Updated: 11 February 2022 | First published: 5 October 2019 ~ Christmas in Gdansk
Christmas in Gdansk is the fourth article in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.
The idea to celebrate Christmas in Gdansk, Poland, and not Kaliningrad, Russia, was taken because Christmas according to the Russian Orthodox Church takes place on the 7 January. This meant that the 25 of December would be just another day. In Russia, New Year’s Eve is the main event of the festive season and Olga had forewarned us that for Russians this was the big one!
Unwrapping the presents that we had bought for one another in the Gdansk hotel was a first, but after that, followed by a cold meats and cheeses breakfast, the novelty of Christmas quickly wore off. It turned out that being in Poland was no different from being in England: there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. At least in England you can stuff yourself on the much-vaunted Christmas dinner and then collapse in a heap in front of the good old goggle box, but our dinner was another round of exciting meats and cheeses ~ left under towels by the hotel staff who had all gone home ~ and the good old goggle box with its three different channels was broadcasting only in Polish. I couldn’t understand why?
Bored stiff, we did venture out into the city in between
meats and cheeses, but the closest bar was closed and the next and the next and
the next …
Fortunately, we were old enough to have experienced a good many English Christmases, so we hunkered down for the evening with hooch we had stockpiled earlier and nibbled our boredom away on the meats and cheeses left over from lunch.
Published: 9 February 2022 ~ No Fringe Benefits in Trashing Truckers Freedom Convoy
As the rallying call from the Freedom Convoy resonates around the globe, the liberalarsey media do what they always do at a time like this, disappear up the same place where Trudeau has gone. According to one liberal corporate media outlet based in the USA, the Canadian Truckers’ Freedom Convoy ‘represents a fringe viewpoint north of the border’. You know, it really is time that the neoliberals came out from behind the settee and faced the inevitable fact that the people are calling time on them. This is what happens when you get out of bed on the wrong side of history. But such denial is not that surprising. It was Joseph Goebbels who said that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it …”, what he forgot to mention was that if you continue to repeat that lie you run the risk of believing it yourself.
No Fringe Benefits in Trashing Truckers Freedom Convoy
‘Fringe groups’ is a term reserved and used exclusively by the liberarsey media for any movement that challenges its ideological hegemony, and, as with all things liberal in these days of its waning empire, if you tap on it just rings hollow.
Take the headlines and standfirst that appeared this morning (9 February 2022) in a corporate liberal media source in the USA:
Headline: ‘With No End in Sight, Ottawa Protests Extend Beyond Canada’s Borders’ Standfirst: ‘Officials are grappling with a new protest blocking a major border crossing, while similar demonstrations have disrupted traffic in New Zealand and Australia.’
Now, both the headline and the standfirst emphasise magnitude and extent. In other words, the numbers involved, and the reach of the demonstration is truly awesome. Indeed, it has taken on a scale of international proportions.
However, if you look at the series of drop-down menus at the top of the website page on which this article is published, you will see:
Canada Trucker Protest> Protests Extend Beyond Canada | A Far-Right Rallying Cry | Who are the Protestors? | A Moment for Fringe Groups
There really is no need to read any further. Whilst acknowledging that the protests have taken on an international dimension, the liberal media moves reflexively to deligitimise them as ‘A far-right rallying call’. It is essential, from an ideological perspective, that on no account must the protestors be considered concerned citizens with legitimate grievances; Tom, Dick, Harry or Abdul, whoever they are and from wherever they come, they must be painted to suit the liberal narrative as swastika-waving Nazis. And even though in the real world the protest has ‘gone viral’, the message from the puppet masters to their trembling minions below is, don’t worry snowflakes it’s just a ‘Moment for fringe groups’.
We would all do well to remember that everything in our short lifetime is just a moment, and yet, as we know from history, a ‘moment’ can be extremely significant. It only took a moment to drop the atom bomb, but that moment ended WWII and changed the course of history.
Let us remind ourselves, however, that the media source to which I refer is written for liberals, served to liberals and read by liberals, thus the depth and need for denial is understandable. These are truly difficult times for liberals, and as their ideology spirals out of control, they can only become more difficult and the denial they seek proportionally vapid.
Even so, when at their most delusive does a fringe group stop being a fringe group and become a mainstream movement in the mind of the Liberarsey? The answer, as if you did not know it already, is when it occupies pride of place in the little toy box of liberal effects, deceits and cuddly dolls that they like to call their own.
Black Lives Matter is a prime example. Although it devastated cities, cost lives and millions of $/£s, it was billed by the liberal corporate media as a ‘largely peaceful protest’, whereas the Canadian Truckers’ Freedom Convoy is condemned out of hand as a despicable threat to democracy, that same democracy, incidentally, mugged, abused and left in the gutter by those who purport to exalt it, to which the truckers and their supporters are attempting to give the kiss of life.
Nevertheless, whilst liberalism is clearly on its way out, its grand impresarios continue to call on their minions and stooges to play what tricks they might have left concealed inside their sleeves.
Take Justin Trudeau, for example (You thought he had been taken? Yes, abduction by aliens could be one explanation). Just when we were beginning to suspect that Justin Trudeau had become the victim of a secret experiment gone woefully wrong, possibly undertaken in a laboratory in China, an experiment that seemed to have turned him into a likeness of the invisible man, suddenly, yesterday, he re-emerges, as though sneaking out from behind the false back of a corny magician’s cabinet, to resume his second-rate act as Canada’s prime minister ~ but only on video, mind.
Trudeau: Am I see through? Voice of Reckoning: Yes, Mr Trudeau. You always have been. The difference now, however, is that totalitarian practices in the name of Coronavirus are waking them up to who you are, what you are, who you represent and what it is they are up to. It’s only a matter of time …
In an address that is the stuff of melodrama and comedy, Trudeau proceeds to define real Canadians as those unconditionally obedient to lockdowns and jabs, thus by implication dispossessing the Canadian truckers and disparaging their worldwide supporters, who are opposing totalitarianism, as respectively unCanadian and members of a fringe group.
Trudeau’s recorded address is sickly, gushing, fawning and fulsome. It might have won some plaudits had it been televised on children’s hour, but for real, mature, grown-up adults it is as flimsy and as see-through as Trudeau is himself and only deserving of ridicule.
