Category Archives: Diary 2019/2020

9th May Kaliningrad Social Distancing

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 52 [10 May 2020]

Published: 11 May 2020

Yesterday was the 9^th May, which is not surprising as today is the 10^th May. But here, in Russia, the 9^th May is one of the most important day’s in the nation’s calendar. It is, of course, Victory Day, the day when the nation celebrates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.

As I wrote in my blog post, Thoughts on 9th May Victory Day Celebrations 2002/2020 , this year Coronavirus upstaged the ceremony as it has everything and everywhere.

In lieu of the parade and formal celebrations that would have been held on the ground in Kaliningrad, we learnt from online local news that there would be a military flypast, which was scheduled for 10am.

Now, I am not entirely sure who got what wrong, but we were out of bed and on the terrace by 9.45am and, like our neighbours, gazing skywards. Nothing? Apart from a lovely blue sky.

Blue skies 9th May Kaliningrad Social Distancing — **A remarkable display …** (Photo credit: Junior Libby [Link] https://www.publicdomainpictures.net)

Either the news feed was wrong, our clocks were caught up in one of those coronavirus conspiracies that everyone is talking about or else? I wondered if the planes that they were using were one of these new stealth jobs: so swift, so fast and so ultimately undetectable that they were there, but we just could not see them?

If this is the case, then airshows of the future are likely to be extremely challenging. Imagine thousands of spectators staring into the azure, a collective sweep of the head, deep intake of breath, loud round of applause, appreciative mumbling: “Wasn’t that a …” and “The way he, you know …” and “I really liked the, er, yes …” On the positive side, such airshows would be relatively easily to organise, inexpensive, no safety problems to worry about and the pilots could all stay at home, thereby running no risk of breaking social distancing rules, which is more than could be said for the spectators.

9th May Kaliningrad Social Distancing

Made of sterner stuff than you may think, we did not let this blip on the horizon, which we thought we almost saw, phase us, but continued to pay tribute on this special day as we had planned.

As I have said, it was a glorious spring day, and this enabled us to hoist a large red velvet soviet flag from the superstructure of the terrace canopy. This flag, of genuine vintage, has on one side a symbolic image of Vladimir Lenin and on the other the Soviet hammer and sickle emblem together with the names of the constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Our immediate neighbours across the way had erected a Soviet victory flag and as we are people of many flags, we were able to give our neighbours on the ground floor another soviet flag, which went well with the patriotic marching music that they were playing from their gazebo.

Who is losing it?

During the day, my wife, Olga, occupied herself in what has become, sadly, as much a part of the annual event as the event itself. The controversial discord of who exactly won the war ~ was it the East or the West? This year the argument descended to a new level of bitter acrimony, thanks to what a friend of mine described in his usual vernacular as a lot of ‘shit stirring’. He spoke of deliberate attempts in the United States to abnegate acknowledgement of Russia’s decisive contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

As if airbrushing out the Soviet Union’s inestimable role in defeating the Germans was not enough, adding insult to injury came, apparently, in a White House Tweet ‘On May 8, 1945, America and Great Britain had victory over the Nazis! “America’s spirit will always win. In the end, that’s what happens.”

Judging by the indignant comments on various Facebook posts, if this was a deliberate misappropriation, I would have to concede, using a football analogy, that someone in the US Revisionist Department has scored an own goal. It is bad enough having to endure relentless and politically motivated revisionism of historical TV dramas, but please could you desist from insulting our intelligence by trying to rewrite history itself. How about victory in WWII came about as a combined effort. As the refrain from the old 1960s’ pop song goes, “Wouldn’t it be nice to get on with me neighbours …”

Come the evening of 9^th May, we were ready to sit down, relax and toast Olga’s derdushka for the part that he played in the war. The history of my wife’s grandfather is a rather interesting one and one that I hope to research and elaborate on at a future date.

She posted this brief biographical detail about him on Facebook: Alexei Dolgikh (1910-1987) MVD Kaliningrad

Immortal Regiment Alexei Dolgikh

Alexei Dolgikh (1910-1987) MVD Kaliningrad

Published: 10 May 2020

My wife shared the memory of her grandfather, Alexei Dolgikh (1910-1987), on the 75^th Anniversary of the Great Patriotic War, via social media, Facebook.

“With Victory Day approaching, I decided to share the following information about my grandfather, Alexei Dolgikh, Immortal Regiment.

“My grandfather Alexei Dolgikh (1910-1987) was born in Perm, where, before WWII, he worked as Secretary of the Komsomol District Committee. When the war began, he was transferred to an Officer’s College in the Far East (Nakhodka). After graduation, he was sent to the front. He took part in the Belorussian Front Military Offensive and was awarded the Medal for Bravery.

A young Alexei Dolgikh

“When taking part in the East Prussian Offensive, he was wounded in the Battle of Königsberg on the Kurshskaya Spit. He finished the war with the rank of Captain. When discharged from hospital after the war, he was asked to stay in Königsberg to serve in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). He studied law and graduated from the Central Committee Party School in Moscow. He worked as Head of the Police Training College, retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Deputy Chief of the Regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Kaliningrad Region.

Thought to be taken around the time of the Russian Revolution: Alexei Dolgikh centre

“In spite of the fact that my grandfather was subjected to Stalin’s repressions and lost his health whilst imprisoned in one of the Gulags, until the end of his life his favourite toast was “For Motherland, For Stalin!’’

With colleagues of the MVD. Alexei Dolgikh third from left

“He believed that Soviet power was power for the people, a liberating power that gave him and other ordinary people the opportunity to realize their dream of free education, access to free health care and free housing.

