Published: 8 December 2022 ~ Badger Club Kaliningrad a Bohemian Night on the Tiles
My wife, Olga, went to a concert recently (see the photos below). I know exactly how my eloquent and highbrow musician friend in the UK will respond when he attempts to equate ‘concert’ with the images from that evening: “WTF?! Let’s go there!”
Now I am not the world’s most mainstream guy, but I have to admit when I saw the photos and heard an account of the evening, which did not happen until the following day because my wife rolled back at some ungodly hour in the morning, they made me feel positively ~ as the American author Henry James might say ~ ‘Ground into the mill of the conventional’.
It is not clear from the photographs whether the establishment is cavernous, but it certainly looks covenous ~ all that dim lighting, candles, hanging masks, dolls, natural-wood sculptures, enchanting (and possibly enchanted, Gothicised cabinets), and, moreover, wild and whacky costumery! Right up my surrealist street!
The top hat and tailed gentleman, the owner of the club, Aleksandr Smirnov, is obviously a ‘quick-change’ expert ~ one minute impresario, the next an updated rock-star figure from the minds of the Brothers Grimm. He, I am told, is a chimney sweep, only he isn’t, he is an accomplished and original artist who produces highly detailed bronzed relief plaques (apologies if I am slightly less than accurate, but I am having to base my opinion on mobile phone snaps) and, as you will see from the photographs, is also a bit of a wizard in the costume creation department. That’s him in the photo with his chopper in his hand. I’ve never seen one as big as that before; and me having been active in the antiques and militaria trade!
Choppers aside, this particular evening was dedicated to accomplished musicians and good music: There was a soulful and original indie art-folk band, Sfeno, first-rate singer guitarist and a young lady violinist, a virtuoso of her craft, who was on the fiddle a lot that evening. Vodka was not rationed, people got up and jived and my wife, much to her great surprise, if not unalloyed delight, was both chatted up and propositioned, which is always good for the ego (I’ve lost count of the number of times that the same has happened to me (you wish!)). The location, in fact the whole evening, was so spellbinding that it reduced Harry Potter to as much comparative magic as a meeting of the Women’s Institute at the local village-hall on a wet afternoon in the 1930s.
Never one to moralise, even when occasion justifies, whilst all this frivolity was going on in Kaliningrad’s answer to Alice’s Wonderland, I was at home with the cat, genning up on Königsberg and the history of East Prussia by reading (both the cat and I) that excellent publication Legends of the Amber Land, by Andrey Kropotkin.
Although I must say, with my wife rolling in at some unseemly hour of the morning ~ we won’t say when! ~ I would have been quite within my conjugal rights had I demanded of her, “And what time do you call this then!?” or have cast myself in the role of the heavy-handed Victorian husband, with “Why, you dirty stop-out.” But I contented myself with the elevating thought that if I have learnt one thing and one thing only in my brief visit to this muddled world, it is reflected in my born-again status as a stay-at-home Captain Sensible. Stout fellow that I assuredly am: resisting the lure of the bright lights nightlife in order to set the perfect example of how people of a certain age are expected to, and should, behave.
Thus, by the time my wife had sneaked in from her evening of ‘reasonable refreshments’ ~ making it difficult to imagine that she had been brought up in the social climate of anti-decadent Soviet-Russia! ~ I had read my book, patted the cat, drunk my cup of cocoa and with teddy tucked snugly under my arm had taken myself to bed: zzzzzzzzz.
Have you ever had the feeling that you are missing out on something?🤔
Aleksandr Smirnov introduces singer guitarist Andrey BerenevOlga Hart withAleksandr SmirnovOlga Hart in the Badger clubBand Sfeno performingAndrey BerenevOlga Hart surrounded by the esotericOlga Hart with vintage oil lamp and fantasy fairy tale furniture made by ‘Chimney Sweep’ Aleksandr SmirnovInara looking hornyConfronted with a large chopper
Aleksandr Smirnov By all accounts*, Aleksandr (Chimney Sweep) Smirnov is an artist, costume designer and consummate wizard at conjuring up interior design of a distinctly unusual and exotic nature.
Able to work with all kinds of material, including wood and metal, much of what you see in the photographs in terms of fixtures and fittings are said to have been made by his hand, the same hand that has orchestrated the natural, historical and decorative elements that set apart the club’s interior from any other you may have encountered. The syncopated fairy tale feel that you get from all of this is no coincidence. A little fairy tells me that he writes fairy tales as well. *Дом трубочиста или выходные в сказке (turbopages.org)
The Badger club, Kaliningrad The Badger club has a dedicated clientele who value not only the décor and entertainment but speak with great warmth and affection about the club’s welcoming ethos and its friendly, inviting atmosphere. Why not go and see for yourself? You may just become a regular in the process?!
Links to bars, restaurants to visit in Kaliningrad
Published: 21 August 2022 ~ Café Seagull by the Lake Kaliningrad is hard to beat!
As summer peters out, it’s time to take every opportunity available to sit outside and enjoy a beer. The problem in Kaliningrad is that everybody appears to be doing just that. Consequently, bars, restaurants and cafés with outside seating areas are heavily subscribed to. It is always refreshing, therefore, when supply is overstretched by demand, to discover something new.
Recently, we discovered Кафе Чайка у озера (Café Seagull by the Lake). The café’s terrace is small, but, as English estate agents like to say when advertising properties, it is ‘well-appointed’. The terrace and the restaurant windows look out over Kaliningrad’s (Königsberg’s) Upper Pond, which was created in 1270 by the knights of the Teutonic Order as a repository for fish farming. Today, fishermen sit patiently by the water’s edge hoping to get a bite, but they share the recreational space with non-fishing Kaliningrad citizens and visitors to the city for whom the pond, paths and parkland surrounding it are a convenient natural habitat for walking, cycling or simply relaxing.