In this opinion, it seems that I am not entirely alone. See the following clip:
If you feel that Trudeau, Macron, Blair are all from the same mould, that they have rolled off the same neoliberal production line, groomed in everything from the way they speak, the type of clothes they wear, to the body language that they exude, then you might suspect that they are clones from the disingenuous and deceitful matrix of neoliberal globalism.
If you wrapped them up in HG Wells-type bandages, they might attain more substance but seen in the flesh they are nothing more than dressed-up shop-window dummies, plastic for the most part and invisible when it suits them. Let’s hope that their invisibility, and the invisibility lost by those who pull the strings behind the scenes, lost thanks to coronavirus and overreach authority, soon become a permanent feature, like lockdowns, masks and jabs, of a swiftly passing and vanishing yesterday: Unseen, forgotten, utterly gone.
Now that would be a New World Order that we could all embrace and be proud of!
PS: If anyone has an idea for a ‘fringe event’ like that of the Canadian Truckers’ Freedom Convoy that could earn us global support, accelerate the demise of a despicable ideology, change the course of history and, no less significantly, generate $6mn dollars for us in 24 hours, please feel free (‘free’ an important word that!) to contact me at World Fringe Group Unlimited.
Justin Trudeau gives $100 to Freedom Convoy (If you don’t believe me, see the screenprint below!)
Published: 8 February 2022 ~ Trudeau gives Truckers 100 dollars via GiveSendGo!
Yesterday should have been an awful day for me. At 6pm I had to leave my isolation bunker and head off to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth removed. Covid-wisdom had kept me away from the dentists for more than 24 months, causing untold damage in the teeth department. I just could not understand how you could have a tooth removed whilst wearing a face mask. I had a similar deficiency in comprehending how people using bars or restaurants could eat and drink with their muzzles on.
If I am really that dense, I thought, how mentally impaired will I be after the wisdom tooth has been removed. Would I start believing that everything that I read in the corporate media is true? Would I be tempted to vote liberal? Would I condemn the patriots of the Canadian Truckers’ Freedom Convoy as racist, far-right, extremists, anti-gender-neutrals, anti-gay parade-ist, supporters of Canada for Misogynists and/or relatives of Mr Hitler? Anything is possible? You only have to look to what extent the radical left has overplayed its hand this week, exposing the machinations of local and national neoliberal globalist governments and their evident collusion with the Silicon Valley Mob to know that this is true.
Just as well then that I decided to catch up on the predictable news by corporate media, and the thrilling news elsewhere, in the latest instalment of Things Will Never be Quite the Same Again, before I went to the dentist!
Trudeau gives Truckers 100 dollars via GiveSendGo
First, I tried to find out what had happened to the leading man in this grim drama of political vileness ~ Justin ‘Baby Face’ Trudeau. But he was nowhere to be seen. I assumed that he must be doing something useful, somewhere, after all he is Canada’s prime minister. Perhaps he was addressing a Black Lives Matter’s rally? But then it clicked! In addition to donating $100 to a very good cause, he had contracted a very fashionable disease at a very convenient moment. Western politicians seem to have a habit of doing this, don’t they?
Next, I tried to get on to the GiveSendGo Christian funding platform. Surprise, surprise I got a 404-error notice, which happened several times. Obviously, this was down to a couple of interrelated but opposing factors: one, that the donations to the Freedom Convoy campaign were pouring in so fast that the server could not cope and, two, that the brownshirt brigade of the loony liberal left were feverishly launching attacks on the website. No matter, after three or four search attempts, and some cunning circumvention of a stream of sites, which seem on Google to be stacked in favour of the radical left, I eventually beat the system. You see, at that point, my wisdom tooth was still intact.
I concluded that the success of the Freedom Convoy, particularly with regard to GoFundYou’s failed attempt to padlock the Convoy’s money chest and throw away the key, a despicable, unethical and possibly illegal action that had exploded the looney left into a fit of premature gloating, taken together with the unprecedented support that the truckers are receiving from around the world, had plunged the liberarsey into the throes of such a ginormous shitfit that they were subjecting GiveSendGo to a cyberattack of Nazi Blitzkrieg proportions.
I finally got on to GiveSendGo by going directly to their website (www.givesendgo.com) and not via the convoy link on Google. The effort had been worthwhile! What a sight to behold! The scrolling line at the top of the screen was one continuous stream of $$$$, as donations poured in from around the world (and continue to pour in!) in support of the truckers’ campaign for freedom and, by default, the end of globalist tyranny.
Meanwhile, GoFundMe was ‘blasted’ and ‘slammed’ (sorry to resort to the old corporate media headline slogans, but as they say, what goes around …) for purloining the truckers donation money. In fact, one chap with a few quid in the bank described them as ‘Professional Thieves’1.
There was even talk of GoFundMe (or should that be, GoF*!kYourself) giving the truckers’ money to charitable causes of which GoFundMe approve: I wonder how many ‘isms’ we can detect in those’2.
Anyway, a quick change of pants later, and those in charge of the leaned-on site are crying. “We will give the money back”. Let’s hope they do. Better late than never, although for them, I am pleased to say, it’s a case of slamming the neoliberal door after Justin Trudeau has bolted. Prosecutions may well follow and as for GoFundMe’s reputation that is well and truly shafted.
On the subject of liberal-left partisanship, it is a wonder that the Freedom Convoy 2022 Facebook page is still up and running. From what I gather the DC Freedom Convoy, inspired by the Canadian Truckers and scheduled to take place later this year, is yet another victim on the growing list of the media giant’s hatchet job3.
“Trucker Jeremy Johnson, who established the group, [said] … ‘It’s censorship at its finest,’ … ‘They like to silence people that speak the truth.’” ~ Dailymail.co.uk3
You may feel, if you have personally been suspended, barred, blocked and banned by Facebook that they routinely target those who post anything on their site that does not conform to the liberal-left agenda? You may be right. What they have been doing throughout the Covid situation is redirecting users to selected information sources where you can read the truth about Covid. The question is, whose truth is it?
The following videos and links contain an alternative truth, the truth according to those who claim to be speaking out against and debunking the official coronavirus narrative. You all know the coronavirus story as told by social-media, the corporate media and its ‘Big Tech Big Pharma Globalist coalition’. The following videos and links provide an opportunity for you to watch, listen, absorb and then weigh the balance between the two opposing viewpoints. If you have a mind ~ if you have managed to retain your own mind after the past two years ~ I am sure that you will use it.
