose trademark zig-zag luminosity levitates in a limbo state high upon the Kaliningrad skyline, also hanging motionlessly within the depths and darkness of the pond’s expanse, achieving what we have yet to accomplish, where we like to say we never can be ~ in two places at once.
From the vantage point that the gardens offer, this view across the pond, particularly on a warm summer’s evening, is positively captivating, but with the summer of 2022 (and now 2023) as gone as Captain Ahab, you’ll have to take my word on this.
View from completed garden terrace across the Upper Pond; Mercure Hotel in the distance
During my premiere visit to Soul Garden, the view from the pond side had been so mesmerising that I almost failed to notice that in the time it took to order a beer and have it brought to my table, my hands had grown considerably larger. This Soul Garden phenomenon was explained to me by the waitress. Don’t worry, she reassured me, the reason why your appendages suddenly look much more impressive than they actually are in real life is that the glass in which your beer is served is less than the usual half litre.
Now, I am not suggesting that smaller glasses are indicative of sharp practice; I was just a little surprised, that’s all, what with my hands growing larger and my glass getting shorter, but there really is no need for alarm. Verily, all of Kaliningrad’s bars and restaurants clearly state the volumes in which their beer is served, it is clearly marked in the drinks’ menu. But should the need ever arise, don’t be afraid to ask: “Please could you show me your glass!” I am sure the staff will be most obliging.
In summing up, what I used to like to think of as a place called Something Gardens, but which I now know is Soul Garden, the word intriguing must be applied.
Like me, you’ll be intrigued by the layout and facilities as well as by the name, and you’ll also be intrigued by what they have planned for Ahab’s building. Like the gardens before they had soul, the carcass of the former construction is borderline identity crisis. Since the first stages of partial demolition, in which its tower, globe and ship, and come the day Captain Ahab, were mysteriously wafted away, throughout 2023 the shell of the building has sat on the banks of the pond teasing us one and all with its day-by-day month-on-month suspended animation.
Perhaps this is the reason the captain slung his hook: whilst he had no objection to Moby Dick, he foresaw in Jonah’s whale a completely different kettle of fish. But until the day dawns when all is revealed, it’s premonition to the starboard bow! Barrelman to the crow’s nest, and steady as she goes!
Arty Crafty it is and all the better for it! 17 April 2024~ Craft Garage Kaliningrad a Pit Stop for Good Beer On the same evening that we happened upon the Beer Bar on Prospect Mira and Bar Sovetov, we stumbled upon and into Craft Garage. You’ve guessed it! Whereas it could be argued that… Read more: Craft Garage Kaliningrad a Pit Stop for Good Beer
Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro with a Heart of Gold It’s a venue which immortalises the House of Soviets, serves good beer, hosts music evenings and likes you, the customer. 13 April 2024 ~ Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro in the House of Soviets Do you believe in coincidences? In my most recent post I wrote about… Read more: Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro in the House of Soviets
Good beer in a vintage-inspired bar 13 March 2024 ~ Craft Beers on Form at Forma Bar Kaliningrad Those of us in the UK who are firm believers in the importance of preserving traditions and the history of our country, and who do their bit in this regard by paying homage to, and overpaying for… Read more: Craft Beers on Form at Forma Bar Kaliningrad
Light, bright and affordable ~ Pattison Markt 24 February 2024 ~ Patisson Markt Restaurant Kaliningrad Good Value It’s one of two buildings that flank the entrance to what was once Königsberg Zoo, now the Kaliningrad Zoopark. Once upon a time, it was an old eatery with a distinctly Soviet feel. In 2004, I nicknamed it… Read more: Patisson Markt Restaurant Kaliningrad Good Value
Upper Pond, Kaliningrad, garden cafés replace Prichal Restaurant Updated: 13 January 2024 | First published: 15 September 2022 ~ Upper Pond, Kaliningrad, new Garden Cafés A few moments ago, you said in your bestist Russian, ‘Short pashalta’ (bill please), hopefully paid when you got it and have just legitimately left the Seagull by the Lake… Read more: Upper Pond, Kaliningrad, new Garden Cafés
Basically one of the best beer bars in Kaliningrad 28 December 2023 ~ Yeltsin Bar: The Best Craft Beers in Kaliningrad There’s an awful lot written about Kaliningrad’s number one specialist craft ale bar, Yeltsin, named after Russia’s first post-Cold War president. Most of it is good; and much of it correct. The essential ingredients… Read more: Yeltsin Bar: The Best Craft Beers in Kaliningrad
A Trip Around the Caucasus Updated 10 December 2023 | First published 2020 ~ Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad Housed as it is on the ground floor of a rather large building across the road from Victory Square and directly in front of the colossal shopping centre built in Königsberg style, it would be inaccurate to say… Read more: Kavkaz Restaurant Kaliningrad
Reviewed 9 January 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
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 should then take them to the Russian National
Tourist Office. The London address is:
The Russian National Tourist Office 202 Kensington Church Street London W8 4DP
To complete your visa application, you will need to
take the following with you to the tourist office:
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 (obtainable from The Russian National Tourist Office)*
3. One valid passport-type photograph
4. Payment for application
*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 1234 and/or visit this page on their
website: https://www.visitrussia.org.uk/visas/getting-a-russian-visa/
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
The art, science and agony of waiting: a round trip from Kaliningrad to the UK via Gdansk, Poland
Updated 5 January 2024 | Published: 19 January 2023 ~ Kaliningrad Gdansk London Luton Tips for Survival
In November 2022, my wife Olga and I travelled from Kaliningrad to the UK via Gdansk. It was the first time I had made this journey since the advent of coronavirus.