“And he had it all, an ordinary boy from a peasant family in the Ural Mountains. Before the revolution this would have been impossible for people like him.

Alexei Dolgikh Immortal Regiment

“Throughout his life he loved poetry and music. His favourite poet was Sergei Esenin and his favourite music Russian folk songs. He wrote poetry himself and sang in the local choir until the age of 75, even when he became blind as a result of the torture he suffered whilst imprisoned in the Gulag.

“I will always remember him as the most loving and compassionate person I have ever met in my life. He was an example for me to follow — a man who loved life regardless of the hardships he endured.”

A toast to Alexei Dolgikh, 9th May Victory Day 2020

9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad

Thoughts on 9^th May Victory Day Celebrations 2002/2020

Published: 9 May 2020

9 May is an important day in the Russian calendar. It is the day when the entire Russian nation pays homage to the sacrifices made by their forbears in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. Each year an impressive military parade is conducted in Red Square, Moscow, and simultaneous events are held throughout the country to commemorate the 27 million Russians ~ military and civilian ~ who died in the Second World War, the highest loss of any country.

Western leaders have been snubbing the parade for years, evidently finding it far easier to rewrite history than acknowledge the inestimable contribution made and loss suffered by Soviet Russia in defeating Nazi Germany.

Whatever underlies the political motivation and projected end game of such revisionism, apart from the obvious, provocative disrespect, it is pointless speculating on as, thanks to coronavirus, the world’s events are cancelled pending further notice.

As many as 15,000 soldiers have been stood down, and so has Mick Hart. I was looking forward to the celebration this year and was contemplating a trip to Moscow, but then along came a little round thing with trumpets stuck all over it and put the mockers on that.

9th May 2002 Kaliningrad

The last time that I attended a 9th May event in Russia, I was in Kaliningrad. This was way back in the mists of time, 2002, but I remember it vividly: bright sunny day, warm, blue sky ~ perfect.

As we walked towards the park, the hub of the celebrations, the first thing that struck me was the sheer volume of people that had turned out. It was relatively early, well, around 10am, and the streets were inundated. The second observation was that the age range extended across the entire generational spectrum, from the very young to wartime veterans. Within that broad swathe of people, teenagers and young adults from 14 years old to late 20s were well represented.

The latter seemed odd to me as this was and still is distinctly not the case in England. Our equivalent of Russia’s 9^th May is V.E. Day, 8^th May. It is officially acknowledged and in the past few years the tradition of street parties has been resurrected in some places, but both it and Remembrance Day, which is held on 11^th November each year, attracts fewer and fewer young people.

I can appreciate, or at least understand, the disinterest for non-heritage youth but the sad fact remains that even legacy-UK youth have very little time, very little interest and even less respect for the sacrifices made by previous generations, let alone those that continue to be made by our serving military.

In more recent years, the very act of remembering the debt we owe to our armed forces has become a victim of a socio-political pincer movement, caught up in the machinations and fripperies of social engineering and political correctness. Pathetic spectacles of the red poppy, the traditional symbol of remembrance and peace, being burnt by dissident immigrants whilst the usual suspects on the left agitate to expunge the tradition, ostensibly on the grounds that it offends the sensibilities of certain foreign groups and sects, but really as part of a broader cultural purge, is grist to the carnival mill of neoliberal politics. But the real disrespect lies not in these sideshows, but in a cultural revisionist programme which invidiously subtexts the UK education system from primary school to university level.

Thankfully, the wind of change is blowing from various directions ~ even from a coronavirus one~ and achieving positive confluence, so perhaps there is hope for us yet?

From angst to Hallelujah in three paragraphs!

9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad

Meanwhile, back in Kaliningrad, Russia, 9 May 2002.

As we were walking Olga introduced me to two WWII veterans. The first was ex-Soviet Navy and the other Merchant Navy, and my presence at the celebration was warmly welcomed by both. Because of my involvement over the years with 1940s’ re-enactment and living history groups and through personal associations made when we ran a vintage and antique warehouse, I have been fortunate in that I have had many opportunities to meet and converse with veterans from various countries and from different services of the armed and auxiliary forces. It is 75 years since the close of the Second World War and each year the number of surviving veterans dwindle. I am grateful that I have had the chance to meet and speak to this remarkable generation before the era in which they lived and the experiences they encountered fade from living memory into history.

On our return from the war monument and park where the celebrations were being held, I would have the chance to meet more veterans, but first we went to place the flowers we had brought with us on the steps of the war monument next to one of Kaliningrad’s eternal flames.

Mick Hart at 2002 Victory Day celebrations, Kaliningrad, Russia

Placing flowers at the 1200 Guardsmen monument, 9th May 2002, Kaliningrad

Mick & Olga Hart with Russian Soldier at the 1200 Guardsmen monument

Photo-shoot opportunity with Russian soldier, 9th May Victory Day celebration, Kaliningrad, 2002

The 1200 Guardsmen monument, which was constructed a few months after Soviet troops wrested what was then Königsberg from the Germans, is arguably one of the most dynamic sculptures and wartime monuments in the city, and a fitting tribute in scale and drama to the fallen soldiers whose remains occupy the mass grave by which it stands and marks. The gas-powered eternal flame burns in front of a tall, carved obelisk. Behind and set back from the obelisk a curved wall bears the names of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the four days of savage urban warfare which it took to take the city. At either end of the wall, on massy plinths, two figural groups of soldiers storming into battle capture the cost in death and the glory in memory of what in its entirety is a truly awesome ensemble.

