6 May 2023 ~ Charles III Big Day Sees Rural England go Flagtastic
It wasn’t my intention to be in England during the coronation, even though I naturally received a personal invitation from the Palace to attend. I would have accepted, but I am rather busy at the moment sifting and sorting junk, or as I am often wont to call it, ‘highly desirable antiques and collectables’.
To tell the truth, as there is neither a telly nor connection to the internet in the gaff where I am staying, if it hadn’t been for BBC Radio 4 and the sudden inexplicable festooning of houses with Union Jacks and bunting, I may have been none the wiser. What’s that you say? Am I joking about my personal invitation?
Charles III Big Day Sees Rural England go Flagtastic
It has to be said that in spite of the British media’s best efforts to mar the historic occasion with programmes and articles devoted to the as usual tedious and typically predictable leftist bleating to abolish the monarchy, it was most satisfying and inspiring as we winged our way through the last bastion of Englishness, the English countryside, to behold and admire the enduring support for the good old English monarchy.
Whilst liberal lefties throughout the land will not be satisfied until they have ousted the monarchy and installed in its place something sun-tanned of suspect gender preferably wrapped in a blanket and have stuffed the remaining rooms of Buckingham Palace with 8 million-pounds-a-day grinning illegal migrants (How much does the monarchy cost us? I’ve heard it said a penny a day.) at which point in our country’s decline, we will be forced to rename Buckingham Palace by changing the ‘B’ to an ‘F’, the miserable machinations of the country’s self-culture loathers pale feebly into insignificance against the inspiring sight of flags and bunting streaming across the length and breadth of heritage-conscious rural England.
The Royal Mint, pandering to the liberal myth of harmonic multiculturalism, may have slapped something really ridiculous on one of their 50 pence coins ~ a piece of woke for your pocket ~ but the real currency of a united kingdom is unequivocally that which is visibly and tangibly expressed in the pride that we take in flying our flag and its relevance to our heriditary monarchy.
Yes, it is a pity that allegedly ‘King Charles has chosen the colours of the Ukrainian flag for his coronation’, (or so it has been Twattered) but the mentally stable amongst us (and there are still some left in the UK, honestly!) are quite capable of dismissing such folly as a 50-pence-piece worth of public relations. No doubt in the fulness of time it will also be revealed for the consumption of the liberal masses that throughout his coronation his royal highness’s royal underpants were LGBT monogrammed.
Whilst there are some things in life that do not bear thinking about, others exhilarate. Feast your eyes on the following photographs snapped by yours truly as I travelled recently through a small village in the heart of north Bedfordshire. What they could not fit on a 50 pence piece, they should inscribe on a note of more value.
Have a good Coronation celebration weekend. God Save the King! God save us all!
28 April 2023 ~ An Art to Brew Beer in Kaliningrad
Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)
Article 25: An Art to Brew
I bought this beer for two reasons: one, I liked the label; and two, I liked the dumpy bottle with a carrying handle attached to the top.
In order of attraction, the label appealed to me because it appeared to me to be something to do with steampunk. At the time I hadn’t got my glasses on and at the time I was more interested in getting something into a glass, preferably something called beer, and drinking it.
The steampunk allusion, which was also an illusion, was purely provided by pipework. It could have been a pipedream, after all steampunk is still a relatively young person’s predilection, but even without glasses and in my ardent desire to fill one, I could make out something that was illustrative of line-drawn plumbing, which was good enough for me.
The shape of the bottle with its plastic swing-tilt handle has two strings to its bow: novelty is never dull, and handles are good for carrying things with. So, I picked the bottle up by its handle, paid for it at checkout and out of the shop I went, all steampunked-up and ready to go.
At home, tucked away in my ‘never to grow up’ drinking den, my wife cleared up any pretensions I may have fostered about the nature of the illustrated label and also assisted me in interpreting what I was having trouble with: surely this beer that I had just bought whilst in a steampunking mood and carried home with the help of a novelty handle could really not be called ‘The Art of Brewing Czech Bar’?
Good Heavens! Whatever Next?
That’s easy. Next was getting it out of the bottle, into the glass and drinking it.
At last, it was where it should be. But first the aroma.
The beer had a bitter, hoppy smell, and I liked it.
I put my glasses on and looked at the glass. It was in there, alright, and it was giving me the three ‘Cs’: Crisp, Clear and Clean. It had poured with a big head but, being a modest kind of beer, became less big headed as each second past until effectively self-effacing itself.
The first taste proved to be not as bitter as I thought it would be. You could say that it erred more on the soft and mellow side ~ and that’s exactly what I am saying.
No one that I know of has ever ridiculed themselves by calling me a sweet man, either behind my back or in front of it, and I am not about to make the same mistake with this beer. What was sweet about it was that it was dry, not as old boots but pleasantly dry: it was the Hush Puppies of the 2020s, which is not as daft as you sound, at least not when you marry the concept to its leading attributes, which are, as I have noted, soft and mellow.
