An Englishman's Experiences of Life in Kaliningrad
Category Archives: DAILY LIFE in KALININGRAD
Daily Life in Kaliningrad
Daily Life in Kaliningrad is a category of my blog expatkaliningrad.com. It is, as the title suggests, devoted to observations, thoughts and opinions of what it is like to live in Kaliningrad, and it is written from the point of view of an expat Englishman. Unlike my diary category, Kaliningrad: Mick Hart’s Diary, the posts featured in this category are not necessarily linked to any specific timeline or date but are topic or theme oriented. For example, at the time of writing this brief description the category DAILY LIFE IN KALININGRAD contains the following posts:
A Day at the Dentists
One of the first reactions I received when I divulged to friends and colleagues my intention to move to Russia, apart from perhaps the obvious one, was what is the health service like? A not unusual preoccupation, especially with older people, because, let’s face it, as we grow older we fall to bits. I wrote this article about a trip to a Russian dentist’s partly in response to this question and partly because the experience surprised me. Well, we all have our prejudices; take real-ale drinkers and Watney’s.
International Women’s Day Kaliningrad
Now you would not think that an old and proud chauvinist like me would want to go on record as saying that I enjoy something as seemingly PC and ism-oriented as International Women’s Day, but in these days of tats, butch, Its, Others and Old Uncle Tom Cobbley, Russia’s nationwide display of affection and sentimentality traditionally symbolised by the giving of flowers to the fairer sex pulls wonderfully at one’s conservative heartstrings. Whether flower power and a kind heart were influential enough to pull at my wallet strings with regards to treating my better half to flowers is revealed in this article.
Self-isolating in Kaliningrad
Rather self-explanatory don’t you think? This, I believe, was my first article as the world entered the coronavirus maelstrom, since when expressions like ‘self-isolating’, ‘social distancing’, ‘lockdown’, ‘masks’, ‘vaccines’, ‘New Normal’ and so on have become the defining lexicon of the 21st century. I want my money back! When I was young, and I was once, I subscribed to a Sci-Fi magazine called TV 21. It was, as the title suggests, a preview of what it would be like to live in the 21st century. It was all about cities on stilts, suspended monorails, hover cars, people with metallic-looking hair and all-in-one shimmering silver jumpsuits. I, as with my entire generation, have been had! There was nothing in this magazine’s Brave New World prediction of open borders, social engineered societies, political correctness, sect appeasement, streets too violent to walk down, globalisation and global warming, anti-patriotism, revisionist history, stage-managed free speech or coronavirus. We were had! And, as we continue to self-isolate, there are those out there who believe that we are still being had. But I prefer to self-isolate …
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Daily Life in Kaliningrad
I am aware that Daily Life in Kaliningrad is not exactly overpopulated with articles. You can blame this on coronavirus ~ I do. Since making its debut, I, like almost everyone else who writes things, has had their focus ~ nay their lives ~ shanghaied by the why’s, what’s and therefores of this life- and lifestyle-changing phenomenon. This, let us hope it is only a, detour, is reflected in the disproportional number of posts that appear in my Kaliningrad: Mick Hart’s Diary category (sub-categories Diary 2000 & Diary 2019/2020) and my exposition category, Meanwhile in the UK, which is devoted to events in my home country, England, oh and sometimes the other bits: analysis, comment and exposés on UK media content together with cultural, historical and nostalgic subjects which appeal to my idiosyncrasies or are taken from the barely legible pages of my old and initially handwritten diaries.
We live in peculiar and interesting times, and as I consider myself to be first and foremost a diarist, it is as impossible not to be waylaid by events as they unfold as it is not to time travel. When you take the two together and place it within the context of somebody’s life, in this case mine, the impetus to write expatkaliningrad.com is not difficult to understand.
Once you understand Ded Moroz (Дед Моро́з) and yolka (елка), you’re halfway there
4 December 2025 – Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
They do things slightly differently in Russia at Christmas, or rather, they do things the same but at different times and with different names.
In Russia, Christmas falls on the 7th of January, not the 25th of December; New Year is acknowledged on the 14th of January, not the 1st of January; and New Year’s Day is the 1st of January. Hold hard! I thought you just said that New Year in Russia takes place on the 14th of January? Well spotted, that man! The reasons for this ambiguity are twofold: firstly, the Russian Orthodox Church uses the older Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar, the older being 14 days behind; and secondly, during the Soviet period, religious festive holidays were purposefully deposed in favour of secularity. Hence, in Russia, nothing remotely festive-like happens on the 25th of December, apart from me using it as an excuse to raise a glass or two; but, as in the UK and elsewhere, the 1st of January takes centre holiday stage.
In short, both Orthodox Christmas and Orthodox New Year continue to be observed and revered religiously, but Russia’s major and most popular public holiday takes place, as it does in the rest of the world, on January the 1st.
Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
Though Christmas, in the sense that we know it in the West, is conspicuously absent from the Russian yuletide agenda, certain Christmas traditions, such as decorated pine trees and Father Christmas, the bringer of gifts, have been carried over to the New Year festivities, the only difference being that Christmas trees are called ‘New Year’s trees’ and Father Christmas ‘Father Frost’.
The lead-up to the Russian New Year differs little from the UK, with one exception, which is that in Russia the New Year starts 11 consecutive times. Twelve midnight New Year’s Eve happens in Russia according to the time zone relevant to each region. Yes, Russia really is that huge.
In winter, for example, Moscow is three hours in front of the UK and Kaliningrad two hours. Such differentials used to play havoc with our Russian-themed UK New Year’s parties. We had no other option but to bring the New Year in three times in a row, viz., three countdowns to midnight and three choruses of ‘Happy New Year’, followed by three champagne New Year toasts. What else could we do?
Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
Russia’s New Year’s Eve follows a universal template, but as it is the most significant event on the country’s holiday calendar, you will be harder pushed than in the UK to find a place in which to celebrate unless you book really early. In my experience, bars, restaurants, hotels and the like, especially those offering New Year’s entertainment, can be fully booked by November or even, in some cases, fully rebooked from the previous year.
A ghostly scene. The Hotel Rus in Svetlogorsk awaits its New Year party guests, whom now will never come.
Organised New Year parties, ie those which come with a ticket price, are not everybody’s cup of tea or bottle of vodka. The emphasis of the entertainment is not so often spectatorial as it is participatory. An exuberant master of ceremonies, with little respect for the introverted, will enthusiastically fulfil the remit for which they are being paid by getting you up on your feet and making you participate in all manner of dotty games and bizarre forms of amusement. Even small stay-at-home gatherings carry with them no guarantee that they will be impresario-free. Thus, my advice, before you go, is to brush up on your dancing techniques, and if you have any acting skills, dust these down as well. Beer and vodka aforethought are a credible solution.