This account should be read in conjunction with my post How to Get to Kaliningrad from the UK and treated as an addendum to the information contained therein. It is hoped that it may help you to decide whether or not to take this route in the future and what to expect if you do. To be forewarned is to be forearmed ~ not that to be forearmed will do you any good.
Passage to and from the UK to Kaliningrad via Gdansk Airport is, in the post-apocalyptic coronavirus world, now the era of unprecedented sanctions, a realistic if not tedious alternative to the other options available to you. By no means the most traveller-friendly route, nevertheless as an A to B expedient, with a great deal of fortitude and more of patience you will eventually arrive at your destination without incurring the need to navigate every letter in the traveller’s alphabet.
Recently, in November 2022, this was the route we took to travel to the UK. Pre-coronavirus we always took a taxi from Kaliningrad to Gdansk. At a cost of approximately £100, of the two options, bus or taxi, the latter, of course, was the more expensive, but what it lacked in economy it more than made up for in comfort, door-to-door convenience and, most importantly, a smoother, less traumatic transition at the Russian-Polish border.
Our November trip was the first in which I would take a bus from Kaliningrad to Gdansk. Kaliningrad Central Bus Station is a wonderful Soviet incarnation, built, I should imagine, circa 1970s. It is neat, tidy, user-friendly and surrounded by shops and refreshment facilities.
There’s nothing to bussing it from Kaliningrad: You just pass yourself and your luggage through a scanning system, buy your tickets in the usual way from the counter ~ thankfully staff-manned, not machine-oriented ~ and when it is time to catch your bus, brandishing your barcoded ticket, off you go through the gates.
Not one for using minibuses on any journey except in town, I was relieved to find on the day of travelling that we were blessed with a proper coach.
We were required to load our cases into the luggage compartment ourselves, which was no great shakes as we were travelling light. Even so, if you happen to be an old codger suffering from comorbidities or a damsel in distress, you may find that you need to enlist the kindly services of a fellow-travelling Sir Galahad, since loading luggage of any kind does not come under the driver’s remit.
Kaliningrad Gdansk London Luton Tips for Survival
The journey to the Russian border in Kaliningrad is an effortless one, taking around 30 to 40 minutes in all. From the other direction, Gdansk Airport, the distance is the greater of the two. But travelling isn’t the problem; it’s the waiting you have to worry about.
Whether you travel by car or by bus, prepare yourself mentally for an indescribably protracted period of boredom at both border checkpoints. I sometimes wonder if there isn’t a competition between the Russian and Polish authorities to see who can make your stay at the border more drawn out and uncomfortable. In days gone by, when Russians flocked to Poland to buy sausages and the Polish nipped back and forth to Kaliningrad to smuggle in cheap vodka and fags, crossing from either direction, Russia to Poland, Poland to Russia, was a traffic-queuing nightmare. But at least then it was understandable why it took so long.
Now, in the New Normal ~ in the coronavirus aftermath and knock-on effect from the troubles in Ukraine ~ queues at the border, which is to say magnificent queues, are largely a thing of the past, but interminable waiting is not.
For example, on the day that we travelled, there were two cars in front of us and no one behind us, but still it took four hours to cross from Russia into Poland.
By taxi the process is quicker, not substantially so, but it is quicker and a lot less painful. On both sides of the border, Russian and Polish, our driver would take it upon himself to hand over our passports to the authorities whilst we sat in the car until summoned to appear before the border officer’s window.
This procedure is strangely daunting. It has its equivalent in the unfounded guilt you feel (and I am certain that you do) whenever a copper walks by (“Evenin’ all!”). I find that it both helps and doesn’t if, whilst standing under the border officer’s partly hidden officious eye, you imagine yourself in the leading role of one of Len Deighton’s spy novels.
One other thing, other difference between the taxi and the bus, is that when you take a taxi your bags are checked in the car. A uniformed man or woman with stern features out of a can, asks you to open your bags and then studiously looks at your underpants (hopefully those in the case, not the ones you are wearing!). He, or a colleague, will also bring a dog along to sniff around for drugs (in your cases not your underpants) which, of course, we never have (drugs, that is, not underpants) except, perhaps, if you can call them drugs, a vintage bottle of Bile Beans which, through force of habit as well as nostalgia, I carry for good luck. Get away! You don’t! Do you?
By bus the procedure though similar is far more demanding, obviously because the vehicle you are travelling in contains more people and more people means more documents to process but also because each passenger is required to lug his, her or its own luggage out of the bus, across the tarmac and into a bland and impersonal room.
Here you queue obediently, waiting for the inquisition before the border officer’s cubicle. No smiling, this is serious business, so why on earth do I always feel an uncontrollable urge to laugh? Eternity comes and goes and suddenly stamp, stamp, stamp, they are inking little official things in the pages of your passport. This is music to your ears, for next they will dismiss you, and you’ll suffer to drag your heavy cases across to the waiting conveyor belt in order to have them scanned for all those things that you shouldn’t have stashed, and didn’t stash, inside.