Mick Hart enjoys a moment of peace and sobriety outside Café Seagull before guests and beer arrives
Café Seagull is an excellent place for simply relaxing; thus, if you are walking or cycling around the pond you could always make it your destination or a halfway house on your journey. On the afternoon that I visited, I was doing neither. I had purposefully gone there with my wife’s family to enjoy the view from somewhere new, have a ‘pint’ and a bite to eat. I was not disappointed ~ nobody was. The menu is varied, interesting and offers something for every taste, even strange vegetarian tastes like mine. The beer, which is a tad higher in price than I would normally want to pay, was nevertheless just what the doctor ordered, or probably wouldn’t, although my UK doctor might because he likes a beer or two as, come to think of it, does my gastroenterologist in Kaliningrad. Reassured by this twin prescription, I could sense that the afternoon had all the makings of a guilt-free one. Today’s choice, therefore, was Maisel’s Weisse, a German wheat beer with plenty of flavour, more so and especially if you opt, as I did on this occasion, for the brew’s unfiltered version.
Café Seagull by the Lake Kaliningrad
Inside, the café is bright, airy, unpretentious and welcoming and, as I have said (you were listening, weren’t you?), offers a pleasant view of the Upper Pond from an elevated advantage.
Königsberg’s cobbles and Upper Pond from the terrace of the Seagull by the Lake Café in Kaliningrad
Two large, framed prints on the walls, one of a cabbage and the other a rear view of a rather well-built seated lady, invite speculation as to what the symbolic connection might be, but are too thought-provoking to cogitate on at length when all you want to do is relax and sip your Maisel’s Weisse.
Fortunately, that’s all there is to puzzle over. The cuisine, both in terms of presentation and taste, received top marks and the service could not be faulted. The young staff are helpful, polite, attentive and, most importantly, resoundingly cheerful. They are a credit to the restaurant and thus a valuable asset.
If my posts on bars, restaurants and cafés in Kaliningrad included a rating system, it would be difficult, if not impossible, not to give Café Seagull 10 out of 10. What we can say with impunity is that Café Seagull by the Lake is highly recommended and a venue you should bookmark under ‘I must definitely visit’.😊
Essential details:
Café Seagull by the Lake (Кафе Чайка у озера) Verkhneozernaya, 16A Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad region, Russia 236008
Tel: +7 921 711 71 80
Opening times Seven days a week: 0800 to 2200 (8am to 10pm)
Mick Hart reviews the London Pub (Pub London) Kaliningrad
Published: 14 August 2022 ~ London Pub Kaliningrad Best Pub not in London
My first encounter with the London Pub, or Pub London as it is known in Kaliningrad (note the crafty way the Russian language confuses us!), took place in the summer of 2015. Let me say from the outset that I was not attracted to it just because I used to live in London and it calls itself the London Pub.
Thankfully, whenever I visit a foreign country the need to hotfoot-it to the nearest British themed bar to cry wistfully into my beer in demonstrative affection for the native land I have left behind ~ even though I may only have left it yesterday ~ is a failing I have yet to cultivate, and one I suspect may forever remain a singularly Irish phenomenon. For wherever you go in the world, you can always be sure to find, usually when you least expect or want to, shamrock, porter and diddley dee.
No, what appealed to me about the London Pub, forgoing for the moment the historic building in which it is housed, was the layout, interior décor and the atmosphere bestowed by both; a combination which was “a tad unfortunate” as this entry in my diary, dated 8 March 2020, shows: “upon our arrival [at the London Pub] we found that it had undergone a complete and startling refit.”
Incidentally, on that day, which would be the last day I would drink at the London Pub until the ‘all-clear sirens’ sounded on the two-year coronavirus blitz, we got our first glimpse of the new-look world. For it was in the London Pub that we were introduced to what was destined to become that global, or rather globalist, absurd coronavirous fashion accessory, the never proven to be effective but still mandatory mask.
The London Pub staff were wearing their new regulation uniforms ~ black waistcoats, bow ties and black bowler hats (and other things, I hasten to add) ~ which were excellent in themselves as they suited the London Pub ethos ~ but teamed with coronavirus muzzles?! Laugh, of course we did, little knowing at the time that this sinister remake of Clockwork Orange was a prelude to our future.
Right>>: London pub staff kindly poses for our camera. This photo taken in May 2022, post-coronavirus mask era >
When I say our future, I mean to imply the world in general, as Olga and I only ever wore masks in situations where we had no choice, such as when travelling on public transport or shopping in the supermarket. As soon as choice resumed, off the silly masks came.
We returned to the London Pub in May this year (2022), which is when the photographs used in this post were taken. The observations, however, have been borrowed from my diary, written on the day when we discovered that the London Pub had been dramatically refurbished, which was 8 March 2020.
Above: Mick Hart enjoying a ‘hair of the dog’ at the London Pub, circa summer 2015
The London Pub that is not in London
The ground floor of Kaliningrad’s London Pub, accessed as it is by a flight of steps, is effectively an elevation above street level. It consists of a large room divided in two by a crook-shaped bar, which is a copy, albeit an inaccurate one, of the ubiquitous horseshoe bar with which many a London Victorian pub is typified.