Wherever you are, be it at a slick entertainment venue or in someone’s private house, the ubiquitous television is sure to play a part. In this respect, the line-up is not so different from what you would expect to find on New Year’s Eve in the UK.
Get ready for an evening of star-spangled party-style shows, a celebrity bonanza. These rumbustious, glossy, champagne-soaked events, where the in crowd get to strut their stuff or merely dazzle the camera with their august presence and famous faces, only differ from their British counterparts insofar as they surpass them. Russian New Year TV shows have never been the same for me since Kabzon left this mortal coil, but these programmes seem to become each year a little more St Petersburg to Britain’s Peterborough city centre; they have a higher buttercream-cake ratio compared to Britain’s poor iced bun.
The New Year’s Eve ritual of counting down the hours, then the minutes and seconds to midnight is no less universal. On the much-anticipated knell of twelve, up goes the mandatory chorus, ‘Happy New Year!’, glasses chink, and it’s down the hatch.
One aspect of the New Year ritual, which thankfully we are spared in Russia, is that we are not disposed to suffer men parading in tartan skirts garbed in silly long socks, not long enough, however, to conceal their knobbly knees, whilst blowing up a barbaric device which looks and sounds like a tortured cat.
The New Year cometh
Midnight strikes, revellers shout, the Kremlin clock appears large upon the nation’s screens, the skies both near and far blister and flash with fireworks, the president makes his New Year’s address, the national anthem plays – a spirit-lifting anthem – and then it’s back to doing what Gaviscon and the gleeful makers of paracetamol would probably willingly sponsor us for should we ever forget how to DIY.
Some things, it seems, are different, and others never change no matter where in the world you find yourself over the festive season.
Mick Hart goes back to school … again (Not before time!)
17 November – ProSchool Kaliningrad: Can Mick Hart Make the Grade?
I recently did something that I thought I would never do: I went back to school. I didn’t go back to my old school, the Prince William in Oundle. They wouldn’t have me back. Besides, I was less there when I was there than I should have been.
English-language teacher Olga sprung this arrangement on me quite out of the blue, informing me that she had told her students that I would be coming into school ‘next week’ to say a few words to them. Words? I thought. What sort of words? Like, ‘Don’t neglect your studies, or you could end up like me, leaving school with zilch qualifications.’ Actually, the few words I would eventually say would be something along these lines, as the ‘lecture’ I would deliver would be a potted biography of my life during my years at school and after in the great beyond. “Good heavens,” I thought, “those Russian students are certainly in for a treat!”
The school I had been invited to is the combined primary and secondary school, Proshkola (English translation, ‘ProSchool’), which is based in Kaliningrad, Russia. You can read more about it in my previous post, Proshkola School, Kaliningrad: Inspiration in Action.
Public speaking
Although I have heard people say that I am an up-to-scratch public speaker, to be honest, I don’t much care for it. I do not mind the actual speaking — ‘It will be alright on the night’ is my fingers-crossed philosophy — but I’m not particularly overkeen on the preparation needed.
The last time I gave anything amounting to a public address was when I was required to make three on-stage appearances over a two-day period at the 2019 international classic and vintage car festival, The Golden Shadow of Königsberg. Following that event, I learnt lines for a short film in which I had a part called Last Tango in Königsberg, which ironically were overdubbed in Russian at the film’s post-production stage. Since then, my only speaking roles, if we discount pub banter, have been making toasts at Russian gatherings and eulogising when asked at funerals — something I am trying not to make a habit of.
I did, however, gain a distinction at a public speaking event in Oundle, but that was in another time and in a different world, 1970 to be precise. Olga suggested to me that I take this ‘historic document’, my public-speaking certificate, to show to the students at school, together with some school-day photos and other props that illustrated my illustrious educational history.
As the event was intended to be informal, we also took along with us various vintage cups and saucers, all bone china, of course, so that we and the students could partake of tea in the manner in which it should be enjoyed. One brave student went so far as to try tea the English way by drinking it with malacor (milk). I cannot for the life of me drink it any other way.
Apologising in advance for having the reputation of being one of the faster talkers in the West, I promised to ‘put the brakes on’, respectfully asking my young audience not to fall asleep or, should they not be able to help themselves, to disguise it as best they could. Heckling’s nothing to deal with compared to a barrage of snoring!
I prefaced my address by making what I consider to be an all-important distinction regarding my nationality and where exactly I hail from. “I am not British.” I said. “I am not from the UK. I am English. I’m from England, and that’s the way I like it!”
I could see from the look on their faces that they understood my every word!
It was a little more difficult explaining to them how I could have left school without obtaining a single qualification but would have received a doctorate had they awarded them for acting daft.
I also produced a school report from my days at Oundle Prince William School. Comparatively speaking, this report was not at all that bad — well, not as bad as some.
The report I value most, which is still in my possession, is one that I received from Oundle Secondary Modern School. (There was nothing modern about it!) ‘Chalky’ White, the school headmaster, wrote in that report, “If he would devote as much effort to his studies as he does to acting daft, then possibly he might get somewhere.” I didn’t, and I didn’t.
I left school to work on pig farms (good old smelly stuff), eventually swapping my dung fork for a sledgehammer when I embarked upon the demolition of Second World War bomber bases left behind in the late 1940s by the USAAF (the United States Army Air Force).
In 1976, I returned to education in order to take the ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels that I should have passed at school but didn’t. But it was worth it in more ways than one. My memories of Kettering Technical College, since renamed Tresham College, are better than gold-plated. In addition to fostering friendships with numerous Chinese and Malaysian students, fate introduced me to Richard Oberman, one of the most captivating and motivating English literature tutors I would ever have the good fortune to meet. His inspirational teaching and personal advice changed the trajectory of my life. He really was that influential.
ProSchool Kaliningrad
Proshkola (ProSchool) students are a commendable bunch. They indulged my efforts and never snored once. They certainly evinced greater levels of attentiveness and therefore scholarly promise than I ever aspired to when I was their age. (Belated apologies to Chris Lowe, Headmaster of Oundle Prince William School). ProSchool students and I overcame our shyness together. I in delivering my address, and they in asking me questions. Some of which I could actually answer!
