Not to understate it too much, but, I say, Sir Kier, is that armada of boats steaming towards the UK from Palestine?
25 September 2025 – Palestine What a State! By the UK in a State!
If you are a liberal lefty, a member of a certain ethnic group embedded in the UK or part of the applaud-everything topsy-turvy left-wing press, you are most likely celebrating Starmer’s decision to recognise Palestine as a state. There are many others, however, which include, not surprisingly, Israel’s Netanyahu, who regard this latest suspect move by Starmer as hoisting up the white flag to terrorists and their aims. ‘Netanyahu slams Starmer as ‘rewarding terrorism’ — The Sun.
The left-wing governments of France, Australia and Canada would argue differently. They are not recognising Palestine as a virtue-signalling gesture to consolidate the leftist vote or to appease ethnic groups of whom they are frightened shitless (it’s much easier to pick on and intimidate ‘unprotected groups’, ie white British); neither are they doing such to win votes in the future from this rapidly expanding ethnic tribe. Their message to the world is, ‘We are doing this for humanity.’ It’s very much the same message as one we are more familiar with: we are standing with Ukraine in the name of sovereign democracy.
Their now follows a small, but significant cough, ‘Ah, hem!’ Not to be confused with Amen, because that’s something in the West that very soon we will not, along with a whole lot of other things, be permitted to say, although now we have started to say what we should have said but didn’t a long, long time ago, of course, we’ll go on saying it.
Here’s a man who knows his onions!
“Britain only recognised Palestine because it is ‘flooded with foreigners’” — Marc Rubio, The Telegraph
My concern is that shortly after Starmer’s announcement, I heard what I thought was an ill wind, or was it the sound of dinghies inflating somewhere in the desert?
Excuse me, Mr Starmer, sir, does your recognition of Palestine mean that we can expect to see in the not-too-distant future a flotilla of refugee boats crammed with Palestinians bearing down on Dover?
Palestine What a State!
Everybody knows what the UK corporate media wants them to know about this momentous conferment, but has anyone asked the terrorists living and thriving in the UK what they make of it all? Are they eternally grateful for the fair play and moral decency exhibited by Keir Starmer and his western cohorts? “What jolly good fellows they are! Time to play the white man!” Or are they much too busy patting each other on their backs for what they regard as a job well done, celebrating the rewards of terrorism, and interpreting Palestine’s new-found statehood as a reassuring sign of weakness, of Starmer and the Labour Government’s willingness to bottle it, back down, capitulate and ultimately surrender?
And if perchance this is their reaction, and there’s a good chance that it is, to what extent, I ask myself, has this latest leftist folly empowered and emboldened those who choose the path of terrorism to threaten our existence?
Hang on in there, Britons! It looks like it’s going to get a whole lot worse before it, if ever, gets better.
Thought for the day … and every day from now on Headline: ‘Sir Sadiq Khan has lashed out at Donald Trump, calling him “racist, sexist, misogynistic and Islamophobic”.’ — GB News
Comment: Apart from saying how original was that (I bet you’ve never heard those words before [lefty in a tantrum]), in this day and age, as things stand and are about to fall in the UK, being called any or all of these things must be treated as a badge of honour, provided they are directed at you by someone who thinks they are liberal, and particularly if that someone is the Mayor of Londistan, Sadiq Khan.
Something to remember The liberal media is at pains to argue in its defence of Khan and immigration that crime rates in London, although they have increased, are significantly lower than those in most major cities in the U.S. This is a meretricious comparison, because crime rates in US cities have always been significantly higher than in their UK counterparts. If you don’t believe me, ask Al Capone.
The comparison that needs to be made is that of crime rates not only in London but also across the UK in the decade preceding the year 1997, which is the year when that nice Mr Blair opened the floodgates to mass immigration, and the incidence of crime since, and, where London is concerned, the crime rates in the capital before Mr Khan took office and the levels of criminality under his stewardship as mayor of London. It would also be of interest to gain access to official records showing serious crimes committed in London and the UK as a whole, broken down by ethnicity. A similar breakdown of criminal acts committed at public events like rallies, demonstrations and riots based on the same criteria, with an additional reference to political groups, would also be a useful indicator of the direction Britain is going in terms of nationwide law and disorder, although due to political bias and partisan reporting, a statistical record of this type would have questionable validity.
The Great God AI tells us: Migration Watch UK is an independent, non-profit think tank and campaign group founded in 2001 that advocates for lower, more controlled immigration levels in the UK, arguing that current levels are unsustainable and put excessive demand on resources. The organisation conducts research, provides analysis, makes policy recommendations, and engages with the public and policymakers to reduce net migration and ensure it is properly managed.
Here is their website > Migration Watch UK You can read candid and authoritative news here about Britain’s mass immigration fiasco and sign up for Migration Watch newsletters to keep track of the lunacy as it unfolds and escalates. It may help you to plan your escape!
*Epilogue: The humanitarian motives for recognising Palestine as a state are, of course, quite laudable. However, even though the significance is purely symbolic, it’s how your more-than-average terrorist chooses to interpret the reasons behind the UK government’s actions, and the influence it brings to bear on the terrorist mindset going forward, particularly in its ramifications for future terrorist attacks perpetrated on British soil, that remains the worrying factor.
We thought it. Elon Musk said it. He said it at the Unite the Kingdom Rally
21 September 2025 – Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve
The British establishment and its leftist media were clearly stunned by the huge number of British patriots who gathered in London last week to voice disquiet, dismay and disgust at the political elite’s indifference to, or perceived complicity in, the erasure of the UK’s culture by the immigrant tsunami. They were also mortified when Tommy Robinson, recently released from what some have described as Britain’s Gulag, bounced back into the limelight to be joined on stage by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who, guested in by satellite link, warned the British nation in no uncertain terms that their once revered and illustrious country is on the verge of collapse and that every Briton should be prepared for the violence that is coming.
Unite the Kingdom Rally
Unite the Kingdom was without question the largest and the most successful anti-immigrant rally ever to hit Britain’s streets. Both the liberal political elite and their media cronies were caught with their pants down, most likely in the same room.
Usually, over-vocal and brimming with far-right cliches, on this auspicious occasion, the shell-shocked liberal media seemed to be having difficulty in deciding what ammunition to use.
The rally’s composition alone, full of happy, cheerful British folk, including mums and families, many bedecked from head to toe with colourful Union Jacks, and the carnival atmosphere of it all, tossed the media’s only grenade, the one that goes off with a far-right phut, squarely back into the lap of the propaganda arsenal from whence it had been half-heartedly thrown.
A re-arming exercise would take place later, but during the rally’s opening salvos, the biased UK media and London’s leftist hordes were hopping around on a lame back foot.
Naturally, once the crowds had dispersed, it was time for the usual roll call of how many law-enforcement officers had been injured in the line of duty. Correct me if I am mistaken, I think it was 26. (How can anyone do that job, bound and hamstrung as they are by our insufferable climate of woke?!)
Britain’s poor, old, beleaguered bobby Sympathy where it’s due, please. Unlike our police force of old, today’s police are as much victims of a dysfunctional ideology as the rest of us. They have a very difficult job to do under the cosh and jackboot of woke. The coppers that I have talked to cannot wait for the day when the force becomes a force again instead of being a cross between a public relations bureau and a branch of the social services. The UK police force like the UK education system urgently needs to be rescued from the weed-ridden liberal landscape that Britain has become, pruned downwards from its political top and replanted in unpolluted soil. The police that I have talked to are as desperate for change as you and I.
In the days following the most successful anti-immigration rally in British history, much would be made of the injuries sustained by the boys who were once in blue but who, like most of us in the UK today, would feel considerably safer on Britain’s streets if permanently clad in full body armour.
The injuries that the police sustained at the Unite the Kingdom rally are, of course, deeply regrettable, but they pall into insignificance compared to the year-on-year assaults which occur as regular as clockwork at that vicious, vile, stab-happy fest, the murderous Notting Hill Carnival — the public disorder event of the year, which carries on regardless for reasons that must be obvious to you.
The Villains and the Victorious
The biggest villain at the Unite the Kingdom rally was not the odds on favourites, Tommy Robinson, nor Katie Hopkins, who with customary zeal and vigour delivered to the establishment the kind of resounding kick in the nuts which the establishment having duly received would like to pass on to Elon Musk. Yes, you’ve got it, children, the naughtiest man at the rally was Uncle Elon.
It is, however, one thing, to put the ideological boot into a working-class lad like Tommy Robinson and to threaten and intimidate a woman (although, I, for one, would not want to try to intimidate Katie Hopkins!), but quite another altogether to attempt to muzzle and bring to the liberal heel one of the world’s most prominent figures.
Apart from daring to show his face at a media-proscribed ‘far right’ rally, speak candidly with its attendees and on their terms, understand the fears that bind them and align himself with their noble cause, Elon had the brazen temerity to vocalise in public what every Briton thinks but many are afraid to say — such is the yoke of liberal woke — that racial-religious-leftist violence is coming to Britain’s streets big time and that something like a civil war is imminent.
The UK media were quick to twist the words of Mr Musk, disparaging him for inciting violence, when all he said, in fact, was that given the state of Britain today violence seems inevitable, and when that violence comes all one can do to survive is respond to it in kind. Elon said nothing more than any self-defence instructor tells his practitioners every day: when there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, when your backs against the wall, fight or die are your only options.
Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve
Elon Musk’s prediction of violence coming to Britain because of deep and divisive cultural changes inflicted by mass immigration, in which the UK’s political elite are regarded by some, by many, to be both instigative and supportive, are by no means uncorroborated. In 2023, David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies, published an essay in two parts called Civil War Comes to the West1. In this disturbing treatise, he identifies mass immigration and the multifaceted cultural malaise derived from its imposition as principal flashpoint factors in the causation of an internal conflict that will be violent, intense, widespread, sustained and tragic.
This is the ‘violence’ that’s on its way as defined by Elon Musk. Nothing more; nothing less. He may have had the balls to say it, but I bet you thought it first.
“Western governments under increasing structural civilisational distress and having squandered their legitimacy are losing the ability to peacefully manage multicultural societies that are terminally fractured by ethnic identity politics. The initial result is an accelerating descent of multiple major cities into marginally ‘feral’ status …” – David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World, King’s College London
“Things are manifestly worsening right now. They are, however, going to get very much worse—I would estimate over not more than five years. That is because of the combination of two other vital factors. The first is the urban versus rural dimension of the coming conflicts which, in turn, is a result of migrant settlement dynamics. Simply put, the major cities are radically more diverse and have a growing mutually hostile political relationship with the country in which they are embedded.” – David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World, King’s College London
On 16 September 2025, the headlines screaming from your TV screens, emblazoned across the front of newspapers and cluttering up the internet, when not just parroting the words ‘far right’, were obsessing, touchy-feely-like, about the disconcerting way in which the Unite the Kingdom rally had ricocheted detrimentally like a bullet in a cowboy film across the length and breadth of Britain’s normally happy, fully assimilated, interethnic communities.