Happy viewing:
(Dark Knight) Freedom Convoy ADDRESS TO THE NATION – Feb.6, 2022 “State of Emergency Update”
Julia Brewer from Talk Radio discusses the ‘racist’ truckers and liberal authoritarianism with James Melville, Political Commentator
If you are a left-wing liberal and you think Trudeau, Macron, Ardern and Biden are authentically representing this ideology, then god help you. They are representing a corporately influenced marketing gimmick on the left. It’s completely bogus. And I say this as a lefty.
By the way I was lucky. On my return from the dentists minus my wisdom tooth, I was relieved to find that I had enough wisdom left not to be tempted to make a donation to the Justin (only just in, but soon to be out) Trudeau Fugitive Fund, even though a certain disgraced crowdfunding platform gave me their best assurance that as this was one of the causes of which they heartily approved my money would be safe!😏
Conspiracy or not, Liberal Globalists seem to have overstepped the mark somewhat …
Published: 6 February 2022 ~ How to Fund those Canadian Truckers!
The CANADIAN TRUCKERS’ FREEDOM CONVOY has achieved much more than it set out to do. Not only has it sent a firm and resolute message to Mr Trudeau (who seems to have run away and gone into hiding) that enough is enough but is sending ripples across the world that are astonishing and terrifying liberal-lefty New World Orderists everywhere.
Breaking Wind! (which is what liberals everywhere are doing ~ even more than usual!) 7 February 2022 !!!!!!!!!!!! Extreme far-left neoliberal globalists (did I get everything in there?) exhibit panic on a meltdown scale! Politico (liberal-lefty) headline: “Ottawa truckers’ convoy galvanizes far-right worldwide”
CNN (liberal-lefty): A different angle in an article by Andrew Cohen today, but it rings hollow. Patronising and smirky-smug, but beneath the veneer of complacency there is a palpable fear that seeps through the subtext, saying that until now Canadians have been easy meat for the liberal sausage-making machine, so what’s gone wrong?!! Anything other in Canada than total compliance is almost unprecedented. Even more worrying then for the button pushers is this bold stand against liberal fascism by Canada’s backbone ~ those good old Truckers 😍😍😍
Even with all the glitches/attacks, $4million+ has been donated in 48 hrs on GiveSendGo. This is nothing short of a MIRACLE even with all the issues God is growing this company. We’re so excited to be on this adventure. (FYI it took over 2 weeks for the gfm to reach the $10M)
In the UK, anything that gets either The Guardian (guardian of what, exactly?) or Independent (independent my arse!) barking is a sure sign that liberal pants are being changed quicker than their journalists can get words down on paper.
Their desperation is particularly obvious when they resort to name calling, viz anybody and everybody who stands up against liberal fascism are immediately fascist themselves, far-right, extreme-right yawn, yawn, yawn. This crude and childlike polarisation, implying, as it does, that there is no middle-way, ie you are either a processed, unthinking, obedient liberal or an extreme far-righter, is rather unfortunate for them, because by this definition most of the world is far-right, and its number appears to be growing!
To see for yourselves just how far up they are running, make a search on Google for ‘GoFundMe removes donation page for Canadian trucker protest’. By the way, when you see why GoF!*kYourself removed the donation page, you might, with justification, think, “Hello, is Al Capone back in business?”. As each day passes the powers that were, and hopefully won’t be for much longer, become more and more transparent.
Now, in the following article there’s an awful lot of Chagrin (with a capital ‘C’, which also stands for Globalists), so it’s time to wheel on (Tantara, Tantara) The Guardian for a bit of ‘Shriek!! They are all far-right extremists!!
You will see that the Canadian Truckers (liberal-lefty media just hate the ‘T’ and the ‘r’ in the word ‘truckers’ ~ I bet their subeditors are champing at the bit to insert an ‘F’) have a NEW FUNDING PLATFORM. Donations are flooding in!!
Note: As I write this the donations are pouring in so fast that the traffic is crashing the server. Either that, or the site is under attack!See https://twitter.com/givesendgo/status/1489770036105469954 If you have a problem getting on to the site, just be patient. Remember the popular saying: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”
In these grim lockdown, mask-wearing, vaccine-forcing, authoritarian, One World Government, New World Order days, the fact that a dedicated band of freedom-loving hairy-arsed truckers is holding up a huge freedom finger to Big Pharma, Big Tech and a handful of nasty globalist despots shows that every plandemic has a silver lining.
You might say, that’s just a load of old conspiracy bollocks! Maybe, but it doesn’t alter the fact that those truckers are putting a much-needed smile on our over-vaxed jaundiced faces.
My apologies to The Guardian, I suppose this makes us all far-right extremists!
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 700 [2 February 2022]
Published: 2 February 2022 ~ Heard the one about Herd Immunity?
If I am not mistaken, and I often am, from what I can make out it seems as if it was announced on 31 January 2022 that the rule of restrictive access to bars, restaurants, museums etc, implemented under the auspices of the controversial QR Codes (Vaccination Passports to you in the UK) have been repealed in Kaliningrad1. If this is the case, what a relief.
Before coronavirus and QR codes, it was not unknown for me to frequent the city’s bars, enjoy a beer or several and appreciate the presence of fellow drinkers and pretty women, all of which if it did not make me feel at least 40 years younger would make me wish that I was. In latter days, however, as a mature self-isolator, I have forsaken the city’s bars and taken instead to sitting in the attic with a couple of bottles of beer and the cat.
Yesterday, my wife informed me that she heard me singing in the attic to the cat, substituting the words of Elton John, who was warbling away on YouTube, for more meaningful wowling ‘meows’. As my old friend Leonard would say, “Yes, it’s come to this, and wasn’t it a long way down?” Ahh well, the one consolation has been that at least the cat appreciates it. If he didn’t, I’m sure that he’d have told me.
The cat was also pleased to learn that in the UK the brown man with a bald head revealed today (1 February 2022), in more words than it takes to say U-turn, that the British government had changed its mind about sacking half the NHS for not wanting to be vaccinated. Is this a sign that common sense is prevailing, or should we keep glancing sideways for the suspected imminence of a ‘more deadly Covid variant’?
Now out of the attic, nursing a hangover and with a ginger cat wearing two earplugs, I am also rather pleased that I am in Kaliningrad today (1 Feb 2022) and not attempting to cross the border between Canada and the United States, where Canada’s plucky truckers have had to convene a freedom convoy to ram the message home that they, and many other freedom-loving Canadians, have no intention of caving in to conscripted vaccination.