Mick & Olga Hart wedding day at the 1200 Guardsmen monument. Kaliningrad

Mick & Olga Hart, Wedding Day 2001. Photograph taken at the obelisk of the 1200 Guardsmen monument, Kaliningrad

This was not my first encounter with the monument. We had been here before, on 31^st August 2001 to be precise, on the afternoon of our wedding, when, in keeping with Russian wedding tradition, we had placed flowers on the monument steps, as we were doing today.

‘Kasha’ dispensed from a mobile military unit, 9th May 2002, Kaliningrad

From here we descended the steps into the park and walked towards a row of tables at the far end, where, my wife informed me, I would be able to refresh myself with mineral water or tea. There was quite a crowd assembled in front of the tables, and, as we drew nearer, I saw in the background, two or three old Soviet mobile ‘soup kitchens’. Olga revealed that on this occasion they were serving ‘kasha’, hot porridge. My inclination was to avail myself of a glass of water or tea, as I was parched, but lo and behold, as we arrived at our destination I found that not only was there free water and free tea but also free vodka! Well, it was far too early in the day for me to say no, and besides as the friends who we were with had already helped themselves to a glass apiece, it would, to coin a phrase, have been rude not to.

Partaking of vodka at the 9th May Victory Day celebrations in Kaliningrad, 2002

It was whilst we were imbibing that my wife told one of the staff serving behind the tables that I liked the t-shirts that they were wearing. There were about six people serving in total and all had white tea shirts with a printed ink outline image of Mr Putin on the front and on the back the slogan ‘Forward with Putin’. The chap whom Olga was talking to, when he discovered that I was from England and that I liked the shirt, immediately said that I could have it and, taking it off there and then, handed it to me. I still have this shirt, which, being almost 20 years old, must have acquired collectable status. It is, after all, a piece of significant political memorabilia.

9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad. Mick & Olga Hart

Vodka gratefully received at 9th May celebrations, Kaliningrad, 2002. In the background you can just see the back of a Putin T-shirt, one of which was given to me on this day.

By the end of the day this, at that time contemporary political icon, would be joined by another, but one which represented Russia’s Soviet era.

We were making our way back from the park along the street busy with pedestrians when my attention was drawn to a group of lady veterans bedecked with medals and carrying aloft a large silk Soviet banner. Olga introduced me to them and as a token of their esteem for my attendance at the celebration that day, they presented me with a 9th May medal. This medal was home-made, constructed from cardboard with a pin back but, as with the Putin T-shirt, it is still in my possession, waiting to return home if or when coronavirus allows, along with many other personal items that I want to ship from England.

9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad., with lady veterans, 2002

Kaliningrad 9th May Victory Day celebrations 2002: Lady Veterans

Had things been different I would certainly have been in Moscow this year, and history would recall that whilst many western leaders were conspicuous for their absence, Mick Hart did his duty and was there to fly the flag!

Aaah well, “This time next year …” as Del Boy was fond of saying, and I will qualify that with another aphorism, “Hope dies last!’

Mick & Olga Hart the evening of 9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad 2002

Patriotism & Romance: Wearing my 9th May medal, Kaliningrad 2002

Englishman Self-isolating in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 42 [30 April 2020]

Published: 30 April 2020

Are you familiar with that old British expression, “The pot calling the kettle black”? Case in point: Since entering the new Coronavirus Age, the British media claim that vodka consumption has substantially increased here in Russia. What the UK’s self-appointed temperance league failed to mention (and having worked in the media, I have to say that most of them are alcohol sodden (mind you, they may all be too PC for that now!)) and what has subsequently emerged in a BBC article* (no less!) is that Brit’s consumption of supermarket-bought alcohol has shot up during lockdown by a whopping great 31%.

As to whether there is any truth in the purported rise in vodka sales here, it is quite possible that the UK media has only part of the picture (not that that has ever seemed to bother them). An anecdote related to me last week told of mystified traffic police, who, having stopped a number of cars to ask the occupants where they were going (as part of the social distancing rules) and in the process discovering a strong smell of vodka, breathalysed the drivers only to find that they were sober. Apparently, the vodka was being used not for human consumption but as disinfectant!

Ha, a likely story, I thought. But then it seemed to make sense. With so much adverse publicity accruing over the dubious effectiveness of this and that disinfectant, and Trump wanting to inject us all with it, what could be more logical than to fall back on something you can trust! I was straight out and buying my extra two bottles!

Whilst there is no direct evidence to suggest that consumption of the national beverage has been coronavirusised, I have detected among our immediate neighbours what I consider to be a far more invidious addiction seemingly catalysed by the rules of social distancing, and that is an obsessive predilection for D.I.Y..

They are all at it! Apart from me. I am too busy indoors disinfecting. But there they are in their gardens digging, sawing, hammering, shattering the tranquillity of early-spring with the high-pitched rasping noise of angle-grinders and the dentistry whine of high-powered drills. Cement mixers rumble, new garden fences clank and rattle as they are bolted into place, old tiles and other neglected items are noisily removed and stacked; indeed, such is the energy expended, both in physical labour and ardour, that it is enough to make you reach for the bottle and disinfect again.

Even we had six new trees delivered and planted, but I think we got away with it, leaving payment at the backdoor and shouting merrily to the tree planters from the safety of our terrace-balcony.

Englishman Self-isolating in Kaliningrad

The man next door, whose garden has resembled Steptoe’s yard for the past 12 months, possibly more, appears to have developed one of the rarer symptoms of coronavirus, which the Daily Express expressly discovers on an almost daily basis. Why else would he cut down a tree that should never have been cut down, put up a plank to replace the tree because his cat used to climb up it and, what I really found hard to accept, removed the bog that had been lying around incongruously in his back garden?

