Whilst
preparing to move from England to Kaliningrad in December 2018, I was asked by
someone, was my reason for quitting the UK down to Brexit? ~ meaning, was I
leaving the UK as the UK was leaving Europe. “No,” I replied, “I’m leaving the
UK because the UK will never leave Europe.” Many a true word said in jest, as
they say.
Another 12
months passes, during which the lies, deceit, fear-mongering, treachery,
disloyalty, and numerous attempts to abandon democracy in the name of
Neo-Liberalism, would seem to bear out all I had predicted ~ for, in spite of
valiant and untiring attempts by Nigel Farage to extricate us from the insidious
tentacles of the EU experiment, it looked as if key figures in the British establishment,
aided and abetted by rich persons with no legacy-British background and a
biased judicial system, would stop at nothing to ensure that their socially
engineered Frankenstein would lumber on regardless.
Get Brexit
Done!
And then,
returning to England just before Christmas, on the 13 December 2019, something
marvelous, something quite extraordinary, something amazing happens: Just when
you thought it wasn’t safe to use the word democracy anymore in the UK, the
British electorate surprises everyone, including themselves, and prove to the
world that they are still capable of rational thought. In spite of all that has
been thrown at them by the Leftist media, the lies, the deceit, the propaganda,
instead of buckling to the war of attrition and voting, as politicians such as
Jo Swinson felt sure they would, for cancelling Brexit, they did just the
opposite, turning 13 December 2019 not into the travesty expected but in a
great day for democracy, the day that restored faith in the British people’s
ability to see beyond the smoke and mirrors and decide, resolutely, that they
wanted to take their country back. Not that the political class should have
been surprised; after all, Cameron and Co never for the life of them believed
that the British people would have the temerity to ditch the EU, but they did,
and now Boris Johnson, forced by his own party’s treachery as much as by
anything else to launch a General Election, is voted back into Number 10 to
finish the job he started, to ‘Get Brexit Done!’
Unable to
admit that this election was about one thing, and one thing only, Brexit, the Liberal-Left-
dominated media go gunning for poor old Corbyn. It’s all his fault, he ‘led
Labour into the abys’. Well, yes, but mainly because the majority of his party
were pushing to scupper Brexit, angling all the way for a second referendum
which would hopefully bring the result that they wanted rather than concede to
the one they did not.
Feeling
sorry for Corbyn? Then you should also feel sorry for Jo Swinson, leader of the
so-called Liberal Democrats. So convinced was she that the brainwashing of the British
people through month after month of Project Fear had worked, ie that Brexit was
going to inflict everything from a boil on your arse to a land heave in your
garden, that she gambled her entire career and the fortunes of her party on the
illiberal and undemocratic promise to ‘Cancel Brexit’ if she won. She lost.
Media predictions had been significant gains for her party.
One thing,
however, the Liberal-Left media did get right and that was their description of
Labour’s rowt as a political earthquake. It was so sudden, so severe and so
devastating that it shot off up North, making terrible destructive inroads into
Labour’s traditional heartland.
The Red Wall, Labour’s impregnable swathe of safe constituencies, the North-South divide which seemed as old as Hadrian’s Wall itself, crumbled; even worse (worse that is for Labour), seats that had been held by Labour since the inception of Labour itself had its long entrenched, complacent arses kicked well and truly out.
Democracy
returns to the UK
The
magnitude on the Left-Wing Richter scale was not immediately apparent to me,
but as I read the various reports, commentary and analysis I began to realise
just how devastating Boris’ victory had been for the Left. The media likened
its effect to the election of Margaret Thatcher, but in fact it was worse, much
worse. As one Leftist commentator wrote, Boris Johnson had in one fell-swoop
swept everything away that Tony Bair had built. But isn’t this what happens
when you botch something together without due regard for planning permission
and building regulations? The same commentator went on to lament that Boris
Johnson’s victory was the dawning of a new era in which ‘patriotism and
immigration’ will take precedence over economics. So, it is boo hoo for the
Neo-Liberal Globalists, but then someone should have told them that this is
what Brexit has all been about.
It was
Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels who famously said, that “If
you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to
believe it.” He should have added for the sake of the liars, ‘just don’t go
believing it yourselves!”.
In his new
and much empowered role, Boris Johnson has the golden opportunity to preside
over a new era, not a cliched new era but one that could really make a
difference. The good ship UK has lacked a firm hand at the helm for far too
long. For the past twenty years or more we’ve been drifting into the maelstrom,
carried by a pernicious subcurrent that has left us as a nation PC disoriented
and all but morally bankrupt. Naysayers believe, and can you really blame them,
that we are too far off course to find our way back; then the answer must lie
in going forward but with a significant change of direction. We have not always
been Not So Great Britain and our destiny does not have to be the Disunited
Kingdom.
Over the coming months the Liberal-Left will resort to their usual
illiberality. They will refuse to accept at all costs that the Brexit election
was a resounding rejection of their unprincipled mission to subvert and
substitute true democracy for their Trojan Horse version of it, and on the receiving
end, of course, it will be poor old Corbyn’s end.
Ironically, that well-known adage ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ could not be more applicable. It was the Left that called for ‘The People’s Vote’. They got it. The people voted for Brexit. Now Boris has a clear and an unequivocal mandate ‘To Get the Job Done’ as promised.
The former Königsberg Stock Exchange, aka the Khudozhestvennaya Galereya, is home to a permanent exhibition, the title of which is The Shadow of Königsberg. It also holds temporary exhibitions on a regular basis. Two exhibitions attracted us recently, Alexander I and Napoleon Meeting on the Neman and Rhythms of Kaliningrad.
The Königsberg Stock Exchange (now the Khudozhestvennaya Galereya) is an impressive two-storey Neo-Renaissance-style building, which stands on the southern side of the Pregel River.
The grand building, which
opened in 1875, was the work of architect Heinrich Muller and Emil Hundrieser,
the latter to which is owed the external decoration, including the allegorical
figures at roof-top level and the two lions on either side of the entrance
steps.
As with most of Königsberg’s municipal buildings, the Stock Exchange suffered extensive damage when bombed by the RAF in 1944 and again during the Siege of Königsberg in 1945. It is believed that it narrowly escaped the systematic demolition programme of what remained of Königsberg after the war, as the new owners and powers that were ~ the Soviets ~ identified Russian Neo-Classical features in its construction (pphhhewww!). Since the building was reprieved, reinstated and reconstructed in 1967, it has passed through various transitions and is today one of Kaliningrad’s most important, and unequivocally, one of its most regal cultural centres [see the Tripadvisor website for photographs of this magnificent building].
Khudozhestvennaya Galereya
Napoleonic exhibition
The Khudozhestvennaya Galereya stages changing exhibitions on a regular
basis. The building can accommodate two or three exhibitions at any one time,
depending, of course, on the size, using dedicated and versatile screening
facilities. To the right of the entrance hall and on the second floor, space is
reserved for a permanent exhibition, The
Shadow of Königsberg, which traces the history of this unique city and
region through the turbulent transitions of its 20th century
history. Whether you are a professional historian, amateur historian, budding
history scholar or are simply fascinated by the changing fortunes and character
of Königsberg-Kaliningrad, The Shadow of Königsberg
provides a pictorial timeline of indelible significance through drawings,
sketches, paintings and photographs, supported by detailed models and
electronic simulation. Its depiction of pre-war Königsberg in contrast with its
post-war ruins and subsequent Soviet inheritance and legacy, that of life lived
for three decades among weed-strewn, crumbling buildings, a hollowed out shell
of a once noble city, has a pathos seldom encountered in the modern world we
inhabit today.
I really would like this poster …
Alexander I and Napoleon Meeting on the Neman
The exhibition, Alexander I and Napoleon Meeting on the
Neman [River], opened in the former Königsberg Stock Exchange building, now
a cultural centre, on 19 October 2019 and runs until 15 December 2019. The
exhibition is dedicated to one of the two Tilsit* Treaties, that which took
place on 7 July 1807 following Napoleon’s victory in Friedland. The treaty,
which was well-satirised in the British press of the time, examples of which
are included in the exhibition, is unforgettable not least because it took
place on a purpose-built raft anchored in the middle of the Neman River. But
its real importance was the ensuing impact it had on regional and world
geo-politics. The principal loser of the treaty was Prussia, which was forced
to surrender almost 50 percent of its territory. Russia and France achieved a
peaceful settlement, a settlement which not all Russian’s were agreeable to,
but the peace only lasted five years: in 1812 Napoleon returned to the Neman
River, crossing it this time with invasion in mind. Be this as it may, the treaty
inspired numerous artistic representations, both in Europe and Russia. And this
is what this exhibition is dedicated to.
The exhibition contains
about 60 exhibits from the collection of The State Hermitage Museum in St
Petersburg, including paintings, drawings and sculptures, as well as original
uniforms of Russian and French soldiers and is complemented by works
contributed by the Kaliningrad Museum of Fine Arts and Private Collections.
*Tilsit was renamed Sovetsk when the East Prussian region changed hands at the close of World War II. It is located in the Kaliningrad Oblast.
Rhythms of Kaliningrad
Exotic & Ornate & Highly Desirable!!
The Rhythms of Kaliningrad exhibition comprised an eclectic selection of art ~ paintings, sketches, drawings, sculptures ~ and even elaborate contributions from the Kaliningrad region’s world-renowned amber industry, examples of which included handmade jewellery of the most imaginative and exquisite calibre, highly detailed icons and an urn of Classical and Baroque form lavishly adorned. Designer clothing, handmade and avant-garde, added an unpredictable dimension to what was already an exotic and exhilarating showcase of regional artistic talent.