Well done, Canada! And just when I was beginning to think that the national idiom, ‘The Mountie always gets his man’, had begun to mean something else!
Inspired by these reports, I wondered what the situation was in the new totalitarian state of Austria. Was it still threatening to tax people for not having the jab and was the resistance holding fast? I sat back with my self-isolator’s cup of coffee and flicked idly through today’s news, brought to me by the internet as we ousted the telly 21 years ago.
Well, now, what do we make of that? I asked myself, as I discover via the liberal-dominated media that all of a sudden Covid-19 has been ‘downgraded’ from a ‘socially critical disease’ and that Europe, like a feminist scorned, was ‘gradually opening up again’.
These admissions have not, however, prevented totalitarian Austria from following through with its threat to enshrine compulsory vaccination in law, an unworkable and quite frankly embarrassing gambit which the feudal state hopes to enforce by subjecting the country’s Great Unvaccinated to such stupendous fines that the only way to go presumably will be to resort to desperate acts. Time to get that dosh out of the Austrian banking system folks and into those socks under the bed!
However, bets are on that the Austrian government, which like Mr Trudeau in beleaguered Canada has underestimated the single mindedness of those who value freedom, already has in the pipeline a face-saving contingency plan, which, before the end of March ~ before the introductory phase for riot-igniting fines ~ will see a positive U-turn attempt to restore the country’s tarnished image as a democratic state. Of course, should another Covid variant pop conveniently out of the political woodwork, WHO knows what will happen?
Recent experience tells us that it would be sheer folly to allow ourselves to be lulled into a sense of false security! Indeed, those ‘gud ole boys’ at the WHO are already warning us that the situation remains unpredictable. Thus, WHO can rightly say if all this relaxation and semblance of normality is not just another example of the psychological warfare strategy of ‘soften them up to knock them back down’!
Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist. If I was, I would be naming that quarry somewhere in the Home Counties where some of my peers in England assert the United States staged the first moon landing. But I don’t mind telling you, and nobody else, that I am one of the few people who know exactly where it was filmed, because I have in my possession a photograph of the lunar landing which has a burger bar in the background which they forgot to airbrush out!
So, please send £10 via debit and/or credit card to Mick Hart at I am no conspiracy theorist {Iamnoconpiracytheorist.com} for your copy of the aforesaid photo.
In the meantime, Ginger cat, which song by Elton John would you like to hear next?
Kaliningrad via Gdansk My first visit to Kaliningrad: left UK 23 December 2000
Kaliningrad via Gdansk is one in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.
Updated: 18 January 2022 | First published: 16 August 2019
It’s 7pm, 23rd December 2000, and I am sitting nervously on a British Airways’ plane bound for Warsaw, Poland. I am one of those peculiar types that believes sitting in an aluminium tube with thousands of gallons of highly inflammable fuel at 35,000 feet is perfect insanity. Never mind about the well-meaning ‘statistically safest form of travel’.
But was it a nice place where I was hopefully going to get
to?
As I said in my previous blog post, I hadn’t flown since 1971, but here I was jetting off to Warsaw. From Warsaw, we would take a bus to Gdansk and then, after a night or two there, a train to Kaliningrad, Russia.
For a non-flyer I took a perverse almost masochistic delight in the journey, overcoming much of my fear with the aid of three or four vodkas and a very complacent brother, who grinned like a jackanapes all the way.
For my own part, arriving at Warsaw Airport was not only novel in that we had arrived but also for the officialdom that greeted us. Here we were in the East, where it pleased my literary and cinematographic prejudices to discover a far more officious and militaristic reception. In London, Heathrow, it had been all suits, ties and ‘ladies and gentleman’; here, in the East, it was visor caps, uniforms, side-arms and cold stares. Passing through passport control was a stereotypical dream come true: the steely eyed and expressionless face of the man inside his little glass booth, glancing first at my passport photo and then searchingly back at me.
Somewhat disappointed that I had not been mistaken for the spy that they had been waiting for, I was then treated to what for most people I should imagine is a dull and onerous routine ~ retrieving one’s luggage ~ but which for us, thanks to a certain bag in our entourage, proved to be most entertaining.
The bag in question was a cylindrical-shaped canvas hold-all with a rubberised waterproof base. In theory it was a great piece of kit, capable of holding, well, anything really, and, when empty, folding away into nothing. Problem was, however, that when full it was very bulky, extremely heavy and extraordinarily long and, although it was well-catered-for with various handles and straps, those little wheels, which are such an indispensable feature of today’s large travel bags, were conspicuously non-existent.
So there we were with the rest of them waiting patiently at the side of the carousel for our luggage to emerge. One by one our cases appeared, and we duly retrieved them. But where was that last, that special bag?
With about six people left around the carousel excluding ourselves, we began to grow concerned. But just as we began to fear that we may have lost our exclusive bag, we caught sight of it, coming out of the luggage hold from behind the rubber flaps ~ only it didn’t. It sort of popped out, sat there for a while and then nipped back in again.
Two or three large heavy cases then came tumbling out in a kind of jumbled confusion, quickly followed by another sighting of our long and lost bag. For some odd reason, it was making its exit and entrance at a compromising angle.
Moving closer to the exit point, we could clearly hear lots of huffing, puffing and cursing from behind the rubber curtains. Our bag was now sandwiched sideways across the gap, forming a blockade with the remaining cases caught on top and behind it. From what we could make out, a lot of frustrated energy was being expended out of sight behind the scenes and then, with a thump and a cry, our obstinate bag and the others that it had bullied came tumbling into view.
Whether our long bag didn’t think much of Poland or was simply a petulant creature, this we will never know, but It was evident from the large boot prints on either side of the bag that our ‘Sausage’, as it became to be known, had put up a hell of a fight!
By bus to Gdansk
After this trauma, we no doubt took a quick snifter or two of vodka from the hip flask that I had brought with us. It was now time to lug our luggage, including our recalcitrant Sausage, from the warmth of the airport to the snowy wastes outside.
The plan was to bus it to Gdansk. We were both looking forward to the journey, to relaxing on the bus, that is until we saw what it was that we would be travelling in. Being English, we can be forgiven for believing that we would be going by luxury coach when, in fact, the carriage awaiting us was a rusting, clapped-out minibus with mustard lace curtains that once no doubt had been white.
I don’t recall being too perturbed by the fact that almost everyone was smoking on the way; my brother was a smoker and I was prone now and then to indulge in the odd cigar. Looking back on it, it must have been a right old stinker ~ the curtains weren’t yellow for nothing, although my smell memory retains a distinct essence of diesel fumes more than it does tobacco.