This toilet was the sort of romanticised novelty that I had not beheld since the days of my early youth. I had been brought up in rural surroundings, in those halcyon days when villages were still villages, before that is the second-home buyers and city commuters moved in; when villages were populated by British-legacy stock, folk born in Victorian times whose families, generation after generation of them, were born in the village, lived their lives in the village, died in the village and were buried in the village graveyard. Every one of these people was a country character, and every other house in which they lived was characterised by a tin-roofed shed at the far end of the garden. Admittedly, the ubiquitous outside lav would normally be enclosed, inside four walls and with a roof of sorts, but this only strengthened my case for the retention of a toilet most unusual in mode and manner.

Englishman Self-isolating in Kaliningrad

In deference to those save-the-planet groups who, like the dinosaurs before them, used to rule the world, before that is the world decided it could stand up for itself and swept them off the streets, I like to think of this toilet as the environmentalist’s bog of choice. Lying abstrusely on its side and out in the open, it was such an inspiring sight that had I not been disinfecting I could almost have taken up easel and canvas and captured it for posteriority.

On the other side of us, the place I call ‘the commune’, rum goings on are keeping us guessing. For 14 months or so the back garden owned but unfrequented by our rock-music-loving neighbour, fondly referred to by us as Greengrass, was little more than a neglected patch of scrubland. Then, in an alarming development, a gaggle of Greengrass’s confederates, hitherto unknown to us, began gradually, very gradually, to hack down the undergrowth, clear the extraneous material and dispose of all the junk. In the process of doing so, the wilderness was turned into a place where weary cowboys can bivouac.

A camp fire was lit and, with the help of Mother Invention, makeshift seats were quickly assembled ~ a couple of planks on four piles of rock ~ and with the timely assistance of some disinfectant our auxiliary neighbours ~ seven or more ~ set about celebrating the art and science of coronavirus distancing.

Since then these rawhides have helped the neighbour at the end of their Ponderosa to put up a new fence (the irony of this did not escape me) and in a sinister development, which has given credence to all kinds of ‘there goes the neighbourhood’ theories, are constructing something around their camp fire which could be anybody’s guess, from a Russian version of Stonehenge to an outside toilet from Wigan. My money is on a coronavirus air-raid shelter, the idea being that should the Big C continue to threaten the populace with more of the same social distancing, then the entire city could protect itself by getting together in there.

Englishman Self-isolating in Kaliningrad finds outside toilet drinking den — **A Social Distancing Vodka-Drinking Shelter** (Photo credit: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/)

Reference
*https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52329679

“If coronavirus has taught me one thing about the human condition it is that the less sense it makes the more sense it makes.”
~ A man with an outside toilet

Diary of a Self-isolator in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 35 [23 April 2020]

Published: 21 April 2020

I am sitting here on day 35 of self-isolation feeling all retrospective. Since I cannot comment on what is going on outside at present, as I am not getting out as much as I used to, my mind decided to do a Henry David Thoreau and wander off at will. It led me by the hand to the last days of December last year and from this point in time pushed me forward to a day in the past, two weeks ago, to be precise 7 April. More on that in a moment.

Diary of a self-isolator in Kaliningrad

It has been a bad winter; by bad I mean nondescript; lots of rain, no snow; it has been dank, murky, wet, unpleasant.

At the risk of being accused of typical British understatement, I think most people would agree with me that Kaliningrad is not at its best during periods of near perpetual rain. When the snow comes it cloaks, muffles and hides the flaws and imperfections. It is to Kaliningrad what a dose of Botox is to a weathered and wrinkling face. It disguises the wrongs of time, at least for a while.

On 30 December 2019 I had travelled back to Kaliningrad from Gdansk Airport, crossing the Russian border from Poland by taxi. Peering through the taxi window as we approached the city outskirts, I ruefully observed the pitted roads, distorted sidewalks, rusting and buckling metal fences, dilapidated buildings and winter-abandoned building plots, all thick mud and heavy-plant-machinery tracks pocked with bomb-crater pools of water. I do not know whether I love Kaliningrad in spite of its imperfections or because of them. “Ahh, it’s good to be home,” I sighed.

Diary of a Self-isolator in Kaliningrad

In the past few days, whilst we, other realists and most people with a social conscience have been hiding indoors, spring has arrived in Kaliningrad. With flagrant disregard for self-isolation rules, buds and blossom are out and social distancing is out the window, as sprigs of small green leaves gather on the trees and small groups of bright blue flowers, wild and gay (in the non-PC sense) congregate at the edge of gardens and the roadside verges.

Kaliningrad is a green city, and very soon the trees that line the streets, the public spaces and parks will soothe and soften the urban landscape.

As this happens and the weather hopefully improves, the grim phantom of coronavirus will seem even more unreal to us at the other end of the nature spectrum ~ the unpredictable human end ~ and will surely test our resolve.

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 35 [23 April 2020]

On 7 April (doesn’t time fly ~ all over the place ~ whilst in self-isolation), we had to answer a call ~ not of nature ~ but of a bureaucratic kind, which would winkle us out of the house and make us trek, on foot, of course, across the other side of the city to fill in yet another official document and receive yet another official stamp.

Although serenaded by a beautiful spring day, gloriously sunlit and dry, and whilst I welcomed the chance to walk, two weeks of isolation harnessed to ever-more disturbing media content on the seemingly invincible march of coronavirus had increased my perception of risk and hardened caution against anything other than excursions into the outside world deemed vital or essential, such as trips to the local shop for beer and vodka. But ‘needs must when the Devil drives’, so out and off we went.