I would like to offer my thanks, therefore, to ProSchool Director Alyona Pusko, for allowing me to return to school and for permitting me to strut my stuff in my own inimitable, if not flawed, fashion. My efforts did not go unnoticed. I earned myself a smiley face and the summation “his work has improved this term” on my latest report from Olga. I shall hang this document on the wall next to my public speaking certificate. 😊
Edited 30 September 2025 | First published: 3 July 2022 ~ Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions
It cannot be pleasant being the least liked prime minister in British history, but it should be remembered that Kier Starmer and his crew are only where they are today as a result of 14 years of Tory ineptitude, non-stop party infighting and off-the-chart bungling and incompetence. If the Cons hadn’t been so obsessed in beating Labour at its own wokist game, and Badenoch is a symptom of this absurdity, the foundations that they laid which paved the way for Labour’s accession would never have lost us our country.
This post, originally published in July of 2022, was a response to two inseparable misconceptions: first, that with work Boris Johnson could overcome himself and somehow run the country; and second, that Western sanctions would critically undermine Russia’s economic stability, which has proven to be far more resilient than the UK and its allies evidently anticipated. Here is that retrospective.
With Lithuania threatening to blockade Kaliningrad by restricting transit of goods from mainland Russia by train, the Latvian interior minister gleefully announcing that this proved that the West was poised to ‘take Kaliningrad away from Russia’1 and the prime minister of Poland making so much noise that it is difficult to tell whether it is his sabre rattling, his teeth chattering or something more personal knocking together, it looked as though once again the storm clouds had begun to gather over the former region of the Teutonic Order.
I cannot, however, say with any semblance of sincerity that, as the shadow slowly dispersed, the Kaliningrad populace breathed a sigh of relief, for, quite frankly, and not flippantly, but wanting as always to tell it exactly as it is, nobody — meaning nobody with whom in Kaliningrad I am acquainted — seemed to give a flying f*ck!
You can put it down to whatever you like: the Russian penchant for c’est la vie, faith in themselves and their country, a growing immunity to the West’s mouth and trousers or perhaps the absence of a corporate media that makes its fortune by pedalling fear, but, whatever you attribute it to, if the residents of Kaliningrad were supposed to feel concerned by the slew of sanctions and the threat of isolation, then think again, as it didn’t happen.
Perhaps the intended fallout never occurred because we were all too busy laughing at Boris Johnson’s jokes. For example, the one about the conflict in Ukraine, which, says Boris, would never have happened had Vladimir Putin been a woman. Woked the Downing Street clown, It’s the “perfect example of toxic masculinity,” causing me to ask myself what exactly is masculinity when it is detoxified? Is it where you rove around without wearing any pants with your gonads painted rainbow colours, or when you go into hiding like President Turdeau does whenever he hears a trucker’s horn?
To increase his chances of success in obtaining future employment with Robert Brothers’ Circus, Boris jocularly suggested during the G7 Summit that the leaders of the ‘free’ world (free with every packet of neoliberal dictatorship) should, to equal the manliness of Vladimir Putin, take off all their clothes, to which President Putin replied, and I think this is something we all can agree on, “I don’t know how they wanted to undress, waist-high or not, but I think it would be a disgusting sight …”2 It certainly conjured up an image far more frightful than any threat that the collective West had yet devised and had a far more psychologically damaging impact than the predictability of waging war with the globalist weapon of choice — sanctions.
Alack-a-day, as unthinkable as it is, if Boris wasn’t joking, then his latest remarks well might be some of the most stupid things he has ever said. However, it doesn’t necessarily follow. Occasionally, but seldomly, and most likely accidentally, Boris proves to himself, and others who care to listen to him, that if he tries, really tries, he is capable of utterances that seem at face value to make some sense, not much and not often, granted, but like miracles and wishes that sometimes can come true, the fantastic has been known to happen, which is more than can be said for anyone in the Labour party ~ or about any and all of the Labour party’s supporters.
Nevertheless, Boris old boy, you must admit that some of the things that you have been blurting out of late do have a rather silly public schoolboy wheeze about them. Now, were you the current President of the United States at least you could plead senility or, failing that, insanity. But be careful and beware! Keep on behaving in this childish manner and you’ll make yourself the perfect candidate for filling Biden’s boots when in a not long time from now Biden’s booted out.
Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions
I suppose that in moments like these, those of us who are old enough to remember, should simply take a step backwards and give thanks that we lived in the England of old, in the days of pre-gender bending. And though for most Winston Churchill has passed from living memory into history, note that the great man himself was endowed with more than his fair share of so-called ‘toxic masculinity’, even more, perhaps, than that which queerly circulates among whatever it is that charges around playing women’s rugby. And heaven be praised that Winston Churchill was such a toxically manly man, for had it not been so, we’d all be speaking German now. Mein Gott!
We don’t. And the dark clouds over Kaliningrad, like all the threats and nonsense leaching out from the G7 Summit, were nothing but storms in a teacup. The only positive outcome for those of us in the West who are rapidly losing faith in ever being blessed again with a real man for prime minister is that Boris kept his trousers on.
And yet, so as not to be accused of having been economical with the truth, I can confirm that a storm did break. After a glorious week of glorious weather, Kaliningrad and its region were suddenly plunged headlong into the most frightful and persistent series of electric storms imaginable.
For three days and as many nights, the firmament’s guts growled flatulently. Sheets of livid light flashed across the sky and, lying there in bed unable to sleep because of it, it was easy to imagine that the entire world was forked ~ forked, that is, with lightning!
Olga was in a right old tizz. To her it was a celestial sign, unequivocal confirmation that her tarot-card readers, crystal-ball gazers, soothsayers and the like, whose predictions she believes implicitly and to whom she refers collectively and in glowing terms as esoterics, whom I call snake-oil salesmen, had got it bang to rights: change was in the air; portentous and tumultuous change; a new bright dawn was coming.
Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions
As strange as it may seem, our normally vocal cat Gin-Ginsky had nothing to say on the matter, or if he did, he was keeping it to himself. He is a rather diplomatic cat. He doesn’t make jokes like Boris Johnson, which means he remains in favour and, unlike Boris Johnson, makes him rather easy to live with.
Considering him to be a little less slim than once he probably was, Ginger, not Boris Johnson, we recently changed his food to a brand called ‘Food for Fat Cats’, as recommended by those in the West who keep their clothes on at G7 Summits.
The word ‘light’ on the packet implies this food has dietary benefit. Ginger seems to love it. He scoffs it twice as fast as he did when eating his former brand and in ever-increasing quantities. Every now and again he will look up from his bowl and fix you with his ginger eyes as if to say, “Fat cat, indeed, I’ll show you!” Perhaps, the meaning of ‘Food for Fat Cats’ is ‘Food to make cats fatter’? I must remember to warn him that if he ever attends a G7 Summit not to take his shirt off!