It was a long journey, and we were very tired. It was snowing continuously and sometimes quite heavily, but this merely added to the stereotypical image that I had nurtured, and it pleased me for its novelty as much if not more than for the differences I noted as we trundled on our way: shops and road signage, all written, of course, in Polish; the filling stations whose names I did not recognise; and, when it was possible to see through the steamed-up windows, the distinctive change in architecture.
As the open road gave way to increasingly built-up areas we knew we were travelling through the outskirts of Gdansk.
We had in our possession a computer printout identifying the hotel where we would be staying and, according to the bus driver, we were close to where we wanted to be. We alighted from the bus, cramped and stiff, on the side of a dual carriageway teaming with traffic, shell shocked from travel fatigue but anaesthetized by vodka.
My wife to be, Olga, had arrived there some hours before us and, as luck would have it, I spotted her having a cigarette in the window of the hotel restaurant across the busy street from where we were standing. Remember those wonderful days? Having a cigarette in the restaurant! {Post-normal days’ comment: Remember those days before coronavirus, ie sitting in a pub or a restaurant!}
Thus, the first stage of the journey into Russia was complete. We would stay for three days in Gdansk, which included Christmas Day, and then, on the 27th December, leave Poland by train for Kaliningrad.
My first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000: 23 December 2000
See you in Kaliningrad Russia! is one in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.
Updated: 11 January 2021 | First published: 8 July 2019
I am not, and have never been, a traveller, so my first trip to Russia was as much a surprise to me as it was to everybody else.
The story of my first trip to Russia has been told so many times that it is almost legendary, but for the uninitiated it goes something like this. From my unlimited knowledge of the country, having grown up in the late 60s early 70s on Len Deighton’s and John le Carré’s Cold War thrillers, Michael Caine spy films and Callan, and having been force fed Solzhenitsyn’s novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, at school, as far as I was concerned Russia was the USSR and in deciding to go there I was off behind the Iron Curtain.
In the weeks leading up to my departure I took advantage of the internet, using computers in the offices of the publishing company where I was supposed to be working to research my travel arrangements and Russia in general. In those days I was not particularly switched on to the British establishment’s trashing of everything Russian, so I took all of the warnings and don’ts very seriously. Admittedly, it was not all fabrication. This was the year 2000 and the catastrophic after effects of perestroika were still ricocheting throughout Russia.
It was my intention to access Kaliningrad, Russia, via Gdansk, Poland, about which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) warnings were also dire. At this time Poland was independent. It had its own sovereignty and had not yet become a vassal state of the European Union.
The end result of my internet research was that I ended up with a hulking great Lever Arch folder bursting at the seams with the scariest stuff imaginable ~ not a reassuring read for a novice and nervous traveller.
Why Go?
My decision to fly to Russia had not been made on the basis that I wanted to discover Russia or anywhere, for that matter. As I said earlier, I was no traveller. The thought of flying was anathema to me. I had not flown since a school trip to Switzerland in 1971. But, in the summer of 2000, all that was to change.
I met a woman who was later to be my wife. Her name was Olga. Olga was an English language teacher. She was spending a month in London, having brought a group of Russian students on a cultural trip to England. We met, I showed her around London ~ mostly around the pubs of London ~ a relationship developed, and when she had to return to Russia as her visa had expired, and I was faced with the unthinkable prospect of never seeing her again, I decided that if she could not come back to England then I would go to Russia. That this decision was taken after several pints in Clerkenwell’s Wetherspoon’s pub in London is immaterial. I had made a promise, and I had to stick to it!
But I would not be going alone. My fear of flying was so ingrained that I needed a co-pilot. I found one in my younger brother, whose flippant, frivolous and devil-may-care attitude was exactly what was needed on a dangerous mission like this.
See you in Kaliningrad Russia!
What Brits don’t know about Russia you could write on a postage stamp ~ billions of them ~ but one thing we do know is that it snows out there: Russia is very cold.
I cannot recall a single Russian spy film or television series made in the West where there is not a surplus of snow and furry hats, so you can be certain that we spent the weeks leading up to the trip equipping ourselves for Siberia, filling our oversized bags with woolly jumpers, great thick socks, big hulking overcoats, thermal shirts and the must-have cotton long johns. As it happened, even though we were travelling to Russia’s westernmost point, where the climate is not dissimilar to England’s, on this occasion we had been wise to take precautions, as the temperature sank whilst we were there to minus 29C.
In addition to clothing baggage, there was another type, the kind that comes with security. Having read over and over again that we were likely to be robbed at knife point or, at the very least, succumb to spates of pickpocketing, we had taken every precaution and more.
Credit cards were stashed away in various places; credit card company emergency numbers had been written down in at least two pocket books; the names of family, friends and close associates, all of whom could help us if we found ourselves in a jam, were meticulously listed along with contact numbers and emails (where they existed!); and money? ~ we were taking US dollars, some of which I had cunningly concealed in a money belt.
The money belt that I would be using to keep my dollars safe was no ordinary, bog-standard traveller’s belt. Having read somewhere that savvy robbers went straight for the type of belt that you buy from travel-clothes shops, I had acquired from an old army friend an ordinary leather belt which had a zipped liner at the back into which notes could be threaded. This belt wasn’t additional; it was the one that held your trousers up; the notes were very tightly stashed in a thin threaded line, so you can imagine the difficulty of paying for something, especially in somewhere busy such as a supermarket! Still, the currency that I had stuffed inside the leg of one of my socks was not such a difficult enterprise.
After a
month of fretting and dwelling masochistically on what it would be like to be
plummeting earthwards in a doomed airliner, I was ready to say goodbye.
Before departing (I was inclined to say ‘leaving’), a close friend of mine did all he could to reassure me: “After all,” he said philosophically, “it’s not the flying you have to worry about, just the crashing.”
First Day in Gdansk is the third in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.