It was early days for self-isolation, but we had not been out for a week or more so it was interesting to see what, if anything, had transpired from an increased knowledge of the virus’s escalating incidence and its possible deadly consequences and also whether the advice from central and local government for self-isolation and social distancing had been received loud and clear or whether some people still had a sock stuffed in it.

Around the lakeside there was no diminution of people, but there were less people on the streets and less traffic. Nevertheless, the city was far from deserted. Traffic lights were still needed and at main bus stops groups assembled. Public transport had taken a hit, but still had enough passengers to make it profitable and questionable. Mask wearers existed in a ratio of about 1:7. We were not among them yet, as I could never get on with masks, which I have had to wear on occasions whilst working in dusty environments. I was forever adjusting them, which means running your fingers around your face; they make your face hot and sweaty, thus acting as a particulate attraction, and, in my experience, as they still permit the ingress of a small amount of dust, visible on the mask inside after 30 minutes of wear, I remain unconvinced of their virus-halting efficacy and cautious about the possibility that they may, in fact, heighten the risk of inhaling the great Big C.

Diary of a self-isolator: should I wear a mask or not? — (Photo credit: National Archives. Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/3182090361)

Masks and gloves

Arriving at our destination, like them or not masks had to be donned. We had been given strict instructions that we would not be allowed on the premises without masks and gloves. My wife had both, but the surgical gloves that a friend had acquired for us were too small for my manly hands, so I just stuffed my hands in my pockets. We did have a mask apiece, but that is what we had ~ one each and no more.

In ordinary circumstances, we would have been considerably more nervous about today’s toxic environment, an enclosed space where there was no possibility of distancing ~ we had already had the dubious pleasure of this experience at another official establishment, thank you ~ but we had been led to believe that there would less people present today.

Olga was well and truly flustered. She had donned her green-blue facemask and I, complaining bitterly, put mine on as well, as we waited outside the office building for someone to open the door.

A rather large, somewhat buxom lady had been assigned to our case, and we followed her into one of the small offices where she checked the sheath of documents Olga handed to her, and after holding my breath for the inevitable conclusion that we did not have all of the paperwork we should have, I was pleased to be proven wrong. The lady with the largest handed Olga two documents plastered with questions and answer boxes, saying, at the same time, “Roochka?” I’ve been swotting up on my Russian language, and I immediately recognised this as ‘pen’, or rather by intonation, ‘have you got a pen?’ (It is a funny thing this Russian language, as she could just as well have been asking ‘Have you got a door handle?’.)

We vacated the small office and went into the service area beyond, where, sitting at a small oblong ‘stol’, Olga proceeded to huff, puff and grimace her way through the form-filling process, predicting that she would get it wrong and have to do it again, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then she started to get all nervous, stressed and sweaty, removing the face mask as she could not breath in it. I kept mine on, but I had noticed that the lady who was catering for us had her facemask slung over her large double chin. This woman did not inspire confidence. She too looked hot under the gills, and I noticed that she was continually sniffing!

On the streets

Not wanting to take a taxi ~ or rather wanting to but not doing so ~ we trudged back the way we had come on foot.

In the new Coronavirus Era everybody you meet takes on a sinister dimension, and they are to you as you are to them ~ you can see it in their eyes, especially in the crab-like eyes that peep warily and frightened above the line of their masks. Fear stalks the streets as if the Grim Reaper is on his heels. The irony is that the least affected, and therefore the most relaxed and complacent, are drunks, who continue to assemble and congregate, share their bottles of hooch and pass their cigarettes as if the world is as it was ~ before along came a minuscular round thing with trumpets stuck all over it.

A little bit of fear can go a long way; like Mary Poppin’s spoon full of sugar, it can assist quite considerably in helping ‘the medicine go down’, so that when we are told not to touch our faces, as the Big C can be transferred from surfaces to our vitals by this route, we remember the consequences. The Grim Reaper is waving his scythe at you.

When out and about, I try to keep my hands thrust inside my jacket pockets, but you can always be sure that the more conscious you are that you should not touch your face the more certain you can be of that itch developing around the edge of your nostril or your eyes and the growing insistence in your brain to scratch or rub it. I suppose that there is a little bit of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Imp of the Perverse’ in all of us.

Königsberg Offensive Revisited

Königsberg 9 April 1945 / Kaliningrad 9 April 2020

Published: 12 April 2020

10:30pm: As tired as I am, and I am, I had to write this. In about one and a half hours from now, Otto Lasch, Commandant of Königsberg, sitting in his command bunker at the heart of Kaliningrad, will sign a document the contents of which will change the course of history here forever.

By now he must have been agonising over whether to give the surrender order or not, particularly since Herr Hitler had strictly forbidden him to do so and knowing that whilst further resistance was futile the grim alternative was to hand himself and what was left of his army over to the Soviets, from whom he could expect very little leniency and possibly even less humanity.

This haunting train of thought was set in motion by a chance comment from my wife, Olga, this morning, who happened to mention that today, 9 April, was the last day of the Königsberg Offensive (WWII).

I had other things planned for today, but, thought I, perhaps I should put something together for my blog to acknowledge the historic significance that today’s date has to Königsberg’s demise and Kaliningrad’s existence.

At first, I was not sure what form the essay would take and mulled various options, some quite elaborate, too elaborate. I could write, for example, from the perspective of a time traveller, which would allow me to write a dramatic account and, as a shadowy figure from the future, flit about at will from one location to another over the four-day period that the assault took place. Or, I could write the piece as if I was an on-the-spot reporter, using short, dramatic and punchy sentences (why, now that would be a change!). But what decided against these novelties was time and the need to gen up on the historical facts first. If I wanted the article to be posted on my blog by the end of the day, I would have to read, digest, select, condense and then write.