Are you familiar with the word ‘lacing’? No? Well, you haven’t read enough typically serious beer reviews, have you! But what the cliché doesn’t know the heart won’t grieve about, so we will have no more nonsense where that is concerned. And who cares anyway, if the foam from the beer sticks to the glass or not?
What is more significant is that the dry initial taste travels successfully through the finish and as for the aftertaste it is continuity all the way.
Let’s hear it from the brewers
“Beer varieties brewed under the Art of Brewing brand have a noble taste. [It is a] Golden lager, brewed according to the classic Czech recipe. [Its] bitter richness and pleasant sharpness in taste is achieved through the use of a special combination of hop varieties during brewing.”
The Brewers
Those nice chaps from the Trehsosensky Breweryare not not to be believed. In fact, having sampled other brews in their stable (What is the strangest place where you have drunk beer?) my verdict is that there is absolutely nothing deceitful, underhand or horrifyingly globalist in what the brewers have to say.
An Art to Brew Beer in Kaliningrad
I’ve read reviews about this beer which, although not exactly scathing, have taken a begrudging stance, implying that it is passable but dull. I do not agree. An Art to Brew Czech Bar stands head and shoulders above mediocrity and, whilst it may never take the crown from beers acknowledged universally to have travelled every road of excellence and made it to illustrious, it has enough going for it in singular taste and quality to nudge it around the bend into the aspirant class. Doubt what you hear? That’s odd, because I am typing this, not talking to you, but now I can tell you straight, you should road test one today!
😀TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS Name of Beer: An Art to Brew Czech Bar Brewer: Trehsosensky Brewery Where it is brewed: Ulyanovsk, Russia Bottle capacity: 1.3 litres Strength: 4.9% Price: It cost me about 137 roubles (£1.50) [at time of writing!] Appearance: Golden Aroma: Bitter and hoppy Taste: Dry, mellow with a delightful hint of bitterness Fizz amplitude: 4/10 Label/Marketing: Intriguing Would you buy it again? Anytime Marks out of 10: 8
*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.
31 March 2023 ~ Three Kaliningrad babushkas in a bread shop
On the subject of cakes and pastries, my wife popped into a bakery recently to avail herself of the delicacies there and whilst on the premises was witness to an altogether Russian experience, which reveals and underscores the generation gap.
Ahead of her in the shop were three babushkas who were each having difficulty deciding which loaves of bread to buy: plain white or dark and grainy.
The young man behind the counter, seeking to introduce some levity into the proceedings, cajoled his three stout customers with, “Come on ladies, whichever loaf you choose, I’ll throw in a strip show just for you.”
Three Kaliningrad babushkas in a bread shop
In the UK, no young man behind a bread shop counter, or anywhere else for that matter, would dare to put such temptation, however jocularly meant, in the way of ladies of a certain age for fear of being ravished.
My wife immediately responded to the young man’s offer with “That would be nice!” but the triumvirate was not amused. Far from incentivised, the ladies were clearly horrified. ‘If looks could kill!’ as the expression goes.
Nevertheless, the young man’s words did bring closure to the babushka’s indecisiveness, for grabbing the nearest loaves that they could lay their hands on, money quickly changed hands and with a mutual squaring of shoulders and unified snorting, they left the shop at a gallop.
Said the young shopkeeper to my wife, “Hmmm, that didn’t go down too well, did it!”
It was a pity, because he seemed to be a nice young man with a very fine line in understatement. Let’s hope that until he lands that job as a stripper, he will use his loaf more carefully!
Do you know? Do you know that the Russian word for ‘bread’ is ‘khleb’? Of course you do. Ok, so do you know that the favourite type of bread in Russia is said to be rye rather than wheat? You know that, too. What you don’t know, however, is that Yeast karavai, a round loaf beautifully decorated with ears of corn and foliate motifs, features in the wedding ceremony. Before the reception commences, the newly weds take turns to bite into the loaf. The size of each bite is then compared, and the one who has been judged as having taken the largest bite is duly pronounced the dominant partner from then on in the marriage. How’s that for deciding equality! Neat, nice, no questions asked. When the time came to enact this ritual at our wedding, the bite I took was so prodigious that had my glass of champagne not been placed fortuitously close at hand I could have choked in the process. Hence the expression in matters of matrimony, more perhaps than in anything else, be careful not to ‘bite off more than you can chew’.
14 March 2023 ~ Lies and Democracy are they now the same thing?
When I left the UK for Kaliningrad in 2018, friends, acquaintances and business associates, but not family, who have ceased to be surprised by anything I do, responded to my decision in various ways, often extreme. I chronicled their reactions in a previous post: Moving to Russia from the UK.
When I returned to the UK after a three-year hiatus, some months after the (what shall we call it?) situation in Ukraine, I fully expected to meet with a barrage of acrimony lend leased from US propaganda and regurgitated by the UK media but was pleasantly surprised to find that the gauntlet I was prepared to run never materialised.
Brits who knew me, or knew of me, and where I now hailed from, were either conducting themselves with diplomacy or UK media had moved their mindset on ~ as it easily does ~ away from Ukraine, which in terms of audience captivation was yesterday’s news, to such earth-shattering speculations as does Prince Harry have a rogue allegiance gene passed down from his mother’s side of the family?