To the right of the bar, at the point where the loop curves, the narrower portion of the room no longer imitates the British convention of pubs divided into two social halves, the ‘public’ and the ‘lounge’, where the public bar was often more basic in fixtures, fittings and furnishings and the lounge, as the name implies, more comfortable and upmarket, attracting, in terms of class taxonomy, a better clientele. The old London pub was never exactly this, but I think it is fair to say that one side of the room, the narrow side, was less cushion-filled, textile based and given to reclining in than its more spacious counterpart.
Before the refit, the bar area was furnished with an assortment of tables, each seating between four to six people, some of which were separated if only to a symbolic degree by the inclusion of chest-high snob screens. The dominant colour, not just of the bar area but the entire pub, had been mid-blue; in keeping I suppose with the contemporary trend in British pubs for light and pastel painted interiors
Above: London Pub bar-side, circa summer 2015 Below: London Pub as it is today (photos: May 2022)
To justify the London Pub’s eponymous connection with England, stenciled references to traditional English idioms, well-known sayings such as ‘My cup of tea’ and the ‘Apple of my eye’, guested on the beams and walls together with quotes from British literary figures, men of letters and arcane wit, such as the famous and equally infamous Oscar Wilde with his ‘Moderation in all things, including moderation’.
London Pub Kaliningrad
From the looks of things, it appeared that whoever masterminded the pub refurbishment had borrowed from Oscar’s irony, since no moderation was apparent neither in the extent nor dramatic character of the changes.
Gone are the high stools in the alcoves, the circular tables and padded bench seats. The minimalist wall décor and the traditional British slogans have also been axed, substituted by an enormous profusion of curios, collectables, memorabilia, vintage and retro items of an exceedingly English nature. They proliferate on walls where no expense or imagination has been spared in the interest of procuring that tatty-torn, disheveled look which aspiring interior designers and Sunday-magazine supplement editors like to call ‘distressed’.
I wrote about distressed décor in my piece on the Georgian bar Kavkaz but the effect therein is far more restrained than it is in the London Pub.
The London Pub employs the same ageing technique of peeling wallpaper and fading paint. Like Kavkaz it seeks to create the impression, and succeeds, that fragments of old wallpaper and patches of former paint schemes are seeping through more recent layers, but the mat green and dull orange hues favoured by the London Pub are hauntingly subtle and a few extra trowels worth of rough-surfaced rendering spattered with differing tones conveys an authenticity that enticingly raises the question why if neglect is so deucedly comfortable should we ever go out of our way to improve on its virtue?
Above: How to make a wall distressed and then scatter it with memorabilia
The alcove to the customers’ right of the bar has been taken a step further into the world of designer neglect by plastering various parts of it with three or four scraps of newspaper, all belonging to bygone eras and which, by their torn, wanting and dog-eared state, pass as having been stuck to the wall for years rather than the few weeks it has taken to present them.
On top of this imaginative scheme of fading colours and random pages torn from British newspapers (By the way, The Three Kings pub in London’s Clerkenwell Green also favours newsprint walls.) no restraint has been exercised in turning back the clock to earlier times in Britain: framed prints of 18th century classic architecture, silk cigarette cards, film advertisements, decorative wall plates, pictures of celebrities, brassware, hunting horns and you name it and you’ll probably find it have found a home on the London Pub’s walls.
On the pier between the windows behind me hung a vintage English naval jacket with corresponding visor hat next to a British army officer’s cap and dress jacket. Other uniform combinations of a British military nature adorn the walls on the opposite side of the room; all familiar items to us, as many passed through our hands whilst running our vintage and antique shop in England.
Above: Vintage British military uniforms adorning the ‘aged’ walls of the London Pub
Each of the London Pub’s window piers have been fitted with a shelf enabling all manner of collectable items shipped to Russia from England to accumulate ‘naturally’ in a perfectly haphazard way. Neither my memory nor my imagination struggled with this concept, as the clutter and its variegation closely resembled a place I once called home, where junk and I co-existed in harmonic correlation.
Some of the London Pub’s shelves have become resting places for old books, diverse in topic but indefatigably English by origin, their covers turned to face the room for all the world to see. For example, behind me there was a book on the Royal Navy and at the other end of the same shelf one about Queen Elizabeth II (Gawd bless ‘er!). On other shelves nearby there was a book on England’s Home Guard (WWII) and a second on the Royal Navy but harking back to a different era. Above these books hang two ancient tennis rackets both constructed of good honest wood ~ none of your carbon-fibre nonsense here! ~ obsolete in themselves but appearing even more archaic slotted inside their square wooden braces.
Above: Clutter against its natural backdrop
Looking back from the bar towards the entrance of the London Pub it struck me that something rather exciting, even magical, had happened since I last drank here. The door surround had turned into a Tudor-Bethan fantasy. Thick, curved oak pilasters ~ or so we are led to believe ~ stepped cornices profusely carved and scrolled, rise above an elaborate entablature to an impressive second tier containing a grand, baroque, armorial crest, which speaks to us in medieval tones of the dynastic power of barons and earls, whilst a couple of coal buckets either side of the uprights speak in brass of a giant fireplace. Whatever you want it to be, it is only disappointing when exiting under its lordly lintel, the fantasy dissolves and you are back on the streets of the 21st century. And yet it could be worse, much worse, for at least the 21st-century streets on the other side of the door are not the ones that the Pub, if it was in London, would put you out on ~ streets that you walk in fear and at your peril! But you should have stayed for another pint, so it jolly well serves you right!