The form which my modest contribution to this awesome day took in the life and death of Kaliningrad and Königsberg respectively, worked itself out whilst I was taking notes from my readings. After all, I would be content, for the time being, to precis the salient points from the four-day invasion and epilogue it with a time-travelling postscript, enunciating the contrast between this warm, sunny and relaxing day of 9 April 2020 with the noise, mayhem, pandemonium, pain, suffering, horror, fear, bloodshed and death which characterised today’s date 75 years previously.

Königsberg Offensive revisited

In the course of compiling this little work, my research tripped the switch, and, short-circuited emotionally, my imagination stole off to do some unauthorised time travelling of its own.

Apart from odd air raids by the Soviet Air Force, the real terror and horror of war began for Königsbergians in the August of 1944, when two consecutive nights of heavy bombing orchestrated by the RAF blew the guts out of the city. Why it had not occurred to me before I do not know, but the occupants of Königsberg, those who had not been blown to pieces, crushed to death or incinerated in the allied air attacks, would have eight months more of waiting, watching and fearing to do before their worst fears were to be realised.

Königsberg Offensive Revisited. Königsberg in ruins. — *Königsberg in ruins as a result of Allied bombing. (Photo credit: Dylan Mohan Gray. (Public Domain*))

As now, with the coronavirus scare, there must have been the usual suspects who were in denial or just plain blasé, but for the realists one can only imagine how the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds passed as they waited and watched for Hell to announce itself.

Königsberg 6 April 1945

Having sneaked off on its own accord, my imagination arrived in the East Prussian region on the dawn of 6 April 1945. It was sun-up and the artillery onslaught, which would last for three hours, was well underway. Then came the surge of the ground troops.

This was not something that had happened in some far flung corner of the world of which I had heard but little and to which I had never been, it had happened here, in this little corner of the world, and would have taken in and effected the district of Kaliningrad where we now lived, the streets outside these windows and the very house in which I am sitting. And now came the questions, one after the other, following in quick succession. Was there anybody living here at the time of the assault or had they perchance been fortunate enough to have fled on one of the refugee ships? If not, who were these people? What were their thoughts, their feelings, their conversations to one another? What did they hear, smell, see? How did they react? And, of course, did they survive or were they murdered?

The researching and writing part of me toiled on throughout the day, but my imagination was busy elsewhere, amongst the heavy artillery explosions, the echoing chatter of machine guns, the shouts and cries and the screams of pain, the mighty explosions, the sounds of crashing buildings. It was with the Soviet troops as they scrambled through the dust and broken masonry in a fierce endeavor to rout the enemy; it was with the German defenders, each and every one I suspect endowed with the imminence of their own cruel fate; it was here, above all, it was here ~ in this very house, within the four walls of this room, helpless in its observation of the cowering, terrified inhabitants, their own imaginations mercilessly fueled by tales of Soviet barbarity (true or false) which had been unleashed on other towns and other unfortunate victims en route to the great prize itself, Königsberg.

Königsberg Offensive Revisited. The aftermath of bombing. — *Königsberg* ~ the aftermath.
(Photo credit: *Sendker – altes Foto, Public Domain, <a href=”https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6601474″>Link</a>*)

Historical record has it that Otto Lasch, the Commandant of Königsberg, officially surrendered to the Soviet forces in the city’s command bunker a few minutes before midnight 9 April 1945.

For the rest of my evening the two of us, the working me in 9 April 2020 and my temporarily estranged imagination in 9 April 1945, peeped into and hovered around the bunker of Otto Lasch. I looked at the computer clock, and I wrote: In about one and a half hours from now Otto Lasch, Commandant of Königsberg, sitting in his command bunker at the heart of Kaliningrad, will sign a document the contents of which will change the course of history here forever.

I did not wait up for my imagination. Longstanding association and a comprehensive understanding of all my many dualities assured me that this would not be necessary, futile even.

Suffice it to say we would meet tomorrow, when all this would be over, back in the past where it belongs ~ or so the present would have us believe …

Positive Outcomes from Coronavirus

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 19 [7 April 2020]

I can put up with the coronavirus conspiracy theories that are doing the rounds ~ just; it is the self-righteous, sanctimonious, crypto-religious revenge scenarios that really chafe. You know the sort of thing: it is payback time for the human race for all the ills that we have visited upon this wonderful world, from factory farming animals to environmental abuse, from decadence to hedonism. These Puritanical killjoys, the ‘serves us right’ disciples who judge everyone else from a Sodom and Gomorrah perspective since they live such dull lives themselves, some in greenhouses from which they throw stones, some who have never lived at all, would like us to believe that we are going to hell in a handcart because we have lost our moral compass, because we have sold out traditional values such as decency, respect, civility and so on for the false Gods of mobile phones, computer games, social media and similar fripperies ~ and, of course, they have a point.

But on the other side of the ‘I told-you-so’ receiving end of this, there are those who dare to talk about something good coming out of the coronavirus crisis. At the illogical extreme, in predictions that overlap with some of the crimes logged against us to which I have referred, is the wishful thought that somehow after all the uncertainty, fear, lifestyle change and death, a revolution in human nature will occur that will change the way we think about life, the way we relate to one another and ultimately the way we think and relate to the natural world around us. How does that expression go, ‘If wishes were horses beggars would ride’?