Does Prince Harry have a rogue allegiance gene passed down from his mother’s side of the family?
Ukraine was still in the limelight, still is in the limelight, as the fate of the globalist West depends on winning its war of attrition, but by the time I arrived in the UK it had already been put on the backburner to make way for more Woke and to annoy ‘far-right fascists’, ie the vast majority of white Brits who are genuinely concerned about the future of their country, with daily news and statistics regarding the state- and Sorryarse-sponsored cross-Channel immigrant invasion.
I agree that the UK’s immigration catastrophe is far more significant to my fellow countrymen than throwing taxpayers’ money away on a conflict which, if the western powers that control the UK government so desired, they could end as quickly as they started it. But UK politicians are in no hurry to do that in the same way that they are in no hurry to stop illegal immigration. Why the UK must lay out the red carpet for thousands upon thousands of Channel-taxied migrants and pay more than seven-million pounds a day to keep them in a style to which they are not accustomed, ie free bed and lodging in 5-star hotels (Ouch!), is beyond most people’s grasp, with the exception of the politically enlightened who understand only too well the moral and financial corruption with which the plan is funded. But why should we listen to them? According to the UK media, people who rebut pseudo-liberal machinations are not only right-wing fascists they are also conspiracy theorists.
Everything has a sell-by-date and even the British media, as skilled as it is in whipping up frenzies, cannot be expected to sustain an interest in Ukraine for long when other issues, like the immigration one, can be used just as effectively to foment controversy, up the sale of newspapers and harvest more clicks on their websites with which to con their advertisers. That’s why they call it the ‘corporate media’ folks.
Lies and Democracy and Social Media Spooks
The muted response from my fellow Brits to the situation in Ukraine when I last returned to England was in stark contrast to the overarching rabidity that broke loose in February 2022 at the time it was announced that Russia had taken the initiative out of the hands of the West. For UK corporate media this was ‘breaking news’, whereas on liberal-state compliant social media it was more like breaking wind, albeit on tornado scale.
Within minutes, not hours, my wife’s Facebook account was inundated with messages. Some of these, although panic fuelled and completely out of proportion to the events unfolding, were genuine messages, messages of concern: ‘Are you alright?’ But the majority, the mainstay, were liberal lefty, frithy-frothy and within this category, at the very epicentre, within the liberal eye of the storm, particularly and typically rabid and virulent.
Indeed, the repercussions were so electrifying that on the morning after the start of the mission in Ukraine, I wondered why I had started it? As the day went on, the vitriol on my wife’s Facebook account steadily accreted. I spent the entire morning batting back the incoming. At first it was all good fun. I can outrage anyone who wants to be outraged. But, after a while, I realised that if I was going to respond to every rant and rave, I would need to employ a PA (Personal Assistant) or at least an SS (Shit Stirrer).
Within three days of CSM (Crisis Social Media), during which more avatars were changed to funny little flags than had been changed to silly little rainbows two or three months earlier, and more underpants changed, I imagine, through the exigencies of cloned rage-fulfiment, my wife made the decision, before Mr P could ban Facebook, to close her Arsebook account. You know the expression, ‘you can have too much of a good thing’, well, three days of winding up the ranters was enough. It had to be brought to an end. There are more important things to do in life than play the liberal-left’s division game.
Nevertheless, I have to say that I cannot remember a time in recent history when I have enjoyed myself so much. In many respects I felt sorry for my fellow countrygenders. I could not fathom, and I still cannot fathom, why so many people on a tiny island are so eager to believe everything and anything that the media tells them, particularly as those same people on that same small island had been well and truly led up the garden path and thereabouts shafted by the self-same media about a crisis that they, the media, had in considerable part created ~ I am referring, of course, to coronabollocks.
You would have thought by now that the UK media would be the most distrusted corporate conglomerate this side of a fairy tale and as for the governments they represent, who would want to believe or trust either Liebour or the Cons?
See Saw Nobody’s Sure If Brits will have a New Master Democracy is a cross in a box But it’s always a liberal Disaster
Think Brexit. Why did most of the UK, real legacy Britons, not those with pieces of paper in their sweaty mits that say they are British, vote to get out of the EU? Rhetorical question: because they were and are sick of mass immigration and EU implemented Woke. And what did the British people get after Brexit? ~ mass illegal immigration on an unprecedented scale and more Woke than can be spread on a field during a rural shit-spreading season.
And whilst we are it, why would you trust and did you trust the Liebour-Con pact before Brexit? Who asked you if you wanted multiculturalism? Who asked you if wanted widespread Woke? And that’s just for starters. The urban shit-spreading season started long ago and is a lot fouler and smellier than anything that can be thrown up and about in the sticks.
So, for years, specifically since the crowning of Tony Blair (and wouldn’t you like to do just that!) your political parties, your government, your managed democracy, your corporate media have been lying to you, so why should you believe what they say about Ukraine?