A new dramatic word, along the sensational lines of ‘slammed’ and ‘blasted’, entered the liberal media’s lexicon, as PM Starmer proclaimed that the Unite the Kingdom rally had sent a shiver through communities.
Yes, that’s right folks, ‘shiver’.
“Plastic patriots”, said our plastic prime minister, by openly voicing their desire to preserve their country’s cultural integrity [he didn’t say the latter bit] had sent shivers through Britain’s colonised land [he didn’t use the word ‘colonised’]. He also did not state specifically whether this shiver was felt elsewhere or was exclusive to liberal-left circles, including the seat of government.
Sounding more like Captain Mainwaring than he has ever done before, and believe me that’s quite difficult, The Standard cites the plastic PM as saying, through his official spokesman of course (shouldn’t that be his ‘official spokesperson’!) that the words of Mr Musk “threatened ‘violence and intimidation on [the streets of Britain].” Adding, “I don’t think the British public will have any truck with that kind of language.2”
But, Mr Prime Minister, Mr Spokesman and your mealy-mouthed media mouthpiece, that is exactly one of the major issues that the rally was addressing: the violence and intimidation that is already on our streets. It is a language we could well do without, but, alas, it is all around us. It needs to be addressed, now, or has that slipped your notice?
Perhaps what Musk should have said was not that ‘violence is coming’ but that the violence which is already here is going to get a damn sight worse unless something effective is done about it and done about it quickly. Or, he simply could have said, ‘You ‘aint seen nothing yet!’
That same Standard article quotes Mr Miliband, who is Labour’s Energy Secretary (now, he’s doing a grand job, isn’t he!), as winging away on LBC, “Who the hell is this guy?” Ed, if you weren’t referring to Starmer, Elon’s the man whose got more money and more respect than you’ll ever have. Ed went on to say, according to the article, that “Just because you’re a billionaire, it doesn’t give you a right to … tell us how to run our country.”
Well, I hate to be a far-right fly in the liberal left’s hypocritical ointment, but billionaire or no billionaire, he has as much right as anyone else to voice his opinion openly.
We may not have much of one left, but at least we like to go on pretending that we live in a democracy, and that the cornerstone of this pretence is the right to say what we want to say, the strategic erosion of which, in case it escapes your two-tier notice, is another major reason why the Unite the Kingdom rally took place and why it is universally regarded as such a towering success.
It can’t happen here!!!
Now look here, liberal lefties, what is difficult to understand? The comments made by Mr Musk were neither ‘dangerous’ nor ‘inflammatory’; he was not inciting violence; all he did was merely reiterate what Professor David Betz has said, which the Mirror also echoed, that Britain’s ‘feral cities’ are bringing us closer to civil war3.
Readers’ comments at the close of the Mirror’s article hit the proverbial immigrant nail fairly and squarely on its boat-landed head (just a metaphor, you understand; no intention of inciting violence):
Marod June 3, 2025: “It would not be Civil War as it does not fit the description: ‘A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society, or nationality fight against each other for the control of political power’.
Townsrwt June 4, 2025: “Not a civil war. Drugs gangs taking over citys … towns even villages [which will] be like Haiti or parts of South America.”
Let it be known, therefore, that the ‘violence coming to Britain’ will not be a ‘civil war’ but a war to preserve or destroy our culture. Let it be known as a cultural war (er, hypothetically speaking)
Getting back to Starmer’s shiver, whatever fallacious ripple is said to have run through Britain’s communities, it is nothing compared to the seismic tremor caused in recent years by bad political actors and their inadvertent or planned bad management of the immigrant-multicult fiasco. I am sure that legacy Britons shiver with far more credibility at the heinous changes in our society that are turning our towns and cities into worse than third-world no-go areas. I don’t recall a time in my youth of exploding vests and rucksacks, summary knifing and machete attacks, young girls stabbed in community halls, lorries driven into crowds, assaults on police at airports and nationwide grooming paedo gangs conducting rape on an industrial scale whilst those in authority turn their heads and look the other way. This is not the Britain that used to be. It’s not the Britain we want today. It cannot be the future Britain or Britain will have no future.
Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve
I do hope that those of you who have condescended to read this post will not, as the PM’s spokesman said, ‘have any truck with my language’. Whether they come in trucks or by boat, let’s hope and pray they are dealt with swiftly. At present, we cannot stop them from coming, we cannot get them out, but what we can do, and what we do do, is to put them up in expensive hotels and give them free housing and benefits. The far right, who are not far right but every-day, ordinary British folk, are tired of political gimmicks and games that have no hope of succeeding. They no longer buy the Blairist line ‘diversity is good for you’. They know what it is; they’ve got it; most of them wish they hadn’t and would like to turn the clocks back. Enough migrants are more than enough. We don’t want more, full stop.
This is not the time to vote for the parties your fathers and grandfathers voted for; then was then, now is now. Stop the migrant invasion. Save Britain from the hideous future that Elon Musk et al envisage. Vote Reform and save your country.
Fabulous news. When the UK’s Reform Party, with Nigel Farage at its helm, wins the keys to Number 10 in the next general election, and be sure to vote for them because the old Labour-Cons duopoly is well past its sell-by date and has nothing left to offer, then not only will you get a patriotic government that puts British people and their interests first, but, as a cornerstone of this assurance, you will also receive the bonus prize of the Mass Deportation Bill.
According to Reform, more than 180,000 illegal migrants have crossed the English Channel since 2018, bringing the number of people with no lawful right to remain in the UK to approximately 1,000,000, and the boats just keep on coming! Pause a while and think about that.
Starmer’s vow to ‘smash the migrant smuggling gangs’ sounded good when he said it (a bit like beating on an empty oil drum with a rolled-up manifesto), but, when all is said and done, it’s all been said, but nothing’s been done. The only thing that Starmer has smashed is the final remnant of trust in him and the clunky, past-it, inadequate party that he represents.
Keir Starmer is on the side of international treaties and foreign courts. We are on the side of the British people — Nigel Farage
Reform Mass Deportation Bill
Clues as to why the migrant invasion will never be stopped at Britain’s shores, at least not by Labour or their bedfellows, the Cons, are detectable in the importance that Farage attaches to leaving the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) and in repealing and replacing the manipulative Human Rights Act. These two institutions more than any other are used by our elected officials, by liberal-lefty lobby groups and self-serving immigration solicitors to keep the third world flowing unobstructed into our country whilst at the same time frustrating attempts to fast-track them out again.
What does it all add up to? Although confusing for the left, for those of us who are not self-delusional, the outcome is elementary:
EU + Human Rights = Never-Ending Flow of Migrants = Loss of cultural Identity = Loss of Cultural Cohesion = More Woke Enforcement = More Rochdale-style Cover-ups = More Vicious and Unsafe Streets = More acts of Terrorism.
We’ll stop short of the net conclusion, which is indigenous population cleansing, although this is not an illogical step after relegation as second-class citizens.
Reform Mass Deportation Bill
With the implementation of the Mass Deportation Bill, swanning across Europe to get into soft-touch Britain will immediately lose its appeal, and once the boats have been stopped, we can then begin the second phase of getting rid of those illegals who never should have been allowed to pollute the streets of our country. “Who are you? And what are you doing here? Papers, if you please!”
Conspiracy theories
Those of you who pride yourselves on your ability to join the dots whenever anyone mentions ‘progressive liberalism’ might be inclined to believe that a link exists between the existential need for mass deportation and the recent call by President Trump to prosecute George Soros, the doyen of the left, the man that their media loves to refer to as that ‘philanthropic billionaire’. You can read about it here: https://www.rt.com/news/623582-trump-calls-soros-criminal-prosecution/ [Note: The UK establishment has blocked RT News, so in order to read this article, you will need to resort to that VPN, which you recently and very wisely installed 😉]
Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) has also provided funding to civil rights and activist groups across the US, including organizations involved in Black Lives Matter and other protest movements, some of which have been linked to violence – RT News
George Soros is not directly involved in mass migration to the West, but rather funds humanitarian organizations and pro-democracy groups through his Open Society Foundations (OSF). Claims that Soros orchestrated migration flows are part of conspiracy theories – Google’s AI Overview
There are those, naturally all to a man far right and all to a man conspiracy theorists (no gender bias here), who regard Soros and Soros junior as instrumental kingpin proponents, fanatical supporters and principal bankrollers of the West’s ongoing migrant crisis. The less charitable among these theorists, or, depending upon your personal bias, you might define them as enlightened factions, tend to concur with Trump, leading some to hypothesise that ‘billionaire philanthropy’ is an anagram for anarchy, with broader subversive undertones involving weapons of mass migration.
Soros’s name has also recently resurfaced in connection with the 2016 “Russiagate” smear campaign. Earlier this month, the US Senate Judiciary Committee released a report alleging that OSF had links to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to promote the debunked claims of collusion between Trump and Russia – RT News
Mr Soros has a son – you may call him Sonny Soros — who, according to ‘far-right conspiracy theorists’, is a chip off the old, chip-on-the-shoulder block. Presumably, this heir apparent is waiting in the wings to take up the yoke of absolute power if and when old pappy ever decides the time is right to leave this wicked world. The devil may not look after his own, but who is to say that the Deep State doesn’t? You would have to be a conspiracy theorist to dip your toe into that one.
“I always thought Soros & Son was a wholesale immigrant shipping company.” – a seven-year-old from Pakistan with multiple aunts and uncles
If these terrible ‘right-wing conspiracy theories’ have even a grain of truth in them, then the EU’s special offer of ‘take a third-world migrant and get a million free’ is planned to continue unabated until it reaches the point at which our tiny overcrowded island capsizes into the sea which, as we can see from the White Cliffs of Dover, can be violently black and stormy.
I wonder, hypothetically speaking, what the last words would be of someone who had orchestrated such a philanthropic outcome. Something along the lines, perhaps, of “I’ve f*cked it up good and proper; there’s no world left worth living in; now is the time to say goodbye.”
Let’s not let that happen. Liberalism is on its way out; Migration needs to follow. Reverse the inward trend. Halt the invasion in its tracks. Return the boats to France complete with unwanted contents. Save yourselves whilst you can from the deplorable fate of second-class citizenship. Save the UK for your children’s sake.
Vote Reform. Vote for Britain. Vote for Mass Deportation.
Farage’s enrichment gift to the Greens: “You get what you vote for!” 10 May 2026 – Vote Green for Migrant Detention Centres Near You! First off, congratulations to Nigel Farage and Reform UK for his and his party’s ground-shifting performance in the May 7th local elections. I’m not sure that I can agree with him… Read more: Vote Green for Migrant Detention Centres Near You!
The topsy-turvy world of life in the UK From the dress code and behaviour of Britain’s young ‘ladies’ to the conflict in the Muddle East, post-civilised Britain is a mass of contradictions. 30 April 2023 – Life in the UK – it’s all so peculiar [This post appears in the ‘Meanwhile in the UK‘ category]… Read more: Life in the UK – it’s all so peculiar
*The UK in a state recognises a state as a state Not to understate it too much, but, I say, Sir Kier, is that armada of boats steaming towards the UK from Palestine? 25 September 2025 – Palestine What a State! By the UK in a State! If you are a liberal lefty, a member… Read more: Palestine What a State! By the UK in a State!