Those of you who in the West, especially those among you who changed your Arsebook avatars to the colours of the Ukrainian flag and are now ashamed you did but never will admit it, are dying to hear, I know, how badly the sanctions are biting in Kaliningrad. That’s why I mentioned the cat: he’s biting into his grub. But I would be Boris Johnson should I lie and say that the price of cat food has not increased incrementally since the waving of the magic wand of sanctions. What other things have gone up recently (ooerr Mrs)? Have all of us in Kaliningrad been forced to change our diet? Are we all eating cheaper brands of cat food?
I know that an interest in this topic exists because lately a lot of people have been tuning into my post Panic Buying Shelves Empty. I can only presume that this is down to Brits kerb-crawling the internet in search of hopeful signs that western sanctions don’t lack teeth.
Instances exist, I will admit, when we, like our cat, are biting these days into different brand-named foods than those in which we used to sink our gnashers before sanctions were pulled from the hat. The reason being, I suppose, because the brands that we used to buy belong to manufacturers who have been forced into playing Biden’s game, Exodus & Lose Your Money.
Price increases in some food categories have been duly noted. Pheew, what a relief, I hear you say. If this was not the case, then the sanctions’ ideology would be more embarrassing than it already is for leaders of western countries who are ruining their own economies by having introduced them.
Were we talking beer? If we weren’t then, we are now.
With the advent of the sanctions, some beer brands are noticeably absent, although the earlier gaps in shelves have since been filled with different brands from different brewers from different parts of the world. Those brands untouched by sanctimonies, which is to say those that still remain, do reflect a hike in price, but as prices fluctuate wildly here during the best of times, it is simply a matter of shopping around as one always does, sanctions or no sanctions, for products that do not mug your pocket.
So, there in essence you have it. Not from the bought and paid for UK corporate media, agenda-led by globalist moguls, but from an honest-to-goodness sanctioned Englishman reporting from Russia’s Kaliningrad, who is willing to swear on a stack of ale casks, with one hand on his heart and the other on his beer glass, that life in Russia’s exclave under threat and sanctions has changed so little as to be negligibly different to life as it was in the days when sanctions were but an evil twinkle in the eyes of those whose machinations have ultimately let them down.
If you wanted to hear that the sanctions are working, I’m sorry I disappointed you.
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.
We aim to develop the best personal qualities in students, by Olga Korosteleva-Hart, English Teacher
25 May 2025 – Proshkola School Kaliningrad Inspiration in Action
In Proshkola school, Kaliningrad, teachers practise the humane pedagogy of Shalva Amonashvili, the ethos of the school being to evolve free-thinking minds, stimulate imagination and exercise inventiveness.
At Proshkola, teachers strive to establish mutual respect. Each student’s self-esteem is seen as a valued asset, an essential prerequisite for academic success and a foundation on which to build a sense of personal confidence, which will hold them in good stead as they journey from their school life into the adult world beyond.
Towards this end, therefore, there are no clichéd lessons and unproductive moralizing, no stultifying and exhausting homework, no terrifying, fearful tests and checks. At Proshkola, personal development, creativity and the cultivation of spiritual values are encouraged every step of the way. Here, students are given the faith they need to become the best versions of themselves.
For example, recently my seventh-grade students were given the opportunity to cast themselves in the role of island sovereigns, invested with the power to, among other things, legislate laws, promote food production, devise national costumes and establish national symbols with which to express the island’s unique identity.
The holistic nature of this project required students to explore their imaginative resourcefulness, harnessing creativity to the challenging but fun task of designing a fully functional island society with all that this entails, from workable economics to cultural norms and mores.
The results and satisfaction deriving from fun proactive tasks like this transcend mere education. They bring out the best in students. They empower and inspire.
[ProSchool] Proshkola School Kaliningrad
It is this creative spirit, this ethos of mutual engagement that sets our school apart. It is not a school of learning by rote, but a school that places the greatest emphasis on inspiration, interaction and results from collaborative teamwork. Our students’ aspirations and what they go on to achieve is how we, as a school, define ourselves. We never forget as teachers that success is symbiotic.
^During my last lesson with Year 7, I asked students to write a thank you letter to their classmates for something they had done for them during the school year. Two of them wrote to me. I finished the drawing which they had started. It’s times like this that make teaching so worthwhile – Olga Korosteleva-Hart
At ProSchool ~ https://vk.com/proschool39 ~ we strive to develop the best personal qualities in students.
Published with the kind permission of Alyona Pusko, Director, Proshkola School, Kaliningrad
A socio-cultural perspective on Russia’s cake habit contrasted and compared with and illuminated by one or two supplementary notes about having your cake and eating it in Great Britain
Revised 4 February 2025 | First published 26 March 2023 ~ Russia’s Love of Cakes Differs from the UK’s
Cakes. I don’t imagine for one moment that when somebody in the West mentions Russia, cakes are the first thing that spring to mind. Equally, I’m willing to wager that the UK media has written precious little lately, or written little at all, about the magnificent variety of cakes in Russia and the widespread availability of them in spite of those silly old sanctions.
They certainly would never divulge that the super-abundance of cakes in Russia is part of a western plot organised and funded by the Sorryarse Open Cake Society to swamp the Federation with cakes, similar to the way in which it is suffocating the western world with boat loads of useless migrants. I am not so sure about cake, but the spotted dick that they are creating is fast filling up with gritty currants.
Whoa now! Hang on a minute! Blin, yolkee polkee and blaha mooha! How dare you lump our delicious Russian cakes in the same inflatable dinghy with a gaggle of grinning third-world freeloaders destined for 5-star hotels at the expense of the British taxpayer!
Sorry, I stand corrected and in the same breath exposed. It is true that I am no Don Juan when it comes to loving cakes. However, as one of the last of the few true Englishmen, I concede to enjoying a nice slice of cake whenever the mood so takes me and, when the opportunity avails itself, regard it to be the perfect accompaniment to the English custom of afternoon tea.
All well and good, but neither affrontery apologised for nor my confessed willingness to embrace the odd iced cake rather than the swarthy migrant amounts to diddly-squat when it comes to explaining the cultural differences that set cake worship apart in Russia from similar proclivities in the UK.
Cakes are cancel proof
Cancel-proof, like most things pertaining to Russian culture, as the West is finding out and finding out the hard way, Russia’s love of cakes is in a sacrosanct league of its own. For example, it is not often, if indeed at all, that you will see men in the UK roaming around the streets with a big sticky cake in their hands. There is every possibility that you will see them holding another man’s hand, or, if you are really unlucky ~ or lucky if you are a professional photographer assigned to defining British culture ~ some other part of their brethren’s anatomy, but never a cake in hand. In the UK there seems to be an hypocritical subtext, an unspoken reservation at work, which, ironically, seems to imply that even in these enlightened times cakes and men together in public is tantamount to poofterism. Alack a day, but there you have it.