The original Ukraine story (though not highly original) is this:
“The United States reaffirms its unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters. The U.S.-Ukraine relationship serves as a cornerstone for security, democracy, and human rights in Ukraine and the broader region.” ~ U.S. Department of State 😉
Obviously, given their ulterior motives, the US’ ‘unwavering support for … sovereignity and territorial integrity’ and ‘human rights [think cancel Russian culture]’ does not extend to Russia or to any other counry for that matter that is wise enough to reject the culture-crushing embrace of psuedo-liberal neo-imperialism.
The Brits, led by the Yanks and with poor old Western Europe dragged kicking and whining into the fray, and Turdeau joining in just because of what he is ~ a nasty piece of pseudo-liberal narcissism ~ cranked up the propaganda bandwagon and all aboard they went. First there was Vietnam, then Iraq, then Yugoslavia, then Afghanistan (for a comprehensive list see: US Interventions ) … so why should we believe that Ukraine is any different?
The US and its hangers-on are constantly flitting around the world looking for ‘places to liberate’. They are constantly bringing ‘democracy’ to people and to places who are doing quite nicely without it, thank you, at least without that liberal brand of democracy that has snake-oil written all over it. Moreover, they do about as much good as Christian missionaries did running around in Africa back in the 19th century; in fact they do much worse. Sometimes, often in fact, they let their intentions slip, exposing themselves like novice flashers. For example, when that little phrase pops out of the open flies of democracy ‘intervention and regime change’. In other words, we are going to intervene in the private affairs of sovereign countries and install a liberal puppet. Watch out! There’s a lot of them about!
In the old days, chaps like Napoleon would meet their adversaries on a piece of land somewhere, and there they would slog it out; for Biden and the Brits Ukraine is such a field.
It’s not cricket, old boy. No, it certainly isn’t. What it is though, is this:
And in case you are determined at any cost not to believe what commons sense tells you, stop social media twiddling (leftist bias) get out onto the internet and cast your eyes around. There are plenty of political commentators, political analysts, journalists, authors, geo-political institutes and just plain old Joe Public out there who agree with President Putin and many of those in agreement are citizens of the West. ‘Huh! All far-right extremists and fascists I expect!’ {An Independent My Arse reader.}
Being all liberal lefty on liberal lefty social media is all well and bad if all you are interested in is mutual backslapping or worse, but if you really want to know what real people think you have to broaden your horizons. Do you remember your father telling you that? Sorry? Oh, I forgot, we don’t have fathers anymore, least not in the UK.
Lies and Democracy and the spin they put on your money
So, read nothing, view nothing, but ask yourself this simple question: When in the history of recent conflict has the West spearheaded by the US poured so much money into one country in order to (now don’t laugh) underwrite its continued democracy?
Billions of dollars in the United States are being diverted from homeland projects into the holey bucket that is Ukraine. In the UK, whose special place in the special relationship ensures that they always follow, millions of pounds have been and are being squandered on Ukraine, depriving UK citizens of much-needed funding for causes closer to home.
How many hospital wings could we build with the money that has been siphoned off? How many hospital staff could we entice to stay by increasing wages? How much money could have been devoted to cancer research and so on? Can the UK really afford this massive taxpayer drain on its already crumbling economy? If we are not careful, we will not have enough money left to pay for those hotel suites that migrants have been promised as they are ferried in VIP-fashion to a liberal fanfare at the Port of Dover. “Ooh, lovely tolerant Britain!”
Questions beget questions. Here are some more you should ask yourself and then your political classes: How many more jabs for coronavirus? How many more immigrants? How much more Woke? How low the standard of living? How high the cost of living? How much more state-funded terrorism? How much more Black Lives Matter? How much more LGBT? How many more knife-ridden streets? How much more anti-social behaviour? How much more Stasi police force? How much more propaganda. How many lies, how many lies, how many lies, lies, lies …?
Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers* in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)
Article 24: Taurus
Oh, come on! Even those of you who are far too rational to have any truck with mystic nonsense know that Taurus is an astrological sign and, for what it’s worth, the second astrological sign in the modern zodiac. No, not the Ford Zodiac. Who remembers those long bench seats and that tricky column gear stick?!
The zodiac sign for Taurus is the bull. Zodiac people are said to be hard-headed, down-to-earth, tenacious, reliable, loyal, and sensual. I wonder if the latter quality is why so many wear the cuckold’s horns?
Reviewing Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad
So, this beer that I am reviewing today, this pilsner, is named after the second sign of the zodiac. It has a bull’s head on the label, so it must be so, but we won’t know if the label stands for zodiac sign or something else until we attempt to drink it. Well, they ~ the brewers and distributors ~ are hardly likely to adorn the bottle with a hefty pile of bull droppings, are they?
Now, I’m not a pilsner man … blah … blah … blah …. Yes, you’ve heard it all before, but that does not mean that I am not afraid to try it. I once tried a liberal girlfriend. At least, I think she was a girl? Maybe, she was a feminist.