We thought it. Elon Musk said it. He said it at the Unite the Kingdom Rally 21 September 2025 – Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve The British establishment and its leftist media were clearly stunned by the huge number of British patriots who gathered in London last week to voice disquiet,… Read more: Elon Musk Violence Speech Hits a Raw Liberal Nerve
As Starmer does the hokey cokey with one migrant in and one migrant out, Nigel Farage has a better solution: Mass Deportation 14 September 2025 – Reform Mass Deportation Bill is the Way to Save UK Vote Reform UK Fabulous news. When the UK’s Reform Party, with Nigel Farage at its helm, wins the keys… Read more: Reform Mass Deportation Bill is the Way to Save UK
28 August 2025 – My Special Day Out in Svetlogorsk by Mick Hart
Don’t you just hate it when you mislay something? It’s so frustrating, isn’t it? This year I have had trouble remembering what I’ve done with summer. I recall someone saying, “Hooray, summer is here!”, and I recollect catching a glimpse of what I thought was it, but I looked away for a second, and when I looked back it had gone. Indeed, the past few days have seen rain and floods so portentous as to be almost biblical.
A couple of weeks ago — I won’t be precise — I caught summer in the act of sneaking up on me. In complete defiance of the official weather forecast, the sun was clearly violating the conditions of its parole: it was out and about and shining.
I hadn’t had my fair share for a while — well, you don’t at this age, do you? — you do? Well, lucky you! — I’m jealous of your suntan — so, I said to the missus, or she said to me — it’s one voice after all these years (ah, hem): “Why not go to Svetlogorsk for the day?”
Checking my diary for prior engagements and finding in my calendar that what was left of my life was free, I acquiesced (some people just agree), and before you could say, “I wished he’d get on with it!”, we were on our way to Svetlogorsk.
Had I found my bicycle clips, we would have gone by tandem, but there’s more to life than losing things, apart from life itself, so I consulted a very good guide written by someone of proven veracity, and taking myself at my word, we decided to go by bus.
My Special Day Out in Svetlogorsk
We weren’t working to any particular timeframe, which is a pretentious way of saying that we weren’t working to any particular timeframe, so we took a minibus, a 61, to the stop by Königsberg’s fighting bison, an imposing composition in bronze by none other than August Gaul, and walked the short distance from there to the bus stop situated on Sovetsky Prospekt (Soviet Avenue). Just as I wrote in my earlier post, and, of course, I never lie, within minutes of us being there a Svetlogorsk bus rolled in, and a few minutes later we rolled off in it.
A few minutes more saw the evidence laid before us that I was not the only one who had found a bit of summer amongst the wreckage of the season. It was just as I had written in that extremely well-researched blog post of mine: traffic build-up in the Kaliningrad suburbs on roads leading out to the coast.
Fifteen minutes into it and having been overtaken twice by the same snail in reverse, I began to wish that I had never written that post to which I keep referring; talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy!
In that post (There I go again! If I didn’t know myself better, I would accuse myself of bias!), I wrote that the time it takes to travel by bus from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk is one hour and fifteen minutes, and, though my eye for detail comes as no surprise, I somehow couldn’t believe that I had got it so terribly right! What I failed to mention in that excelent mother of all posts was that there is at least one bus on the Svetlogorsk route that doesn’t go where you think it is going; it does not stop in the centre. This bus enters Svetlogorsk’s outskirts and, just when you are slipping into a sense of false security, goes sailing off to somewhere else (“Next stop: Somewhere Else!”). So, if you find yourself on this bus (“Hello, Mrs Conductor, does it stop at the centre?” “The centre of what? The universe?”), you’d best get off as we did, at the stop in the dip near the lake.
This stop, hitherto unused by me, turned out to be more convenient than I first gave it credit for. On the way to the beachfront, it was our intention to call at the arts and crafts street market opposite Telegraph Café to collect and pay for a commissioned piece of leatherware. Could it be a pair of swimming trunks? Not telling you. Let’s just say that whilst most things shrink in the water, you wouldn’t want this one to ride up with wear.
The shortcut through the hills and wooded hillocks of old Svetlogorsk [sic] Rauschen made me wince at the outset as it was all uphill (funny that?), but the absolute joy of this route was that it took us through an interesting mix of dwellings old and new, from original German houses secreted in wooded gardens to glades containing mid-rise flats, adventurously medievalised by the inclusion of half-timbered uppers.
The other surprising thing about this shortcut, or cutshort as Olga sometimes muddles it, was that this ‘cutshort’ really was short. We emerged from the woodland shortly after entering it, and there, on the right, was the market. I don’t believe we’ve accomplished this before; we were exactly where we wanted to be and quickly.
The compact area set aside for traders at the confluence of two streets was packed today. Summer could run, but it could not hide!
Some stalls at this market are permanent fixtures; others are infills, with traders bringing their own folding tables, which is something that we sometimes did when standing at boot and vintage fairs in England. Ah, what memories such sights bring!
First sight of Olga was met with great enthusiasm by friends and associates alike; they also said hello to me. I was acquainted with most of these people, and as for those I had not met, well, introductions in Kaliningrad are evergreen experiences.
Speaking English in Kaliningrad
There was a time, when I first came to Kaliningrad, in the perestroika years, when the sound of someone speaking English, and the sight of an Englishman speaking it, transcended curiosity. The unwavering stares received had a polarising character: at one end of the spectrum, a deep suspicion lurked; at the other, the kind of fascination that vainer folk than I might have found quite flattering.
Eventually, I grew accustomed to the habit of being gawped at and even got to enjoy being regarded as an exotic object, apparently too much so, because as the years rolled steadily by and a new generation arrived on the scene, replacing the Soviet mindset with their internet view of the world and the more savvy grasp it gave them of the ways of different cultures, modesty forbid, but I missed the attention my simple presence had once so effortlessly generated. But one grows older, as one does, and as one does, one hopes, less needful of the spotlight. “I wanted so much to have nothing to touch. I’ve always been greedy that way.” (Thank you, Leonard.) And then, just when you least expect it, like some of the buses we travel on, the bell rings and it’s all change, please.
Hunkering down in Russia during the coronavirus period, which was a much-to-be-preferred option than returning to hysteria-blighted Britain, I discovered once again that the sound of someone speaking English and being English on Kaliningrad’s streets had overnight become something of an anomaly, more so than it would, given Kaliningrad’s exclave status, than in Moscow or St Petersburg, and that this trend would be intensified by developments in Ukraine as visitors from the West diminished, particularly those who wear cravats and speak with English accents.
But I digress (“Cor blimey, don’t you!”) Helloes, how-are-yous, introductions and curious observations over and with our business at the market done and dusted, we wended our way at a leisurely pace along Svetlogorsk’s charming streets, taking note on our way of the capital renovation that had rescued the Villa Malepartus from almost certain extinction.
A new café lifted on wooden decking at the entrance to the public space containing Yantar-Hall was designed to attract attention. We contemplated the prospect of offering it our patronage but decided not to after all, turned off by its ‘boom boom music’.
We continued our walk to the coast, strolling across the landscaped parkland be-fronting Yantar Hall, marvelling at the transformation from all it had been in my days, a soggy chunk of decaying woodland (there are some who would say that they liked it that way), and ended up for that bite to eat, which we would have had at the previous café had the volume been turned down, at the glass-plated, steel-framed and, on a bright and blue-skied day, aptly named Sun Terrace.
Strategically situated on the coastal headland on route to the Svetlogorsk Elevator, The Sun Terrace is the perfect place to pause and enjoy, as I did, over a pizza and coffee, twenty minutes of quiet repose. The sunny skies above, the green lawns all around, the garden beds with their shrubs and flowers, the birch-tree woodland backdrop, the little birds singing and chirping happily in the boughs and branches of trees – what more could one possibly ask for? Noise, it would seem, is the answer. A couple seated opposite us outside on the café’s patio was respectfully asked by the waiter if everything met with their requirements.
The male contingent replied that whilst they could find no fault with the food, the one thing lacking was music.
I wondered if The Sun Terrace were to act on his advice, what music they would opt for. Would it be, let’s hope not, the kind that had driven us quickly away from the café we would have frequented had it been less musical? Could it have been less musical? Hmm? There’s no accounting for taste.
No music is good music when that music is bad. So, Sun Terrace be advised: continue to do what you do well – provide the space, the food, and beverages and leave the music to Nature’s Orchestra.
As the Elevator’s website highlights, there is no better place to be than aloft inside its vast glass gallery if stunning views of the Baltic Coast are the sort of thing that floats your boat.
Olga likes to go there to take selfies for social media; I go there to take an interest in the luxury seafront apartments‘ latest phase of development. As you can see from the photo below, they, and the promenade on which they are based, have really taken shape.
Older than the Elevator but refurbished since my first trip on them in summer 2001 are the small suspended yellow pods, at one time Soviet red, which, capable of transporting in their enclosed and glazed interior two standing or seated passengers, are a cable car and ski-lift hybrid. Essentially, the vehicle is a funicular, conveying passengers to beachside level from the upper reaches of the steep coastal bank and, more importantly, back again. They offer a convenient and comfortable alternative to foot-slogging the uphill path that, once completed but with great difficulty, leaves even the fittest person pretending not to be out of breath.
The cable-strung contraption is a particular favourite of mine. Whenever I visit Svetlogorsk, I look forward to the prospect of sailing up and down in it, even if getting on and off, with its slightly alarming bounce and the need to open and latch two doors whilst the conveyance sways in contradiction, demands a certain degree of elasticity more suited to supple youth and to the rest-assured action of younger sinews.
The queues for this novel but practical mode of transport show no sign of getting shorter as bathers head for the only substantial open stretch of beach sufficient in capacity to accommodate their growing influx.
Svetlogorsk’s oldest promenade is still very much under wraps due to ongoing restoration, a programme that has effectively closed the greater percentage of the beach resort’s beach.
Meanwhile, at the new promenade, a ribbon of sand implanted at the point where the structure meets the shore provides an attractive, albeit limited, beach alternative. It is an integral feature of the coastline complex, which in essence, and for the present, siphons off overflow bathers from the opposite end of Svetlogorsk, but the reality on the ground is that by far the greatest proportion of sand is still very much off limits, pending the completion of the renaissance of the earlier promenade.
My Special Day Out in Svetlogorsk
Not being a beachy person, not even in the slightest (I haven’t been since Charles Atlas warned about the inherent risk of sand being kicked in one’s face.), the prospect of being barred from the beach is somebody else’s – not my – problem; whereas no bar on, overlooking or at an equitable distance from the beach, is very much my problem.
I have to say, therefore, that on my most recent visit to Svetlogorsk, I was well chuffed by the discovery that the portion of beach still open to those who like nothing more than to laze and swim, swim and laze, laze and … (It is fairly easy to see how writing about this aimless practice could become habitual, even if actually doing it could not.) has a small food and drink outlet held up to the sky on stilts.