Taken as a collection, the thematic denominator subsumes the randomness of each subject into a distillation, and the compendium of impressions is a lyrical exposition that neither aggrandises nor underestimates the unique heritage, urban environment and natural images by which it is informed but rather acknowledges them and celebrates them as a compound expression of an esoteric experience. Sunsets across water, abstracts, natural landscapes, urban landscapes, pseudo-incarnations of Königsberg’s nobility ~ the castle and the city’s monuments ~ (none of which ever existed in the modern artist’s memory), Expressionism, Impressionism, Surrealism, Realism, Painterly and the rest, a gamut of artistic subjects and the styles through which they are brought into being vying to define, striving to encapsulate what it is about this place, this city and its territory, that draws you inexorably into its soul.
A personal reflection
Haunting painting of Konigsberg by Sherbak-Pyankova
In delivering the essence of the exhibition’s title, Rhythms of Kaliningrad, no one artwork should be singled out for being lesser or greater than the others in its company, but spectators and critics alike are fickle, prone, as we all are, to the common human failing for putting personal preference before impartiality, and thus although I would shy away from the impossible task of deciding which work of art was the best, whatever the given criteria, there was, inevitably, one among the paintings which resonated resoundingly with my not altogether impartial predilection for the sublime and metaphysical.
This painting was by the artist Sherbak-Pyankova. It was the study of a Königsberg house, a villa, set back in its own grounds, surrounded by its own garden, demarcated by iron railings with a wrought iron gate of unusual splendour.
Naturally, reliant on the theme of the exhibition, the subject matter in and of itself was not by any means a surprising leap into incongruity, but to narrow down the appeal criteria not to what had been painted but the way in which it had been painted ~ no, more, much more than this ~ the manner of its composition, its inherent composition and the intrinsic affect it had upon me, is how I would like to proceed.
In this
respect I have no inclination to classify the artist’s technique within a
particular school or style, because by doing so I would by default promote
taught technique above inspirational teaching and, ultimately, individual
creativity. My attraction to this piece of work was at once instantaneous ~ an
impulse, a reaction ~ the rationalisation that ensued, if indeed you can call
it this, being a process of thought, of mind.
When I first
examined the painting I was, as is the norm, standing relatively close to it.
The outlines of the house were distinct enough but the details, although present, impressed me with the notion that they were fading before my eyes. It was as though my view was partially obscured or obfuscated by a thin veil, or a light film, as though the building was slipping away from me. Suspecting the fault lay in my eyesight, I stepped back a few paces and took another look. From my new, more removed, position, unless I was mistaken, the subject on which I now gazed had developed a clarity hitherto unseen. Encouraged by this promising shift in perspective, I removed myself still further, at which greater distance the details became so clear that I could well have been standing outside the house itself, next to the ornate gate, not viewing it on canvas.
So now I began walking slowly back towards the picture and, as I did, I was relieved to discover that the suspicions about my eyesight were unfounded. With each step that I took the mist that had so impeded my vision from the moment I looked upon the picture was, by stealth and with steady degrees, returning.
I repeated
the exercise, just to make certain.
I was of the understanding that the further I removed myself from the Königsberg house the closer I came to it, or it to me; conversely, the closer I came to the house, the further away it became, until almost evaporating.
This
inversion of physics bemused as much as the metaphysics eluded, but then, with
a Eureka moment, Romanticism kicked in and the haze before the house, being the
haze behind my eyes, lifted in the subjective sunlight.
Of course,
the visibility of the house was so much better delineated from a distance. The distance
between myself and the house was not the insoluble distance of time that I had
first believed it to be, but in fact quite the reverse. The further I walked
away from the house the closer I came to Königsberg. Walking back was walking
back in time towards the point of origin. But when I approach the house, in an
attempt to go backwards, I walk back into the present, Königsberg slips from my
grasp and all that I am left with is the hazy, phantasmagorical image of
something I aspire to see, to experience in the physical world.
Konisberg street by Sherbak-Pyankova
This painting, and a second painting of a street in Königsberg-Kaliningrad by the same artist, got both my vote and my wife’s Olga’s before we knew anything about either the artist or her mentor. However, given the profound effect that her work had on us, it should not have surprised us to learn that the artist she had studied under, and had an enduring respect for, was a mutual friend ~ Victor Rybinin.
Victor had taught art for many years at the Kaliningrad Art School. He had, as he said, ‘grown up among the ruins of Königsberg’ and was ‘the product of two cultures’; he invested his entire life in the philosophical, artistic and historic exploration of the Königsberg-Kaliningrad continuum. As our artist and historian friend Stanislav Konovalov said, who had himself been taught by Victor, Victor’s artistic representations came from the heart, they are each and every one imbued with a symbolic mysticism, a profundity, a deep soulfulness which emanates from his appreciation of and unwavering love for Königsberg-Kaliningrad, always described by Victor, with characteristic understatement, as ‘this unique place’.
That none of Victor Rybinin’s art saw inclusion in the Rhythms of Kaliningrad exhibition is a sorrowful oversight, particularly since those who knew him and who know his art share the conviction that he was and will remain a principal figure in the city’s and its region’s cultural history ~ history being the final judge.
Romanticist
attribution or irony of fate? Either way it is an uncanny coincidence that we
should choose as favourite the painting which we chose today …
Our second cultural day in a row (yesterday we attended an unusual art exhibition) found us heading off for a guided tour around a flat that had belonged to a Königsberg merchant in the early 20th century. I had heard of this flat from our dear friend Victor Ryabinin ~ artist, philosopher, historian (sadly now deceased) ~ who had, as with all things Königsberg, stimulated my curiosity by informing us that the flat in question had been preserved, and restored where necessary, in all its original glory.
The flat we were going to visit today is located at
11-1 Krasnaya Street, Kaliningrad. The official name of the venue is simply but
effectively ‘Apartment Museum’. A century ago, it was the home of merchant and
grocery store owner, Gustav Grossmann, and his family. As the advertising
leaflet boldly and honestly claims, the authentic interior allows you to
‘travel back a hundred years’ and experience life ‘as a citizen of Eastern
Prussia’.
Public interest in and success of the project had prompted the exhibition owner to invest in a retro café on the site of Grossmann’s original store, which is located in the same building as the merchant’s flat, and it was here that we were rendezvousing with friend and Königsberg historian Stanislav Konovalov, known to us as Stas.
The café, which is housed in a corner section of the historic apartment building, extends from the main structure out towards the pavement. The entrance to Grossmann’s apartment is recessed, away from the pavement, a small flagstoned area leading to the front door, and can therefore be easily missed. However, the café signage does a wonderful job, calling your attention to a building of stature, which is distinctive and old-world gentrified thanks predominantly to the large show window on the ground floor and above it on the first and second floors the unusual arched windows.
The lower window has been fitted out with shelving and, even before we climbed the small flight of steps leading to the café entrance, it excited us to see a variety of bygone items beckoning us inside. The artefacts displayed included, but were not limited to, kitchen pans, clothes’ irons, ceramic pots, oil lamps and the stock in trade of antique emporiums in this part of the world, the ubiquitous German stein.
Gustav Grossmann Cafe, Kaliningrad
Anyone obsessed with the past could tell, from the demeanour of the building and the items displayed in the window, that you would not be disappointed when you stepped inside. The interior of the building has been subject to a complete and comprehensive retro makeover, with so much by way of antiques and collectables adorning shelves, festooned on the walls, cuddling in cabinets, swinging from the ceiling and dotted here and there that ~ as it is with the nature of such places ~ it was impossible at first glance and even ten minutes afterwards to take everything in. Certain features, however, made their mark and stayed there. Behind the front counter, for example ~ a long counter and one of impressive height ~ wall-to-ceiling shelving has been erected, and this shelving, consisting as it does of different sized compartments, the top section reserved for larger items such as a pair of antique radios, is occupied by a mixture of vintage and antique objects rubbing shoulders with the modern accoutrements that are vital for running a business like this, such as branded cups and saucers, selections of teas, different kinds of coffee varieties and so on. The café till, which may be modern, appears on the customer side of the counter as though it is made of wood, whilst the coffee machine, all made of shining chrome, is, in shape and appearance, an icon of the 1950s. Indeed, not everything in the café was what we English would call Edwardian or of early 20th century origin: the radio in the window, which has most likely been fitted with an electronic player, was post WWII, although the music it aired pre-dated it as late 1920s or 30s.
Window Seat, Apartment Museum, Kaliningrad
As with the interior décor no expense in detail had been spared with regard to the café’s furniture, all of which has a heritage background, from the open-sided armchair beside the counter to the two armchairs and circular salon table in front of the window. As these chairs were occupied by patrons, who were studiously observing an unwritten code of conduct, which is, or so it would seem, to adhere to a kind of library silence in the presence of the past, we took up temporary residence in the only seats available, Olga on a dining chair with a Rococo-style splat and myself on an interesting settle, which was comfortably upholstered and had, at either end, small fitted cabinets with carved, pierced fronts.
Partaking of tea in Apartment Museum Cafe ~ Königsberg
Tea was served in two dish-shaped china cups with matching saucers, backstamped Konig… . We could not make out the exact wording, but we felt certain that the proprietor of this establishment would not have trusted us with an original Königsberg tea service.
Vintage china tea cup, Gustav Grossmann Cafe, Königsberg
More or less observing the silence that everyone else was bound to, we drank our tea and continued our visual assessment, taking in the various enamel-fronted advertising signs that no antique-oriented premise should ever be without and recognising three wall-mounted cast-iron signs as tram destination plates, each bearing the number of a specific tram and the Königsberg districts which each tram had served. These distinctive and, I should imagine, highly sought-after Königsberg mementoes, which remembered the route that specific trams took, I had only seen once before and that was in the art studio of our late friend Victor Ryabinin.