There are some out there who say yes, but … and they don’t get any further because they are drinking a good strong ale, but others say a pilsner is a pilsner is a pilsner, and most of them are me. But what the tongue doesn’t taste the tum can’t grieve about, so whilst you can’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs (why would she want to?), you can occasionally, on a hot afternoon, get a real-ale drinker to forget his religion and sip an ice-cold lager.
And if that lager is pilsner, make sure that it is ice cold, or it could taste like the bull I am hoping this pilsner will not be.
So, off we go with the top and up to the nostrils: ‘Dull, sour smell’ ~ make a note of that.
I pour it into the glass, and it looks light. I am relieved about that; don’t want to be asking, what did you do with the water that you washed the bull’s hind quarters with?
I sip it; I taste it; I swig it: Dull metallic taste. “Just as I thought, Watson!”
“Well, you silly bugger Holmes, why on earth did you buy it?”
“Why, because I have this ‘Year of the Bull’ tea towel, which I knew would make for a very interesting photograph even if the bull’s head attachment makes it a very inconvenient tea towel.”
“What a load of bullocks!” In the farmer’s field opposite. {Watson is looking out of the window into the farmer’s field opposite.}
The strength of the beer is not OTT. It weighs in at a very respectable 4.6%, which in the hereabouts, Kaliningrad, would be seen as lightweight but in the UK regarded as A-OK. For example, a matador could drink it and still not be incapable of waving his little red handkerchief.
As with many lagers, iced over from the fridge as if imported from a Siberian winter, pilsner is nothing to do with taste but all to do with coldness and getting it down your throat, hence the expression ‘Lager Louts’. Obviously, no regard for taste and quality equals no regard for decorum.
Drinking Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad
Some pilsner lagers evade the spell checker and by the time you have finished drinking them, let alone writing about them, they have turned into something else. I am relieved to say, however, that Taurus does qualify as a pilsner, not a pisner. It has all the ~ we won’t say qualities, but we will allow ourselves to use the word usefulness ~ of an alcoholic drink that comes in handy on a hot sweaty day.
And that was the penultimate sentence, which leaves you wondering how exactly, given the Taurus-bull connection, I resisted including a word like bullshit.
😀TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS Name of Beer: Taurus Brewer: Kalnapilis Brewery Where it is brewed: Panevėžys, Lithuania Bottle capacity: 1 litre Strength: 4.6% Price: It cost me about 127 roubles (£1.38) [at time of writing!] Appearance: Light Aroma: Dull, sour Taste: Typical pilsner Fizz amplitude: 4/10 Label/Marketing: A load of bull Would you buy it again? Hmm, debateable … Marks out of 10: 4.5
*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.
Mick Hart stars in his own Soviet version of Guns and Poses
Published: 5 March 2023 ~ Men’s Day in Kaliningrad Brings out the Soviet Guns
Every year, on the 23rdof February, Russia celebrates what is officially known as Defender of the Fatherland Day. Originally called Red Army Day, it was granted public-holiday status in recognition of the Red Army’s 1918 inauguration during the Russian Civil War. Known thereafter as the Day of the Red Army and the Navy, and later the Soviet Army and Navy Day, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the holiday was given its current name by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At state level, the day honours the patriotism and sacrifices made by Russia’s military veterans. A formal ceremony is held in Moscow and in other Russian cities, with daytime parades and processions and evening concerts and firework displays. At national level, custom has morphed the day into a time when women honour their menfolk ~ not only military men but all men. Presents are given by Russian women to husbands/boyfriends, fathers, sons, brothers and also to male work colleagues, turning Defender of the Fatherland Day into the better known generic name of “Men’s Day”.
In the UK, liberals encourage ethnics to spit at our troops, not serve them in corner shops and berate them for wearing their uniforms in public. Transgenderism is rife and misandry encouraged. But the one thing that the UK does have that Russia doesn’t is Gay Pride Month …
Men’s Day in Kaliningrad Soviet Exhibition
Russia’s Men’s Day plays host to a variety of events, and this year we were invited to attend a display of Soviet militaria at the Kaliningrad Retro Car Club’s HQ, a former aircraft parts repository of historic Luftwaffe origin.
The exhibition was organised and delivered by a group of Soviet history enthusiasts/re-enactors.
On display were documents and printed ephemera relating to WWI and Soviet uniforms from both WWII and postwar periods. To generate the spirit of the occasion and to provide the public with a better idea of the look, style and fit of the uniforms, each re-enactor was dressed either in an officer’s or other ranks’ uniform and most were equipped with combat gear.
De-activated antique guns
The mainstay of the exhibition was a display of small arms, predominantly WWII in character, ranging from handguns to tripod-mounted machine guns. The cache was diverse and impressive and included within the Soviet mix were weapons of German origin. All of the guns displayed were deactivated collector’s pieces.
Although I have handled an extensive variety of classic vintage firearms thanks to my early and enduring interest in all things historic and later in my role as a dealer in militaria, some of the guns in today’s exposition fell into the category of ‘known but not encountered’ and others had eluded me.