For a man who has just descended by cable car, the challenge of climbing two flights of steps to buy a bottle of beer was a less arduous undertaking than perching on a wooden plank for the 25 minutes it took for my other half to grow tired of splashing about in the briny.
Strange things happen at sea, or so I have heard it said, and just to prove this point, whilst she was in the water, Olga made a new friend. She wasn’t a mermaid nor sea monster but a young woman with a delightful mien who had authored a book about Japan, possibly making her stranger than both those marine creatures put together, and though she failed, mercifully, to address me in Japanese, when she spoke she spoke the King’s English almost as good as Charles himself and nearly better than me. (I just can’t seem to stop these days using words like ‘like’ and ‘innit’. “Ee, mon, I haven’t the faintest where me gets de ‘abit from! It makes me eddy at me!”)
These facts alone were enough to qualify both her and her husband for an invitation to join us this evening at that well-known restaurant Wherever. We did not know where the restaurant was and would not know until later, when we would rendezvous with a friend and follow her to wherever it was that she saw fit to take us.
We met our female companion in the rip-roaring, rollicking centre of town, which, I am fairly certain, must be twinned with Great Yarmouth, where people crowd intently and to the beat of open-air music, sing, dance, eat and carouse as though they are on holiday, most likely because they are.
Although the restaurant to which we were taken was not familiar to me, the building that it occupied had, for as long as I could remember, been an object of admiration as well as one of intrigue. I could not understand for the life of me why such an obvious Rauschen relic, an edifice of historic importance, had lain for so many years in such a sad and sorry state of destitution. Shame on me, I know, but in the early twenty-tens, I had regarded its exotically planted but much neglected gardens as nothing more than a cutshort, though I always peeped inside the building whenever I went stampeding past on my way to wherever it was I must have been going, wondering why this rarified building, whatever it was supposed to be, seemed to have no other use than a place for stacking chairs. However, mystery on mystery, or simply a case of misplaced memory (it’s gone the way of the sun), for when we asked one of the waiters how long the restaurant had been open, the answer we got was ‘always’. It was a Delbert Grady moment: “You’ve always been the caretaker. I should know, sir. I’ve always been here.”
Anyway, to put you out of your inquisitive misery, the beautiful building’s restaurant goes by the name of Kurhaus. The building itself is restored-Rauschen, but the restaurant has more than a lingering flavour of what it must have been like to dine there during Soviet times. The absence of loud music is a blessing!
In describing my day at Svetlogorsk, I have unwittingly provided you with a blueprint for an excursion. It is easier to remember than trying to say ‘fiddlesticks’ fast, so put your map-head on your shoulders and get a load of this:
How to get there. Where? Precisely
Get off at the bus stop near the lake; turn left, then immediately right; keep a straight line at the back of the houses and climb the steps into the wood; keep on walking until you reach a broad glade ‘ringed’ with houses and flats; climb the steps or slope to the right; turn left at the top of the hill, past the flats with the wooden fretwork; then turn immediately right. (How are you doing so far?) From here you will see the open-air market and, across the road, the Telegraph café. From the café, hang a left and then immediately left again. The Starry Doctor Hotel is on the left and the Villa Malepartus a little further on your right. This street is a wonderful street complete with old and new-old houses of an extremely evocative nature, which any one of you or I would love to live in if we had the chance. When you reach the junction at the top of this road, Yantar Hall is unmissable — it is large, modern, futuristic and also, they tell me, multifunctional. Head along the winding path in front of this wave-like structure, and there you will find The Sunshine Terrace (as its name is written in English, you will find it hard to miss), and after you’ve taken refreshment there, it’s straight on to the lift.
To find your way to the cable cars, direct your feet towards the centre of town (you could try asking where this is!). The ticket office can be found to the right of Svetlogorsk’s railway station just inside a small, paved area where amber traders sell their wares. Treat yourself to some of this before you make your descent. (It’s more than a million years old, you know! Not the chairs, the amber.) And now that I’ve got you down on the beach, have a beer for me!
Revised 25 August 2025 | First published 14 October 2024 ~ Telegraph in Svetlogorsk Good Coffee Unique Art
Contrary to received wisdom, it is not always necessary or indeed advisable for travellers to stick to the beaten track. Verily, by doing so the chances of missing out on some hidden cultural gem or other, or hitherto unencountered esoteric and unusual experience, are magnified manifold.
Indubitably, there are some parts of the world, some sinister and dubious places, where keeping to the beaten track is less a question for tourism than an action guided by common sense in the interests of survival.
Take London, for example, that patchwork quilt of small towns wherein no boundaries lie. One minute, you, the traveller, can almost believe what the travel guides tell you, that London is, indeed, one of the world’s most civilised cities; the next, having strayed from the beaten track, that you are up S*it Creek without a paddle in, what to all intents and purposes, is the Black Hole of Calcutta. Is it Africa or Pakistan? There’s no point leaving the beaten track to be beaten in your tracks. Best to beat a hasty retreat.
Enrichments of this nature do not apply, thank goodness, to a small, secluded backstreet in the seaside town of Svetlogorsk on Russia’s Baltic Coast. Not officially known as ‘Off the Beaten Track’, Street Ostrovskogo (‘Off the Beaten Track’ is easier to say) is a quaint, leafy, meandering avenue that wends its way from Street Oktyabr’skaya (if you find it easier, ‘Off the Beaten Track’ will do).
In Svetlogorsk, the streets run off from a large, open public space in the centre of the town, which, during clement months, overflows with tourists eagerly taking advantage of the outside drinking and eating areas. One of the streets that travels from this lively, bustling hub is Ulitsa Oktyabr’skaya. It is the street you will need to walk to get you to the Telegraph café.
The route is a rewarding one. It takes you past a Svetlogorsk landmark, the 1908 Art Nouveau water tower, past the town’s pretty Larch Park with its copy of Hermann Brachert’s ‘Water Carrier’ sculpture ~ the original is in the Brachert Museum ~ past my favourite and recently renovated neo-Gothic/Art Nouveau house and onto the Hartman Hotel.
To say that you cannot miss Ulitsa Ostrovskogo would be a silly thing to say, because if your sense of direction is anything like mine … Sorry? Oh, it isn’t. Well then just look for a clothes shop on your right. You won’t be able to miss it, because your sense of direction is better than mine and also because in the summer months some of its garments are hung outside in order to make the shop more visible, and besides it is located within one of those charming old German edifices that have at their gable end an all-in-one veranda-balcony glazed and enclosed in wood. This then is the junction at which you turn for Telegraph. This is the end of the beaten track.
Halfway along this quiet backwater, at the point where streets meet chevron-fashion, stand a permanent cluster of market stalls. You didn’t miss the turning, so there’s no earthly reason you should miss these either, especially those with roofs, which give them the quaint appearance of modest garden summer houses. Here, artisans working in various materials, from leather and ceramics to metalware, together with artists of paint and palette, regularly gather to sell their goods. The range and novelty of their handmade products really are surprising and the quality of them consistently high.
The location of these stalls could not be better placed, since a little further on the left-hand side, you have reached your destination ~ Svetlogorsk’s former telegraph building, resurrected in recent years as an outlet for arts and crafts and as a coffee shop and art gallery.
Telegraph in Svetlogorsk
In addition to selling coffee of various kinds~ and very good they are too! ~ Telegraph deals in assorted teas, other delicious drinks, a seductive range of desserts, irresistible homemade cakes and the sort of pastries you’ll want to leave home for. It is also a cornucopia of distinctive handcrafted wares, including vintage and designer clothes, prints, postcards, vinyl records, decorative items for the home, and original works from local artists.
IIts comfy settee and low-slung armchairs, into which one’s body readily sinks, plus the light and airy but cozy ambience, make for a very pleasant environment in which to relax, unwind and shop. If you cannot find a gift in Telegraph, something special to treat yourself with or a Baltic souvenir, then there’s definitely something wrong with you.
An introduction to two of Telegraph’s artists
https://vk.com/album55604070_101203993 Lilya Bogatko works in the field of applied arts, designing and decorating ceramic goods with stylised naturalistic images. She prefers to work in monochrome, consigning her line-drawn black motifs to high opacity white grounds on tableware and ornaments. Her distinctive illustrations, many of which have a gentle charm that could grace a children’s storybook, possess an ethereal quality. Indeed, a fair proportion of her subjects, be they man or beast, float above the earth; they take to the air with wings. When her subjects are not animals, real or mythological, or people literally raised to a higher level of spirituality ~ have wings will fly ~ her stock-in-trade motifs are replications of Kaliningrad landmarks, such as the now defunct and liquidated former House of Soviets, the refurbished Zalivino lighthouse overlooking the Curonian Lagoon and Königsberg Cathedral.
Based in St Petersburg, Lilya is a regular visitor to Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region, from which she derives inspiration and consolidates her sales outlets.
https://vk.com/album-30057230_195486413 Pavel Timofeev has an arts and crafts workshop at Telegraph in Svetlogorsk, where he produces, among other things, leather purses and wallets, men’s and women’s leather bracelets with inscriptions on request, ornamented key rings and a range of fashion jewellery.
His speciality is selling watches with watch-face customisation. The face design can be made to order, with the option of a leather strap in traditional classic or novel styles. The straps can also be personalised.
For examples of Pavel’s watches, please refer to the carousel that appears below this profile:
The room opposite Telegraph’s ‘sitting room’ is its designated art gallery, a well-lit exhibition space with enough wall and floor capacity to showcase umpteen works of local artists. On the occasion of my visit, the art form most conspicuous was assemblages ~ 3D compositions created by taking disparate pieces of whatever it is the artist has scavenged and then arranging or assembling them on a backboard of some description so that the configuration that ensues presents itself as a pictorial image or, from impressions of the whole or its parts, invites interpretation.
Victor Ryabinin, our artist friend from Königsberg, was the man who introduced me to assemblages. His interest in the potential of this technique as a medium for symbolism had him unearthing whatever he could from the remains of Königsberg’s past and putting the pieces together so as to excite in the observer a quest to uncover meaning, either the artist’s or their own.
Since Victor was profoundly immersed in and also deeply disturbed by the eradication of Königsberg, the assemblages that he built from the remnants of destruction often convey a personal sense of irredeemable loss, an inescapable sadness, a wistful but unrequited need for a less tragic end to the city which he dearly loved and in which he loved to live. Victor travelled outside of Königsberg more often and also further than its famous philosopher Immanuel Kant, but he possibly left it less than Kant or anyone else for that matter.
By contrast, the assemblages gathered together under Telegraph’s roof evinced none of this solemnity. They danced a confident riot of bright, effusive colours, orchestrating lively, often comic, images and energising expressive shapes, some fondly reminiscent of the enchanting kind of illustrations that adorned the pages of story books beloved of old-time children, others cleverly more obtuse or playfully cryptographic.
In vivacity of colour and their three-dimensional character, the assemblages reminded me of the kind of shop-front sign boards popular in the Edwardian era, and there was much at work in their composition to insinuate a vintage charm. But the incorporation of parts taken from obsolete engines, metal handles, steel rivets, goggles and the like, plus paraphernalia of various kinds possessing mechanical provenance and rigged to suggest articulation, disclosed a contemporary steampunk influence. Intriguing, all bewitching and also fun to boot, take any one of these assemblages, hang them in your abode and if until now you have felt that your home lacked a conversation piece, trust me when I tell you that this omission will be rectified.