Russia’s love of cakes differs from the UK’s
Having thus established that men carting cakes around in public is not the done thing in Britland (but then what is and, more to the point, who is?), we arrive at a striking contrast. I’ve lost count of the number of times when entertaining at home (dispel all images of magic tricks, juggling, charades and karaoke) that on opening the gate to greet our Russian guests, at least one man will be standing there with a large stodgy cake in his grasp. As for dining out, I have yet to go to a restaurant with my Russian friends where rounding off a meal without a sumptuous sweet, most of which resemble cakes drenched in cream and syrup, would turn an everyday event into something of a precedent. Perchance it ever occurs, it would breach the unexpected like a hypersonic missile bursting through the dream of eternal hegemony. Cakes don’t come in on a wing and a prayer in Russia; they are part of the national psyche, in which whim and caprice can play no part.
The company Cakes R Rus is yet to be incorporated. The reason for this oversight is not immediately clear when cakes in Russia attract such popularity, but the greater mystery by far must be why in Russia are cakes so popular? It is a matter for conjecture, is it not, that often what presents itself at best as a half-baked explanation turns out in the long run to be remarkably overdone. Not so when it comes to cakes. Cakes are interwoven into every Fair Isled fabric of daily, popular and expressive life. Judge this on the merit that there are almost as many traditional sayings, remarks and literary allusions to cakes, and on matters pertaining to cakes, as there are cakes themselves. We will come to that in a moment.
Speaking from experience, all shops in Kaliningrad, that is to say all food shops, except the fishmongers, the butchers and the caviar sellers (add your own to contradict me), however small the shop may be, are guaranteed to stock one, two, even sometimes three, fairly chunky, big, round cakes, whilst supermarkets routinely offer flotilla to armada volumes of seductively sumptuous cake varieties, rich, lavish, opulent and sufficient in taste, size and price to float everyone’s cake-craving boat.
For the love of cakes
In addition to these generic outlets, Kaliningrad is no stranger to the small independent boaterie, sorry I meant to say bakery. There are any number of such bakeries (I won’t tell you just how many, for if I did that would be telling.), but the most noticeable because most prolific chain is undoubtedly Königsbäcker. Why not Kalininbacker? What a silly question.
Now we have both stopped crying, I will try to explain how the Russian perception of cakes differs to the perceived role that cakes play in modern British society and why; and in the course of doing so, you may suspect that you have stumbled upon a hint that enables you to answer the question, why in Russia are cakes so popular?
Exactly how the Russian cake mentality diverges from its English counterpart is not as subtle as you might first think. So, for all you cake lovers out there, let me try to explain. Here goes!
First and foremost, bugger The Great British Bake Off, an awful television prog which is opium for the masses. Like coronavirus, which also kept people at home glued to their televisions, The Great British F!*off most likely foreshadows something more dreadful to come, such as The Great British Bake Off in the Nude and I’m A Cake Get me Out of Here, currently previewing on the Secretly Ashamed Channel.
The Great British Bake Off, which I always find time to switch off, lost all credibility for me when one of the female contestants was allegedly discovered substituting Viagra for self-raising flour. When the cake flopped, she was most disappointed. Aren’t we all when our cakes don’t rise. But her story had a happy ending, three to be precise, for when the show was over, after tea and cake with three of the show’s male competitors, she left the studio a satisfied woman. So satisfied, in fact, that she continues to pay her TV licence even to this day!
Anyway, Great Bake Offs or preferably no Great Bake Offs, my experience has it that the celebritising of cakes has very little impact on consumer purchasing habits. UKers may gasp in unison when confronted on the goggle box by Big Cake El Supremo, but it’s a different story altogether when buying down Asda or Iceland. Small synthetic packet cakes are the type that Brits on average go for, something cheap and abundant, over-stuffed with sugar and small enough to fit inside one’s pocket. (Hey you, watch out! There’s a store detective about! “And what of it! They can’t do nothin’. It would be a violation of our subhuman rights. Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! He! He!”)
Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker’s man bake me a cake as fast as you can (The cherished belief that all bakers are highly motivated individuals lends itself to scrutiny)
It occurs to me (which is the get out clause to ‘it occurs to nobody else and why would it?’), that cakes in Russia are rather more special-occasion items than tear open a packet of Kipling’s as quickly as you like and let that be an end to it!
Kipling’s individual pies are probably not as bad as so-called experts on synthetics would like us to believe, although when shady and disreputable store owners infringe the sell-by date, and this happens with greater frequency than it should in the UK, especially in shops run by migrants, the pastry tends to be dry and falls in embarrassing flaky bits down the front of your jumper. In winter, when it may, or conversely may not, be snowing, such socially unacceptable things may pass by virtually unnoticed, but once the Christmas jumper emerges in all its dubious glory into the glaring spotlight of spring, the shards of pastry in which you are covered can begin to look like dandruff. Mr Kipling may very well make exceedingly crumbly cakes, but to stop yourself from being conned and from looking more like a bit of a prick in your unfortunate Christmas jumper, particularly when it is splattered with pastry, choose your cake stores carefully and always check the sell-by-dates, especially if you have no option ~ and options in the UK are getting fewer by the boat load ~ than to buy from P. Akis Convenience Shores, a disproportionate number of which are concentrated in Dover. I wonder why that is?
Inspired by my last comment, I am tempted to ask, do you remember the 1970s’ individual fruit pie phenomenon, characterised first by square pies wrapped in grease-proof paper and later round pies presented on a tin-foil base? Tasty, ay! But, alas, like most things in life, they tended to shrink as time went by. Any road, can apple pies truly be classed as cakes? I suppose they can if you drop the word ‘pie’ and substitute it for ‘cake’, and am I stalling because I have bitten off more than I can chew in my self-appointed role as Anglo-Russian cakeologist?
Russia’s love of cakes is holistic
As I have already said (I hope you’ve been paying attention!), cakes in Russia are rather more a special-occasion commodity than tear open a packet of Kipling’s as quickly as you like and get them down you in one mouthful before the pastry crumbles. Kipling’s individual apple … (ah, we’ve already covered that …).
Moving on: I am not suggesting that they, Russian cakes, are strictly reserved for special occasions such as births, weddings and funerals, but they often come bearing people, such as to get-togethers at home, to private parties, social gatherings and events of a similar nature. They also occupy pride of place among boxes of chocolates and flowers as a way of saying thank you to someone who has rendered a kindness to another mortal soul or has performed some function in their official capacity above and beyond the call of duty.