Published: 1 September 2019 | Updated: 9 January 2022 ~ Kaliningrad 2000: First Day in Gdansk
My brother likes breakfasts. He does not like getting up for breakfast, or, to be more precise, he would rather breakfast was at half-past-three in the afternoon, which for him it often is. For him breakfast is, de rigueur, a full fatty fry, otherwise known as a Full English, aka an overfull Englishman. So, when he emerged from his room this morning, impelled to do so by the fact that breakfast was included within the hotel tariff, the absence of three whopping great sausages, a load of greasy bacon, a fried slice or two, two fried eggs, beans, tomatoes and a loaf of toasted bread was not so easily digested. He soon cheered up, however, when he discovered the as ‘much as you can eat’ Polish buffet, a culinary experience typical in this part of the world and one which through its familiarity over the coming days would induce him to coin the catchphrase ‘cold meats and cheeses’ whenever the words Poland and breakfast were brought into close proximity.
We were only
in Gdansk for a couple of days, in transit, so to speak, so any sight-seeing
that we hoped to do would be at the very best fleeting. Apart from exploring
English breakfasts, my brother was a keen tourist, but he was not convinced
that cold meats and cheeses were nutritionally sufficient to ward off the worst
effects of the ever-sinking ambient temperature, so before heading off into the
great outdoors we bulked out our bodies with as much winter clothing as we could
and succeeded in looking dafter than we usually did.
Needless to say, our urban excursion took us into what today are well-known tourist destinations: Ulica Długa (Long Street) and Długi Targ (Long Market). Then, we knew nothing of these places. As I have said before, I am no globe trotter, but I am, and always have been, more than just a little fascinated by my mysterious fascination with time, with my love for history and need for the past.
Trip to Kaliningrad, Russia. Poland, Gdansk in 2000.
Of the history of Gdansk, I was sadly lacking, but I did know enough about architecture to understand that the great proportion of the 17th century buildings in the ‘old’ quarter, with their Flemish (Dutch), Italian and French influences, were predominantly reconstructions. Adolf Hitler and Co had made certain sweeping changes back in the 1940s and subsequent generations of architects, designers and town planners had embarked upon an adventurous and inspirational programme of rebuilding with (oddly enough) minimum attention to Germanic influences.
To what extent a reconstructed building, street, district can be said to embody the cultural-historic significance of its predecessor is a moot point. I personally prefer not to erase the patina from original antique furniture, but when it does happen the piece concerned can still retain historical value and suffer no detraction in its aesthetic appeal. Admittedly, it may no longer be the complete genuine article, but as long as it possesses something of its past it cannot be discounted, and on this day back in the year 2000 my novice traveller status, love for the past and for architecture left me with an impression of Gdansk’s historic district that was and is distinctly memorable.
My memory of atmosphere is possibly only challenged by the recollection of how cold it was on that day but also how wonderful it felt to leave the outside chill for the warmth, comfort and cosy interior of a welcoming café-bar and then, having fortified ourselves with hot food and red wine, to return enthusiastically to the crisp and snow-flurried streets.
St Mary’s Church Gdansk
Olga, who had visited Gdansk on three or four occasions prior to our visit, was eager to visit again the large ~ very large ~ church which was located in the district that we were visiting. The building to which I refer is, of course, the world-renowned St Mary’s Church, believed to be the largest brick-built church in the world, dating back to the mid-to-late 14th century. As with most of Gdansk’s buildings, this, too, was severely damaged during WWII and extensive renovation and rebuilding had been required to return it to its former glory. Fortunately, most of the ancient and valuable artworks contained within the church were removed for safekeeping early in the war and many have since been returned.
If a small English parish church can entrance me with its age and history, you can imagine how intensely mesmerised I was by St Mary’s Church, Gdansk.
Guide books would be doing St Mary’s Church a great disservice if they failed to mention the clock and the great views of the city afforded from the 78-metre tower (they always do mention these things, mind), but as one time traveller to another my advice to you is simply visit the church yourself and feel the history.
Time is fascinating and time was ticking on; we were getting peckish; the cold meats and cheeses were definitely wearing off and, apart from that, we all agreed that it was time to sup some ale. Until now, we had been drinking vodka, but only because of the difficulty of fitting an appreciable amount of beer into a hip flask, and having renounced grim lager many years hence, we were none too keen to start again now.
Vodka was not a beverage that appealed to me either. I had had a bad experience with it many years ago, when I was nine years old to be precise. One nice sunny day I had raided my mother’s drink cupboard, filled a bottle with vodka and undiluted orange squash and, together with a friend, had taken it on a picnic. Between us, we consumed the entire bottle. That evening I was at church, singing in the choir. Gothic churches are great places to commune with history, but they take on an altogether different aspect when they are spinning like a top. The hangover was also magnificent!
On the subject of bars (which we mostly are), whilst our Polish hotel had no such facility, on our return from wherever it was we had been, we happened on one but a short walk away, and this is where we ended our evening.
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day in Gdansk.
Gdansk 2000. On our way to Kaliningrad, Russia. Mick Hart & brother Joss …
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 645 [9 December 2021]
Published: 8 December 2021 ~ Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants
Diary of a self-isolator is one of a series of posts and thoughts on self-isolating in Kaliningrad. Links to previous posts appear at the end of this post.
It’s amazing isn’t it! Just when you were gullible enough to think that zippety zoo zah, zippity ay, I have had my two vaccines everything’s going my way. You read articles and see videos that claim* that:
a. Vaccinated people can catch coronavirus just as easily as unvaccinated
b. Vaccinated people can spread coronavirus just as easily as unvaccinated
c. Vaccinated people can catch coronavirus, become seriously ill and die just as easily as unvaccinated
d. Your two jabs are not enough, and you need to have another … and another … and another …
{*Don’t believe everything you read, see on the telly and is printed on underpants’ labels}
And then, just when you’ve consoled yourself with the barely consoling thought, well, hey ho, it’s almost Christmas, along comes the WHO with a deadly new strain of coronavirus, and its off the ladder, down the snake and back to square one again.
I am not too dismayed by these revelations as I never left square one.
Sitting here in Kaliningrad, the only strain that I am feeling is the strain on my underpants. Perhaps, I should elaborate. Sorry madam, what was that? Yes, I spelt it right, strain.
The one downside of self-isolating that is rarely touched upon is the toll it takes on your underpants, by which I mean from all that sitting. The wear and tear on a self-isolator’s underpants are possibly something that the office of statistics has not yet got to grips with. The upside of self-isolating ~ and by default one of the positives of not having a QR code ~ is that with nowhere to go you will definitely save on shoe leather, but the downside, in your pants, is where does that leave them? “Ahh soles!” you might think to yourself, if you are prone to too much rambling (Don’t bother saying it! I’ll get to the point soon enough!), but pants are pretty low, without elastic, and in one’s clothing-monitoring kecking order they are bottom of the pile.