Apartment Museum Cafe sells antiques
Alas, these plaques were not for sale, but some of the items were. There were three large wood and glass display cabinets containing all manner of small antique pieces ~ ceramics, tableware, relics from Königsberg ~ as well as some larger items, such as a silver-topped walking cane and a silk top hat, all of which could be purchased. Both Olga and I took an interest in the two-tier, Art Nouveau plant stand, which was slightly more unusual than the standard fare, but as the asking price was considerably higher than that which I would normally expect to pay for a similar piece in England, our interest remained just that.
We finished our tea and now that Stas had arrived and wanted a smoke, we joined the other interested parties who were waiting outside on the damp and chilly streets for the venue to open.
As 11am came and went Stas took the initiative to ring the doorbell. And seconds later the door was opened by a tall lady appropriately dressed Edwardian style, that is in a high-necked blouse and long woolen dress fastened and highlighted around the waist by an enamel-buckled cinch belt.
We were shown in to the communal hallway of the
building, a spacious entrance hall with a flight of six or seven steps to the
ground-floor landing, beyond which could be seen a rather imposing wooden railed
staircase.
The door to the time capsule we were about to enter was mid-brown wood, with long vertical paneling , the upper section letting in light through a series of small windows, the glass inside being of the wire-reinforced variety. Our little entourage filed one by one inside and as we passed ~ me gratefully ~ from the 21st century into the past, I pointed out the doorbell to Olga, which was housed in a metal plate wrought into a typical and prepossessing Art Nouveau design.
Art Nouveau doorbell, Apartment Museum, Kaliningrad
The corridor inside the flat was rather narrow and, indeed, we were soon to discover that this merchant’s flat was of no great proportion anywhere. Naturally, the space was made considerably less by the unusual volume of people that it now occupied, all at once milling and jostling as they tried to divest themselves of their outer winter garments to place in temporary storage within the deep, but not very wide, cloakroom reserved for this purpose.
Naturally, the initial impact of the transition from now to then, from new to old, would be better served with less people present, but ventures such as these need to be administered and maintained, and I would anticipate that the fee for a private viewing might prove cost-prohibitive. Nevertheless, I did find room to reflect on how reserved and dignified Mr Grossmann’s hallway was, with its black and white tiled floor, tall dark doors fitted with ornate and heavy brass handles and its wonderful bygone telephone, equipped with open cradle and sporting a large pair of bells.
Open-plan design
When we were all partially disrobed, so to speak, we were led into the living quarters, which was fundamentally one large room divided into two halves by the simple decorative effect of wooden vertical frames and pierced and moulded fretwork where the uprights meet the ceiling.
The door through which we had entered had taken us effectively into the living room/study. In the corner of the room, in front of the window, was a desk with shelves and drawers in all the usual places and with more incorporated in the elevated section of a glazed cabinet super structure. The desk held various interesting and curious pieces, including the first typewriter I had seen manufactured by Mercedes Benz. Next to the desk there was a large double-fronted glazed cabinet, containing many antique artefacts, and next to that a small sofa and copper-topped circular table.
This table was one for us. It had a built-in standard lamp, with a large bell-shaped fabric lampshade centred above it, c.1920s. Other objects of interest in this part of the room included a small, circular gramophone table complete with horn-type gramophone, a very nice carved and stuffed-over seat corner chair, used here as a desk chair, and various wall-hung paintings and antique ornaments.
Mr Grumpy (photograph withheld)
One thing that Olga had not forewarned me about was that Stas would be translating as the guide spoke, and Stas, in turn, had not been forewarned that Mr Grumpy was present. Mr Grumpy took umbrage at Stas’ mumblings in English, and even after Stas had explained his intent and purpose, Mr G could not quite permit himself the liberty of graciousness, turning every now and then to scowl at us, until eventually he slid away. At first I felt myself lean charitably in his direction, after all had not he paid for the tour like everyone else? ~ so why would he want to be distracted by Stas’ infernal utterances? But by and by I noticed that he was pretty much dissatisfied with everybody and everything. Perhaps his wife had dragged him there when he should have been in the bar? (If that had been the case, then it was perfectly understandable!)
Gustav Grossmann? No, Mick Hart at Gustav’s desk!
The guide’s talk continued for some time but the duration was necessary as we were not after all in the Palace of Versailles but in a very small, lower middle-class apartment, which, had the guide whipped us through, would have no doubt had Mr Grumpy demanding his entrance fee back!
Judging by the reaction of the rest of the group, with the omission of Mr Grumpy, the guide’s efforts appeared to meet with universal appreciation. Even with my sparse knowledge of Russian I could tell that she was a good speaker, instigating and maintaining interest and adding to it, from time to time, by drawing our attention to certain curious items, which she passed around for people to hold and examine, asking if anyone knew what they had been used for in their previous life. This technique was adopted throughout the tour, and, I am proud to say, I got most of the items right, except for a small pagoda-style, black-lacquered miniature house which, it transpired, had been a pet sanctuary for crickets, no less. As they say, and quite rightly so, you learn something new every day.
The second half of the room into which we had first been shown functioned as the dining area, the taper-legged table and simple but appealing early 20th century chairs occupying centre place. Behind the table, set against the wall, stood a typical Könisbergian lump of a sideboard. I do not mean to sound disparaging, since these heavy, massy pieces of furniture typically adorned with heraldic and armorial appliques and supported on chunky ball and claw feet or, as in this example, large lion pads, solicit the Gothic in me, but I fully understand that their dominating presence is not, as we English are wont to say, everyone’s cup of tea.
Apartment Museum magnificent fireplace/stove
In this instance, however, it was the fireplace that got the better. Here we had a typical German glazed-tile fire-come-boiler affair ~ a masonry heater ~ distinguished above any I had seen hitherto, with the possible exception of one very ornate example, which may or may not be original, which resides within a hotel bar on a picturesque stretch of the river a few kilometers from Königsberg.
The fireplace we were privy to today owed its impressive status to its two-tiered format, and the fact that the decorative tiling was taken up from floor to ceiling, the top being surmounted with a rather elaborate carved and scrolled finial.
The metal grate doors at the lower level of the boiler also expressed an Art Nouveau intricacy, the artistic quality of which I have not witnessed elsewhere in this region.
Overall, the furnished and decorative note struck in Mr Grossmann’s flat was a mellow and conservative one, possessing and conveying an unaffected dignity. Towards this consummation the doors, all of which exhibited the same uniformity of design, added not a little. In fact, they stamped an authority of social standing on the nature of this abode, their dark-wood, tall and sober character surmounted by a dignifying architectural gable pediment.
Crotchless bloomers
The next stop on the itinerary was the bedroom. It was not at all very spacious and the two wooden single beds pushed together to make a pseudo double bed allowed for nothing more than a cabinet and a dressing table. The most remarkable bygone in this room was the mannequin, or rather the female underwear in which it was dressed, of which the principal feature was the long pantaloons. These, our guide revealed, were split-crotched in the most significant manner, which, my wife concluded, explained why men in the early 20th century made such an eager audience when young ladies danced the can-can.
Apartment Museum guide, Kaliningrad
You see what I mean when I say, ‘you learn something
new every day’.
We could not all get into the confines of the bed chamber, so some of us were necessitated to undertake our viewing from the hall, along which we then walked, as instructed by our guide, to the kitchen.
Nowhere does bygone domestic life impress itself more contrastively than in the kitchen setting. The kitchen décor of our modern age and the implements we use therein would seem so thoroughly futuristic from an early 20th century point of view, and also more recently for those who lived in the 1940s, as to make them impossible to envision. In years gone by kitchen items were heavy, solid-state, screwed, riveted, mechanical; they were constructed from metal and glazed stoneware, cast and wrought iron, and they were obviously made to last, which is why they are still with us. A few people aspire when they behold kitchens of yester-year to recreate something similar in their own home as a retro statement, but few people ~ only those of the most stalwart nature with a near to obsessive love of obsolescent times ~ are willing to go the whole hog, completely renouncing smooth, easy-to-clean surfaces and modern, time-saving kitchen utensils [see Art Exhibition Kaliningrad] for their more quirky but difficult to use and maintain predecessors.
Early 20th century kitchen utensils
In Mr Grossmann’s flat, the kitchen was quite small. Too many cooks was certainly not an option. The kitchen stove, or range, ruled the visual roost, it was, after all, an indispensable piece of home-living equipment, in this case cast iron, the front beige and green-enamel tiled and the whole raised on sculpted, ornate cabriole legs.
Above the cooker there was a row of hooks containing various kitchen utensils and, on the wall, cream and white enamel back-plates with integral hooks on which hung various straining, stirring and other culinary implements. The back plates to these utensil holders are lovingly shaped and are much sought after today by discerning collectors and interior decorators. Enamel products were, of course, the kitchen equipment stalwarts of their day, and another nice example, one of which I had seen before in Victor Ryabinin’s studio, was a three-compartmentalised kitchen-cleaning substance holder, which included a slot for a product well-known in England, Persil, the name of which, along with others, is printed on the surface.
Slider-controlled enamel kitchen shopping list reminder, c1910-20
One item that I was not acquainted with was an early refrigerator. The appliance looked like a tall, square, solid wooden box, but when the lid was lifted the top section could be seen to contain a perforated metal basket. The cabinet space below held the provisions whilst the ice above cooled the interior. A simple mechanism indeed, but I suppose it must have worked.
The kitchen was large enough to accommodate a dresser,
with glazed cabinets to the upper middle section flanked by two enclosed
cabinets, in which an assortment of curious contraptions were displayed, and
the storage space offered by this piece of furniture was augmented by a small
larder in the corner of the room, containing a stimulating jamboree of bottles,
tins and jars, many with ageing contents.
The last room on the inventory was the toilet and bathroom, and this indispensable facility was to be found on the left just inside the door. You’ve just got to love a proper toilet, being one with a high-rise cistern with a chain and porcelain hand-pull, of German heritage of course.