In these contexts, the cake’s presentation shares equal importance with noshability, which possibly explains why Russian cakes, with their white-iced coverings, frothy cream crowns, candy sequins and fruit-festooned exteriors, make our traditional English jam and cream sponges look like poor relations; same bourgeoise boat perhaps but not at all on the upper-deck with their ostentatious Russian counterparts. Sigh, how ironically times can change and ostentatiously do, and with them cakes as well!
But let’s not leave it here! Whilst we, the English cannot compete with glitz, there is still a lot to be said for our good old-fashioned sponge cake, something that wants to make you sing not ‘There will always be an England’, because it’s much too late for that, but ‘There will always be a sponge cake’. There is something solid, enduring, traditional, something reassuringly staid and respectfully no-nonsense about plain, old English sponge cakes; something wonderfully neo-imperial, boldly neo-colonial, something so 1940s in the sense of stiff-upper lip that frankly I am astonished that these thoroughly English cakes have not been singled out for special ethnic-cleansing treatment by ‘take a knee’ cancel-culturists, or cast like so many heritage statuesover walls and into ponds with the blessing of the left-wing British judiciary. Tell me, is it premature of me to feel even a little bit mildly complacent about the safety and sovereignty of the patriotic British cake? I’ll take a Tommy Robinson, please, he makes an exceedingly difficult rock cake for the soft under-dentures of the British establishment.
A socio-cultural perspective on cakes
The socio-cultural and historic significance of cakes may strike you as more than a mouthful, but history is replete with examples where the icing on the cake is the role of the cake itself. Spectacles such as birds flying out of giant cakes have been going on since the time of ancient Rome (not now, of course, due to animal rights laws) and scantily clad frosted women have been leaping out of oversized cakes since the 19th century (not so much today, however, because of the feminist movement). I am perfectly aware of the existence of the Cambridge Stool Chart, but tell me, is the feminist ‘movement’ in some way linked to this chart?
And you thought they were just coming in by dinghies!!
Literary cake tropes have fared much better than their visual counterparts. Boris Johnson (You remember him, don’t you?), who had a cake named after him and in Kyiv no less ~ where else?, borrowed and modified the well-known phrase, ‘Have our cake and eat it’ in his bid to convince democracy of the benefits of Brexit. What he forgot to tell us, however, was that behind the political scenes the British and French governments had cooked up a migrant shuttle service ~ one-way ticket only ~ thus ensuring that after Brexit the cake would be ‘had’ alright, had and eaten by others, nibbled away like vermin at cheese, leaving nothing but crumbs for the British.
Slightly more famous than Boris Johnson but not, as far as I am aware, cake enriched by name, is Mary Antionette. She is credited with uttering the oft quoted and immortal phrase, ‘Let them eat cake!’, and although in all probability she said nothing of the sort, her disregard for, or indifference to, the plight of her country’s poor (typical of the French) is nowhere near as offensive as the Conservative party’s debasing betrayal of Britain’s Brexit electorate.
Boris ‘The Fruit Cake’ Johnson, sometimes referred to as ‘that Big Cream Puff’, is not the only man in showbusiness to have had an honorary cake named after him. Other cake-named celebs include no less than Elvis Presley, as well as such Russian personalities as ballet dancer Anna Pavlova and the first human to leave our world by rocket, Mr Yuri Gagarin, both of whom the West zealously tried to cancel just because their cakes were better than Boris’s, an all-show but nothing-of-substance confection cynically whipped up in Kyiv in order to keep the ackers flowing. Boris’s cake was made according to Biden’s recipe (that’s Biden as in empty chef’s hat not as in Master Baker). My question is, therefore, that with all this cake naming going on, isn’t it about time that somebody in Russia baked a cake and named it ‘Kobzon’ in memoriam of my favourite crooner? Come on chaps! How about it!
Whist I wait for this honour to be bestowed, we will hold our collective breath in anticipation of Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter, Adolf Hitler, oh and don’t forget our Tony ~ Tony ‘Iraq’ Blair ~ having cakes named after their illustrious personages. And what about a ‘Boat People’ cake to celebrate the end of Western civilisation.
And what is so wrong about that? A good many famous people and not so famous events and places have had the honour of cakes named after them. The most obvious being Mrs Sponge, who lent her name to the sponge cake. No kiddin’! No, its a historical fact! Her first name was Victoria. She lived the better part of her life at 65 Coronation Crescent. (Source: Alfred ‘Dicky’ Bird). Crossword Clue: 7 across ‘Queen’; 5 down ‘custard’.
Another famous namesake cake is Battenberg, relating to Prince Cake, and in the towns and locale category, that is to say where places not people have given their names to cakes, we have the English Eccles cake, which obviously gets its name from Scunthorpe, and a cake we all love to bypass, colloquially known as Sad Cake, named as legend has it after the UK town of Wellingborough. It’s a ‘going there thing’: so don’t!
The metropolis has its own cake, historically known as the White Iced Empire but renamed in recent years, if not entirely rewritten, and consequently referred to by those who would rather it remained as it was as Double Chocolate Black Forest Ghetto. Also known as Chocolate Woke or, by those who have not had their brainwashed heads thrust right up their arses (This is the BBC!) as the Liberal Upside Down cake. It is often confused with the Fruit-Bottom cake which, though far from all it is cracked up to be, sells like proverbial hot cracks during Londonistan’s Gay Pride month. If you have the extreme good fortune to be in the UK capital during that poof-pastry period, do make sure to skip lickety-split down to London’s Soho, the geographical and moral-less centre of LGBT fame, and treat yourself whilst you are there to a slice of the famous Navy Cake from Hello Sailor’s bun shop or a ‘once tried never forgotten’ Golden Rivet Muffin from the café El Bandido’s.
All of this, I am pleased to say, is a very long way away from Kaliningrad and its culture, and everybody who lives in Kaliningrad is also pleased to say, may it, with the Good Lord’s help, long remain that way.
Meanwhile, whilst you sit there wondering which of the world’s biggest cakes ought to be named after you, if there is anything in this treatise on Russian/British cakes which you think I haven’t covered, if you really feel that you must, then jot down the one or two points you believe I might have missed and consign your trunk full of comments to ‘Care of the Cake in MacArthur Park’ . It’s only right and proper since ‘It took so long to bake it …’
Please note: At the time of writing, Starmer hasn’t had a cake named after him yet, but according to one political commentator, a man who narrowly escaped debasing himself by appearing on the Great Bake Off, who understandably wishes to remain anonymous, when that great cake day eventually dawns Starmer’s cake is bound to be called something resembling CurranT, with the capital ‘T’ standing for ‘Taxes’ and some of the letters in between omitted. That one’s got me really foxed?