Thus, it never occurred to me, as most likely it has never occurred to you, that two years of social distancing had taken it out of my pants. My word, I thought, peering into my underpants, they are looking tired and shabby.
Nevertheless, I didn’t give it a second thought. Why should I? The logical thing to do was to go out and buy a new pair. But sometime later, whilst reading about the anti-vaccine passport riots in Canada and Australia, something alarm-like went off. It couldn’t have been the elastic twanging in my pants, as there was not enough spring left in them. No, it was something far more dire than that. It was the impromptu possibility that pants were now off-limits! That the introduction of QR codes had rendered them non-essential!
My mind began to race. I felt like I was on the start line of Santa Pod Raceway, the drag racing strip in England, where I used to drink and work (and in that order). You could almost see the skidmarks (Richard Skidmark, damn good actor, almost as good as Burt Shirtlifter.). The chilling possibility that QR codes had effectively rationed underpants was a blow below the belt; it was the thought process equivalent of a ‘bleach burnout‘. Ahh, and what about bleach!? Could you still get it? Surely, bleach, like bog rolls, is fairly essential stuff. And what about bog rolls? How essential are they?
How I laughed two years back at the maddening crowd of Brits who at the start of the so-called Pandemic rushed out mob handed to buy up the country’s bog roll reserves. The boot was on the other foot now. It was a silly place to put it, but I was in such a rush to find and recycle my old, used face masks that I had hung seven next to the toilet suspended by their straps before the thought occurred to me that since grub was deemed essential and toilet rolls and bleach were sold in every supermarket, access to this commodity could not be denied. All well and good, I thought, but where did that leave my underpants?
Taking underpants off (the essential list that is) just does not seem right. It’s unethical, not to mention unhygienic, but in these straitened days where essentials are defined by the right to bear a QR code, ease of access to underpants is no longer the civilised liberty that once was taken for granted.
Let us hypothesise that you are one of the QR codeless, and therefore unable to enter non-essential shops from which to buy your underpants. Would the answer to your dilemma be to entreat somebody else, someone in possession of a vaccination passport, to buy your pants on your behind, behalf? Appointing a pant-buying proxy would certainly get them off the hook, but, as with everything to do with this pandemic, and equating it to the state of my pants, there has to be and is an inevitable snag.
The crutch of the matter is that here, in Kaliningrad, the size ratio of men’s underwear is a trifle obscure. If you were given to conspiracy theories, you might easily infer that underpants have fallen foul of the misinformation/disinformation industry and that the mere mention of them would be enough for Facebook to redirect you to a place which purports to sell you the truth about the size of pants in Kaliningrad. This may not be such a bad thing, as the last time I bought a large pair they fitted me like Houdini’s straitjacket! I returned to the market where I had bought them, and no, I did not ask to exchange them ~ I now use them as a pocket handkerchief ~ but I did say, with unabashed pride to the lady from whom I had purchased them, “Nice pants, but they don’t fit. I need an extra-large pair”.
Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants
Between you and me and nobody else, I must confess that I was rather chuffed. I’d never bought a pair of XXL’s before, but somewhere between tearing back on the bus to try them on and getting home to do so, it occurred to me, quite sadly, that the reason why XXL pants are the only option in Kaliningrad is that all pants come from China ~ the one place in the world where smalls are what they say they are, small.
As the mystery of the extra-large underpants unravelled before my eyes, much to my chagrin, the ‘Made in China’ connection still did not explain how big burly Russian men manage to fit into such tiny pants. Had I just discovered the answer to the West’s rhetorical question: Why do Russians look so serious? If so, then my understandable disappointment at having debunked the myth that mine were a large pair was more than compensated for by my having stumbled upon the answer to a riddle as far reaching and out of sight as the Soch Less Monster question, “Do Scotsmen wear pants under their kilts?”
Alas, getting to the bottom of this one may forever elude us, as may the answer to the question how come more stockings and suspenders are sold in Scotland than there are females in the population? A statistical anomaly that may all change now that vaccination passports have been inflicted on the Scots (Well, you would vote old hatchet face in!)
The good news, proving the maxim that every pair of underpants has a silver lining, is that according to popular rumour, QR codes will not be extended to restrict access to public transport. Thank heavens for that. Imagine dusting off the old Soviet bike and rattling across the Königsberg cobbles on two flat tyres with the suspension gone in your underpants.
I imagine that bikes are not classed as essential items, and if they are not classed as essential items then without proud possession of a QR code you won’t be able to buy new tyres or buy yourself a bike to go with that saddle you bought last month.
But as my philosophising Indian friend is wont to say ~and say too often: “Every problem has a solution.”
Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants
I had already worked out that if socks had been declassified as essential items, I would still be able to buy them, if not on the black market, then from the roadside market. Babushkas make lovely thick, warm, colourful, woollen socks. I am not altogether sure that babushka-made woollen underpants would be quite that lovely, rather like wearing a British 1940s’ teapot cover, but needs must when the Devil drives. “Hello, could you put through me to the Scottish Import Department, please.”
What else might be deemed non-essential in the new QR code age? I looked out of the window and noticed that our neighbour had been thinking along the same lines. He had a spare bog standing in the garden, just in case. He had also leant a long plank outside his house to enable his cat to climb up to the first floor flat where he lived. He had cut down the silver birch tree that the cat used to climb up, presumably because he knew something that we didn’t, possibly some obscure Covid-restriction connection between QR codes, cats, trees, planks and toilets in gardens.
Not 100% convinced that QR codes would not appear on transport, I put on my mask and went to the home of a used-car dealer who wanted to talk sales. On the way there I saw my neighbour sitting on a box in his front garden. He had not been able to get into his house for a week as he had lost his key, and, as you know, keys are non-essential items.
It was raining hard, and my neighbour’s arm was sticking up into the air. Normally, it would have had an umbrella on the end of it, but as my neighbour had no QR code, and as umbrellas are non-essential, he could not get into the shop to buy one, which serves him jolly well right! The last thing that you would want a conspiracy theorist to have is an umbrella!
At the used-car salesman’s place, after a glass or two of home-made vodka ~ Ha, who needs shops! ~ I became the proud owner of my first Russian car. It was a snip at twice the price I paid for what it is really worth. It has an irrefutable pedigree: One getaway driver, 2000km on the clock (which the seller told me he would let me have after he had finished working on it), a full tank of whatever it is, six months MOT valid until April 1967 and a tin opener.