Admittedly, this hiatus in your journey does provide you with the opportunity to pay the bog a visit, making it not entirely a waste of time. The problem is, however, that you can almost guarantee that one or more in your party are either not in possession of the prerequisite travel documents or are carrying something in their bags in contravention of regulations. When this happens, as it did for us, your wait at the border can be delayed to such a frightful extent that by the time you eventually move, you have forgotten what movement was. Thus, do not be surprised if you have read War and Peace from cover to cover, experienced a couple of birthdays and your restless arse is covered in cobwebs by the time the bus starts rolling. Naw, it’s not as bad as all that; but believe you me, it is bad enough!
Whilst we all know from experience that the wheels of bureaucracy tend to grind slowly no matter where we are, what kind of mentality is it that oils the cogs of rudeness?
It is sad to admit, but all the same a regrettable fact, that border security on both sides of the fence, be it the Russian or Polish side, can be, and mostly are ~ with one or two exceptions ~ how can I put it? ~ beyond officious. Let us just conclude that anyone working for border control is unlikely to be considered for a post in the diplomatic core and prudently leave it at that.
Kaliningrad Gdansk London Luton Tips for Survival
So, you have been stared at, stamped and waved on, survived death by terminal boredom and at last the wheels are turning. The bus that you are travelling in, which contains people a lot more stressed and impatient than the ones you started out with, trumps off up the road, gets stuck, for extra harassment measure, at two or more sets of traffic lights and then trundles forward a few more yards before grinding to a sickening halt on the Polish side of the border.
And it’s here we go again: the only noteable difference being the cut of the uniforms and insignia on them.
By the time we arrived at the airport we were veterans in the waiting game, but even our rigorous introduction was insufficient to prepare us for what was yet to come.
I will say that as far as design is concerned, I personally like Gdansk Airport ~ all those tubular steel struts, asymmetrical folds and sweeps and the way that the ceiling soars like giant birds in flight. Great visuals and expressive atmosphere; shame about the security staff. They are as rude as rude, but there is entertainment to be had in being to them what Manuel was to Basil in Fawlty Towers: “Qué?”
Above: I can’t stand the waiting any longer; you’ll have to go by yourself!
On the day that we travelled through Gdansk Airport nothing short of utter confusion reigned. The flight was scheduled for 3.10pm and our bus driver, who would normally have deposited us at Gdansk bus station, realising that those of us who required the airport were in danger of missing our flights because of the long delay at the border, drove us on to the airport terminal. We sailed through Gdansk airport security system, bought a couple of bottles from the duty free and checked the electronic flight boards. Everything was fine; but then it wasn’t. The flight at 3.10 had become the delayed flight to the UK departing at 4.30! A Jack Daniels with ice helped.
We were sat close to gate 27, where we should have been, when, suddenly, it was ‘all aboard’ but at gate 28! The flight time has also changed to 4pm, but at 3.50pm they are opening the gates, and we are all on our feet and queuing. Our so-called priority passes, which do nothing more than allow you to queue lower down the stairwell than those who have been smart enough not to pay for the privilege, put us in this position, where we stood with mounting impatience for nigh on fifteen minutes, before it was announced that we had to return to the waiting area.
As we passed one of the company’s representatives, I asked why? What was happening? His reply: “We are waiting for a new captain!” Good heavens, I thought, I hope he qualifies before next spring. I did offer to fly the plane myself. Humouring me, the man asked if I had a licence. “Dog or TV?” I replied. Flying licence! “Well,” I said, “I’ve got a kite and an airman’s hat.”
Back in our seats, where we were fast becoming super-waiters, I hoped that the ‘new captain’ was not in fact the old captain, whose delay was due to one too many. I disclosed my fears to Olga, who thought she had caught a glimpse of someone wearing a battered captain’s hat and nothing else, being dunked in a bath of ice-cold water behind the airport’s dustbins, which is only a stones (or stoned) throw away from the airline’s Lame Excuse Department.
The electronic score board now informed us that the next flight from Gdansk to the UK was rescheduled for 5.30pm but, as before, it lied. Lucky for us we were far too tired to be somewhere else in the airport, for at 5pm we were off again, through the checkout and down the steps.
By now everyone without exception was suffering from chronic waiting disease. Many of our fellow passengers had found consolation in the bottle and as a result resembled zombies hired from Rent a Misfit.
At long last, it happened, but it didn’t: We, and the worse-for-wears were sitting on the plane but wait a moment … a moment … a moment … the pilot had not arrived. Was he waiting to be awarded his model aircraft flying diploma or had he got stuck in the bathtub?
At last it did happen! We had lift off! Shame that the same could not be said for the airline’s credit/debit card system. I presume it must have died from something like airport terminal waiting. And why was there no vodka on board? Hiccup! This is your captain slurring.