Gustav Grossmann’s toilet requisites
Whether large country estate, stately home or a relatively small apartment such as this one, the question I always ask myself at the conclusion of my visit is not did it interest me but did it have the desired effect, namely during the time I spent there was I there at the time and in a different time at the same time? The answer in the case of Kaliningrad’s (Königsberg’s) Museum Apartment is Yes. Thank you Apartment Museum and thank you Mr Grossmann!
I’ll have that painting and, by the way, how much for the flat?
Saturday 9 November 2019
Today we were off to an art exhibition. Of the
exhibition I knew little or nothing, except that it would be different and was
by invitation only. Oksana, our neighbour, had invited
us, and the ‘different’ element made all the difference in that I was very
curious.
I had no idea what to expect, as, in Oksana’s car, we pulled into a cramped carpark opposite a new red-brick block of flats. A group of people were walking alongside the building to a gate and were directed back from whence they came ~ we followed.
On the opposite side of the building we were shown
into a narrow corridor. A woman, carrying a clipboard, appeared. The group, of
which we were a part, about 20 in total, lined up on either side of the
corridor, whilst the clipboard lady delivered a short introductory talk, about
which, of course, I understood nothing. Then we filed through the door and took
the lift to one of the floors above.
Modern Chic or Retro Chic?
The block of flats we were in was new and unfinished, but the corridors, at least on the floors we were occupying, appeared to be in quite an advanced stage of completion. Chunky white door surrounds and white walls dominated the décor. From a distance it appeared as if a series of thin slate-like slithers of different dimensions had been painstakingly inserted at various depths to give a naturalistic, uneven surface finish to the walls, but on closer inspection you could see, as with even the best toupées, where the join was. Cunningly, the complexity of construction had been made considerably easier by the slate pieces being mounted on, or integral to, brick blocks. As modern as this was supposed to be, I could not help feel that there was something rather retro about the whole ensemble, so much so that it would not have surprised me had Russian versions of John Steed and Emma Peel come sauntering out from one the flats.
Flats for sale, Kaliningrad
The flats themselves were at the stage known here as ‘grey
scale’. This is an apt description, which means that the walls and ceilings
have been plastered and skimmed but no finishing décor has been applied. There
were no internal doors as yet but the double-glazing was in, as were the rads.
The concept
explained
The concept of the art exhibition was an interesting
one. My wife explained it to me. A number of empty flats in the building had
been requisitioned to serve as exhibition halls. Each participating flat ether
contained the displayed work of one individual artist or, if the artist’s
contribution was less prolific, one room would be allocated. Thus, in some
flats you would find the work of one artist and in others the work of, say,
three artists, housed in separate rooms.
The concept worked surprisingly well. Since the walls
of the flats were grey-scale they provided the perfect neutral backdrop and as,
apart from the artwork, the only other items in the rooms were display units,
advertising brochures and the odd bottle of mineral water, distraction had been
obviated. Even the display modules were as basic as they could be ~ simple
unobtrusive plinths and the occasional wooden easel. As there were few wall
hooks in evidence, many of the exhibits were placed at ground level. This was
in hindsight one possible flaw, as arguably the works in question were not
shown at their best in this position.
The exhibition rooms not all being situated on one
floor meant that the viewing public had to hop into lifts and run up and down
stairs, and this alone added an interesting twist to what was already a novel
concept.
Among the contributing artists whom we liked best was the work of Yri Bulechev and a second artist who, to add intrigue to his work, wished to remain anonymous. We did learn that the anonymous artist was by profession an engineer, and this calling was demonstrated thematically throughout his art. The focus subject matter was portrait: strained, tense faces with worried, uncertain eyes, apprehensive, frightened even, contextualised within a claustrophobic grid, an invasive backdrop of lines, narrow rectangles and circles, which reminded me of the geometrical patterns that I used to draw as a nipper with the aid of my then trendy Spirograph set.
Modern consciousness
This background fretwork ramped up the element of
tension, especially since it invaded the human features, as if intermeshing the
frailty of the human condition with the modern world’s increasing connectivity,
the pressures that such a Brave New World inflicts and the hard-wired
engineering by which our lives are ruled and controlled. That my good lady wife
liked these paintings, indeed was drawn to them so much that she put in a bid
for two, was, given her penchant for the light, airy and positive, somewhat
surprising.
One painting she particularly liked was that of female
face. It was, in fact, half a female face, the portrait painted on the very
edge of the substrate with half of the image missing. Taught and compelling,
the one eye blue and bright reflected something like fear, and there again was that
all-pervasive geometrical static, smothering the backdrop and overlaying the
startled features. Interestingly enough ~ but remember the artist’s vocation ~
this art form had not been painted on board or canvas but brought to life and
into the world on a sheet of rusty iron.
Half way there
The industrial-look of this artist’s work was
indubitably enhanced by the stark, incomplete environment in which it was
displayed, a factor which also fed into the large picture of a Russian female
comedy actress, noted, I was told, for her happy-go-lucky and comical
typecasting, drawn or painted all in white, whilst the dark shadowy head and
face of Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter (Silenceof the Lambs) looks predatorily over
her shoulder with a hunger in no way related to the baguette that the actress
is ready to eat.
As a long-time devotee of Leonard Cohen, Lord Byron
and Edgar Allan Poe, and being continually reminded by my wife that I am bleak
and melancholic, these pieces should have been right up my nightmare street
and, I have to confess, I enjoyed them, but on this occasion incongruously a
role reversal had taken place, with me feeling enthusiastic about a large
painting in contrasting pastel and vivid colours depicting two stylized lovers
floating in the luminous air somewhere between Heaven and Earth. Seldom have I
seen such a picture which radiates instant Karma ~ so soothing, idyllic, tranquil
and so ethereal in every sense. Until, that is, I discovered how much it cost. Brought
quickly down to earth again by the asking price of (ssshhhh!), I am yet
inclined to say that the painting is worth every ruble ~ it was only my wallet
holding me back!
Yri Bulechev composition, which would look very nice hanging above my bed!
Seldom have I seen such a picture which radiates instant Karma ~ so soothing, idyllic, tranquil and so ethereal in every sense.
Flat 10
During our wandering from room to room, I had had the
good fortune of being addressed by a very tall, very attractive young Russian
woman, dressed in red leather trousers and elevated on a pair of block high
heel shoes that seemed to be giving me vertigo.
She told me, among other things, that the best was yet
to come ~ wait until you get to apartment number 10, she said. Funny, but the
last two exhibit rooms before I got to number 10 are difficult to remember.
I am tempted to say that all I can recall about flat 10
was that it contained a massive king-size bed and a bath tub large enough for
four Donald Trumps, but, in reality, I can remember quite a lot more.
Flat 10 was a showcase flat. It had been given the
personalised designer treatment and as with all ~ or most ~ of the paintings
here on display was up for grabs if you wanted it. Indeed, I was told by the
interesting young lady who was talking to me in very good English that I could
buy it if I wanted to.
Flat 10 as illustrated on the cover of the art exhibition advertising leaflet
Well, did I?
The old adage that first impressions count may or may not be true, but it is as good a place to start as any. I may have been the only one amongst today’s privileged public to have made a mental note that the door design harked back to the Soviet era, in that access to the apartment (too grand to call it a flat) was governed by two doors in close proximity: first the traditional Russian heavy weight external door with its Fort Knox bolting system and then a more conventional door painted in non-conventional salmon pink. Beyond this curiosity, one walked into a tall, narrow corridor flanked by what appeared to be grey veneered paneling but which was, we discovered later, discreetly shuttered cabinet space. As one would expect from a modern designer flat, the accent was placed firmly on minimalist décor and maximalist space-exploitation. The floor-to-ceiling paneling, which was utilised again in the walkway between the master bedroom and bathroom, was as discreet as it was maximising, and this was because, as with the kitchen cabinets, all of the grey paneled doors had been built sans-handles. All one needed to do to access the space beyond was to touch lightly and the doors pop open. Nothing wrong with that, I thought, unless, of course, you have just woken up from a nightmare in which the world had been robbed of its handles.
If you have a fetish for handles, the flat had a place
for them. Indeed, as designer flats go, this one was very much built with a
place for everything and everything in its place. The wall directly opposite
the entrance has been thoughtfully provided with floor-to-ceiling box shelving
in a beech-veneered wood, the rectangular display units varying in size being
reminiscent of the modular concept. Space such as this could hold any number of
different sized handles and anything else for that matter.
Space optimisation at its best!
By turning left you were heading to the master
bedroom, which was located on the right, with the toilet and bathroom opposite.
First impressions again: the door with its angled lozenge panels. These I
liked. They were one of only two nods in this ultra-modern flat to the past and
to antiquity. As for the master bedroom, I was not quite sure whether it was
somewhat small or whether the bed was very large, but any risk of complete
claustrophobia was dispelled by the timely inclusion of a large glass window
that looked out into the covered balcony beyond.
The next stop, however, was the bathroom. I have
already referenced the bath tub. It was big. And so was the fixed shower rose
above it. As the musician and singer Judge Dread once said, ‘I haven’t see one
as big as that before’.
The toilet was round the corner in a separate place of
its own and here we were in for more surprises. No, it wasn’t a bucket; it was
as designer-modern as the rest of it. We were shown into the toilet cubicle in
the dark, but no matter as the inside of the pan was illuminated with little
blue lights and the seat popped up automatically. Really, there was no way that
you could not be impressed. I whispered to my entranced wife that such a toilet
as this was made for a hypochondriac such as me. I had reached the age where
ailments and hospital tests are more prevalent than hot dinners, and an
illuminated toilet bowl was an excellent idea for checking your stools.