Positive outcomes from coronavirus

However, that is not to say that some good cannot come out of self-isolation and social distancing. For example, several friends with whom I have spoken this week ~ by telephone, I hasten to add ~ have reaffirmed my trust in human capacity for self-improvement.

One of our associates is taking up where he left off learning to play the piano, another is improving his knowledge of French, one is reading classic literature, which he has never read before, and yet another has taken up painting when the only thing he could paint was walls, and another is using the time to develop his DIY skills when the only thing he could do was paint pictures.

As this is just a sample of self-improvements cited at random among some of my social circle, one can only imagine the scale and diversity of new interests and leisure pursuits blossoming around the world.

Taking this into account, we could arguably emerge at the other end of this global crisis not merely intact but so much more informed, artistically turned out, practically minded and equipped with skills and aptitudes of which before we could only dream.

Conversely, taking my own circle of friends as an example, you might have a lot to come to terms with ~ off-key piano recitals, being spoken to with every third word in broken French, having to listen to plot lines and character appraisals from novels you do not want spoiling, having to pretend you like badly painted paintings, having to pretend you like poorly painted walls and endless accounts of DIY accidents ~ by people that you always presumed never had it in them (must remember to put that on my ‘things to do whilst isolating list’ ~ distance course in diplomacy).

In the meantime, whilst it is possible to define the benefits of social distancing, even the joys of self-isolation, we still cannot escape the relentless intrusion of social media, even when we do not subscribe.

I lose count of the number of times in a day that my wife asks me to ‘look’ at something or someone doing or saying something on her mobile phone of which, up until that moment, I was happily oblivious.

Positive outcomes from coronavirus

But then who knows? Once we have got this virus beat, placated the conspiracy theorists, disappointed the divine retributionists and thrilled to their crystal balls the prophets of good things to come, perhaps someone can start working on how we can shoot the satellites out of the sky. Should this and this alone be a byproduct of the coronavirus lockdown, then we can truly say that something good has transpired from bad, and all will be serendipity.

[Photo credit: https://www.rawpixel.com/image/390420/your-head]

Kaliningrad Top of Self-isolators

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 16 [4 April 2020]

Published: 4 April 2020

As you probably know, my wife and I have been self-isolating for a number of days now. On 28 March we were joined by a lot of other people in Russia, not at our residence I hasten to add but throughout the country, as it was announced that the period from 28 March to 5 April would be a paid ‘holiday’, the qualification being that the holiday be taken at home in the interests of self-isolation.

The situation here, as far as we can tell (because, it’s a funny thing, we do not get out as much as we used to, would like to, should), has shifted up a notch. Disinfectant trucks spray the streets regularly, more and more people peep out from behind face masks and speaker vans roam back and forth reminding people to stay put.

Kaliningrad Top of Self-isolators with loudspeaker vans — For illustration purposes only.

Indeed, as I write this, I can hear the solemn, almost monotone, reverberations from the public address systems on wheels echoing through the streets of Kaliningrad. The deserted streets and echoing voice evoke memories of 1950s’ apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films and TV series such as Quatermass and Day of the Triffids. Eerie and strange to think that in the space of a few short weeks we, or rather the world as we know it, have been diverted into an entirely new, unprecedented and hitherto unimaginable reality. It is as if we all went to bed one night and woke up the next morning in an old black and white episode of The Twilight Zone.

The virtuality continued on the street, where two days ago it had been summer but now it was snowing like Christmas. That was either Father Frost in that plastic outfit or a large man in a red protective suit with an oversized white facemask.

At our local shop, where we had gone to purchase our weekly provisions, all the staff were wearing surgical masks and standing well back, as if they had just lit a firework. For those of us who simply cannot get on with masks and are unconvinced about their efficacy, all we can do when anyone gets too close is the quickstep, the tango for about-face movements and once we have paid at the checkout the foxtrot. At least the dancing lessons have paid off.

Call us paranoid, but as nobody seems to know how long the coronavirus ‘bug’ can sit around smirking at us on surfaces, we have adopted the practice of leaving our shopping in quarantine, stacking the bags out of the way and emptying the contents sometime later. Our cat is clearly perturbed by this but keeps well back from the bags as if he instinctively knows that they’re dynamite.

There are times, however, when you just cannot go on without that oatmeal biscuit, so it is on with the Automobile Association gauntlets, out with the disinfectant, wash the hands, fumigate the house … again

Kaliningrad Top of Self-isolators

One feather in the Kaliningradian hat is that it shows the highest level of self-isolation among Russian cities. Apparently, this data was published on a special Yandex service on the morning of Tuesday 31 March. According to the report*, Kaliningrad scored 4.7 points out of a total of 5 in the self-isolation index, which is the highest score among the cities of the country.

**On the 2 April we heard President Putin’s address to the nation telling us that the paid holiday will be extended until the end of April.

Meanwhile, the world sits and waits indoors for something out there to happen that will ‘take us right back to the track, Jack!’

References:
(Accessed 4 April 2020)
*https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/88172-kaliningrad-pokazyvaet-samyj-vysokij-uroven-samoizolyacii-v-rossii?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=mobile&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fyandex.ru%2Fnews

**https://www.rt.com/russia/484778-putin-coronavirus-update-russia/

Staying At Home in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 10 [29 March 2020]

Published: 29 March 2020

‘People are people everywhere’ is an expression the meaning of which we can quite confidently assume is that, irrespective of country and culture, hopes, fears, joys, sorrows and other defining proclivities shared by human kind are more or less the same the world over. From this precept stems a universal truth, and one which I am sure a certain philosophical gentleman would ratify if his remains at the side of Königsberg Cathedral allowed, which is that among the common characteristics that we the people possess there lies in equal abundance attributes many of which we can be proud and, by default, flaws, shortcomings which, whilst they cannot promise to dismay some, those who are wanting in commonsense, will certainly dismay if not confound others.