The Browning automatic, which was the standard sidearm in WWII for both Allied and Axis forces, was an old friend: it was one of the handguns I have actually fired.
The semi-automatic Mauser, whose production dates to the 1870s, is one of the most distinctively profiled and therefore easily recognisable handguns of all time. The copy on today’s menu was interesting in that it could be fitted with a hardwood stock, a useful accessory upgrading its stability to that of a short rifle and being hollow in part it doubles as a storage case or holster.
Another familiar gun, and one that I have also fired, is the PPSH. The PPSH-41, a submachine gun instantly identifiable by its high-capacity drum magazine ~ 71 rounds when fully loaded ~ was one of the Soviet army’s most widely used infantry weapons. An icon of the period, it features extensively in photographic depictions of Soviet soldiers in battle, is often incorporated into figural war monuments and regularly appears on commemorative badges. Weighing around 12 pounds (5.45 kg), full magazine included, the first reaction of the inexperienced gun user on picking up the PPSH is usually how heavy it feels. It is without doubt a weighty specimen, but, unless you are a seasoned gun user, all guns when first encountered seem surprisingly heavy and also surprisingly clunky.
Although in many respects the Soviet PPSH bests the M1A1 U.S. Thompson, on the UK shooting range some years ago I felt less comfortable firing the PPSH than I did the Thompson. Weight for weight, there is not much difference, but the absence of a pistol grip or side grips on the PPSH means that the weapon has to be held with the supporting hand behind the drum or by cupping the drum itself, a necessity which I personally found impinged upon its accuracy. That said, the PPSH drum mag with its superior load capacity is compensation enough in any realistic performance-related comparison of these two iconic weapons.
Mention iconic firearms in the context of Soviet history and the buzzword is likely to be not the PPSH or the Mosin-Nagant but, yes, you’ve got it, the Kalashnikov. No Soviet firearms exhibition would be worth its salt without the presence of this gun, a weapon universally revered for its outstanding reliability under conditions of an adverse nature and a gun which ticks almost every box, if not ticks every box, as best in its class in the assault rifle category.
Used the world over, the Kalashnikov was and continues to be one of the most popular weapons ever produced. No serious gun collector would regard his collection complete without one. Today’s exposition featured two AK versions, fixed wood and folding-stock variants. We sold both types, deactivated of course, through our UK vintage/militaria emporium.
Another old favourite, which whenever I see it reminds me of the times we spent with the UK re-enacting group, the Soviet 2nd Guards Rifles Division, was the Degtyaryov machine gun. The Degtyaryov, DP-27/DP-28, was the standard light machine gun of the Soviet military in WWII. The large rotating drum magazine mounted on the top of the gun shaped its unique appearance, inspiring Soviet soldiers to nickname it the ‘record player’.
The Makarov pistol, or PM as it is known, which in 1951 became the Soviet military’s standard sidearm, is, in its definitive form, so well-known and accessible that the sight of one is unlikely to rock the gun community’s world, but you never can tell with guns what variants are out there; specific demand and experimentation are capable of producing the most unusual hybrid version of otherwise commonplace guns. Take the example displayed today. This version of the ubiquitous semi-automatic Makarov had undergone a modification that makes it look as incongruous as a woman’s body defaced with tats.
In details of proportion, the erstwhile small firearm seems to have taken leave of its senses. Strapped beneath its pistol grip is a drum magazine every bit as big and as chunky as the one that is used by the PPSH. However, as wild, whacky and clumsy as it appears, and although the variant was never widely produced, for a while at least this ambitious conversion was heralded as a useful addition to Russia’s law-enforcement armoury, since it enabled officers carrying shields who only had one hand with which to hold their gun to sustain fire over longer periods before needing to reload.
Today’s small arms cache in the old Luftwaffe building was a window on the world of Soviet weaponry. From my point of view, having handled a fair amount of military weapons over a lifetime’s interest in all things history, some were old acquaintances but others took their place in the never-ending learning curve ~ the converted Makarov is a case in point. The past is littered with revelations waiting for someone to pick them up. There is always something new to discover, always something new to learn and the joy of both never grow old. It is one of the enduring delights of the antique/vintage scene.
Soviet Uniforms
The uniforms displayed also brought back memories of our vintage shop and the re-enactments that we took part in as members of the 2nd Guards group.
As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, re-enactment is a serious historical business. Everything has to be just so, an exact replica of what it was like back in the 1940s. Considerable time and effort is diligently expended in researching and getting the uniforms right and in allocating to those uniforms the correct insignia worn and where and how it was worn. Anything less than perfect is sure to be met with a stern rebuke from the re-enactment group’s leaders and spark derision in those who purport to know more than you do about such important details, one’s group peers especially and, more embarrassingly, military veterans.
At first sight, the Soviet uniform looks pretty basic, and it was. At the time the Second World War broke out It hadn’t changed much since the First World War. It certainly does not compare with the rigid formality of British wartime uniforms and the flash, Hollywood modernity of their American counterparts, whose uniforms and equipment had a certain style all of their own. But what the Soviet uniform lacks in formality and also in panache it more than makes up for in functionality, being lightweight, durable and easy to wear.