Vintage sponge cake: I found this image at <a href=”https://freevintageillustrations.com/vintage-sponge-cake-illustration/?utm_source=freevintageillustrations&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=downloadbox”>Free Vintage Illustrations</a> / https://freevintageillustrations.com/vintage-sponge-cake-illustration/
Nursery Rhyme Baker’s Man: I found this image at <a href=”https://freevintageillustrations.com/pat-a-cake-nursery-rhyme-illustration/?utm_source=freevintageillustrations&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=downloadbox”>Free Vintage Illustrations</a> / https://freevintageillustrations.com/pat-a-cake-nursery-rhyme-illustration/
Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Double Mother T.
Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad
29 January 2025 ~ Double Mother T. Double Chocolate Stout Rewort
A brother of mine who came and stayed in Kaliningrad refused to drink and eat with us at the restaurant of our choice. He claimed it was too expensive. He ate and drank in a place overlooking the Upper Pond. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he chided. “You get a big pot of green tea and a large burger for next to nothing. It’s f*cking handsome!!”
Unburdened by his eloquence, I am not about to say the same or even something similar about Rewort’s Double Mother T. For starters, I wouldn’t dare, as the tin leaves me awestruck.
Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu MC, better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa was, I’m sure, a dear old soul, but whatever is she doing staring out at you like that from the side of a lowly beer can?
Unless you are one of the chosen devout, and if you are, you most likely frown on the wickedness of beer drinking, purely in brand marketing terms the presence of dear Mother T is not arguably a horse you would willingly back, and yet the one thing it doesn’t do, this image, is put you off enough to prevent your curiosity from taking the can from the shelf.
Let’s pause here a moment to reflect on the packaging. It is purely and simply a work of art, not just in its visual makeup but also in its tactility. If you see this can in a shop, you will feel the need to pick it up, and when you feel the texture, you will feel the need to buy it. After all, if it tastes as good as it feels, you are on your way to a winner.
Double Mother T. is sometimes described as an imperial stout. There are two stories circulating in Russia’s beer circles pertaining to the genre imperial stout. The romantic one has it that imperial stout was commissioned by the Russian Imperial Court, brewed in Europe and then shipped to Russia by sea. The legend goes that the brew owes its strength to the safe passage of the beer, which needed to be highly hopped and amply infused with alcohol to preserve it on its long sea voyage. Story number two is somewhat less adventurous. It suggests that the Russian Imperial Court liked its beers rich and strong, and wallah! Mother T!
I confess, and I felt the need to do so as soon as I saw the tin, that I prefer the sea-salt legend, with its accent on discernment, rather more than I do the notion of the Russian Imperial Court looking for a recipe on which to get pissed quick. I could go on to gild the lily, alluding to sailing ships of oak, the billowing of the unfurled sails, the splashing foam of the ocean waves as the bow cuts through the silver-blue briny, but all of that means nothing to me. I am a steadfast landlubber, who is not fit to shovel (Could you help with a rhyme?) coal from one ship to another.
I confess, however (I’m at it again. It’s that picture of Mother T.), that when it comes to sinking beer, I’m an admiral in this league.
Piping myself on board, therefore, which is something I do with aplomb, almost with as much dexterity as when I blow my own trumpet, although the packaging of this brew both worried and attracted me, I was not altogether convinced that Double Chocolate Stout x 2 would partner well with crisps and peanuts. Would it be, do you think, as chocolate as double chocolate could be?
The answer is ‘Yes, it would!’ You can say what you like about this stout, using predictable beer-reviewing words such as ‘notes’, ‘hints’ and ‘tinctures’, but I am willing to swear on a stack of Mother Ts that when I pulled the seal from the can, chocolate, no, double chocolate, enveloped my old olfactories, just as it used to do when I lived in Norwich and regularly parked my car outside the since defunct chocolate factory; Rowntree’s, I think it was.
It was chocolate in the can; chocolate up your nostrils; and with some, as it turned out to be, unnecessary trepidation, it was chocolate in your mouth. And if you were clumsy and spilt it, it would be chocolate down your trousers.
I deduce, like Sherlock Holmes (I’ve got his hat!), that a single version Mother T. would not be as deep as the double version and also less in strength. At 6.9%, Double T. delivers a clout, but its gloves are lined, made of silk and black, so you do not see it coming (a bit like being mugged in Brixton) and when you do eventually feel it, the blow befalls you like a gentle caress (which is not at all a bit like being mugged in Brixton).
The finish is chocolate; the aftertaste ~ you’ve got it! ~ that is chocolate too. The cunning combination of chocolate, beer and alcohol makes for a strongly addictive beverage. “Whatever next!” I hear you cry, “Cigarette-flavoured beer!”
The all-round from start-to-finish taste is inescapably rich, so forget about winning the lottery. And each successive sip pays dividends; it just gets richer as the can goes down. I could drink this anytime, but preferably in winter when the nights are drawing in and the fire is blazing cozily in the hearth, but I would not want to drink it with a bowl of trifle in one hand and a chili sandwich in the other just before going to bed. How you could do this anyway, unless you had a third hand, is a matter for conjecture, preferably undertaken when wearing Sherlock Holmes’ hat whilst sipping upon a glass of imperial stout.
You have to hand it to the Rewort Brewery, when all is said and done, their Double Chocolate Stout is, with due respect for piety, one helluva beautiful beer!
My apologies to Mother T.
BOX TICKER’S CORNER Name of Beer: Double Mother T. Brewer: Rewort Where it is brewed: Sergiev Posad, Russia Can capacity: 0.5 litre Strength: 6.9% Price: It cost me nowt ~ it was a present; average price 210-290 roubles (£1.72-£2.38) Appearance: Jet black Aroma: Chocolate on chocolate Taste: Chocolate Fizz amplitude: 0 Label/Marketing: Different ~ to say the least Would you buy it again? Yes, yes and yes
Beer rating
The brewer’s website has this to say about Double Mother T.: Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anything to say. But here is the website: https://rewort.ru/
Wot other’s say [Comments on Double Mother T. from the internet, unedited] 🤔Unfortunately, no. A very sweet aftertaste that does not hide a dense body. The double is not felt at all. The last similar one that comes to mind was a brulock with condensed milk. But there was a good stout and quite cheerful and recognizable condensed milk. This one is somehow out of place. [Comment: Do you know what he is talking about?] 😲Not bad at all, but there’s a shitload of yeast floating around, that’s a minus, of course. [Comment: There’s a ‘shitload’ of something floating about, and it’s not yeast!] 😑 Dark chocolate with coffee, thick, but has a slight heavy aftertaste, not something you can drink often. [Comment: Often, yes; a lot of, no.] 😂This stout was a lot easier to drink than the image on the can is to look at whilst you are drinking it. [Comment: No comment.]