In the Svetlogorsk we know today, cafes, bars, restaurants and places of interest to view and visit exist in appreciable numbers, but every once in a while, one stands out in the crowd: Telegraph is that one.
It may have exchanged its wires and needles for coffee and for art, but the function of the historic building as a centre of communication lives on in its role as a meeting place, and the message that it telegraphs couldn’t be more accommodating: Sit a while, relax, enjoy a beverage and a piece of cake and let your sensibilities flow with the positive vibes that emanate from all that you see and all that you feel around you and from what can be bought and taken home, because the chances are that whatever it is that tickles your fancy in Telegraph, you will never find another like it; the chances are it will be unique.
After browsing, binging, basking and borrowing (borrowing from your friends to pay for the coffee and art, “I’ll see you alright, later …”), especially on those days when the craft-sellers’ stalls are active, in finally heading off for home, you will say to yourself with satisfaction, what an enjoyable day I have had. I am so pleased I read Mick Hart’s blog and was urged by him to get up off of my … ah, to get off of the beaten track.
Telegraph ~ social and cultural space of Svetlogorsk.
Telegraph is a public and cultural space (a centre of urban communities), created by city residents for city residents.
We do not have a director, but we have a working group. We are a community of participants with common goals and values.
Telegraph is located on Ostrovskogo Street in house No. 3 (next to the Post Office).
There are four spaces here:
– a coffee shop (here you can try aromatic fresh coffee) – a living room with an exhibition of works by craftsmen (you can buy local handmade souvenirs) – a gallery (local artists hold exhibitions here) – workshops (pottery and carpentry) – a terrace and a lawn with the longest bench in the city.
Our space regularly hosts meetings of various communities. Any participant can propose an idea for their own project and find like-minded people who will provide the necessary support.
Telegraph exists outside of politics, outside of religion. We are open to new acquaintances/initiatives.
The Telegraph project team deals with city projects and development issues.
Co-working ‘Thoughts’ (Aptechnaya, 10); keys from the barista in the coffee shop; additional conditions by phone +79114839050
How to get from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk
18 August 2025 – From Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk
One of the things that I like about being in Kaliningrad is that it is not far away from the Baltic coast. The main resorts, Zelenogradsk (in German times: Cranz) is approximately 35km (22 miles), a 30-minute drive away, and Svetlogorsk (in German times: Rauschen) is 40km (25 miles), which takes about 40 minutes to drive.
Modern roads and upgraded transport links have improved travel to the Baltic coast no end since the good old days, when all there was in the way of major travel infrastructure was a couple of pre-war German roads with more than their fair share of potholes.
The problem is that whilst the region’s ever-developing tourism infrastructure is fuelling dramatic growth, the good news for the region’s economy is not always good for local travel, as there are days in the height of summer when vehicular demand for the Baltic coast can severely test one’s travelling patience.
Kaliningrad’s tourism record reads like a year-on-year success story, particularly with the impetus it received from restricted overseas travel during the coronavirus era and a continuation of that trend due to evolving geopolitics.
Domestic travel to the Kaliningrad exclave from Russia’s capital city, Moscow, and from other territories inside ‘Big Russia’ appears to have multiplied 10-fold over the past five years. To get a handle on this, you would need to review the statistics, which, with a grade 9 CSE in math, I am disqualified from doing. What does add up, however, is that whichever mode of transport you plan on using to get you from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk or Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk, be it private car, taxi, bus or train, during the height of the tourist season, it pays to avoid peak-time travel.
Here’s some handy information to help you on your way:
Distance from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and to Svetlogorsk by road
Significant disparity on the internet exists regarding the distance between Kaliningrad and Zelenogradsk. I don’t know why it does it, but the distance keeps on changing. Sometimes it is 40km (25 miles), sometimes 34km (21 miles) and sometimes 20km (12.5 miles). It just keeps getting closer or moving further away depending on who you would like to believe. Why not, then, believe me? Thirty-five kilometres (22 miles) seems to be where it’s usually at.
The time it takes to travel from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk by private vehicle or by taxi is another debatable issue. Some internet sites say 20 minutes; others, 40 minutes. I would hazard a guess that with a good backwind and favourable traffic fluidity, the journey should take no more than 30 minutes.
The distance between Kaliningrad and Svetlogorsk has a rather less shaky consensus. It appears to hold steady at 40km (25 miles), giving an average time to drive it of 40 minutes.
Taxi from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk General rule of thumb: beware of travel and trip advisor websites that purposefully conceal the dates on which they publish content. Case in point: A reasonably well-known travel website, which precludes publication dates, claims that a taxi from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk will cost you 600 roubles. To get there at that price, you will first need to take a time machine to a point in the distant past when things were a whole lot cheaper.
The average taxi fare from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk is 700-1000 roubles (£6.45-£9.20), with the lower end of the tariff being the least likely of the available options.
The average taxi fare from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk is 1000-2000 roubles (£9.20-£18.40).
Taxi Services: Whether you use an app, call the cab office, or hail a cab on the street, Kaliningrad is no different from any other city in the world: always agree on the fare before entering the vehicle. The majority, if not all, of Kaliningrad taxis are now meter-based, so if you take one off the street, the driver may just point to the meter when you ask the important question, “How much will it cost?” Whether you accept this answer will depend on how trusting you are and how well you cope with suspense.I, for one, am rather fond of a ballpark figure/estimate.
Buses from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk
The city’s main bus terminal is a short walk away from Kaliningrad’s Southern Railway Station (Kaliningrad-South) (Kaliningrad-Yuzhny).
It takes approximately one hour by bus from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk, about one hour and 15 minutes.
The bus fare to Zelenogradsk is approximately 100 roubles (90p)
The bus fare to Svetlogorsk is approximately 155 roubles (£1.43)
Buses to Zelenogradsk and to Svetlogorsk leave Kaliningrad Bus Terminal approximately every 20 minutes.
If you are catching the bus from the main bus terminal, you must purchase your ticket at the terminal itself. Automated gates are now in operation, and you will need to have your ticket at hand for scanning validation.
Buses to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk also leave from a stop opposite Kaliningrad’s Northern Railway Station (Kaliningrad-North) (Severny Vokzal) on Soviet Avenue (Sovetsky Prospekt). If you are not working to your own strict timetable, you can wander down to this stop, check the destinations of each bus as they dock, select the one you want, hop aboard and buy your ticket.
The last bus from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk leaves at 21:30.
The last bus from Zelenogradsk to Kaliningrad leaves at 21:30.
The last bus from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk leaves at 22:30.
The last bus from Svetlogorsk to Kaliningrad leaves at 22:30.
The line number of the bus to Zelenogradsk is 141 and to Svetlogorsk 118.
Train from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk The journey by train from Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk takes approximately 35-45 minutes, and from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk, about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Trains depart from Kaliningrad’s Southern Railway Station (Kaliningrad-South) (Kaliningrad-Yuzhny) multiple times per day.
Stops on the way are displayed visually on a screen in each carriage and delivered audibly by an automated voice, which is conveniently broadcast both in Russian and in English. When travelling by train to Svetlogorsk, please be aware that the final destination is Svetlogorsk-2, so don’t alight at Svetlogorsk-1 unless this is the stop you are aiming for.
The train fare to Zelenogradsk-Noviy Station is approximately 100 roubles (92p)
The train fare to Svetlogorsk 2 Station is approximately 125 roubles (£1.15)
So, there you have it. Whether you drive it, bus it, go by taxi or take a train, Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk are right on Kaliningrad’s doorstep. Follow my advice, and I guarantee you’ll know you’ve arrived when you finally get there.
Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Tapkoc Belgium Blond Ale
Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad
6 August 2025 – Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale
With the name Tapkoc on the collar label, and beneath it, on the label proper, the picture of a piddling cherub (Manneken Pis) with ‘censored’ slapped over his naughty bits, who could resist the play on words? We could, fellow drinkers, because, dear beloved, we are gathered here today to conduct the serious business of reviewing Belgian Blond Ale.
Trusting that the brewers would never be so brave as to brew a beer with ‘told you so!’ in mind, I left Cultura Bottle Shop with Tapkoc nestling in my nice brown paper bag, confident that what was in a name and upon a label had nothing to do whatsoever with what was in the beer or what it would taste like.
Heaven forbid that I would be so lax as to invite accusations of vulgarity, but I sincerely believe that no student of the English language can claim to have mastered that language until they have complete understanding and appreciation of the many idiomatic expressions and the daily uses to which they are put. Take ‘piss’, for example — no crudity intended — not to be confused with ‘taking the piss’, which is something I’d never do.
The impolite word ‘piss’, together with its derivatives and associations, has extremely versatile usage in the English language, a fact no better illustrated than when it is used in conjunction with the gentlemanly art of beer drinking. Take note (make some, if you like): the expression ‘going on the piss’ is a common phrase in the United Kingdom. Precisely translated, it means ‘to go on the beer’, of which an elaboration would be to indulge in a beer-drinking session. Not that in England beer is considered urine; on the contrary, since the dissolution of Watney’s piss water, beer is held in high esteem by many, even exalted by some. For example, when we say in England that we have been on a ‘piss-up’ or ‘pissing it up’, it’s not something we are ashamed to admit to; quite the reverse, in fact. ‘Piss artists’ are rather proud of having been ‘on the piss’. We regard it not in terms of disapprobation but as something of an achievement. In other words, when the English say they’ve been ‘pissing it up’, the connotation of shame is rarely present.
People who have been ‘on the piss’ may feel a little embarrassed when they are forced to admit in consequence that they ended up ‘totally pissed’ and in the process disgraced themselves, but by and large they are not ‘pissed off’ to have ‘pissed it (their money) up the wall’ and ended up quite rat-arsed. Please note, however, that whilst many who go ‘on the piss’ invariably end up rat-arsed, they are rarely ever, if ever, referred to by themselves, their relatives, friends or colleagues as ‘rat-arsers’.
The English are nothing if not reserved, preferring, if at all possible, to avoid the more debasing title of ‘pisshead’ in relation to their drinking habits but have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting the synonym ‘piss artist’ — a name which many practitioners wear as though it were a badge of honour.
Excuse me, once again, if only for excusing myself, which some may infer as a sly attempt to circumvent self-censorship for the sake of being crude and wanting, like a naughty boy, to see the word ‘piss’ in print (well, it makes a change from writing sh…hhhhh!) It’s just that ‘piss’ and the past tense ‘pissed’ have such astonishing versatility within the English language, almost as much, but not quite, as another adaptive English word, which is ‘fart’, but we won’t fart about with that at the moment. We will leave that for a later lesson and get down now to the serious business of tasting this Belgian blond, coz if we carry on like this, getting pissed will be out of the question.