Above: The coal buckets on either side imply exiting into the real world via the fireplace
In the old London, the London Pub before the refit, we would have been sitting on plain, high-backed bar stools. Now, we were sitting on not-so-plain new-old bar stools, in other words stools antique in appearance but not so antique in age. At first glance, every other glance and a prolonged unfaltering stare, these ‘prop you up at the bar’ devices have more about them than just a touch of Louis. They have near heart-shaped backs and deep blue silver-trimmed frames. They incorporate a classical shell motif. Their front legs are sweeping sabres; their back legs pad-feet cabrioles. They are, of course, like the fireplace door, strictly fantasy pieces.
The bar top, which was rather plain before the refit, is now a satin polished light wood with a feature-distinctive grain. The choice of seats, either open armchairs or rectangular tubs, has been rescinded, replaced with the accent on uniformity. The new kids on the block are back-to-back button-down leather-look seats capable of accommodating six people comfortably around rectangular tables.
London Pub Kaliningrad refurbishment
The opposite side of the pub has also undergone a startling transformation. Gone is the design concept of no two seats or tables the same, and out with the low (far too low for comfort) chairs, which either put your knees around your ears or rested your chin on the table ~ an anomaly in restaurant seating that may by its regular recurrence be construed as peculiarly Russian. Gone also are the open-backed sofas sprinkled with various cushions that started off as comfy but at some point during the evening slid quietly and unreasonably away, off out through the latticework backs. In their place the same pitch-black, button-backed vinyl seats lining the walls and sitting at right angles to the windows in the ‘bar’ march along the room like two brigades of German stormtroopers. Whilst these seats might work in the smaller area as space-saving maximisers, they do not work for me in the larger portion of the room. They are much too regimented and just too much. It is hard to imagine any true London pub trying to get away with this, although put such seats in an American diner and Bob’s your uncle and Earl’s your aunt, no question!
Above: Seats very plush but also very regimented. However, also very comfortable
As I mentioned in my piece on the Kavkaz Restaurant and in my article Kaliningrad Art Exhibition, lighting is everything. The old London Pub could not be faulted in this respect and neither can its newer namesake.
Lighting in the London Pub Kaliningrad
About an hour after we had taken our seats at the bar, because every other seat was reserved (more about that at the end of this article), the lights went down a notch causing everything around us to turn seductively atmospheric. I had already noted that in the bar area a series of ceiling-recessed spotlights shone down on the mosaic floor, forming round circles of slowly changing colours. These had worked well when the lighting was up, but seen in the muted half-light are really quite spectacular.
The wall lighting bar side is augmented by long-reach Anglepoise lamps bolted in series along the wall. As my photos taken in 2015 reveal, similar lamps existed in the London Pub’s previous life, but they have multiplied since then and the poles on which they are mounted allow in addition to the angling of the shade a retraction or extension option. Smaller lamps of a similar type have the practical advantage of directing the light on the walls to illuminate the wornout theme and the eclectic items that live there. Taken together in sequence, the lamps add a touch of steampunk to the London Pub’s unique aesthetic.
Staying with lighting, in the old London, there had been a hanging structure, a sort of raft framework suspended from the ceiling on which lights were attached and sundry knick-knacks supported. This feature has been retained but cased inside a decorative unit, its segments of coloured glass echoing the stained-glass mosaics popularised in Victorian pubs. The glass work is predominantly green, profusely decorated with stylised floral motifs and geometrical patterns in pink and blue. The dimmed light shining through the casework receives a second tonal effect, a lightly suffusive overlay. The mood-conditioning aura that this creates is repeated in the curved translucent border that runs around the wall’s perimeter at the point where wall and ceiling meet. It is a continual convex band of Tiffany-patterned, luminous coving, which is subtle and highly effective.
Above: Uniforms, angled lamps and an illuminated coving screen of exotic abstracts
The London Pub’s lighting mix is such a fabulous orchestration that it is difficult, virtually inexcusable, to single out a centrepiece, but should I ever be pushed to do so I would probably opt for the pendant lights that float around the bar and dangle from the ceiling like so many gossamer Chinese lanterns. Large, floaty, bell-shaped silken balloons that would not be out of place in Alice’s Wonderland, these extraordinary, extravagant lamp shades are infinitely more fascinating than the screen of your mobile phone and make excellent, in every sense, dreamy light diffusers.
Above: Forget about the telly! Look at those delicious lanterns!
I liked the old London Pub, but I did not like it any better or any worse than the new one. Admittedly, before embarking on what must have constituted a not inexpensive design programme, the proprietor of the London Pub could have consulted the idiom ‘If it ‘aint broke don’t fix it’, but had this been the case we would have been deprived of the current iteration and forgone the concept of culture-linked vintage as a versatile, and if I may be so bold as to say not entirely conventional, idiomatic design approach.
There is no doubt in my mind that refraining from fixing unbroken things should have been the lesson taught to those corporate young men in suits employed by Britain’s breweries, who shoulder much of the blame for vanadalising and continuing to vandalise British pub interiors, showing scant regard for history and even less appreciation for atmosphere and taste.
Have you booked?
If I have one criticism of the London Pub ~ and to be fair, this is something that you come across in various Kaliningrad drinking establishments ~ it is the ‘all the tables are reserved’ trick.
Our visit to the London Pub in 2019, the day when I wrote the notes for this post, had been the third time we had stopped for a drink there in as many weeks, and each time we had been turned away as we had not reserved a table. On that occasion we were allowed to drink at the bar, although had we not explicitly asked to do so, we would have been asked to leave.
Above: It’s the only way they’d let me stay. I hadn’t booked a table.