Kaliningrad Gdansk London Luton Tips for Survival
We landed at Luton Airport ~ now there’s a relief ~ where everything, I was pleased to find after almost three years’ absence remained delightfully British. Of course, there are obvious visual exceptions to the definition of what constitutes British, but the prevailing wind continues to blow in the direction of British standards. One contributory factor is that apart from the airport’s security guards, who are tooled up and reinforce-vested, London-Luton’s border control and its customs officers do not do military; smart and corporate is the name of the game and even the airport’s immigrant staff can scrub up satisfactorily when they put their mind to it. I’m not sure if the airport retains classic British salutations such as ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’ and ‘Ladies’ and ‘Gentlemen’ or whether it has succumbed to pseudo-liberal pressure for gender-bending woke alternatives. But what I can say categorically is that as far as first impressions count, London Luton hits the spot.
The second thing you will notice at Luton Airport, indeed any airport in the UK, apart from the majority minorities, is that no sooner have you retrieved your cases than mugging your purse and wallet begins. UK airports are hideously expensive. London Luton’s Airport carpark must be run by the mob, as the cost of a two-minute stay in the so-called drop-off and pick-up zone is protection-racket extortionate. Yes, I think we can all agree that there’s nothing like England’s welcome mat, but once you have crossed the threshold you know that the meter is ticking.
Return journey
A piece of cake our trip to England certainly had not been, but the return journey took the biscuit. When we were outward bound, we had purposefully travelled light, but going back our extremely large cases were stuffed to the gills with items unobtainable in Kaliningrad, such as 40 jars of marmite, decorative retro metal wall signs, plus numerous gifts and souvenirs.
Having overdone it on shopping sprees, on visits to the pub, on workouts, on late nights and on generally trying to cram too much into too little time, our cases may have been full, but I was travelling on a half empty health tank ~ nothing like a good holiday to set you to rights, I say! And it was grim: the 4.30am start required to catch our flight from Luton was grim, but at least it was uneventful.
The real problems for us began when we arrived in Gdansk ~ and here is something you should bear in mind, especially if you are Russian.
Olga’s daughter had booked our return from Gdansk bus station using an online booking system. The bus was scheduled to depart at 6pm, but it was about 11am Polish time when we arrived at Gdansk airport. This disparity between the flight’s arrival and the bus’s departure had been purposefully contrived, as, although there was an earlier bus at one o’clock, the excessive delays on the outward journey had caused us to act with caution. Sod’s law had it, however, that the return flight was bang on schedule, and we were back in the business of waiting again.
Our immediate destination from the airport was the bus station. We would go there by taxi, stash our bags in the left luggage department, presuming that they had one, and then idle our time away.
Gdansk bus station is reminiscent of Corby dole office in the 1960s, even down to the stink of piss. It is a concrete catastrophe from that era, constructed on two levels, decorated with pigeon shite and a lift that does not work. The left luggage department is not a department as such, but a big tin thing on the station’s lower level split into different sized lockers with doors that need coins to operate them*. Consequently, we had a twofold problem: (1) Karting two incredibly heavy cases down umpteen flights of steps and (2) obtaining Polish coins in the correct denominations.
The extreme awfulness of Gdansk bus station and the thought of time to kill, encouraged Olga to investigate the possibility of exchanging the 6pm bus tickets for the 3pm service.
One thing that Gdansk bus station did have going for it was that it had a cafeteria*. I use the term cafeteria because it reminded me of somewhere I once had the misfortune to visit on a school trip. I think it was the canteen of an up-North pickle factory. Our school was short on education but inventive in saving funds. {Apologies to Headmaster Lowe. I am not referring to the Prince William School but Chalky White’s secondary modern!)
*Please note that when I was in Gdansk in September 2023, both the left-luggage canisters and the cafeteria had ceased to exist, thus making Gdansk bus station an even more horrible place than it was before. Thought I’d better warn you. They haven’t closed the toilets yet, but it costs 5 zlotys a pee!
Knock the school if you like, but let’s don’t knock the cafeteria. At least it was somewhere to sit, to have a hot drink and a snack. Cosy, it was not; friendly, it was not. There are still some things to be said for England! But first we needed zlotys (that’s Polish money, if you did not know it).
The extreme awfulness of Gdansk bus station and the thought of time to kill, encouraged Olga to investigate the possibility of exchanging the 6pm bus tickets for the 3pm service. We had no zlotys for tea, and we had no zlotys for the left-luggage lockers. Gdansk Bus Station Information office had no information. Exchanging tickets? An earlier bus? Don’t ask us, we’re only the information office.
We were both cold, tired, hungry and I was feeling ill.
I volunteered to go and seek out a ‘hole in the wall’, even though I instinctively knew, erroneously as it happened, that the location we were in was unlikely to be furnished with such a crucial convenience. Whilst I was gone, Olga said she would contact her daughter to see if it was possible for her to exchange the tickets online. It turned out that it wasn’t.
One 20-minute walk later, I espied the kind of hole I was looking for. It was not a hole in the wall exactly, but a hole protruding from a shop window. I did not like the look of this hole when I saw it from a distance and liked it even less at closer quarters. I certainly had no inclination to entrust my debit card to it in case the machine had been ‘got at’.
Flustered, and not relishing the thought of returning to Olga with mission unaccomplished, nevertheless this is what it amounted to. The real rub was that when I did return, Olga asked me why I had not used the cash dispenser at the front of the bus station? Doh! I had only walked straight past it! What a kick in the nuts! And the words of our old friend Barry, who had accompanied us on our trip to Kaliningrad way back in 2004, echoed across the decades, “You pair are a walking disaster!” ~ to be said in a northern accent.