As a re-enactor and military clothes dealer, I have worn the uniforms of both Allied and Axis forces, both officers’ and other ranks’, and if I had to sum up each country’s uniform using one definitive word for each, my choice of words would be: American, ‘stylish’; British, ‘itchy’; Soviet, ‘comfortable’.
When re-enacting, the only bone I had to pick with the Soviet uniform was the inclusion of fresh, white, linen neck-liners, which have to be changed and sewn with irritating regularity into the underside of the tunic collar. As an actor on a film set, someone does this for you. It is altogether different when you have to do it yourself: for example, when cold and bleary eyed after a night beneath the rainy skies with only your canvas poncho for protection. Warning: Re-enactment is a serious business.
Men’s Day in Kaliningrad
The reals stars of the Soviet military display held at the Kaliningrad Retro Car Club HQ were the guns, but it would be inexcusably remiss of me if I was to leave the show without giving credit where credit is due for one of the best collections of Soviet gas masks that I have ever seen exhibited at a militaria event.
The impressive collection was the inspiration and work of a young bloke called Valordia. He confided in me that the official requirement of wearing masks during the coronavirus scare had added impetus to his collecting zeal and that during those two surreal years he had substituted cloth masks for gas masks from his collection. Good for him! I thought. I often tried to be different, too, by wearing my mask around my knee. It’s never been the same knee since. It seems to wheeze a little!
Valordia’s gas-mask collection begins with a fairly basic item from WWI, extends through the interwar years, encompasses WWII and finally comes to rest with a state-of-the-art modern mask, modelled by last years’ model (and some) me. In case you didn’t want to recognise me, there I am in the photo, standing as large as life and twice as beautiful in my designer gas mask next to Valordia. This mask has some interesting gimmicks, such as interchangeable this and that’s, and also features a drinking tube for the wearer to take in liquid refreshments (Mine’s a pint of Landlord, please.) whilst remaining safely enveloped in rubber.
It’s food for thought, but the accessorising capability of this mask stands it in good stead for nomination as the Gates/Davos prototype ~ the first live-in coronavirus and other nasty man-made-diseases facemask, a must-have accessory for the globalist’s reset future. With a built-in smartphone as standard, which I think we can safely assume it would have, proud wearers will continue to be urged to post their selfies to social media, thus preserving social media’s ongoing cloning affect. The beauty of the mask will be that even more than ever none of your ‘friends’ will know who you are and what you really are, which when assessed at its most fundamental level is what social media is all about: a world of revolving masks in a hall of revolving mirrors. The ‘Like’ tickers and back-slappers will function as before, seeing nothing and knowing less, there mutual appreciation assured as they woo each other with fulsome comments about how young and lovely each of them look hidden behind their filters. Don’t mock! It could happen. It could be a win-win situation, for those who are steadily losing.
But I digress: In an age when everything and everybody seems smartarsephoned, it is reassuring to discover that there are others in the world who share your ardent belief that there is no time like the past, and reassuring again when the other parties concerned are considerably younger than yourself. Keep up the good work, chaps!
Whilst my response to the Soviet exhibition was one of unreserved enjoyment, I completely understand why some people cannot understand why guns, old or new, should be a source of fascination. Unlike my youngest brother, who holds several medals and trophies for marksmanship in most small-arms categories, I do not. It is true that in my youth, I would occasionally run around armed in the middle of the night, not I hasten to add in an urban setting but for the perfectly reasonable purpose of poaching his lordship’s estate. In my dotage, however, guns, have taken their place among the many varied man-made objects invested with an intrinsic ability to stimulate appreciation for their craftsmanship, aesthetics and historic interest alone. And yet, despite such commendable sensibilities and the reservations from which they stem, come the day of the exhibition I could not resist the alpha temptation to pick up and tote a sawn-off or two. Both the shotgun and the rifle, even with modified barrels and stocks, were surprisingly tactile and disturbingly balanced.
Disturbingly unbalanced is the expression on my face captured in the photo where I am holding one of these guns. In that photograph I seem to have achieved a curious manly man hybrid somewhere between Clint Eastward and Bop Hope, either that or my pants are too tight.
Looking at my photo (above), I think we can safely conclude that a manly image is not so easily come by as convention would have us believe, even when its Man’s Day and even when you are holding a gun. But you’ve got to admire Squint Westwood’s brass and, if only as an act of charity, give me six out of ten for trying.
Published: 24 February 2023 ~ Made in Kaliningrad Exclusive Badger Underpants
I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I have never had the urge to focus on a gentleman’s underpants, for whatever the reason and whatever that reason may be. Even my interest in vintage clothes has not yet impelled me to research or wear undergarments that could be described as anything more than wholesomely traditional.
Now, what have I done with my badger?
For this reason and this reason alone, it is with curiosity regarding your reaction that I place before you photographic evidence of a truly remarkable pair of pants, the beastly likes of which I have never beheld before.