We sat and drank in the London pub for over an hour, during which time five tables in the bar area became vacant and three of the reserved tables remained unoccupied. Being told to leave when you have not reserved a table, seems to me bad business sense. Surely, if a table is reserved for, let’s say 9pm, and someone without a reservation comes into the pub at 8pm, would it not make sense to permit paying customers to use that table for the duration that it is empty?
The psychology behind repeatedly turning people away who have not booked in advance might be that they will book in future and, if they have taken the trouble to book, will prolong their patronage throughout the evening.
If so, then this is a fallacy. Turning customers away results in resentment not patronage, and I can think of no pub in London that would entertain the notion. I am not suggesting that the London Pub or any other drinking/eating establishment in Kaliningrad try to emulate the ‘stack ‘em high treat them cheap’ model adopted in UK city pubs, pampering the customer never hurt anyone, but it is advisable to remember that modern-day Kaliningrad hosts an awful lot of competition, which is growing all the time, and that customer loyalty is predicated not only on atmosphere and commendable service but also reliability. Not everyone wants to plan ahead, and regular casual trade, ignored, deterred, is money lost to somebody else’s bar till and customer loyalty possibly lost forever.
Here endeth the lesson.
Having got that off my chest, I can say without fear of contradicting myself that the London Pub continues to be one of the most atmospheric, ingeniously designed, relaxing drinking and eating establishments that anyone could wish for. In fact, I am prepared to go so far as to say that any guide to Kaliningrad’s bars that does not include the London Pub in its ‘best of’ top-10 line-up either does not know his quality from his dross, is mathematically challenged or both. It really is that simple.
✔ The London Pub, probably the best London pub not to be found in London!
The London Pub in Kaliningrad, Russia, is a unique and charismatic venue vying for top place in Kaliningrad’s bar, restaurant and entertainment scene. It bills itself as a ‘real English pub’, and I have to admit it comes very close. Boasting a choice of 35 draft beers, if you can’t find something to suit your palate at the London Pub then you should urgently switch to drinking something else. As with the interior décor, ambience and beer selection, the menu is varied, surprising and reputedly tasty. Something that I have not touched upon in my review is that lurking below the London Pub there are two extremely atmospheric late-night/early morning music clubs called, respectively, the ‘City Jazz’ and ‘Piano Bar’. I can reveal that I have frequented both, but since they are endowed with their own distinctive ambience, they deserve to be treated separately from the assessment of the public bar and restaurant. Hopefully, we will get together soon and chat about them at our leisure.
A review of the Premier Café Bar Kaliningrad by Mick Hart
Updated 20 August 2022 | First published: 25 April 2022 ~ Drinking Beer in the Premier Café Bar Kaliningrad
After a two-year coronavirus hiatus that, give or take the odd sortie, dissuaded me from drinking in bars, I allowed myself to be willingly seduced into returning to my sinful ways. The establishment we visited recently is not entirely my sort of place. It is a modern café-bar, all plate glass and open-plan, but as it is one in Kaliningrad that I was unacquainted with, and a place dispensing beer, to resist would have been inexcusable if not altogether futile.
The Premier Café Bar (aka Prem’yer Minstr Kafe Bar Magazin), Kaliningrad, is located inside a substantial building with the main entrance off Prospekt Leninskiy. It divides neatly into two parts: one side functioning as a ‘liquor store’ (they like this Americanisation in Kaliningrad); the other as a bar.
The off-licence facility (English off-licence sounds so 1950s’ corner shop, don’t you think?) has an impressive upmarket feel about it. Behind the low-level counter, the custom-made floor-to-ceiling shelves are stocked with an astounding array of imported spirits, including Jim Beam, my favourite bourbon, but in a series of flavoured variants of which my palate is virginally ignorant. In fact, many of these exotic imports I had never heard of and might not try for some time to come, considering the average price per bottle is a budget-busting 30-quid.
This disinclination to shell out unreservedly on something the price of which others might willingly accept may have its origins in my youth. There was a time in England when we could buy Jim in half-gallon bottles from the Yanks at the local airbase on a bartered goods and ‘at cost’ basis. In comparing the prices today, and taking into account the diminutive size of the bottles, I realise nostalgically that far from living a mis-spent youth, I had lived a youth well-spent or in the last analysis was a youth who knew how to spend well.
In addition to the well-stocked top-drawer spirit brands, Premier also boasts a regiment of chilling cabinets, which contain more varieties of beer than Russia has sanctions, if that is feasibly possible, and hosts a good selection of quality wines from vineyards around the world.
Premier bar
The other half of Premier is where the bar hangs out. It is a proper bar, with wooden stools lining its front and opposite a conforming row of fixed seats and tables, markedly similar in style to the sort of thing you would expect to find in a 1950s’ retro diner.
As I come from England (note, I never say from the UK because that would be too shameful), I have a natural predilection for bars which actually have bars in them, as opposed to bars where there is no bar, only table service. I liked this bar because it had a bar, and it had one with Premier written across it, which is something that I also liked because it helped to solve the mystery of where I was, as I had missed the name of the premises when we entered the building. It also had something unusual going on at one end of the bar, the leading end: an inbuilt feature resembling a truck or trolley. The significance of this embellishment was something that escaped me then and continues to elude me now, but as bamboozling as it was, it did not prevent me from liking it.
The big, old wooden beam above the bar, which acts as a suspended lighting console, and the ceiling-mounted wagon wheels in the room opposite, also have quirk appeal, but by far the most interesting and memorable difference that Premier bar possesses is that at the end of a long wide corridor, lo and behold there’s a bike shop! Now, this is a novelty, to be sure. Consider the possibility: one could stop at Premier for a bevvy or two, buy a bike and cycle back home. And I bet you’ll never guess what ~ this is precisely what I did not do.