Too tired to exonerate myself, I followed Olga’s directions but with the gravest misapprehension. The hole in the glass window which I had not used because it had looked dodgy was a paragon of virtue compared to the one at the bus station. The Perspex screen was scratched, it reflected dull orange in the LED light with which it was lit and the options that it displayed were almost indiscernible. It took four attempts to get it right, to extract money from that mean machine and throughout the entire dispensing experience I felt distinctly uncomfortable. It was a mean little machine in a mean hollowed-out husk of a building, and it also refused to provide a receipt.
Have zlotys will eat, we took refuge in the café. There we would buy tea from the miserable woman behind the counter, change some zloty notes into zloty coins to use in the left-luggage piggy bank, dispose of the bags, go for a walk.
It was a cold day but at the time of our walk it was blue skies and sunshine. We decided to return to Gdansk old town where we had not been since my first journey to Kaliningrad at the turn of the 21st century (makes me feel like Dr Who ~ the man version, not the PC one! {There was only one Dr Who and that was William Hartnell!})
Gdansk ‘old town ‘is, in fact, a perfect facsimile of the old town, since the old town underwent extensive modification thanks to Adolf Hitler and his Luftwaffe architects. However, if you ever go to Gdansk, the new-old town is well worth visiting.
We took in the sights and found food and warmth in one of the many restaurants, but now the sun had gone, leaving in its wake a sharp and chilling cold. With one and a half hours to kill, we made our way back to the bus station. We had no idea from which bay the bus we needed departed, so Olga did the logical thing, she returned to the bus information office.
As before, the information office which had no information about exchanging tickets had no information about our bus: Which Bay does your bus depart from? Don’t ask us we’re just the bus information service. We eventually worked it out for ourselves; not which bay we needed but that from the official information office to the average man on the street, once they tumbled that Olga was Russian, your Polack turned deaf and dumb. I suppose like every EU member, Poland is waiting for Biden to tell them when they can be polite again.
The second information office, which lay inside a concreted labyrinth of subterranean walkways, went one better. Not only did they not know from which bay our bus departed, they denied its very existence and the existence of the bus itself, although we had tickets to travel! It was beginning to get amusing.
Dragging the heavy cases from the lockers up two flights of steps and then loitering in the bitter wind was not so funny. We asked a couple of Polacks on the street the bus question for which we could get no answer, and one of them was so appalled or frightened when he heard the Russian lingo that he practically dashed away.
We decided we must divide and conquer. I went to reconnoitre the bus park to see if I could spot the bus, whilst Olga, having clocked a small group of people huddled against the wind behind the back of the bus station, went to ask the dreaded question.
My mission was unsuccessful (isn’t it always!), but on my return I found that the group that Olga had approached were waiting (note that word ‘waiting’ again) for the same bus as us. Like us, they had little or no information to go on, but thought that the bus would depart close to where we were standing. The girl who Olga was talking with then added, in a low whisper, “It’s probably better if they (‘they’ meaning the Polacks) don’t hear you talking in Russian.” Well, now, this was what I call information! And it seemed to improve my Russian no end, because, having been warned to the contrary, Russian words and phrases were flying out of my mouth like economic migrants spilling from small crammed boats across the length and breadth of Dover’s shores.
Therefore, it was probably fortuitous that, struggling to contain my new-found language skills, my eye alighted on a bus hidden away at the side of the road. There was no bus bay and no other way of knowing whether this was our bus or not, but working on the hunch that it wasn’t speaking Russian, we decided to investigate. And hey presto, Fanny’s your aunt and Bob’s your unfriendly Polack, was I right or was I right!? (for once!).**
** In September 2023, I discovered a piece of paper taped to the wall on the inside of Gdansk dole office, sorry I mean bus station, stating the bay number from which the bus leaves for Kaliningrad. Then it was bay 11. Bay 11 is not really a bay as such but a number painted on a piece of tin stuck on the corner of the bus station. Although the destination from bay 11 is a place or a town in Poland, as stated on the piece of tin, and Kaliningrad is not mentioned, three people have since corroborated that this was the bay they used to travel by bus to Kaliningrad. The best way of locating this ‘bay’ is not to ask at Information, as they’ll either grunt or will not tell you. Exiting from the front of the station, with the railway lines in front of you, hang a hard left and then left again, and walla! ~ bay 11!
Relieved that we had discovered our transport out of Poland, I was less excited by the fact that our chariot of deliverance was a minibus, even less so when the answer to the question ‘Where do we stow our heavy bags?’ was in the Skibox clipped to the back of the bus. Though the driver made the mistake of lifting our heavy cases into the Skibox for us, he never made the same mistake twice, neither at the border crossing or later when he put us down in Kaliningrad. And who can really blame him?
The cases did have to come out again when we arrived at the Russian border, and, naturally, we had to go through the same rigmarole of standing in front of poker-faced officers sitting in little square cubicles, but that inquisition apart the process though tiring was fairly straightforward. Nevertheless, we would have to endure another hour of waiting when some woman was detained either because she had the wrong travel documents, the wrong items in her luggage or who can say what else was wrong with her? But something was not quite right.