I cannot wait to drink with him again. He is also selling a helicopter.
On my way back home, wondering why I had waited so long to pay twice as much for a car that any sane person would not have bought in the first place, at least not for that price, a thought crept into my head from the gaps around my face mask. It was that the coronavirus age had probably spawned a lot of bored people with nothing better to do than sit at home and count their bog rolls, as well as homespun philosophers like me, modern-day Kants, who sit around in attics writing at large and in-depth on underpants.
One thing I know for certain is that my wife’s belief that prickless people will be made to wear a yellow star to enforce their segregation is not worth the material that my underpants are lacking.
On the contrary, the unrepentant vaccine eluder will be instantly conspicuous from the serve-him-right effects of his inadmissibility. With his long hair, worn out jeans, brightly coloured babushka socks, his bikeless saddle thrust sadly between his legs and more holes in his underpants than Jodrell Banking arsetrologers could hope to see in a lifetime of peeping up their telescopes, should the unvaccinated leper still fail to catch your eye, then you really should consider taking that trip to Specsavers. A word to the wise, however, don’t forget to show them your vaccination passport or they might pretend that they cannot see you through the spectacles you are wearing.
“I wouldn’t be seen dead in a pair of underpants like those!” ~ shouted a man who had just been vaccinated. Tut, if only he’d bought the XXLs.
Published: 1 November 2021 ~ Celebrating the Memory of Königsberg Tour Guide Stas
28th November 2021. Today was the anniversary of Stas Konovalov’s death. After paying our resects at the graveside, a group, consisting of family, close friends and neighbours, were brought together by Stas’ mother for a memorial gathering. It was an emotional, at times difficult, and yet nevertheless, heart-warming occasion.
Encouraged and mentored by artist and art-teacher Victor Ryabinin, from an early age it seemed as if Stas would pursue a career in art himself. Some of his drawings and paintings, most of which he had created in his youth and teenage years, and in which the symbolic hand of Ryabinin is clearly apparent, were displayed by his mother at the memorial gathering today. His art showed promise and had not life intervened in that indifferent way that it does, he might very well have gone on to fulfil his artistic destiny.
Mick Hart and Stas’ mother with some of Stas’ artwork that he created as a student of art
One of Stas’s more bleak compositions, ‘What awaits us …’
Later, again under Ryabinin’s tutelage, Stas developed a love for the history of Königsberg and the region to which it belonged and went on to establish his own tour guides and tour-guide videos, which he worked, reworked and honed to perfection.
Among the complement of friends and neighbours who had gathered today to pay tribute to him were people who had known him for most of his life, some of whom he had been at kindergarten with. By comparison, Olga and I were newcomers. We had known Stas for less than two years, but we had taken to him easily and instantaneously and had formed an insoluble friendship.
Stas told me afterwards that Victor had said to him, “An Englishman is coming to live in Kaliningrad. I think you should meet him. He is interesting, and I think you will find a common language.” I never did pay Victor for calling me ‘interesting’, but Stas and I did find a common language ~ in our love of the past and through our mutual and high regard for the history of Königsberg-Kaliningrad and its region. We also found a common language in the degree to which we found beer, vodka, cognac and good conversation agreeable!
Under the direction and guidance of Victor Ryabinin, we had arrived at Stas’ flat on a cold winter’s evening. The puddles on the road and pavement had turned to ice, and the snow underfoot was multi-layered and covered with a fresh fall. Victor pressed the doorbell to Stas’ flat and then began to perform star-jumps on a square of pavement next to the building where the snow had not penetrated. Each time he jumped, he clicked his heels together in mid-air, performing the ritual with a cheery grin.
The obvious question was why? And when asked, the not so obvious reply had been that Stas’ flat was possibly the only flat in Kaliningrad where you would not be asked to remove your shoes on entering, so Victor was doing Stas the honour of cleaning his boots before crossing the threshold.
Stas was a big man, who looked even bigger in contrast to little Victor, but it soon became apparent that this difference in size had no bearing on the common personality and interest denominators that both shared ~ in fact, which we all we shared.
Stas’ flat was an intriguing place. It bore all the hallmarks of expressive work in progress and was dotted about with Königsberg relics, more of which were proudly displayed inside a large, antique, cabinet. It was a home from home for me ~ the flat as well as the walnut cabinet!
Celebrating the Memory of Königsberg Tour Guide Stas
It was our mutual interest in history, relics of the past and the warm, open nature of our friend, Stas, together with the good memories of the times we spent together, that found us at his memorial gathering today. There were, perhaps, about 30 people in attendance ~ family, friends, neighbours ~ and most had tales to tell of their relationship with Stas or wanted to express their gratitude for knowing him in life and the sorrow they felt at his death.
I am always amazed at how proficient and adept Russian people are at public speaking and how openly and without reservation they bare their souls and reveal their innermost feelings. It is a lesson that we Brits, who are frightened to stray too far from banter and/or prevarication, could certainly learn from.
The individually rendered memories and tributes were sometimes moving, sometimes amusing and consistently complementary.
At times the tributes to Stas were so touching as to be almost overwhelming. I caught myself more than once glancing wistfully across at Stas, grinning from his photo-framed portrait behind the statutory glass of vodka with its piece of bread placed on top. Would he have been surprised at this gathering and to hear the tributes to him that were so touching as to be almost overwhelming?
All I know is that for me to accumulate so many well-wishers at my funeral or memorial wake, I would have to set up a trust fund or at the very least pay people in advance to attend.
Stas was, as Leonard Cohen would say, ‘almost’ young when he died ~ too young. But if there is any consolation to be had, then it echoes in Stas’ own words. With characteristic magnanimity, he left a note asking people not to brood in the event of his death, affirming that he had lived a full and eventful life in which he had achieved much of what he had set out to do.
Gracious, selfless and sensitive to the needs of others until the very end, this was Stas Konovalov. We are proud that we can count ourselves among his many friends, who loved and admired him in life and remember him in death for the commendable person he was.
R.I.P. Stas.
(We wish Stas’ mother, family and friends well, and thank his mother for her gracious invitation to attend the memorial gathering.)
they are running, make a search on Google for ‘GoFundMe removes donation page for Canadian trucker protest’. By the way, when you see why GoF!*kYourself removed the donation page, you might, with justification, think, “Hello, is Al Capone back in business?”. As each day passes the powers that were, and hopefully won’t be for much longer, become more and more transparent. 