Tapkoc Belgium Blond Ale won a Bronze medal in the ‘Light Ale’ category of the competition for brewing products ROSGLAVPIVO-2023 and a Gold medal in the international competition Beer 2024 in Sochi. [source: https://tarkos.ru/catalog/blond-el/]
Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale
So, the beer with the piddling Belgian boy claims to be a Belgian blond ale. What exactly did I make of it?
At first sniff, the blond Belgian releases a lovely bouquet of tangy, hoppy notes, accompanied by a deeper, rounded sound. No, this is not the follow-up English lesson that I mentioned earlier. The aroma of this beer is a nose-fondling melody. It’s not quite a symphony of scents, but it pulls out the organ stops similar to the way in which Gobbo Fletton, our village church organist, did during the 1960s, that is, forcefully but in no particular order.
I was relieved, as much as the boy on the bottle, by this reassuring revelation. And yet, as the beer didn’t smell like p…, what exactly did it smell of? Potato juice or pastry? As pale and pallid as it certainly is, someone had come along and put body in this beer (which is different from somebody’s body), and the part that was the most pleasing was that it packed a bit of an oomph. (No, this is not the follow-up lesson to which I alluded earlier.)
In the glass, Belgian Blond has a hazy fantayzee look, which, for a blond beer, is often interpreted as a sign of honest-to-goodness, natural quality, particularly if the fruit-basket scent is oranges and lemons, say the belles with large melons. The chorus line of different notes is as revealing and provocative as the 19th-century music hall Can-Can. Can they? Yes, they can. Have they? By Jove, they have. The fruity exterior cleverly masks a deceptively deep, dense flavour, which may or may not be innocent or, failing that, have been put there on purpose.
Storm in a teacup or pee in a pod? I have no intention of pissing about or pissing off the brewers; Tapkoc is no clone. For a start, and at the finish, Belgian Blond is a six-percenter, and I seriously doubt you will find anything anywhere which subtly brings together such a pleasing piquant taste and underlying strength. If the motive for drinking it is still unclear, perhaps we had better call Poirot. He was Belgian, was he not?
Ah, now you are taking the — guess the penultimate word competition — p…
And my last word on the subject? Writing this review was easy. In fact, it was a piece of — guess the last word competition — p …
BOX TICKER’S CORNER Name of Beer: Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale Brewer: Tarkos Brewery Where it is brewed: Voronezh, Russia Bottle capacity: 0.5 litre Strength: 6% Price: 130 roubles (£1.20) Appearance: Blond Aroma: So much to choose from Taste: An interesting and not unflavourable test of the taste buds Fizz amplitude: 5% Label/Marketing: Statue of a small boy urinating Would you buy it again? It’s already happened
Beer rating
The brewer’s website has this to say about Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale: A rich golden ale with a subtle, ethereal aroma of spices, created by Belgian yeast. The strong beer gives a noticeable warming effect and stimulates the taste buds but does not overload them. It is an ideal accompaniment to exquisite dishes. Website: https://tarkos.ru/
Wot other’s say [Comments on Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale from the internet, unedited] 🤔 It’s OK, but it smells like cardboard. [Comment: That’s because he’s got a cardboard box stuck on his head.] 😉 The beer may not be quite in style, but it’s interesting, and I liked it. [Comment: You can’t say fairer than that.] 😑 I don’t get the joke about the name Tapkoc and its relevance to the peeing cherub. [Comment: An unassimilated migrant living in the UK] 😎 Unusual in everything – from the label to the taste. [Comment: He’s got it!]
Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)
Article 9: Three Bears Crystalbeer
Updated 28 July 2025 | First Published 27 November 2020 – Three Bears Crystal beer in Kaliningrad, Russia
Whenever I see a beer bottle or can in a Russian supermarket with three bears (tree meeshkee) on the label, I am smitten by a wave of nostalgia, as this brand of bottled beer was quite possibly the first I drank on my inaugural trip to Kaliningrad.
Memory is a fallible thing, for mine suggests that my first Three Bears was consumed in the winter of 2000, whereas internet research indicates that Three Bears made their Russian debut later in 2002.
Be this as it may, there is no denying the fact that the brand has successfully established itself as quintessentially Russian, and with bears in name and bears in logo, it could hardly have failed to do otherwise. For example, if the beer had been Russian Hat, they could have achieved a similar effect by using an ushanka label — come now, of course you know what I mean; an ushanka is one of those furry hats with a flap down either side.
Typically Russian in appearance, the Three Bears brand was originally part of the Heineken portfolio but is now produced by United Breweries. [source: AI Google]
Three Bears Crystal beer in Kaliningrad Russia
The Three Bears brand has four exciting variants: Three Bears Classic; Three Bears Light; Three Bears Crystal; and Three Bears Strong. At 8.3% ABV, the Three Bears Strong obviously speaks for itself: it sort of makes a deep ‘Grrrr’ sound; the Classic at 4.9% is not so ‘Grrrr’, but still is ‘Grrr’; the Three Bears Crystal, which is 4.4%, is by no means a purring pussycat; but, as you would expect, Three Bears Light is only 4.7% — er, wait a moment, am I missing something? Perhaps when they use the word ‘Light’, the allusion is to colour?
Three Bears Crystal beer in Kaliningrad, Russia
I chose to buy Three Bears Crystal because whenever I have a session, I will normally drink a couple of 1.5-litre bottles of beer in what is referred to as one sitting. How much of a lush you judge me to be by supping this amount will be predicated entirely on your own consumption criteria, namely, “Woah, that’s far too much!” or “I’d get that down before breakfast!” The difference in definition lies somewhere between one’s understanding of the difference between broadcast and boast, prohibition and politician, and promise and perversion — all three tinged by the maxims ‘men will always be men’ or ‘men will always be boys’. Such connotations could cause a stir of controversy by the time they have reached the end of the UK rainbow but could equally garner butch-like brownie points with feminists on the way.
Sorry, all this has about as much to do with Three Bears Crystal beer as Biden’s implanted view of the world had with facts and reality. My advice to you is, unless you are absolutely sure that Goldilocks is female, don’t go down to the woods today, or you could be in for a big surprise.
I stayed in with Crystal, and was I in for a Big Surprise!
In the bottle and in the glass, Three Bears Crystal has an attractive amber tone, making it an empathic ale for amber-lands consumption. Its hoppy, bitter fragrance tends to waft away a few minutes after decantation, which was enough in coronavirus times to alarm you with the question, “Am I losing my sense of smell?” but, needing no better excuse to quickly take the taste test, as soon as it hit your tongue, you breathed a sigh of relief: “Aha,” you went. “Worth every rouble!” Of course, during coronavirus, I always wore my face mask whenever I drank Three Bears or anything else.
Three Bears Crystal has, what I like to refer to, as a ‘straw taste’ — and I do not use this term derogatively. I know that it does not sound nearly as chic as shampers or as manly as scotch on the rocks and is probably a rustic hangback from my days as a teenage farmer, but whatever its derivative status, ‘straw’ is a term that captures for me a specific beer experience in which the initial bitter sharpness is offset by a blunting edge, a saturating mellow taste.
This is not to say that Three Bears Crystal does not pack a zing, although I have my suspicions that this is down to its carbonation, which, I also believe, is instrumental in producing the lingering bitter tang, which remains well after the product has been consumed. But for all that zinging and tanging, the essence of this beer is decidedly Matt Monro — an easy-on-the-palate version of easy listening on the ears.
Three Bears Crystal beer is a session beer
In words that every beer-quaffing Englishman will readily understand, Three Bears Crystal is, in my judgement, as sound as a pound (and as right as a rouble). It is what is known in drinking circles as a ‘session’ beer.
It goes down famously well with a traditional packet of crisps and a handful of salted peanuts, neither of which you can currently enjoy in any English pub due to the recent virus curfew laws*. These laws seem to suggest that coronavirus hides in pubs and waits to pounce on people who prefer to snack with their pint rather than eat a “substantial meal,” such as a big plate of greasy burgers, lashings of frozen peas, and a disgusting pile of fatty fries made from reconstituted mashed potatoes. [*At the time when this post was first published (2020), UK coronavirus laws outlawed drinking in pubs without the coronavirus passport of having purchased a ‘substantial meal’.]
Conclusion: The message is Crystal clear. You don’t need a Vaccine Passport, then fly to the UK to suffer a plate of infamous pub grub just to enjoy a decent beer. Three Bears Crystal beer is sold in most of Kaliningrad’s supermarkets in handy 1.5-litre bottles at a price you cannot growl at. Why not buy two bottles! Should you overdo it, there is always the hair of the bear!
Three Bears Crystal beer
😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS Name of Beer: Three Bears Crystal Brewer: United Breweries Where it is brewed: St Petersburg and in other Russian locations Bottle capacity: 1.5 litres Strength: 4.4% Price: It cost me about 125 rubles (£1.23) in 2000 Appearance: Light amber Aroma: Not much Taste: Light bitterness, the equivalent of a British light or pale ale Fizz amplitude: 5/10 Label/Marketing: Traditional Russian Would you buy it again? I have, on several occasions
*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.
Burgh Island and Greenway: on the Agatha Christie trail
25 July 2025 – Agatha Christie’s Burgh Island and Greenway House
Burgh Island
Going over the hill, especially when the term is used figuratively to describe the juncture between youth and old age, is not recommended. Likewise, when you reach the top of the hill on the approach road to Bigbury-on-Sea, I suggest that you step on the brakes and stop. From this point your first spectacular view of Burgh Island is likely to be not much different to the one offered to Agatha Christie, Noel Coward, Winston Churchill and Mick Hart.
You see that large building fronting Burgh Island, the white one in the striking Art Deco style, well that’s the Burgh Hotel. It was first constructed in 1929, modified and improved in the early 1930s and, as that decade unfurled, rapidly established itself as one of England’s most in-vogue venues for socialites and celebrities, a premier destination for those with money, those with influence and for those in search of inspiration.
Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie, one of England’s most prolific and arguably most famous literary figures, was so taken by the inspirational ethos of the island, the sophistry of its hotel and the fictional source material offered by its top-drawer patrons that the hotel built her a beach house to use exclusively as a writer’s retreat. There, she is reputed to have written two of her greatest novels, And Then There was None and Evil Under the Sun, the latter extensively filmed on Burgh Island and in and around its hotel as part of the David Suchet series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot.
Burgh Island and Greenway House: on the trail of Agatha Christie
Before Agatha Christie made it her own, Burgh Island, known in ancient times as Borough Island and thereafter variously as Burr and Bur Isle, had a colourful reputation for smuggling, pirates and wrecking — where coastal in Cornwall and Devon does not? On a more prosaic level, the island in the 18th century was a base for Pilchard fishing.
That small, ruined structure sitting on the island’s summit, the one you can see with your naked eye and in more detail through your trusty binoculars, is not a Victorian folly but the remains of a one-time monastery, the remnants of a chapel and what is left of a ‘huers’’ post — a place where ‘huers’ kept watch on the sea. When shoals of pilchards came in sight, the huers would kick up a ‘hue and cry’, alerting the fishermen at shore level that it was time to knock back their beers, exit the Pilchard Inn and put out to sea in their fishing boats.