Finally, back on home territory, all we had to do now was lug the cases into a waiting taxi and from the boot of the taxi into the house.
The return journey, which had begun at 4am British time, ended in Kaliningrad at 12 midnight. Ahh, back to a nice warm house, which no doubt it would have been if the fuse box had not tripped out owing to some electrical fault or other.
In conclusion, the Kaliningrad to UK or UK to Kaliningrad route via Gdansk Airport and by bus is not as direct as one would like. However, it gets you there in the end and on the way tests personal virtues, such as patience, diplomacy, tact, resourcefulness, stamina and so forth. Yet, those of a nervous disposition are advised to approach it with caution. Prepare yourself for the journey. Perhaps an hour of meditation and a course on anger management before you leave the house?
The Baucenter: If you don’t find it there, you won’t find it anywhere!
4 January 2024 ~ Baucenter Kaliningrad DIY Store With So Much More
I wouldn’t like to give the wrong impression, the wrong impression being that beer plays a disproportionate part in helping me to decide the topics of my blog posts. (Perish the thought, old chap.) Take this post, for example, is it about a pub, is it about a bar, is it about a bottle? No, this post is about a shop, a very large shop, which in Kaliningrad ~ where tradesmen are few and far between, and where, it would seem, the majority consider themselves DIY experts, which, without putting too fine a point on it, they most certainly are not ~ is a veritable institution.
The shop in question is a humongous retail store known as the Baucenter. According to one of my brothers, “It’s bloody handsome. It sells everything!” Admittedly, and you’ve probably spotted this yourselves, some hyperbole is creeping in here. For example, it doesn’t, in case you are wondering, sell beer (shame!), but it does sell everything anyone could wish for if you are into Do It Yourself.
I’m not ~ not, that is, into Do It Yourself. I am rather more into SDIFM (Someone Doing It For Me), but as tradesmen are few and far between (Have you ever experienced déjà vu?), it is still incumbent on one to purchase whatever materials and tools are required for someone to do the job for you.
Baucenter Kaliningrad
The Baucenter (I believe there are three in Kaliningrad. I told you DIY is big business here.) is not close to us, but I kinda like the bus trip, as it enables me to contemplate the various bars on route, purely, you understand, as each of them contain the sorts of things that I like, such as chairs, lights, windows etc. The Baucenter has all of these and a whole lot more besides, and although the store is vast, it is well laid out ~ everything in numbered isles ~ and the stock so well displayed that once you’ve got your bearings and have passed your navigation exam, off you go with your basket, feeling rather smug if you know exactly where you are going and in the event that you don’t, as enthralled as any explorer can be.
The Baucenter advertises itself as ‘everything for construction, renovation and garden’.
“You don’t say!”
“I do!”
Jewson may think it’s ‘got the Jewson lot’, but the Baucenter’s got more, by a long chalk.
“Excuse me, I wonder if you can help me?”
“I shouldn’t think so for one minute. You look as if you are beyond help.”
“I’m looking for a long chalk.”
“Ah, I see, that will be Isle number 69.”
There, what did I tell you: They’ve got the Baucenter lot!
Tools, light bulbs, wallpaper, paint, screws, nuts, bolts, carpets, curtains, toilets, patio surfacing, garden ornaments, garden tools, garden fences, garden everything, stuff you need to build barbecues with, stuff you need when constructing saunas, doors to put in door holes and the frames to go round the holes and doors, lamps ~ tall, short, squat, long, silly and not-so-silly … as long as the name’s not beer, you name it, they’ve got it! Or let me put it another way, you would not want to be tasked with making an inventory of this store!
Excuse me, do you sell toilets?Don’t forget to wash your hands!
One thing that has emerged from my brief list, which causes me more problems than anything else whenever I go hardware shopping, is not that the Baucenter doesn’t sell beer, but that it does sell light bulbs, which is good if you want a light bulb. However, I am old enough to remember the time when all you needed to know about buying a light bulb was the wattage of the bulb. Nowadays, there are so many different kinds of bulbs, such a vast array of different shapes, styles and energy types ~ traditional filament, energy saving, LED ~ and new units of energy measurement that it is all too easy to be lulled into a sense of false security and then end up in the lighting isle looking perplexed and bamboozled. Watts! Lumens! BT! Bugger! Yet fear not thee who feel flummoxed! A helpful Baucenter assistant is never too far away when you need to be helped and assisted.
Now that you have replaced the lightbulb that you brought to the centre for comparison with several assorted bulbs, no one the same as the other, and your shopping basket is burgeoning, it’s time to take care of your tum. No trip to the Baucenter could ever be called complete without stopping off at its excellent café for a bite to eat and drink. Did I say drink? Yes, as in cups of tea and coffee, or maybe fruit juice or a glass of still water. What do you think I meant?
The Baucenter café is a proper café, as in an honest to goodness cafeteria. It ‘aint fancy, nor does it need to be. With their tools a-swinging in their Baucenter bags, Do It Yourself kind of people want no-nonsense up-front nourishment, and they want it for the knock-down price of a packet of ordinary paintbrushes!
After the repast is over, novices like me are inducted into DIY, the first lesson being to collect the used crocks from the table and walk them to the tray cart on the opposite side of the room.