My wife refrained from comment (a phenomenal moment in
itself), perhaps because she was already peering inside another room hidden
away behind more grey paneling. This was a narrow room, also accessible by the
paneling on the inside of the apartment door. It was here where you did your
washing and hung your clothes out to dry. On one side there were a couple of 21st
century washing machines and elevated above them an up-to-the-minute tumble
dryer; on the other, there were fitted wardrobes and shelves for your clothes. This
was so right. The very idea of hanging your socks, pants and sundries over the
edge of the balcony just would not work in a place like this.
Room with a view
We were on the balcony next. Make no mistake, this was no khrushchev flat. The balcony was completely self-contained, a great plate of double-glazed glass extending from the yellow-ridged floor to the dizzy heights of the ceiling. The wall had appropriately ~ given the artistic concept by which the event was defined ~ been fitted out with two large abstract paintings, whilst a handsome reproduction antique desk and swivel desk chair demonstrated how the space therein could be utilised as an additional ‘room’, in this case as an office. I liked this balcony. It was, as they say in British estate agents’ parlance, well-appointed, and I could honestly see myself sitting there typing away on an evening as I tried to resist supping beer in the nearby London Pub. I could not, however, see myself walking there ~ too much ~ as impressive as the modern floor structure was, like most modern floors today which are made of composite wood it tended to shift and creak. Not good if like the Sheik of Araby, you tend to creep about at night, and in a compact space-saving flat like this no one could blame you for feeling so inclined, particularly as this balcony contained an adjoining door to the guest room.
Balcony Flat 10
Although the guest room was rather small, containing a kind of settee bed, the strategic positioning of a slim vertical mirror opposite the balcony entrance and a wide mirror on the wall facing it, created the illusion of much more space than there was, particularly when the tall, Baroque-style door from bedroom to sitting area was left open.
Looking back at this door, from the sitting room to the guest bedroom, endorsed my earlier prejudice that the lozenge-shaped panels struck an essential and clever juxtaposition, the geometrical profile, although simple, being the perfect foil to handle-less cabinets and satin-smooth textures.
Sitting pretty … well, at least sitting on something pretty!
The sitting room and kitchen were, in essence, a double act. The sitting room determined by its flat wall-mounted TV screen and serpentine-shaped comfy settee and the kitchen starting, but partly concealed, behind a tall block screen. If anything did not work for me inside this flat it was the screen. It was dark-coloured and its height and breadth reminded me of the type of front desks that you feel belittled by in old Soviet-style hotels, such as Kaliningrad’s Moscow. Behind the front desk in this room, there were the kitchen work surfaces and state-of-the-art kitchen appliances and, immediately behind them, and soaring up behind them, a monolithic formation of touch-door operated fitted-kitchen cabinets. I am a beans-on-toast man myself, but even I could see that for kitchen aficionados there was nothing wanting in high-tech, or in ultra-swish, clean and easily cleanable where this kitchen was concerned.
As I gaze thoughtfully at the ceiling stencil in the Swish kitchen …
The one thing that I have omitted to mention so far is
the absence of a proper ceiling ~ by proper I mean traditional. In fact, there
is no ceiling, at least no plasterboard painted ceiling. Above your head in
this flat the concrete structure looks down on you in all its unexpurgated and
natural naked glory. I like it. It melds perfectly into the industrial and
steampunk ethos by which we live our modern lives, from train station to
airport, from café bar to attic revamp, it is the modern-day equivalent of the
nuts, bolts and rivets statement which defined the architecture of the
industrial revolution. That it has followed us into our homes should not surprise
us, but in this flat, just in case it did, the designers had taken the
decorative precaution of stenciling onto the overhead concrete an elaborate
sequence of scrolls, this constituting the second nod to antiquity, as the
distinctive outline and shell-like form is unmistakably related to the family Rococo.
For a man who has spent most of his life dodging
minimalism as if it were the plague, I have to confess that I was happily
engaged by what I had witnessed today and the way that it had affected me.
There is every possibility that I will never be able to look at a half-finished
flat again without thinking, ‘this needs artwork’ or ‘what I could do with this
space if only I had the creative vision of the designers of flat number 10’.
Essential Details:
KvartirnikExhibition
The
exhibition is a joint offline project of the ART SPACE Internet Gallery and
PEPA HOME STEGING, which prepares real estate for sale.
Project Organisers
Stepanyuk Natalya, Exhibition Curator & Artist (examples of her works exhibited)
Kiseleva Tatyana, Architect & Interior Designer
Contributing Artists Include:
Baeva,
Natalya
Elfimov,
George
Elfimova,
Lyudmila
Bulychev,
Yuri
el cartoon
Kiseleva,
Tatyana
Stepanyuk,
Natalya
Vernikovskaya,
Olga
Chepkasova,
Natalya
Elfimov,
Alexander Prokopyevich
Apartment Design
Tatyana Kiseleva, Architect (planning, interior design, furniture and all interior items)
Personalised Interior Design Project
Following consultation
with the architect, an individual planning solution is offered to any buyer of
any apartment in the building this article features.
I recently visited the Hotel Russ (August 2019). It is interesting to observe what has changed in the past 20 years and what has not. The following description is taken from my notes of the Hotel Russ as it was on that celebrated day in 2000 when we first arrived in Russia, almost 20 years ago. Later, we hope to write a review of what it is like to stay in the Russ today. Meanwhile, this was our first experience …
Having passed through the main gate of the Hotel Russ in Svetlogorsk, we followed the path along the side of the building to the entrance. Two large glass doors opened up into a wide, airy and spacious foyer. You could not miss the reception area as it was elevated and had the word ‘Reception’ emblazoned across it, surprisingly in English.
Reception area, Hotel Russ, Svetlogorsk, Russia, December 2000
To get there necessitated climbing up two or three steps
onto a wider platform and then approaching the bar. I do not mean the sort you
get in pubs; this experience was rather more similar to approaching the bar in
court (as far as I am aware).
The two young ladies behind the counter were, well,
beautiful springs to mind, but it was a cold, unsmiling kind of beauty; the
next word that sprung to mind was ‘’officious and, after that, ‘very’. Olga did
the talking; we did the looking and the walking.
From our elevated position we could see that on one side of
us there was, indeed, a bar. We both felt instantly better ~ who said ‘at
home’?
Bar area, Hotel Russ, Svetlogorsk, Russia, December 2000
The bar area contained the usual outcrops of tables and chairs, which extended down one side to the end of the building. The chairs were chromium backed and the round tables marbled topped. Indeed, marble ~ or simulated marble ~appeared to be the material of the day within the Hotel Russ. To the left of us, in front of the bar, stood a row of tall, square-section pillars, which fanned out in vaulted form before folding into the ceiling. One of the pillars was decorated with artificial shrubs and climbing plants and beneath it we could hear a water feature bubbling
The area beyond the pillars was effectively the hotel lounge. It was well appointed, with a bank of windows which extended along the entire side of the room and soared up into the heavens above. The ceiling was very high, and if you stood in this lavish area, with its reproduction antique furniture and comfy, cushioned divans, and looked up at the ceiling it was evident they had designed the Russ to look like an ocean liner, complete with curving staircase that took you up majestically onto the upper deck.
Lounge area, Hotel Russ, Svetlogorsk, Russia, December 2000
As grand as they were, we did not take the steps. Our
luggage was extremely heavy and bulky, even discounting the Sausage, so we took
the lift instead.
A tall, thin man, with a face he had purchased from Serious
& Co, was summoned to help us with our luggage. He came across the room in
a most peculiar way, but it was not until he turned back again towards the lift
with a couple of bags, including the Sausage, which were far too heavy for him
to manage, that my brother, with an alacrity of mind that was so atypical that
he must have borrowed it for the occasion, identified the gait as ‘mincing’.
From that moment on, our tall assistant would be known to us as Mincer and
Mincer he became.
From left to right: Joss Hart, a man from the Hotel Russ and Mick Hart , December 2000
For a big hotel the lift was little. It was also not very
wide. Certainly not wide enough for Olga, Joss, myself, two hefty cases, the
Sausage and Mr Mincer. We got in and were all squashed up, something like Dad’s
Army when they all crowd into the vicar’s office. There was nothing for it,
something would have to give. So Olga got out and walked upstairs. There goes
another myth, ‘the typical English gentlemen’.
It was a small lift and it was also a very slow lift. It did
not start moving straightaway. Titter ye not, I thought, but it was hard not to
all cramped up like that with Mincer looking so serious. But we knew better
than to laugh in Russia ~ thank heavens for the stiff upper lip.
Ping, went the lift, at last. I felt as if we had travelled
to the top of the Empire State Building not just to the first floor. Joss and I
squeezed out and Mincer followed, or he would have done had not the mischievous
Sausage found another small door to straddle. We helped our hapless baggage boy
out and relieved him of the obnoxious case.
We were now standing in a wide area overlooking the bar, three
or four tables and chairs around the perimeter and a pool table in the centre.
The rooms on this floor were arranged around an oblong balcony with the
centrepiece open and from which you could look down onto the floor below.
The first room that we entered was the one reserved for my
brother, Joss. It was not bad at all. A little formal, perhaps, by British
standards, I mean not at all like Mrs Musson’s Guest House at number six No-Beach
Brightlingsea, but lacking nothing in the clean, neat, tidy and comfortable
department.
In addition to the usual appurtenances, Joss had a large,
three-quarter size bed and a rubber plant.
Next it was our room, which was on the other side of the
balcony facing the Rus garden. In we went, all excited, only to discover that
our double room was smaller than Joss’ single and that whilst he had a double
bed ~ of sorts ~ we had two singles?
My brother has always been a true gentleman, mostly by
accident, and today was one of those, because he surprised us all, including
himself (and that doesn’t happen very often) by making the supreme sacrifice:
he was willing to give his room up for ours ~ to swap rooms.