Article 1: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 1 [20 March 2020]
Article 2: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 6 [25 March 2020]
Article 3: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 7 [26 March 2020]
Article 4: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 8 [28 March 2020]

Staying at Home Kaliningrad. Do not go to the coast! — (Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/ 😮[Sorry, silly sanction block ~ link removed] )

Staying at home in Kaliningrad

For example, events as they unfold in the new coronavirus age beg the question, what is it about the simple phrase ‘Stay at home’, that is not so easily understood? Is it so difficult, so impossible to comprehend? Perhaps it contains some encoded subliminal message, such that when uttered by governments, medical services and scientists it immediately translates, albeit to a minority, into ‘please hop into your car and sail off down to the seaside’.

Staying at home in Kaliningrad & everywhere else

Life, as they say, is too short (and is getting considerably shorter) to dwell too studiously on matters so abstruse, which is possibly why I have been whiling away my self-isolation time with place-name wordplay, taking the name of that well-known and popular British seaside resort Skegness, and integrating components of it with Svetlogorsk and Zelinogradsk. The result is not that bad: Skegogorsk still has a must-go there ring to it and Zelinogness is quite blissfully irresistible, whilst Skegness certainly increases its pulling power as Svetlogness, and Skegnogradsk is somewhere you would have to go to even if you didn’t and especially were told that you shouldn’t.

Update Kaliningrad Coronavirus

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 9 [28 March 2020]

Published: 28 March 2020

11.38am Kaliningrad time and I am conducting my usual perusal of Kaliningrad news, subject coronavirus, with reference to https://www.newkaliningrad.ru/news/

(Photo credit: ( http://www.clker.com/ )

Article 1: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 1 [20 March 2020]
Article 2: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 6 [25 March 2020]
Article 3: Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 7 [26 March 2020]

Three more infections were registered today in the city. The report below is unedited, copied as translated by ‘Google Translator’:

Among the three newly infected with the new coronavirus infection inhabitants of the region, which became known on Saturday, March 28 – a man and two women. This was reported to “New Kaliningrad” at the regional operational headquarters for coronavirus.

According to him, the man was on vacation in Peru and, on his return, did a transplant in Paris. He was in isolation, after a coronavirus test yielded a positive result, the man was placed in a hospital. His condition does not cause concern, noted at headquarters. Two infected women were infected in the region, they were in contact with those whose coronavirus was previously detected. This is the mother of a boy who came from Austria , and the mother of a girl who came from Poland. Their condition also does not cause fear among doctors.

(Source: https://www.newkaliningrad.ru/news/briefs/incidents/23611426-vlasti-1-iz-zarazivshikhsya-kaliningradtsev-byl-za-granitsey-2-infitsirovalis-v-regione.html)

Update Kaliningrad Coronavirus

A second report delineates institutions, facilities and services suspended/closed. The report below is unedited, copied as translated by ‘Google Translator’:

For a week in the Kaliningrad region, the work of all public institutions, including shopping centers and public catering, is suspended. According to the press service of the regional government, the decision on amendments was signed by Governor Anton Alikhanov on Friday, March 27.

From midnight March 28 to April 5, the work of cinemas and theaters, recreation parks, zoos, nightclubs (discos), and children’s playrooms are temporarily suspended. The ban on work also applies to entertainment centers, libraries, sports complexes, clubs and sections, art, theater studios, institutions of additional education, and other leisure facilities for children and adults, regardless of ownership.

The work of beauty salons, cosmetics, spa salons, massage parlors, tanning salons, bathhouses, saunas and other facilities providing such services, the provision of dental services, with the exception of diseases and conditions requiring emergency and urgent care, is stopped.

Shopping centers and retail outlets are closing in the region. The ban does not apply to pharmacies, food shops and essentials, remote sales with the condition of delivery.

In addition, restaurants, cafes, canteens, bars, buffets, snack bars and other catering establishments, as well as non-food retail stores, are closed, with the exception of remote delivery of orders with mandatory sanitary and epidemiological measures. Also, a weekly restriction is imposed on smoking hookahs in any public places.

Until June 1, cancellation of reservations, reception and accommodation of citizens in boarding houses, rest homes, sanatorium organizations (sanatoriums), sanatorium and health camps for children year-round and hotels in resort towns is canceled. In addition, today a decision will be made on the possibility of activities of accommodation facilities located in the coastal zone.

“With regard to persons already residing in these organizations, conditions will be provided for their self-isolation and the necessary sanitary and epidemiological measures until the end of their term of residence without the possibility of its extension,” the release notes.

The work of the MFC is limited. State and municipal services will be provided, which can be carried out only on premises and only after prior registration.

“I appeal to every resident of the Kaliningrad region. The main thing for us now is that you be healthy. A lot of resources are involved for this. I ask you to spend this non-working week on the most important thing – communication with your family and friends. Refuse to visit mass places and tourist trips. Stay at home and be healthy, ”said Anton Alikhanov, head of the region.

Monitoring compliance with the new rules of the resolution is entrusted to local authorities, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rospotrebnadzor and the Russian Guard on the Kaliningrad Region. The decision comes into force on March 27.

(Source: https://www.newkaliningrad.ru/news/briefs/community/23611373-v-kaliningradskoy-oblasti-zakryvayut-vsye-krome-produktovykh-magazinov-i-aptek.html?from=header_themes)