That’s easily done, unless you are raving drunk, and of course you’d never be that whilst shopping in the Baucenter, because the Baucenter has security guards with jackets saying ‘Baucenter’ on them.
More difficult than used crocks and Baucenter security men is being vegetarian whilst being in Kaliningrad. However, wherever I go to eat, I invariably manage to find beer something minus meat, and the Baucenter café is no exception. The last time I went there, I had some tasty salads, mashed potatoes, two different kinds of cakes for desert and a large cup of coffee. It did not cost me much, under a tenner in fact, and the quality-to-price ratio left me rather chuffed.
As logical as day follows night, toilets have their respective place in the consumption and ingestion chain and suffice it to say that the Baucenter has them. They are handy for, but not limited to, hardware hauling handymen and anyone else taken short or acting in a pre-planned way before embarking on the long journey home. Hey, don’t forget your DIY sack!
Do we have to fit our own cubicle?
I am not a great fan of shopping, but like a lot of things I’m not crazy about, I do it. I am no fan of DIY and cannot imagine how anyone can be: ‘Horses for courses’, as they say. But when I’m not beerlay (that’s the phonetic spelling of Russian for poor, just in case you were wondering), an afternoon at the Beercenter, I mean Baucenter, is as good a place bar none to spend a pleasant afternoon and in the process walk away, having first paid, of course (remember those men in their Baucenter jackets!), with everything you could possibly need to complete that job in hand. Now, where did I put that bottle opener?
There are more things in Znamensk than meet the eye 9 May 2024 ~ Znamensk (Wehlau) Before You Go What to Know! It is about 50km / 30 miles from Kaliningrad to Znamensk. That is no distance when you are whipping along in an all-mod-cons motor vehicle, but when you are travelling by classic car,… Read more: Znamensk (Wehlau) Before You Go What to Know!
Kant be fairer than that! 30 April 2024 ~ Kaliningrad Celebrates Kant on his 300th Year Of the many things that Kant and I do not have in common, two stand out more than others. The first is that he was one of the world’s great philosophers, considered to be the third wheel behind Plato… Read more: Kaliningrad Celebrates Kant on his 300th Year
Tawerna Rybaki Gdansk Old Town a Warning to the Unwary!Piwna 9/10, Srodmiescie, Gdańsk, 80-831, Poland 23 April 2024 ~ Tawerna Rybaki Gdansk Old Town a Warning! Note (added 9 May 2024): Booking.com asked me several times to leave a review of my ‘hotel room experience’. It was a tad difficult, as I never got inside… Read more: Tawerna Rybaki Gdansk Old Town a Warning!
Arty Crafty it is and all the better for it! 17 April 2024~ Craft Garage Kaliningrad a Pit Stop for Good Beer On the same evening that we happened upon the Beer Bar on Prospect Mira and Bar Sovetov, we stumbled upon and into Craft Garage. You’ve guessed it! Whereas it could be argued that… Read more: Craft Garage Kaliningrad a Pit Stop for Good Beer
Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro with a Heart of Gold It’s a venue which immortalises the House of Soviets, serves good beer, hosts music evenings and likes you, the customer. 13 April 2024 ~ Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro in the House of Soviets Do you believe in coincidences? In my most recent post I wrote about… Read more: Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro in the House of Soviets
You said it last year, you’ll say it again … probably
31 December 2023 ~ Why Happy New Year?
Hardly a year goes by without somebody saying, and I believe that I have said it myself, “Thank God that 1987, 1999, 2020 (whatever the year) is over. It’s been an awful year for me. Let’s hope that the next one will be better.” So off we go to the New Year’s party, drink copiously, leap around, get wildly and uncontrollably drunk ~ don’t you! ~ pop the champagne corks, countdown the minutes to 12 and on the strike of midnight shout ‘Hooray and Happy New Year’. In short, we do everything we are supposed to do. We play it by tradition.
Come the next morning, nothing has changed. It’s just as grey, cold and wet outside as it was the day before. The holidays are over, and in a day’s time it will be back to the treadmill of work. The New Year stretches before us, not the Yellow Brick Road of the night before but a long, bumpy, uneven track seemingly heading nowhere. And to add to the disconsolation, there’s also the terrible hangover.
Nihilistic, is that what you say? Or perhaps, what a miserable bugger!
Why Happy New Year?
Let’s roll back the decades and take a look at the event-grabbing headlines that defined the ‘Happy New Years’ of those specific years.
Happy New Year: 2014 1. Global Bola epidemic 2. Malaysian airline disaster 3. Rise of the terror group ISIS 4. Black Riots in America
Happy New Year: 2002 1. Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 2. President George Bush delivers his ‘Axis of Evil’ speech 3. Two Snipers in Washington DC kill and injure people 4. Terrorists detonate bombs in two nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, killing more than 200 people
Happy New Year: 1992 1. Black riots in Los Angeles 2. Pro-abortion demonstrations in Washington 3. Major earthquake in Turkey 4. First McDonalds in China
Happy New Year: 1982 1. Argentina invades the Falkland Islands 2. Tylenol capsules impregnated with potassium cyanide kill 7 people in Chicago 3. Genetic Engineering is used commercially for the first time 4. IRA bombing campaign in London
Happy New Year: 1972 1. Watergate {death by boredom} 2. The Munich Olympics Massacre by Palestinian terrorists 3. Northern Ireland, the Bogside Massacre 4. Vietnam War drags on
Of course, newsworthy calamities such as those listed above pertain to world events. On the scale of our own lives, we have to back-peddle somewhat to bring together the recollections of all that was said and done over the months preceding the New Year bash.