Perhaps I would have felt more adventurous had I not been so busy admiring the chevron-tiled floor and, where retro posters are not covering it, the good old-fashioned brickwork. These accentuated traits compensate a little for Premier’s lack of old worldliness, which given the choice is the kind of environment in which I really prefer to drink and where once I am inside it is virtually impossible to prise me out.
Generally, Premiere’s décor both in the bar and off-sales, eschews the modern industrial style. The absolute connection between wagon wheels, hanging beams, rusticating trolleys, exposed ventilation tubes, art gallery sliding spotlights, exposed brickwork and retro posters may not be immediately apparent and may remain that way forever, as the Premier name offers no clues, unless, of course, it has something to do with what is invariably touted as the greatest invention of all, the wheel ~ as in wagon wheels? trolleys on wheels? Premier meaning first? Perhaps not.
To add to its collection of ideas, Premier fashionably utilises a range of different light fittings which flaunt the latest trend in visible filament bulbs. Who would have thought even a decade ago that the humble pear-shape light bulb with its limited choice of white or warm glow would morph so quickly and so dramatically into the numerous shapes, sizes and colours available today and all with their once latent elements proudly on display?
Visually, the Premier has more than enough going for it to fulfil the need for an interesting dining and drinking backdrop, which is good as it offsets the dreadful din clattering out of the music system. To be fair, this obtrusive and perfectly unnecessary adjunct is by no means exclusive to Premier; most bars seem compelled to inflict this modern excuse for music on their unsuspecting and long-suffering customers with little or no regard for conversation or atmosphere.
Of course, the problem could lie with us. After all, we are not in the first flush of youth. But call us wrinklies with hearing intolerance or people of discernment fortunate to have been born in and therefore to have lived through the age of pre-mediocrity, the fact remains that boom, boom, boom and lots of squiggly noisy bits iterating repetitively at ‘What did you say? Speak up!!’ volumes are more annoying than a slap on the arse, if not infinitely less surprising. Eventually, one of our august company, ex-Soviet Major V Nikoliovich, marched across to the bar and asked for the racket to be turned down. Oh, he can be so masterful!
He also evinces considerably more trust in fate than I could ever muster. For example, another of Premier’s novelty features is the under-floor display unit, containing various curious and random artefacts. The glass panel at floor level is something I carefully avoided, whereas VN exhibited an almost perverse and mischievous delight in deliberately perching his weight on top.
Where our paths, VN’s and mine, do converge is that we like to sample different beers. Today we were on the Švyturys, a once renowned lager first brewed in Lithuania by the Reincke family at the latter end of the 18th century but which in more recent times has become part of the Carlsberg stable, one of those foreign breweries that perfunctorily closed its doors in Russia after the sanctions had bolted. I’ll lay odds on favourite They Wished They Hadn’t.
As we had already eaten, I cannot comment on Premier’s cuisine, although a quick whizz round the internet reveals that Premier receives consistently good reviews for its international fare and its excellent pizzas. My friends ordered some light snacks, which they seemed to enjoy, and although forever conscious of the need to prioritise volume for beer, I did permit myself to nibble upon a couple of cheesy balls, which seemed to go well with Švyturys.
Throughout our stay at Premier, the staff were attentive and accommodating, but why did I have the impression that they were on the verge of crying.
I forgot to look back when we left the cafe to see if the sight of a bunch of old farts who routinely complain about tasteless ‘music’ exiting the premises had wreathed their faces in much-needed smiles.
Had we have been in the States, crying or not, we would still have received a white toothy grin and a just as fictitious ‘Have a nice day’, which of course we wouldn’t have wanted and of course we would not have appreciated. C’est la vie, I suppose!
Essential details
Prime Minister Café Bar Kaliningrad Prospekt Leninskiy 7 Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast Russia, 236006
Published: 23 September 2021 ~ An Englishman at the Dreadnought Kaliningrad
Every Jazz lover knows that the best jazz is played in underground basements. Where else would you find a basement? And Kaliningrad’s Dreadnought is one such place.
Billing itself as a ‘legendary English pub’, you would be hard pushed to find a pub like it anywhere in England, but what it most certainly is, is an excellent atmospheric bar-come-music venue and a subterranean supper’s delight, boasting best beers from around the world, including eight permanent and six guest beers on draught.
No need to ask why I was there, then.
An Englishman at the Dreadnought, Kaliningrad
A short walk from Kaliningrad’s Victory Square, down some steps and you are in the Dreadnought. The roomy entrance hall tells you immediately what you can expect. The Union Jack mat, the large wall painting of a gauntlet-covered fist holding a key and a second painting of the eponymous dreadnought battleship, the concrete section walls roughly skimmed with paint: This is a no-frills place, mate; hip, modern, up to date; good music, good beer, young people and me.
Undaunted, I stood on the Union Jack and had my photograph taken and did the same again in front of the dreadnought painting.
Dreadnought’s basement is open plan, but it isn’t exactly. It feels that way because there are no doors, just entrances, so you get the unique ambivalence of airiness whilst sitting in a rabbit warren.
An anteroom immediately in front of the music room enables you to listen to the bands from a distance. The main room, where the bands play, is ‘L’ shaped and divided into three sections by narrowed widths minus doors.
Choice of seats range from high oval tables lined with tall, backed, bar stools on heavy cast-iron bases, low tables with bench seats on either side and, closest to the stage, comfortable-looking captain’s chairs, the sort that swivel nicely and are covered in brown leatherette.