The Pilchard Inn, Burgh Island
Burgh Island’s Pilchard Inn, unmissable from the mainland even had its name not been emblazoned across its front in welcoming large black letters, is reputed to have made its debut in the fourteenth century. How much of the fourteenth century remains of it today is a matter of conjecture — something to keep you occupied whilst you sit there sipping your beer, gnarled oak beams above your head, much-trodden flagstones beneath your feet and, without a pilchard in sight, without a care in the world.
^ Mick and Joss Hart outside the Pilchard Inn, Burgh Island
The Pilchard Inn, the Art Deco hotel, Agatha Christie’s beach house, a couple of private houses, oh, and not forgetting the huers’ hut, plus a garden shed or two, these are the sole structural occupants of the island’s-built environment.
The island’s natural environment, criss-crossed as it is with a cobweb of tiny footpaths, is a dream of a place for ramblers. It offers spectacular views across a beautiful seascape to the mainland’s rugged and ragged cliffs and on the island itself imparts to the roving explorer awesome sights of precipitous drops into the foaming surf of the ocean below. Rumour has it that someone, mention no corporate names, took the legal route in an attempt to prevent the public from enjoying this gift from God, but thankfully for once on this occasion when money talked no one wanted to listen and justice came out on the side that it should. So gleefully put on your walking shoes and celebrate the ‘right to roam’.
^^ “It’s not true that we wish to deter people from walking across the island. Just follow the line of the fence and you’ll be fine …”
Burgh Island and Greenway House: on the trail of Agatha Christie
Burgh Island is a tidal island, meaning that at certain times of the day the sea recedes like so many hairlines, leaving behind a stretch of sand, similar to a widow’s peak, across which, if the mood so takes them, prospective visitors can plod.
When the tide is in, reaching the island by Shank’s Pony is still a possibility, providing you like wet trousers, but staying with the majority, it is easier and more fun to pay the two-quid passage and make the crossing on the Burgh Island sea tractor.
This intriguing shallow-water machine has been thrilling and ferrying passengers from Bigbury-on-Sea to Burgh Island and back since the 1930s. You may recall Poirot and Hasting travelling on the tractor across the causeway at high tide as guests of the Burgh Hotel in the TV adaptation of Christie’s Evil Under the Sun. On June 25 (2025, that is), we followed in their wheel tracks.
The current tractor, I have been told, is not the original 30s’ model, but the carriage and its application differ very little. I have scant regard for boats but enjoyed the trip to Burgh on this unusual four-wheeled vehicle. It may not be the exact same tractor that ferried Agatha from A to B, but the view of the island that it provides from its elevated platform of the historic Pilchard Inn and what is described consistently as the island’s iconic landmark, the mainland-facing Art Deco hotel, cannot be substantially different from the scene with which the famous writer would have been familiar.
Restored and refurbished in such a manner as to replicate the glamour of its 1930s’ heydays, today’s Burgh Island Hotel is widely regarded to be a faithful representation of what it would have been before it entered a period of slow but steady decline after the Second World War.
The hotel’s golden years are also said to be echoed in the many period events hosted there on an annual basis, with their observance of the sartorial elegance for which the thirties is famous and their ‘take you back to the time’ music of hot jazz, swing and Lindy hop.
A flick through the pages of the hotel’s website should be enough to convince you that no punches are being pulled in guaranteeing paying guests refinement, luxury and exclusivity on an unprecedented Art Deco scale.
It is said that to stay at the Burgh Hotel is a ‘Once in a lifetime experience’, and this is hardly surprising. It is difficult to ascertain what exactly a bed for the night will set your wallet back, but £480, £650 and climbing seem to be the ballpark figures, with afternoon tea ringing the till at £110 for two. At these prices ‘once in a lifetime’ is perfectly understandable’; staying there twice, highly unlikely; and never, more likely than that. However, should you win the lottery …
Whether extortionate hotel tariffs are an evil under the sun, a sure-fired way of keeping the riff-raff out (it’s odd that I’ve never stayed there?) or just an unpredictable gamble on a typical English coastline, often chilly, frequently windswept and not uncommonly pelted with rain, are points on which you may wish to ponder before you part with your hard-earned cash.
Agatha Christie beach house
Ardent fans of the Art Deco period and of Agatha Christie alike may take comfort in the knowledge that what you pay for is what you get. Recent refurbishments at the Burgh Hotel are said to have been made with utmost care and consideration for heritage authenticity. However, I wonder how true this is of Agatha Christie’s beach house?
It is written almost everywhere that Agatha Christie thought of the Burgh Hotel as a ‘home away from home’. What she would make of it now, now that her once authorial haven has been turned into – I quote – “One of the sexiest hotel rooms in the UK …” is difficult to say.
I cannot help feeling that this rebranding, as well as being vaguely tasteless, is a rather short-sighted move. Think about it, if you will. Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE, celebrated author of 66 detective novels and 14 short-story collections, creator of the world-famous Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, the best-selling fiction writer of all time, conceived and wrote at least two of her novels at the Burgh Island beach house, and now that beach house is being promoted as a place for potentially unwanted conceptions.
You would have thought, would you not, that this made-sacred-by-Agatha place would have better been preserved as a museum to her memory or alternatively restored to the inspirational model it was, no matter how basic by modern standards, so that those in search of the ultimate Christie experience, to whom it seems money is rarely an object, would unconditionally flock. Either of these two options have a more in-keeping ring, don’t you think, to the hotel’s glittering past, than words that would seem to cast it as a 21st century bordello. But then who knows what the future holds for England’s imperilled heritage?
Greenway House
Our personal ultimate Christie experience was to follow up our excursion to Burgh Island, with a visit to the much-loved author’s South Devon summer home, Greenway.
Greenway House, a late Georgian mansion enclosed within extensive grounds on the River Dart near Galmpton in Devon, had been Christies’ dream house since childhood. It came on the market in 1938 at a time when Christie and her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan, were masterminding their escape from Torquay, which, as early as the 1930s, was rapidly falling from grace. [Visiting Cornwall and Devon: Is it a good idea? – Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia]
Christie refers to the house and grounds as “beautiful” and her summer home as “cozy”. There’s no argument to be had that architecturally the house excels in every respect, but of all the grand English properties that I have visited (the invites are overwhelming!), my take on Greenway House, or to be more precise its location, or to be more precise than that its singular isolation, is that it leans a little on the eerie side.
Greenway’s isolation is one of a particular kind. It owes much to the lay of the land and the place it occupies within that landscape. Yet, its sense of exclusion begins a mile or two before being vetted and admitted at the gatehouse. Once you have crossed this threshold, the perception of leaving the world behind intensifies immensely, growing proportionally stronger as you wind your way along the shadowy woodland lane to arrive at Greenway itself.
Unlike many English homes of its stature, Greenway House does not possess a sweeping, open driveway with statement views of itself and of a customised, limitless landscape. Closed in on arrival by the estate’s former stable block, since converted by the National Trust into a tea room and specialist shops, at the back and to the opposite side, the house is a claustrophobia, albeit an attractive one, of landscaped rock and foliate banks. A short gravelled forecourt, embroidered with a strip of lawn, lies at the front of the property, from which the ground slips steeply away under a formidable curtain of woodland interspersed with thickets of shrubbery down an eye-squinting awesome descent to a wide plateau of water belonging to the River Dart.
I have read reviews that claim that from Agatha’s former bedroom window lovely views are to be had across the Greenway estate, when, in actual fact, the view is restricted to the sliver of lawn that borders the house at the front, and below, way down below, through the mire of trees and bushes, the wide expanse of the River Dart, which, resembling a barrier moat, consolidates the feeling of being locked away and locked within. The seclusion is extraordinary, and its effect upon a fanciful mind more extraordinary still.
Not by choice but by fate decreed, the day that we had chosen to pay our respects to Greenway was the wettest day of the week. No sooner had we entered the house than the heavens poured forth its contents. Trapped within the house, which is trapped within the grounds, whilst trapped within one’s imagination, with the rain streaming down the windows in an endless succession of tears, it was easy to comprehend how vulnerability might find a mind encircled by circumstances such as these susceptible to its intimidation, and then inhabit it and haunt it with scenes of unspeakably brutal murder. In their own different but similar ways, Burgh Island and Greenway House are made to measure locations for the propagation and proliferation of such disturbing thoughts.
There’s a little of each of these locations in a good many Christie novels and considerably more of both in And Then There Were None’s Soldier Island: the inescapable reckoning ground where Christie’s helpless, hapless victims are lured to share a collective fate of serial execution.
As for the house itself, with the exception of the library, I would stop short of calling it cosy, at least with respect to the way in which the word is routinely applied: imposing, yes; interesting, certainly; intriguing, delightfully so; imbued with singular Christie character, of that you can be sure; but if cosiness, the ordinary cosy, the commonplace cosy, the little, the cute and the cushioned cosy, had ever made its home here, then someone or something had come along whilst we were busy splitting hairs on the nuanced notion of ‘cosy’, and quietly done away with it.
I think that it was done in the Max Mallowan dressing room, either with the fax machine or the script of Dead Man’s Folly signed by David Suchet.
Below – literary genius: A copy of the script from Dead Man’s Folly, filmed at Greenway House, inscribed and signed by David Suchet, the eponymous Hercule Poirot, together with first editions of Agatha Christie’s masterpiece novels.
Below – antiques & collectables: Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan were keen collectors. They loved antiques and curios. Greenway House is full of them. Even if the house hadn’t belonged to one of the most famous writers of all time, there is enough heritage on display to warrant more than one visit.
Below – over-fertile imagination:Quite easy to imagine any number of assailants lurking in the seclusion of the walled gardens, the undergrowth, in every nook and cranny, of which there are inconceivably many, and likewise behind every tree.Look at her, for example!
Below – bogged down in thought: If I lived at Greenway, I would thank the Lord every day that unlike the house I was brought up in, Greenway has an inside toilet. Would you want to venture late at night, outside, in the dark at Greenway! Thus, here I am on the Greenway throne, not exactly rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, but feeling rather cheeky all the same.
Below – Greenway library:During the Second World War, Greenway House was requisitioned by the US Coast Guard. The library, then the recreation room, became the canvas for a unique series of 13 murals, which travel across the frieze of all four walls.
The murals, which gain maximum impact from the four restrained shades used to create them — black, white, blue and khaki — tell the story of the US Coast Guard’s 11-month’s journey to England in preparation for the D-Day Landings.
When the property was decommissioned, Agatha Christie admitted that she had been “somewhat surprised” to discover on her library walls Lt. Marshall Lee’s ‘graffiti’. Fortunately, however, as well as writing masterpiece novels, she also seems to have possessed a highly developed sense of respect for our national heritage. She rejected the offer by the commanding officer of the US Coast Guard to have the frieze painted out, preferring to preserve it for posterity as another chapter in Greenway’s history, a memento of the Coast Guard’s stay and for its significance as a wartime record.
Above – Greenway library:Important point: During WWII, when Greenway library became the US Coast Guard’s recreation room, the bar was in the alcove.
Below – echoes of a past life:It is said that in taking on Greenway House the National Trust strove to preserve as much as was humanly possible of the home as it was when the Christies lived there. In this they did achieve, for you enter the property as a guest not in spirit as a paying visitor.