Happy New Year from a rather strange potato
Now there’s an exercise for you. If you don’t keep a diary, and you jolly well should, grab a pen and a piece of paper and jot down a list of events and incidents that define in your opinion the past 12 months of your life. When done, back-track through the list and mark the incidents and events that gave and brought you happiness with a smiley-faced emoji and those that caused you harm or grief with, if you happen to have one handy, a two-fingered ‘V’ sign. Next, just tot them up and compare the ‘Happy’ to ‘F..K Off!’ score to determine what sort of year you have had and the quality of life you are having. At the end of this simple exercise, hopefully but most unlikely, you should be able to say, “What a stonking good year that was. If 2024 is anything like its predecessor, my life going forward is right on track”. Have you been able to say this? Welcome to the minority.
You could say, if you belonged to a certain generation, that ‘it’s being so cheerful that keeps me going’ and that’s why my New Year’s resolution for 2024 is going to be ‘Smile though your heart is breaking’. I’ll let you know how my new business venture, ‘Rent a Life & Soul of the Party’ is doing 12 months from now, if I’m still doing time here on Earth.
Meanwhile, enjoy yourselves, and I hope you’ll be able to say this time next year that 2024 was the best year of my life. (snigger).
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year UK! It’s at the end of that rainbow!
Basically one of the best beer bars in Kaliningrad
28 December 2023 ~ Yeltsin Bar: The Best Craft Beers in Kaliningrad
There’s an awful lot written about Kaliningrad’s number one specialist craft ale bar, Yeltsin, named after Russia’s first post-Cold War president. Most of it is good; and much of it correct.
The essential ingredients of Yeltsin’s success are a wide range of tap and craft bottled beers from around the world, no frills food and a basic, industrialised look and atmosphere. With its juke box, table football and predominantly young clientele, it is the closest thing in Kaliningrad to a UK student bar that you would not expect to find in any Russian city ~ except, perhaps, Kaliningrad.
Yeltsin Bar
The Yeltsin sits at the end of a big solid block of a building on a fairly busy road junction about five minutes walk from Victory Square, Kaliningrad’s city centre.
You’ll wonder what it is when you first see it, as the name Yeltsin is all there is, cut solidly into a bronzed metal sheet attached to the outer wall. It is an effective sign prompting further investigation and one which pre-empts the Yeltsin design and ethos.
To get to the Yeltsin, one must leave the pavement and descend by a flight of concrete steps. A small beer garden, or more accurately beer courtyard, with a gravelled surface and some rudimentary seating precedes the entrance, and preceding communism, and to a limited extent surviving it, is a fine example of the Russian tradition of wall carpeting, albeit on Yeltsin’s outside wall as opposed to the usual practice, which is to hang the carpet on an interior wall for insulation and decoration.
This wall feature, as quirky as it is, pans into virtual insignificance in comparison to the voluminous blackboard, which, stretching from head height to the point where wall meets ceiling, contains an inventory of beers that ranks as truly awesome.
Beer rotation is ongoing, and with each outgoing and incoming beer, the board requires amendment. Up and down the step ladder demands good co-ordination and an admirable head for heights. One can only suppose that the bar staff either refrain from imbibing or have undergone rigorous training in the art of balanced consumption or balance whilst consuming.
Board-Chalker wanted; must have a good head for heights and proven expertise in the techniques, mechanics and dynamics of staying on a stepladder.
The Yeltsin Bar in Kaliningrad
As I wrote in a former post, the Yeltsin is an honest to goodness no frills bar. It is not ‘back to basic’, it is basic. No carpets (apart from the one outside) and no deluxe or chintzy wallpaper. It’s got hard seats, high stools, plain tables, industrial-style hanging ceiling lamps, a 1970’s style football game, a good old-fashioned juke box and an awful lot of atmosphere. It is not a soft-seat comfort place. It’s a place to hang out and drink beer. In fact, it is simply just a great place, with an easy-drinking atmosphere. What more could one possibly want?
Well, now, the proprietors of the Yeltsin obviously anticipated your answer to that question, and the answer they came up with was the more you want is street cred. And how they have achieved that is to turn the antechamber leading to the toilets and the toilets themselves into municipal halls of graffiti. The result to more conservative-leanings may be a trifle downtown urban for positive acclamation, but for me personally it seals the envelope on the Yeltsin statement of beer and basic.
The thing about the Yeltsin is that it’s a good thing, where less than more really works and where all the additional quirky bits feed into the central premise, which is that young and laid-back beer drinkers only need a glass for their beer, a table on which to place their glasses and stools on which to park their arses, anything else is superfluous.
In the Yeltsin’s case this superfluous anything just might be the huge wall-sized TV screen, which on my most recent visit to the bar was showing a fixed, that is stationery, video-camera image of a busy traffic underpass somewhere in Bangkok (How thrillingly arty fart is that!).
I cast a glance across it and then returned to the beer.
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