I liked our reserved table. It was one of the tall ones, with high stools on heavy industrial bases. I always like a table where I can sit with my back to the wall. Why not? Look what happened to Wild Bill Hickok!
On the subject of reserved tables, Kaliningrad grows more popular each year, so, if you have a particular place in mind where you want to wine and dine or down a few beers, be advised that you’d best reserve a table or face the possible inconvenience of wandering around from bar to bar ad infinitum. This is particularly true on a Saturday night.
An Englishman at the Dreadnought Kaliningrad
As anybody who follows jazz can tell you, improvisation and spontaneity are highly valued, and I get the impression that Dreadnought knows this. Improvisation and spontaneity have been built into the décor. The basement is basic, real basic, for the walls and the ceiling follows that modern trend where all is exposed and on display: the electrical fittings, wires, heating and ventilation pipes, structural supports and so on. The lighting, even with the many traditional ceiling sockets, is subdued and the industrial-style suspended lamps that dangle over the tables halo the glow with limited dispersal.
Likewise, the interior décor is minimal; its artiness is controlled, aspiring towards the extemporised look, to give that laid-back, unobtrusive but thoroughly engaging appeal.
The British theme, which comes with the dreadnought name, is carried over from the hall into the music room by the further use of Union Jack curtains which, in keeping with the retro theme of the early 20th century, have worn and distressed stage managed into them.
Principal to the decor in the entertainments room are two large wall paintings. Although in content these are naval associated, the style in which they are painted is distinctly 1940s’ United States Air Force. They are, in fact, nose-art replicas, featuring leggy, stocking-clad, frolicking females, partly dressed in uniform, with flirtatious come-hither looks.
The one nearest to our table had its coquette perched on top of a sharks’ teeth painted torpedo set against a billowing wave with ‘On the Wave’ written across the foam, which I imagine should rightly read ‘on the crest of a wave’. The other had its flirty part-uniformed female draped across the suggestive gun barrels of a dreadnought class destroyer. Both pictures are fun and colourful, although historically neither one, or anything vaguely like them, would have been tolerated by the Royal Navy’s upper echelons or likewise by, and especially by, the Royal Air Force, and as such this type of artwork strictly remains an American idiosyncrasy.
There is yet another room in the Dreadnought’s arsenal, which, if you are unaware of it, you are likely to come across on your way to the toilet. It put me in mind of a typical American bar, where the rooms are long and narrow and the clientele perch on tall bar stools at the front of the serving counter that runs the length of the room. The hubbub, which was busy but not rowdy, the clever lighting and silhouette wall-art of the dreadnought’s heavy guns, coalesced to create an ambience that took me back to those heady days of university campus bars.
Food is served at the Dreadnought, but as we had already eaten at the Greek restaurant El Greco’s, I will make no attempt to comment on either the variety or quality of the food. See the Essential Details section at the end of this post , where you will find the Dreadnought’s website address and the food it has on offer.
I had already drunk beer at El Greco’s but that did not stop me drinking beer at the Dreadnought. My choice of beer this evening was Maisel’s Weisse. It’s a German beer which, from experience, agrees with me, although as I sat there drinking it I could distinctly feel those heavy guns from the Royal Navy’s dreadnoughts bearing down on my fraternisation.
An Englishman at the Dreadnought, Kaliningrad
The Dreadnought hosts different kinds of music but tonight, as I have noted, the stage was set for jazz. My appreciation of jazz is reserved more or less to the emerging and principal swing years of the 1920s to the 1940s. Anything outside of this I tend to regard as background music, some of which I like and some which quite frankly jars. I am pleased to say, however, that Dreadful at the Dreadnought were not performing on the evening of our visit, and all of our party agreed that what we heard we liked.
Another plus in the Dreadnought’s favour is that the music is transmitted at an agreeable volume, meaning that you can hear it, appreciate it and still can hear yourself think and talk. How many times have you been to a music venue where you just can’t wait for each successive number to stop so that you can hold that conversation? I often wonder if some bands don’t pump up the volume to prevent the audience from discussing whether they like the music or not. Personally, I like to listen to music at a volume that allows me to converse with my friends without shouting, not to be deafened into submission to fulfill the band’s delusion that I love their music so much that it has rendered me, and everyone else, speechless for the evening.
Everything considered ~ the location, ambience, lighting, service, range of beers on offer, choice of places to perch and, as just appraised, the music ~ the Dreadnought gets the expatriate seal of approval.
But it wasn’t over yet. One of our party, out of the goodness of her heart, had ordered the house specialty for me ~ my very own ‘big gun’ dreadnought. As the photograph shows, the wooden dreadnought model holds a full battery of different flavoured vodkas; large glasses full of them, and all for me at the end of the evening when I’d been drinking beer. The rest of the crew abandoned ship, but, like the good captain that I am, I remained on the bridge ready to do my duty and was quite prepared, if need be, to go down with the ship as the band played on. Sink or float, the following morning I knew I would need a life belt!
Note in the photograph, the thoughtful and conveniently placed fire extinguisher that your friends can put you out with after you’ve overdone it on lashings of chili vodka!
Essential details:
Bar Drednout (Dreadnought Pub) 5 Handel Street Kaliningrad Russia
Tel: +7 (4012) 99 26 06
Opening times: Mon-Thu, Sun: from 12 noon to 12 midnight Fri-Sat: from 12 noon to 3am
My wife has been nagging (they do, don’t they) for the
past couple of days for me to leave the house and go outside, but the weather
has been so awful that I have used it as an excuse to stay indoors and not get
the fresh air that is so good for me.