Isn’t it obvious!?
Feeling altogether sensible Olga went downstairs to
reception to request the transfer. She was back almost quicker than she went
with the intelligence that we could not change rooms as Joss had a single room
and we had a double, so any change was impossible. The exact response from the
ladies at reception had been, “Isn’t it obvious: the single room is for the
single person and the double for two people”.
To say that we were not perplexed would be an understatement
and Olga, perceiving that her two English associates had been skittled, left
them sitting on the bed in Joss’ room, to which we had retreated, sipping vodka
thoughtfully out of a hip flask, whilst she went off ‘to see what could be
done’.
Ten minutes later she returned. “It’s OK, they are taking
care of it,” she assured us.
And they were, sure enough, but not in the way they might
have done it back home. As we walked past the open door to our bedroom, we
caught sight of the solution to the problem, in the shape of two burly Russian
gentleman moving the single beds together and securing the legs at either end
with two thick pieces of rope. This made us chuckle; Olga was not amused. She
was also not very amused as in passing the upper extremities of the Christmas
tree, which extended from the ground floor up through the oval aperture almost
to the roof, Joss noted that there was no adorning fairy or star on the top.
His suggestion to hang an old pair of underpants on it was a step too far in
the smutty English humour direction for Olga, and she went from feeling annoyed
to visibly irritated.
To take the wind out of her sails (my brother was also suffering from wind, and she was not too amused about that, either), I suggested a tour around the hotel to get ourselves familiarised with it. At such a time when many companies were still in the embryonic stage of website development, surprisingly enough the Russ was ahead of itself, and we had been able to appraise the quality of this 4-Star hotel by consulting its site ahead of our trip.
As we descended, this time by the grand staircase, we met
Mincer on the ground floor, and Olga asked him if we could see the sports
centre. “It’s broken,” he replied.
Joss and I shot a glance at each other: perhaps something
was lost in translation?
Broken or not our guide continued. We followed him down a
short flight of stairs into what appeared to be a typical sports centre
changing room, wide and open with slatted bench seats around the wall. We then
turned right into a passageway. Against the wall stood an exercise bike, its
front wheel hanging off. Mincer said something. Olga translated: “Broken,” she
said.
There was little point in arguing. But what about the swimming pool, surely the wheel could not have fallen off that.
It had not. But it had shrunk. On the photographs it
appeared to be a full-size pool, whereas, in real life, it was a large, deep bathtub
into which one plunged after vacating the sauna. Was the sauna working? Er …
Fully refreshed after our workout, we returned to our
respective rooms. Olga had made arrangements to meet with her friend, Helen,
the plan being that we would venture into Svetlogorsk for a drink, but what was
needed now was a cup of tea and a refreshing bath.
Don’t drink the water
Spoilt by literally having drinking water on tap in England,
Olga had alerted us to the fact that in the Kaliningrad region it was strictly
a case of ‘don’t drink the water’. I wondered whether it could be as bad as we
had been led to believe. The answer came when I began to fill the bathtub. To
say that the water was black may well be an overstatement, but it was certainly
getting that way. We called Joss in from his room to witness this hitherto
unseen spectacle, and then we had Olga ring to reception to report the anomaly.
Her reply was, “Isn’t it obvious? You must let the water run!” So, we did
exactly that, until we feared that we had dissipated half of Svetlogorsk’s
water reserves. Oh, well, we would have to forgo the bath. But what about
something to eat? Something simple, such as a cheese and tomato sandwich prior
to going out on the town? Our request, by phone to reception, was met with some
confusion. The person who took the call had to consult with somebody else.
Eventually we were informed that we could have two slices of bread, some cheese
and tomatoes on the side of the plate, but they could not do a sandwich. Well,
I thought, isn’t it obvious!
It was around this time that we received a phone call to
reception from another of Olga’s friends. Olga telephoned the friend in return
and was invited to go out somewhere for a drink. As we had a prior engagement,
we declined, but Joss solved the double commitment by electing to meet up with
the second party whilst we went ahead with our original plans.
Joss’ company arrived first. They were a couple, both
persons of which were, I thought, most refined in dress and in manner. What
would they make of my brother, I mused, as they whisked him away for the evening?
Olga’s friend, Helen, arrived a few minutes later:
attractive, very sweet natured but, I thought, rather, and unduly, concerned
about my first impressions of Svetlogorsk. I had no idea as to why this apprehension
should constitute the status quo in these parts, although I realised later that
in the year 2000, apart from Germans returning to the region to see where their
family once lived, foreigners were quite a rare species and English men
perfectly alien.
Out into the cold ~ very cold ~ and snow-laden night we
ventured, retracing the route that our taxi had taken. We had difficulty walking,
the snow was that thick and, where it was not, it was that icy. Also, as I had
observed earlier, there were little or no streetlights of which to speak.
Sundial sculpture on Svetlogorsk promenade during the winter, December 2000
Our pedestrianisation seemed to go on forever, until we took a right turn in the direction of the sea. We eventually reached the top of a steep bank of steps. I could hear the sea in the near distance and feel the sea air ~ it was as sharp as the proverbial razor blade! Carefully, very carefully, we picked our way down the gallery of steps until we reached the promenade. Directly in front of us stood a man-made and man height (sorry about the lack of PCism) sundial, the wedge-shaped blade reflecting what light there was as it cut its way upwards from the ground. I took hold of this blade, and, in listening to the rolling sound of the tide, thought to myself, “I’m actually here!” (Do not forget, dear reader, that having read or heard nothing positive about Russia since I was a child and, more recent to the time of my trip, having been the recipient of negative media coverage from, without exception, every UK media source available and, in particular official channels (no change there, then!) make no mistake that being in Russia was a truly awesome thought!)
It used to be
The icy blast across the Baltics rendered any further deliberation
untenable, and we cut a hasty retreat. It had been somewhat easier descending
than ascending, and we stopped at the top of the steps to catch our breath. To
our left there were a couple of derelict buildings, about which Helen
volunteered some information as to what they used to be. By the time we had
reached our destination, a café-bar close to Svetlogorsk centre, ‘this used to
be’ had developed into a catchphrase. We passed several collapsing or deserted
structures all of which had been ‘Used to Bees’.
A welcome sight was a little neon sign marking the spot
where a café-bar stood. As we drew closer, I could make out a single-storey
building with a glass door. There was nothing else around the building. Today,
as with most of Svetlogorsk, this area has been developed, but the little café
into which I first took refuge on 27 December 2000 is, I am pleased to say,
still there and still functioning and nothing much, if anything, has changed!
Inside, the café was a simple rectangular room, tables
ranged down either side and in the far corner to the right a small semi-circular
or curved bar. The establishment was neither grand nor overtly plain. The
lighting was just right ~ not too bright, not too dim ~ and the walls were
conservatively decorated with framed pictures of the Svetlogorsk coastline and
town. Most importantly, on a night like this, it was cosy, comfortable and warm
~ and, of course, it was also licensed.
I cannot remember what lager I drank that evening. I did not
really bother. As a seasoned real-ale drinker, I had made my mind up in advance
that anything lagerish would be poor, but I drank it all the same.
My one abiding memory of this establishment, and one that
would stay with me for a long time, was that there was only one toilet, and it
was unisex. This perplexed me a little. There were only three other people
apart from us in the bar, but, when the establishment was full, how did a
one-toilet system work? The other thing that surprised me about this odd
Russian toilet arrangement was that you were unable to use the facility unless
you asked for a key from the bar. I would learn later that this inconvenient
convenience was by no means a one-off and in some places today the tradition has
not moved on much!
I also learnt this evening that whenever I spoke English in
a café or a restuarant I would be looked at ~ and I do not mean in the sense of
a casual glance! As I noted earlier, foreigners were a rare thing in ‘these
‘ere parts’ and when you were looked at you were really looked at. I believe
that throughout the 45 minutes we were in this bar, the other inhabitants, bar
staff included, never took their eyes off me, not for a single moment.
We moved on, not because of this, but to pastures anew. If
anything, our brief sojourn and the comfort afforded by it, had rendered the
great outdoors even more hostile, or perhaps the temperature was dropping even
further.
Café Mozart , Svetlogorsk
Luckily, we had only walked a short distance before another
neon sign glowed its way into our vision: in a purple-red flowing script, it identified
the building on which it was erected as the Café Mozart.
I will never forget that first encounter with the Mozart.
The building was well lit on this extremely murky but atmospheric evening, a
large picture window flooding the ground with light outside, whilst other lit
windows and external lamps threw patches of light onto this and that aspect of
the building and wove shadows above and around, picking out and hiding at will
the nooks, crannies, decor and detail of what was unequivocally a fine example
of the Gothic Revival style. As we approached, the wooden slatted and clad
exterior put me in mind of early 20th century American Romanticist
architecture, but it was far too chilly a night to bring this contemplation to a
proper conclusion.
Inside the building, large and spacious as it was, there was
a traditional dance floor to the right, complete with revolving glitter ball,
and to the left a good-sized lounge with a welcoming fire. Although this was
not a real log fire but a gas-fired replica, it made the interior very cosy
indeed. Comfortable bench seats lined the window, with armchairs and sofas
scattered here and there inviting you to sink into them, an over-mantle mirror
hung above the fireplace, which may or may not have been authentic antique, and
various framed pictures adorned the wallpapered walls, the mood lighting from a
combination of pendant and wall-mounted lamps making this habitat the perfect
choice for reasonable refreshment and good conversation.
As for the latter, most of that revolved around what it was
like to live in England and the English way of life. I would soon learn that
the Russian vision of Merry England was as quaintly outdated as our authorised
version of what it was like to live in Russia today.