4 December 2024 ~ Russia Day in Kaliningrad Honours Past and Present
RUSSIA DAY has been celebrated annually on 12 June since 1992. It is the national holiday of the Russian Federation, originally and officially known as the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), but that was a bit of a mouthful, even for Russians, so mercifully it was changed in 1998, so that even I can say it.
The idea that the Russian calendar is dominated by celebrations is not entirely misleading if you factor in everything from music, film, theatre, food, famous people to winter. However, Russia has no more public holidays than most other countries ~ eight, I believe.
Just like Bank Holidays in the UK, most public offices and schools are closed on 12th June. It’s a national day off, with events taking place throughout the country.
It’s also a chance for Russians to revisit, remind themselves of and celebrate all things Russian.
For some people, older people, those who were brought up in the USSR, the day has different significances. For those who bemoan the loss of the Soviet Union, it is a day of fond, if not sad, remembrance; for those who answer ‘No’ to my question, “Do you miss the Soviet Union?”, it is a day to celebrate pre-Soviet history, the Russia of the here and now and/or the Russia of the future.
Without mastery of the crystal ball to preview destiny, at least two of these time periods coalesced in Kaliningrad’s 2024 Russian Day festival. Held in the attractive grass and meandering paved precincts bordering Königsberg’s Upper Pond, Russian culture and its past were brought evocatively to life in colourful costumed pageants, tableau vivant and displays of living history. Craft stalls of a multifarious nature plied their trade in traditional hand-made Russian goods, augmented by the up to date and novel to attract the eyes of children and appeal to less retrospective types.
Also at hand was costume and fine jewellery, which, If you failed to keep your navigational wits about you, could eventually end up on the hands, around the wrists and upon the neck of your wife or girlfriend.
“Look, over there! [away from the jewellery stalls]. There’s a very interesting, er, what do you call it, thingymajig.”
June, like most other months of the year, can be temperamental (I knew a girl called June once. Heaven knows why they christened her that, they would better have called her December.), but I am pleased to say that on the twelth day of this June, the clouds rolled back in the heavens, the sun came out to join us and Russia Day in Kaliningrad was a gala day to remember.
The English are told to celebrate everybody else’s culture (hint almost everybody else’s!) Unfortunately, the English, what’s left of us, have no such state-ordained or government-supported equivalent to Russia Day; in fact, quite the opposite. We are encouraged to celebrate Black History Month. (I’m sure they would like to extend this to Black History 12 months, which they are doing anyway via the TV commercials.) Headlines in the liberal press exhort us to learn about everyone else, all except ourselves: “What you should know about Ramadan and Eid” “What you should know about Diwali” and “What you shouldn’t know about any of your own Christian festivals, coz it don’t matter!”
St Patrick’s Day is a public holiday for the Irish, but St George’s Day (the Patron Saint of England) is hardly recognised anymore and deliberately suppressed by the left, who are afraid that it could remind the English of their ancestral history, and thus consolidate their cultural identity, which they, the left, have for some time now been working hard to eradicate.
One black activist operating in the UK has put it on record that in his opinion the English do not deserve a day off to celebrate its culture. I should imagine that the English feel that they don’t deserve him.
Hopefully, Farage and Reform will change all that in the very near future! 👍
Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)
23 November 2024 ~ Baltika 8 Wheat Beer in Kaliningrad
Article 26: Baltika 8 Wheat Beer
A wheat beer is a wheat beer is a wheat beer. That’s that then! No, not quite. This particular wheat beer, the one I am reviewing at the moment, comes in a nice waisted bottle, with a gold brand-named collar, an embossed medallion and a gold-banded label.
It’s Baltika 8.
It’s billed as wheat beer, smells like wheat beer and has a wheat-beer taste ~ you can’t go wrong with wheat beer.
The first sip is, now, let me see, wheaty ~ as it should be, since the beer is brewed from wheat. The bottle does have ‘Wheat Beer’ written on it, and it also says Baltika 8. I wondered why the ‘8’? Was it because it was brewed from 8 different kinds of wheat? That it took 8 brewers to make it? 8 weeks to brew it? Does 8 pints make you really drunk? Is the 8 supposed to rhyme with something like ‘gate’? ie ‘After 8 pints of Baltika 8, I had considerable difficulty closing the gate’, or ‘8 pints of Baltika 8, left him in a right old state’’.
What the 8 might stand for is 8mm of head, which dissipates in less than 8 seconds, but hey! It’s wheat beer and that’s what wheat beer does!
PS: I’ve been told not to be so stupid. Baltika 8 contains eight nuances of taste.
Normally, wheat beer is good and cloudy but, in Baltika 8’s case it’s good and cloudy, too. The opaqueness of it let’s you in on the secret that the brew is unfiltered, signalling that the beer is rich in protein and other biologically good-for-you substances.
Baltika 8 Wheat Beer in Kaliningrad
I know you can’t wait to say that I added the last bit as it was beginning to become more than apparent from what you’ve read so far that I cannot tell the difference between one wheat beer and the next. My sentiments with regards to this are that if I was mugged by one in London’s Brixton and they put it in a police line-up, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one it was who did it. They’re all the same to me.
What I can say without fear of calling myself a liar is that the price of Baltika 8 is not daylight robbery, not at 85 roubles a half litre for a yummy beer made from wheat. It’s somehow pleasing to see that the price of Baltika 8 has an ‘8’ in it. (“Innit!” ~ a fan from south London)
It is difficult to say whether Baltika 8 has more wheat in it than other wheat beers and, even if it does, if someone was to place Baltika 8 Wheat Beer in a dark room with seven other wheat beers whether I would know the difference after tripping over one of them. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know Jack from Jill. Well, you can’t these days, can you!
If I had to make a definitive statement about the quality of Baltika 8 without recourse to comparison, I would say ‘Bingo!’ ~ Baltika have got this one right! It is a good, tasty brew, with more body than Chicago during the prohibition era. What really endears me to it is that the taste lingers on. If it was a criminal record, it would certainly be a long one.
The best way to enjoy a bottle of Baltika 8 Wheat Beer is to sort the wheat from the chat.
Cheers!
😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS Name of Beer: Baltika 8 Wheat Beer Brewer: Baltika Breweries Where it is brewed: St Petersburg, Russia Bottle capacity: 0.5 litre Strength: 5% Price: It cost me about 85 roubles (0.65 pence) Appearance: Foggy Aroma: Wheat with subtle abstracts Taste: Wheat Fizz amplitude: 4/10 Label/Marketing: Gold but not too bold Would you buy it again? No reason not to Marks out of 10: 8
*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.
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