Today, however, the sun came out and with my excuse rendered null and void I was forced to give in. We were off to the central market, and I had been told that it would be very beneficial for me if we walked, and besides I would enjoy it.
As it happens I did, but you don’t tell them that in a
hurry.
On the way we took some photographs of some
interesting bas relief work to some of the buildings close to the market.
We were off shopping for vegetables, and I must say
that Kaliningrad’s covered market is such a joy to shop in (more of that later)
that by the time we got there I had stopped complaining.
Loaded with all sorts of edibles that are not meat, we
then decided to stop off somewhere for a spot of lunch.
We chose Mama Mia’s, a restaurant on the edge of
Victory Square opposite the cathedral.
Mama Mia is a rather modern affair, certainly not the sort of place that I could wear my 1940s’ clothes in, but it is bright, comfortable and above all relaxing. On one side, the side we were in, you can look out of the windows and watch the world go by ~ I spotted a van with a large hammer and sickle motif stuck to it ~ or, for a slightly more reclusive experience, you can turn left where the room is divided up into larger seating areas favourable for group dining.
Mama Mia Restaurant
Mick Hart drinking sensibly at Mama Mia’s Restaurant, Kaliningrad, Russia
In here there are two rather interesting things: one,
a wall-mounted water feature, which resembles a mirror but has water cascading
down the inside of it; and two, a display of giant piano keys overlaid with outsized
wooden portholes.
I was content to be in our little seats, seeing vans
go by with hammers and sickles on them at a table where it is possible to flag
the waiter’s attention literally at the press of a button.
We did not have the chance to use this communication
mechanism, as we were straight in and ordering two ‘business lunches’. These
are preset lunches at a very good price. I had Greek salad, soup and pizza
accompanied by cranberry juice. My wife had chicken soup and chicken cutlets
with brown rice, and between us, in a see-through teapot, we had freshly made
ginger tea. The meals cost us £2.50 apiece and the speciality tea £1.70.
Comfortable and competitively priced: Mama Mia Restaurant, Kaliningrad, Russia
Shame on me, I did not partake of beer this lunchtime
as I had a workout scheduled. But perhaps tomorrow night…
We snapped a few pictures whilst we were in there, caught a taxi home and I left one bag behind, had to go back for it and got nagged at for being дурак (silly)
That’s a nice thing to say to your husband, I’m sure.
Essential Details:
Mama Mia Klover Siti Tsentr Ploschtschad Pobedy 10, Kaliningrad Kaliningrad Oblast, 236006
Sadly, Plyushkin is now as deceased as it’s fictional namesake😥
It is not called ‘Lampshades’ but why not is anybody’s guess. Plyushkin (which is the name of a fictional character in Gogol’s novel Dead Souls) is a bar/restaurant located on a busy intersection in Kaliningrad opposite the Amber Museum. It is nice and central, and situated as it is on a bustling traffic hub, easy to get to by bus, mini-bus or tram. From the outside, it is deceptive, especially at night, when all that can be seen is a small foyer and the neon sign above it, but the bar/restaurant is below ground and once inside the place is truly TARDISial.
Plyushkin bar & restaurant, Kaliningrad, where lampshades abound
Be that as it may, the furnishings, décor and lighting make for a very comfortable, cozy and inviting feel. When you stop marveling at the oversized lampshades, you are rendered agog by the seating arrangements. Where would you like to sit? It is not an easy choice. In Plyushkin no dining suite is the same as the next, although we narrowed down the selection from traditional table and dining-room chairs to low-slung settees and tables to match.
Lampshades galore at the Plyushkin bar & restaurant, Kaliningrad
Plyushkin Bar & Restaurant Kaliningrad
The accent is upon old-world charm ~ reproduction
antique furniture ~ but non-conformist enough to find walnut-veneer-framed divans sharing the same
space as 1960s’ designs and Avant Garde spectaculars, such as one table which
has a coiled rope columnar support, not dissimilar to a cat’s gigantic
scratching post.
Along the side of one wall runs an eclectic series of
mismatching sideboards and tallboys, both parodies from and originals to
disparate eras. The walls and lateral
ceiling supports are profusely covered in framed vintage photographs and
prints, including one of a young Queen Elizabeth II (G’ord Bless yu Maam!),
although one wall of painted brick has been left relatively clear with respect
to the current industrial look.
Queen Elizabeth II in Plyushkin, Kaliningrad ~ that’s her on the wall by the way …
Pigs’ Snouts
The menu is deliberately ‘old style’ Russian, and
whilst pig snouts in mustard sauce may not be everyone’s idea of culinary
heaven, just think it could be worse, and there might have been a photograph in
the menu.
Nevertheless, we have dined here four or five times,
and my carnivore associates assure me that their choice of meals has been very
tasty and value for money.
The bar is well stocked, leaving nothing to the
imagination, and I can vouch for the beer. The cheapest is about 112 rubles
(which is about £1.36), whilst the premium, which weighs in at around 7%
gravity, is about 275 rubles (£3.33).
Service is spot-on, unlike some places I could mention
~ and no doubt will, as we get around.
Live music
All in all, Plyushkin is extremely atmospheric, and on Saturday evenings live music adds to the ambience. The pendant lampshades, of which there are many, are huge, creatively different and pose a curious question, if not ‘Lampshades’ why not ‘Not One the Same’? ~ both would make super alternative names.
The bar area at the Plyushkin, Kaliningrad
Lenin says, “I’m always at the Plyushkin!”
Essential details:
Plyushkin Restuarant Kaliningrad, pl. Marshal Vasilevsky, 2