Sad to say, the Mozart, which had affected me with such appealing and positive vibes, closed shortly after this visit ~ at least it was closed when I returned a year later, never to re-open in the same style. Six months ago, the building was up for sale. It has been on the market for a long while and may still be for sale today.
Strangely enough, there is nothing in my year 2000 diary regarding our first glimpse of Kaliningrad by train. Later, in 2001, when I returned to Kaliningrad via Vilnius, I did refer to the maze of concrete jutting out and across the horizon which asserted itself as our train drew near and the daunting prospect that this presented compared to the quaint medieval streets of the city from which we had departed, and which now was a long way behind us.
This omission in my 2000 diary may have been due to the fact that the scene on my arrival had such a potent effect. For we had passed through the exit of Kaliningrad station onto a Spielberg film set.
Outside the door was snow ~ a wide plateau of it. It was still snowing heavily and fall upon fall had covered melted snow that had since turned to ice. Directly outside the railway station’s door stood two old army trucks, both open backed. From one spilled a group of young Russian soldiers, the other was being filled with snow by a second group of soldiers attempting to clear a path through the drifts. The engines of the trucks were running, and the strong smell of diesel fumes wafted across the wasteland. The shovel blades beat an erratic tattoo, thumping against the snow, cracking at the ice and scraping across the concrete. Spielberg’s costume department had spared no expense. Each soldier was garbed in smart regulation great coat, thick woollen trousers, high canvas boots and those distinctive furry Russian hats with flaps (ushankas).
Nearby, two or three comrades (for that is what they looked like) squashed inside big heavy coats, black peaked caps with folding side flaps stuck upon their heads, all bewhiskered and dragging on fags, huddled around a big old oil drum that had been requisitioned as a source of warmth. Another of these makeshift braziers burned a few feet away. Red and orange flames funnelled from their tops together with bright little firework sparks, which danced, crackled and exploded loudly in the frozen atmosphere.
In front of us, across the expanse of white, stood a three or four storey procession of grey concrete flats. This was not Kaliningrad 2022, so our view was virtually unimpeded, the only large object being the statue of Kalinin, his arm and hand outstretched as if commanding the heavens to stop dropping snow. Behind him, along the top of the not-so venerable buildings, giant metal letters spread out along parallel bars, the imposing Cyrillic script traversing the entire block in a wonderful piece of letter spacing. At one end sat a large Soviet star, at the other, I was thrilled to observe, a gigantic hammer and sickle. And then it actually struck me: “Oh dear,” I thought, “we’re here!”
Three big, old, Mercs, battered and rusting, with little
white ‘Taxi’ signs strapped to their roof-racks, stood idly by, waiting for
instructions.
The little band of
men, which I had observed earlier, were taxi drivers.
Don’t let them know you are British!
Olga whispered to me that she was off to negotiate a price
with them. She instructed Joss and I to stand away and not to speak, warning us
that should they, the taxi drivers, get
the slightest inclination that we were foreigners the taxi fare would double.
Five minutes of negotiating later, a fare had been agreed, and
we were off. But where to? The plan was to ferry us off to the nearby (about 44
kilometres away) coastal resort of Svetlogorsk. Olga was very conscious of the
rundown condition of Kaliningrad, and she had made plans for us to stay in what
was then the only 4-star hotel in the region, which was Svletogorsk’s Hotel
Rus. Nothing else would be good enough for two well-to-do Englishmen like us!
The journey by taxi was an interesting one. The big old
Merc, coughed, belched and spluttered almost as much as its driver did. We
roared through the snowbound streets of the city, a combination of abject fear
and snow working in Olga’s favour, as we were much to alarmed to take anything
in and even had we wanted to all we could see was snow.
Out on the open road the conditions were worse, but it was
OK because no one had told our taxi driver. For a while, whilst we were stuck
behind a truck with a snow blade on the front, our confidence returned, but it
soon took a hit, for in overtaking the truck, as the driver pressed his foot
down hard, the car slewed erratically on the snow and ice beneath. From that
moment our knuckles were destined to be as white as the pure-driven. Relentless
snow, drifting snow and an old German road lined on either side with trees ~
big, gnarled trunks perfect for colliding with ~ dismayed the driver not a jot.
On and on we sped, as though Danger had taken a holiday.
To be fair, give or take one or two slippery moments of
panic, our chain-smoking driver seemed to know what he was doing, and I do
believe that had not the road surface changed beneath the wheels without us realising,
we could have boasted later that by the time we arrived in Svetlogorsk the
journey had been a piece of cake. The cake collapsed, however, when tarmac
changed to cobbles. We were not endangered in any way, well no more than we had
been, but the sudden rumbling and jolting gave us the right old KGBs. In
hindsight, I actually believe that it brought back nerves to our nerveless driver,
for he slammed on the anchors a little too hard, swinging the car to the right
and then back again to the left before bringing the vehicle under control.
“Ah, we’ve arrived in Svletogorsk,” Olga announced.
Svetlogorsk by night
At this time (before
Svetlogorsk became commercially exploited) it was designated a health resort, a
place where people went to take the air and rehabilitate. This meant that cars could only be taken into
Svetlogorsk if drivers were willing to pay a tariff, the ostensible logic being
that it would reduce the numbers of cars entering Svetlogorsk and by limiting
exhaust emissions keep the atmosphere pure. You know the routine, that nice Mr
Sadiq Khan has done something similar in London, to help with congestion and
massage our lungs ~ shame about our pockets!
Thus, we stopped, and money was handed over to someone
sitting in a little concrete building at the side of a pull-in just off the
road. Boy was it good to have stopped! This must be what they meant when they
said Svletogorsk was good for your health!
Dusk had begun to fall as we continued our journey. We were now travelling through the streets of Svetlogorsk. Once again, with the snow still falling and much of the little coastal resort enveloped by it, and with deterioriating light and travel-weary minds, we could not make much out. The streets in the town itself were very poorly lit, and what light there was peeped out timidly, but cosily from little orange-hued windows in houses set back from the road tucked within pine-tree glades. Indeed, no sooner were we in the town than we seemed to be travelling out of it. I distinctly remember a long, dark road lit by one lonely streetlamp and, shortly after that, a sensor-activated light coming on as we approached a crossroads or junction. At this point we swung left, the lights of the houses on either side comprising the only illumination, apart from our headlights, of course.
The Hotel Rus, Svetlogorsk
We had travelled along this road but a short distance when darkness was dispelled by two floodlights pointing at and exposing what appeared to be a steep, broad ski slope from which multiple shards of light stabbed out through the whirling snow into the night sky. It was, in fact, Svletogorsk’s, and indeed the region’s, much-celebrated Hotel Rus.
As the taxi drew to a halt ~ a happy halt as far as we were concerned ~ a better view of the Rus was afforded. We were parked adjacent the gable end of the building. It was a tall perpendicular invested with large windows. The ski slope was its roof. In fact, that might have been a better name, Hotel Roof, because there was far more roof than walls. Roof, walls, what did we care! All we wanted to do was wave farewell to our driver and say hello to our 4-star luxury.
Updated 12 September 2022 | First published 20 October 2019 ~ Into Russia
We had left England only three days ago but already the cheap hooch, relatively cheap by British standards, and recourse to a hip flask was taking its toll. A lot of quips and asides about British spies and gulags had joined forces with our excesses and were beginning to seep out of us in a low-brow paranoia. It didn’t help that my future wife-to-be, Olga, had started to take a perverse delight in our advertised insecurity and was adding to it by slow degrees with quips and asides of her own.
I will never forget our exit from our hotel in Gdansk, but
first our planned itinerary: Leaving Poland today, it was our intention to stay
for seven days in the Kaliningrad region and then return to the same hotel by
train and taxi, prior to leaving for England the following day from Gdansk
Airport. We had booked our rooms in advance, so on leaving for Russia this
morning the staff knew of our plans.
Meats and cheeses had not been available this morning as we
were off to the railway station at 5.30am. We were travel weary and hungover.
The Sausage was obviously not in the mood to be disturbed at that time of
morning either, as twice on the way downstairs, once when vacating the room and
then when accessing the lift, it had jammed itself at a silly angle in both
doorways, necessitating a volley of imprecations and a couple of stout clouts.
We had settled the bill and were standing in the hotel doorway
just as our taxi rolled up.
“Goodbye,” I called, to the hotel staff, “see you soon.”
“Or, perhaps not!” Olga retorted slyly.
The hotel staff chuckled; we looked alarmed.
Before we could even consider not being seen again once we were on the other side of the Iron Curtain, we had the train journey to contend with. A large part of my Lever Arch file containing research on our trip had been devoted to the precariousness of travelling on Polish railways. As we were driven from the hotel to the station, I wondered what I was going to use. The FCO advice was to secure your train carriage door with a piece of flexible wire, but, strangely enough, I had nothing like that on me.
Into Russia via Gdansk
It was snowing again and the train was late. The more I eyed our fellow would-be travellers roving around at the station, the more suspicious they seemed to become. On reflection, they were probably thinking the same about me. What is that bloke staring at?
At last, our magic carpet to Russia rolled in. It was a great chugging piece of clanking, rattling metal; a big old box of a tool, slow and cumbersome and stinking of diesel fumes. If ever a train was designed to house denizens from the deep, this was it!
These big old trains were high old trains and getting into them meant climbing up four or five steps. Now, the Sausage was dead set against this and had, in no uncertain terms, to be ‘persuaded’. I may have been mistaken but it seemed that three or four of our potential assailants on seeing how brutally we treated the Sausage fell back. In any event, they were right behind us when we got on ~ a surly mob if ever I saw one ~ but did not follow us when we turned immediately right into the first compartment. That is correct ~ compartment. These trains ~ or, at least, this particular train ~ are compartmentalised, with small self-contained ‘rooms’ running down the right side and a corridor on the left. In England they had more or less phased these out in preference for open-plan carriages. As Mr Woolworth once said, ‘Load them in and stack them high!’ ~ well, he didn’t really, but he did say something to this effect.