And then there was one (isn’t there always) who couldn’t find the pet cemetery As the rain eased off and the chance of getting soaked diminished, I finished soaking up the pre- and Agatha-Christie atmosphere of Greenway House, and, consulting the ground map of the estate given to me with my entrance ticket, went in search of, and never found, the Christie family pet cemetery. We did locate certain walled places, such as the tennis courts, the peach house, the croquet lawn and allotment, but the cemetery was not in the place where the map told me it would be. I knew I should have taken that course in elementary map reading.
As the appointed time rolled round to rendezvous with my brother — he hadn’t been prepared to pay Greenway’s 17-quid admission and had gone instead in search of fish and chips, which he found but never bought because they were too expensive — Olga wandered off to meet him where we had prearranged, leaving me alone with my map in the befuddling network of gardens.
With a few minutes to spare, I decided to explore further, wending my way at a pace through a series of narrow paths between the gardens’ dividing walls, which, without familiarity to tell me otherwise, took upon a maze-like character. Time conscious, I hurried along, passed beneath an old brick archway, found myself in a sunken garden alone with a trickling fountain, twisted my way through a rock ravine buried in ferns and backed with bushes, which hissed at me in the wind like rattled snakes in a steam iron, and, at one point having popped out briefly where I didn’t really want to be behind a garden gazebo, eventually materialised on a hard-surfaced lane wide enough for vehicular use and good enough for me.
You would have thought that being alone on a National Trust estate would hardly, if ever, be possible, but I was alone, quite alone, or was I? The strong winds rushing like panic through nature’s leafy and bowered confinement seemed to come from every direction, including the fourth dimension, instilling vulnerability, which I am sure our Agatha would have approved of, in my gathering sense of predicament.
There and then, I should have retraced my steps, should have headed off back to the rendezvous point, but the sight of an enormous tree stopped me in my tracks. It was a terrible magnificence, the scene of its uppermost branches spinning and writhing in wind-propelled ecstasy, that I felt the need at once to capture the wanton graphics of it, and, since the tree had no objections, or was otherwise preoccupied, I stooped as low to the ground as I could go (surely not at your age, Mick!) and took some lousy photographs. Alas, my smartarse camera proved itself insufficiently clever to adapt the lens to the angle wanted.
Fast developing cramp, and because the wind cried Mary, thrashing through the boughs of the trees and charging through the bushes like a machete wielding migrant let loose on the streets of London – it seemed to be a someone or failing that a something (a country, for example) descending into liberal madness – or was I merely thinking of my tumble drier at home (?), I gave up with a vengeance on my lonely pet-cemetery quest.
Having no desire to be remembered as victim number one in the unsolved case of the Greenway Murders (which, it would be postulated later, were committed by a psychopath, or psychopaths unknown, who, mesmerised by Agatha Christie’s 66 murder mysteries, all of which had been solved, had decided they would go down in history for getting away with the perfect murder at Agatha Christie’s home), I reviewed my situation with greater urgency than hitherto.
I wanted no part in this drama, that is to say the specific part that my predicament seemed to have singled me out for, so, with a furtive glance around me, and the wind in the trees growing louder than ever, I shoved my phone back into my pocket and nipped off rather sharpishly, not the way I had come, but back to Greenway’s ticket office via the tiny zig-zag path that runs down the bank at the side of the house. And do you know to this very day I couldn’t begin to tell you, even if I was that person who continually makes things up, where, exactly, on Greenway estate, Agatha Christie buried her pets. So, there’s another mystery for you; granted not a whodunit as such, more of a whereisitat, but a teasing, taunting mystery all the same.
You may wish to visit Greenway to solve the mystery of the missing pet cemetery and to reach those parts of Greenway, the famous boating house for instance, which the conspirators of rain and time prevented us from seeing — a good excuse for us to return again. You may also want to prove me wrong that, in contradiction of touristy websites, Greenway doesn’t do cosy, although, in its defence, I doubt that any house of its imposing size ever could or does. What Greenway has, however, is a lurking, lingering aura, which is as close a clue to homeliness as it gets.
The family photos on the grand piano, the umbrella in the hallway stand, the trilby on the table, the linen on the beds, there to create an effect you might say, but then how would you account for that essence of something else, that something quite intangible? The feeling that the house is waiting for those with whom it shared so many years of history, they who loved it and lived in it, to make their way back home again. It’s a persuasive sentiment and that’s a fact, yet is it a red herring? Do any of us ever leave the homes we really love?
Perhaps it really is true that ‘Time is just a mode of thought’. Perhaps this is the concept that holds the key to almost all life’s mysteries, including those we find ourselves in and find inside ourselves when we enter the gardens and beloved home of Agatha Christie’s Greenway.
On the sixth anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s Death
18 July 2025: Victor Ryabinin, Artist — A Grave Decision
As the sixth anniversary of our friend, Königsberg artist Victor Ryabinin’s, death approached, the established etiquette of paying our respects to him at his graveside was brought into question by a discourse on the imperative or expectations of doing so. The postulation was challenged by another: that unconditionally consecrating the memory of the deceased is greater testimony to everlasting endearment than obedience to the yearly ritual of paying homage at the grave.
Looked at from the departed’s point of view, having stepped out of mortal time to make room for eternity, like the fabled ten thousand men of the Grand Old Duke of York, who, when they were up, they were up, and when they were down, they were down, within the abyss of eternity, when we are there, we are there, and when we are not, we are here. Or are we?
In mortal terms, but not in the dominion of the mortal deceased, a time will come when everyone known to him personally — family, friends and work colleagues, indeed, in time, his entire generation — will no longer be soil-side up, an incommoding inevitability which is almost certain to make visitations of any order difficult, with, perhaps, the exception of the supernatural kind.
Never is this inability to reunite at the graveside more problematic than when you are in your own grave. And never is this fact driven more firmly home than when walking solitarily, consumed by quiet reflection, among the weathered and stooping tombstones within a typical English churchyard.
^^Grave of Samuel Treeby, Ringmore, who departed this life in 1828 …
Pull back the ivy and brush away the lichen and moss from the tombstone of your choice, and there you will find the names of those who lie beneath your feet. There is every possibility that they have been lying there for nigh on a hundred years or more, living their lives again and again, trapped inside the immutable time capsule that begins with birth and ends in death but which only culminates long enough to begin the process all over again. Not a single detail of their lives — our lives — is vulnerable to change, once the lid has been screwed down and the capsule sealed forever. Even Britain’s most fanatical revisionists, the history-rewriting BBC, who constantly lie to the young, are but fleetingly successful in their ideological ambition to reshape and corrupt the past. Their falsification of history may persist for a while, briefly, for a flirtatious interlude, but bound by the law of immutability, the past, when it does, as it will, eventually reasserts itself, all is reset as it should be.
In the last analysis, the already interred are safe, and we who are waiting to be interred, we are safe as well. Somewhere, out there, in our future, locked within our immutable time capsules, the dates and the details of our lives, literally written in stone, are irreversibly and unrevisably sacrosanct: date of birth, date of death and everything in between — nothing and no one can change that, not even those that hate you for living out your life without ever paying for a TV licence.
Comparatively, the world has changed considerably in the six years that Victor Ryabinin moved decisively out of time. Coronavirus, the Ukraine conflict, the shift towards, or constant references to the shift towards, a New World Order (most of us are patiently waiting for a world order of any kind!), I wonder what Victor would have made of all this. I am sure the events of the past few years would have elicited a sketch or two in his daily journal or sent him reaching irresistibly for his easel and his paintbrush.
All deaths are hard to accept, especially for those who are most affected by them, but the death of a creative person is perhaps among the hardest deaths to reconcile. The imponderable is forever present: what would they, the artist, have gone on to create had death not overtaken them? What gems of culture has the world been deprived of?
Victor Ryabinin, Artist – a Grave Decision
The death of someone creative who was also a valuable lynchpin between the lives of numerous people from different backgrounds and walks of life, as Victor professionally and personally was, adds to this imponderability, since once the main link breaks, instantly or gradually, the remaining links are bound to suffer severance, resulting, either way, in the chain’s disintegration. I wonder how many of Victor’s relatives, his friends and art-world colleagues will honour him with their presence this year. Time is often praised, and so it should be, for being the healer it indubitably is, but people are apt to forget that the great healer is also a great invalidator and that with the more time that passes, the more forgetful we become and the easier it becomes to simply forget.
Where anniversaries are concerned, particularly those that relate to death, it is often the case that, willed or not, life gets in the way. ‘Time waits for no man’, making it rather sexist, and life, the bugger, it just goes on until, of course, it doesn’t.
I remember watching a film in which somebody utters the common idiom to the main protagonist, whose fictional wife has recently died, [paraphrased] ‘Life must go on,’ to which the main protagonist replies, “Well, I don’t know about must go on, but go on it certainly does.”
I think we will all agree that life does exactly that: it just goes on, with or without us. Its perpetual motion never ceases: the daily grind with its wearing demands, the past’s emotional baggage bearing heavily down upon us, the cast-iron plans we make for a future we may not live to see, the years that blow away with yesterday’s confetti, more deaths in one’s personal circle and, with each successive page that lifts and flies from the calendar, even be they on angel’s wings, the encroaching prospect of one’s own demise getting ever closer and growing ever larger in one’s consciousness. Yes, I think we can safely say that life goes on alright, irrespective of who we are, what we are, who we weren’t, and who we would have liked to have been and nevermore can be.
The death of a loved one may slow us down, but however hard it slams on the brakes, nothing stops life’s carousel from turning. Life and the world are indifferent mechanisms: Around and around and around they go; why they do it, nobody knows. As one gets off, another gets on. The organ grinder keeps on grinding. Hark! He’s playing our tune. Hum along; it’s called ‘Tricked by Nature’.
It was Mr Wilcox who said to me, “We are fighting a war against human nature.” He went and died in Spain, you know. He imparted these words of wisdom to me when I was at an impressionable age. His words made a lasting impression.
I have often wondered since, as I wonder now, have most of us surrendered? Conscientious objectors to thought are everywhere, and if actions speak louder than words, think what they can do to logic. Losing is never impossible, but fighting on the losing side has its compensations: it relieves you of responsibility and releases you from a troubled conscience should you ever wake in the middle of parenthood with the words upon your lips, “Lord, what is it that I have done?!” The Grand Old Duke of York had ten thousand men, none of whom, like you or me, ever escaped their destiny: when they were up, they were up, and when they were down, they were down. And we’ll all be that way some day and forever.
And so it is with our dear friend Victor: born 17 December 1946, died 18 July 2019.
Victor Ryabinin in his art studio, February 2019, displaying a work of art – a bottle of cognac
I never made it to Victor’s grave this year. Intention was vetoed by humdrumicity. In other words, life got in the way. I did raise a glass to his memory and to who he was and would always be, consoling myself with the thought that I was exactly where I had left myself in the summer of 2019. That’s the other haunting thing that old graves have in common: the mourners never get to leave them, no matter how often they return or if they never return at all.