There we were in our compartment, the three of us, two bags and the Sausage. Potential assailants were still climbing onto the train, and some of them not only looked in our carriage, they positively leered ~ where’s that piece of flexible wire when you need it! But at last the column thinned out and with our compartment now full ~ two old ladies and a boy the size of a stick ~ we could breathe a sigh of relief.
I cannot remember whether we had chosen this carriage as it was close to the toilet or not, but the toilet was close, next door to us in fact. As soon as the train pulled out of the station, sounding as if it had taken half the tracks with it, I ventured to the bog, peeping furtively this way and that, as if life had suddenly become an old black and white suspense film.
The toilet certainly looked as if it belonged to a black and white something or other, or perhaps a better description would be a brown something. Like the train itself, and its passengers, it was a rough and neglected piece of equipment ~ a metal funnel sans-seat with a hole in the base where a trap should have been. I was mighty glad that I had only gone in there for a jimmy and nothing more substantial, as the icy blast up the hole was ~ would have been ~ most disconcerting. A second and third discomfort was ~ surprise, surprise ~ that the door did not shut and the place where you stood to position yourself in front of the pan seemed to be on a connection plate linked to the carriage’s hook-up system. Whatever it was, it was moving erratically, jerking from side to side and jumping up and down. I made two mental notes that day as regards Polish toilets on Polish trains (1) don’t wear white trousers; (2) bring your own toilet roll.
“That took you long enough,” brother remarked on my return
to the carriage. I made a third note, ‘don’t rely on brother if you happen to
go missing’.
On the way to the Russian border, 27 December 2000
Frozen lakes, snow and ice, acres of white-capped pine forests, little cottages with smoke curling out of their chimneys and red-brick Gothic castles ~the journey out of Poland had both a picturesque magic about it and an air of formidability: with each turn of the engine’s wheels Russia was getting nearer! Then, all of a sudden, we were almost there!
No laughing! You are entering Russia!
As we approached the Russian border we received strict
instructions from Olga to behave ourselves: “Please refrain from making your
silly English jokes. Travelling through the Russian border is a very serious
business!” We composed ourselves accordingly.
The heavy old train and its rumbling carriages rolled slowly to a halt. There was nothing much to see. We couldn’t have been in the middle of nowhere, because everybody’s been there, perhaps we were a bit to the left (east) of it. We sat there for what seemed like the proverbial eternity. Olga was right. Crossing the Russian border was a serious business. Nobody said a word; all that could be heard was the rustling of bags and pockets as our fellow passengers fumbled around for their official documentation. At long last eternity ended. A string of Russian personnel, excitingly decked out in the sort of clothes that you would expect them to be wearing, full length woollen great coats, matching hats (ushankas), big boots etc, with the insignia of The Russian Federation emblazoned in all the right places, boarded the train. There were, in total, three men and two women. This was my first sight of real Russian authority, so I craned forward to get a really good look at them. They were all very young. I wouldn’t have thought that any of them were a day older than 25. Ssshhh, they were working their way down the train; they were coming in our direction.
Olga was sitting opposite us near the window; Joss and I were next to each other. We had been practising our serious expressions for a good half-hour. Joss was doing well; I had never seen my brother look so serious before, well, perhaps with the exception of the time when he accidentally bought a round in the pub.
Finally, the cavalcade of Russian authority stopped at us. We were asked, brusquely, to produce our passports. Both Joss and I did so in the most orthodox and restrained manner imaginable. When needs must, we could be as serious as the best of them. Suddenly, a rip-roaring rollocking snort, a burst of suppressed laughter, emanated from Olga. Joss and I shot surprised and alarmed glances in her direction. The young man who had taken our passports did the same. Now we were smirking, and he was as well, whilst the rest of his crew were desperately trying to keep straight faces. No one could really have known what they were laughing at. Least of all us; we didn’t have a clue. As if connected by an invisible string we all regained composure at one and the same time. The young military gentleman quickly returned our passports and the line of authority went travelling by, trying to look as if nothing had happened.
When asked why she had laughed, the only explanation that Olga could give was that we ‘looked so stupid’. If that was the case, I thought, she should be laughing more times than she wasn’t.
It took a proverbial age for the big old train to up anchor and trump off again in a Kaliningrad direction. As we rolled away from the border checkpoint, there stood one very lonely Russian soldier. He was standing there in his big coat and hat with flaps on. Now he was in the middle of somewhere, and it wasn’t very hospitable. He was surrounded by snow; behind him there was nothing but a lot of barbed wire; and as the train went slowly past him ~ clunkety, clunk, clunk, clunk ~ my last and lasting impression of the lonely Russian border guard was the sight of his bright red nose glowing refulgently like a Belisha beacon.
Is it just me, or does it get increasingly difficult to
enjoy yourself on Christmas Day as you get older? And, as you get older do you
find yourself looking forward more to Boxing Day than to the day before? One
thing I can say about this Christmas in Poland, it may have been my first year
away from Blighty during the festive season but at least in Poland I was in for
no surprises. And as Boxing Day is an improvement on Christmas Day in England,
so it came to pass that the same step up was replicated here.
It was Olga’s idea that we should redress our sedentary
yesterday with a leg-stretching stroll along the sea front. Another similarity
between Christmas rituals in England and those in Poland was, apparently, that
after overdoing it in the grub department folk assuaged their conscience with a
morning constitutional before returning to the table and overdoing it again.
Boxing Day in Gdansk
Olga must have had an informed knowledge of Polish people’s Christmas habits since she correctly predicted that we would not be alone on the beach this morning. The sight was most unusual. The sand was frozen solid, the pools of water where the sea met the sand had iced over and some were coated with a fresh sprinkling of snow, and yet, as far as the eye could see, a line of people, a well-dressed procession of folk of all ages, were promenading along the edge of the seafront. I remember thinking to myself that I had never seen such an outstanding display of real fur hats and coats. The women’s coats were long, opulent and luxuriously trimmed; they shone magnificently in the luminous air, the darker and lighter shades of pelts both in the coats and matching hats catching the sunlight, holding it for a moment and then reflecting the nuanced patterns beautifully. Looking back, this was possibly my first introduction to the futility of political correctness.
Promenading on Gdansk beach, year 2000
A little further along the coastline my eyes alighted on a
quite different scene. Shivering on a low wooden jetty stood three red lobsters
laughing. One, who had just taken a meaningful swig from a vodka bottle, was
about to dive back into the icy cold sea. I was not ignorant of such peculiar
goings-on in country’s such as these, but what a carry on; you certainly would
not catch us Brits doing this in the middle of winter in Heacham or Hunstanton
~ in fact, come to think of it, we wouldn’t most likely be doing this in
Heacham or Hunstanton in the middle of summer!
The site of lobsters in trunks and a fresh flurry of snow
gave us just the excuse we’d been waiting for to investigate the probability
that the impressively large red-brick hotel in front of us might be concealing
a bar. I cannot remember the name of this place and I never entered it into my
2000 Diary, but after a bit of research on the internet I am of the opinion
that it was more than likely The Grand.
MIck Hart & Olga, Gdansk, 2000
I did write in my diary that the lounge bar was a tad
disappointing, a little bit run of the mill, but compensation comes in the most
unusual of places ~ the toilet. Yes, the bog was magnificent! It was tiled from
top to bottom in contrasting hues of green marble and had urinals that dated
back to Edwardian times. They were ~ if you know your urinals ~ deliberately
contrived with modesty in mind. Big, tall, impressive curves of sparkling white
vitreous enamel built into brickwork pillars, more than enough to ensure the absolute
privacy expected by the widdling Edwardian gentleman, who could have virtually
stood inside them, tuxedo, tailcoat and all. What was most thrilling, however,
was the fact that they were British made, each urinal inscribed in blue with
the name of Armitage Shanks!
It had been so edifying, this discovery of a real Edwardian
rest room, English designed and so far from home, that no sooner had we
returned to the bar than we ordered another round of vodkas.
No doubt seeing where this was going, too much drink too
early, Olga interrupted our celebrations suggesting that we should visit some
place cultural, somewhere on the edge of town. The proposed destination was a
small museum. We bowed to her better judgement, finished our vodkas, vacated
the hotel and were whisked off by taxi to the place that she prescribed. Sadly,
however, her culture-verses-drinking gamble didn’t pay off. We ended up, having
left the taxi, in a rather drab and sorry-looking urban backwater, with nothing
much to see but row upon row of lack-lustre flats. The museum, or any museum,
was never located and stranded as we were we had the miserable misfortune of
having to take refuge in yet another bar.
A railway platform somewhere in Gdansk
This place was not a haven. It was a modern glass and
metal-framed structure parked in the intersection of a busy road; it was pokey,
with a small Coca-Cola dispensing machine which, given the size of the room,
was the inverse ratio of Dr Who’s TARDIS. We only stayed for one gassy pint of
Polish beer, having learnt that the railway station was just around the corner.
This turned out to be a rewarding ~ as in different ~ experience in itself. I
don’t believe that I had ever stood on such a cold, miserable, basic railway
station in my life, and I certainly haven’t since! It was simply a low slab of
crumbling, decaying concrete, with three buckled metal seats, six poles ~ which
once belonged to a canopy since gone ~ and three dented and weather-stained
signs. Poland may well be fighting for cultural survival since joining the EU,
but surely by now someone, someone like George Soros, for example, must have
donated benevolent money to make Polish railways better?
How good or bad Polish railways were, we would soon find out, as early next morning, at the crack of dawn, we’d be leaving Poland by train and crossing over the border into Russia.