No, your eyes do not deceive. You are actually witnessing what in all likelihood may well be the world’s one and only pair of pants with a badger’s head for its codpiece. You have to admit, ladies, unless you have lived a far more adventurous life than your neighbour’s suspect, that it’s not every day that you come across a man with a badger concealed in his underpants!
Modelling the animal-lover’s pants that he designed himself is the inimitable Aleksandr ‘Chimney Sweep’ Smirnov of Badger’s Club fame (see earlier post). Not that he feels the need to defend his creation, in fact he’s rather proud of it, but if he did, he could argue that if the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (RAOB) can adopt a buffalo’s head as their fraternal motif then why not a badger’s head for Kaliningrad’s Badger Club?
Quite so, but whilst the Buffs, as the RAOB are colloquially known, display their animal namesake on blazer pocket patches, lapel badges and so on, there cannot be many among their number who have, or who are willing to admit they have, buffalo horns in their underpants.
The question is, will this example open the floodgates for variant animal codpieces, such as goats, pussies, kippers, beavers, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, absolute impossibilities, moles, rabbits and unicorns?
The eel or elephant’s trunk might be overstretching it a bit, and really gilding the willy (Gates’ spellchecker is too ‘inclusive’ for its own good) would be the python or green anaconda, and should your reputation not extend to the American Eagle, and naturally Biden’s doesn’t, you could always hedge your bets ~ remember, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush ~ and settle instead for a Jenny Wren. The possibilities are endless (no pun intended).
On the subject of all things compromising, imagine an irate country gentleman of the shooting, hunting and fishing fraternity, catching his wife in flagrante and promptly shooting her lover who happened at the time to be wearing a pair of badger-head pants. Could such a man resist having the pants he had bagged stuffed and mounted on his living-room wall? Probably not. But in the same way that one swallow doesn’t make an Ann Summers, a one-night stand is nothing to boast of. In order to add more trophies, the wife would need to horn her skills and train herself to become a much more prolific hunter. What animal rights activists will make of all this, your guess is as good as mine, but as most of them are meat-eaters, which makes them also hypocrites, whatever they think is irrelevant anyway.
It is a sobering thought, however, that should such bestial practices be performed on British soil, you could in theory run foul of the law and be brought before the beak for violating legislation under the 1992 Protection of Badgers Act. (How this came about was that back in 1992 a lot of English country gentlemen apparently began to exhibit the embarrassing evening-dress tendency of loading their pants with badgers, and urban liberals did not like it, since they had failed to think of it first. Their reaction was similar to the way they reacted to the first female UK prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and the first prime minister ‘of colour’, Rishi Soonout, since in both of these woke respects the Tories beat them to it. The last vestige of hope for liberals now is that they install in Number 10 something veiled from head to toe and of dubious gender extraction that claims itself to be both feminist and lesbian. I think I’d rather vote for a pair of badger underpants.
At the risk of sounding too liberal for my own good and becoming as a result a source of inflammation for my conscience, I hear myself philosophising what goes on in one’s underpants is entirely one’s own affair, subject to the qualification that it does not offend to any degree a reasonable sense of personal dignity. It should be noted that in the UK it is an offence at common law to outrage public decency, although to succeed in this worthy cause the act must be committed at such a time and in such a place that at least two members of the public ~ two or more ~ must have gathered there to witness it. English law is most precise on this point* {*The Ethnic Minorities Guide to Flashing, Vol 45,756, 2022; Dover Publishing Unlimited}
For example, The Royal Antediluvian Order of Flashers’ Charter and Code of Conduct calls upon its members to expose themselves only in those locations where the audience is guaranteed to be no less than 2 and no more than 10, coupled with an exit strategy of an unapprehendable nature. The problems that this poses for the mathematically challenged, especially those who can’t read the language, possibly explains why newly arrived ethnic flashers, defined as those who docked in the UK 25 years ago and who are longing to be deported because they are tired of living in free hotels, choose to go it alone. Whilst none of these have been spotted actually wearing a badger, there have, however, been rumours of acts involving goats.
We would like to assure the public that where such incidents do occur they are rare and we also keep them secret and that the wearing of pants of an animal orientation can lay no claim to mainstream practice, although who can say without convictions when fads and fashion may take a turn for the worse and lead us up the woodland path?
Made in Kaliningrad Exclusive Badger Underpants
Take Y-fronts, for example, once the must-have accessory for people from all walks of life, perhaps including Jimmy Saville, but which to the entitled youth of today are as passé as flared trousers and as offensive in their non-mediocrity as the shimmering outsized shoulder boards worn by Gary Glitter.
Whilst such exclusive examples possess an underlying value of no small proportion, we must be careful not to suggest or infer that the wearing of strange underpants is the sole province of much-loved celebrities. For whom amongst us can claim without fear of contradiction and more of rank hypocrisy that we have not, at one time worn, myself of course excluded, pants which, though not deserving of the epithet shameful, have filled our introspective moments with disquieting thoughts of daring-do verging on impropriety?
Speak for yourself is your first reaction, but for the same reason that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, neither should people who wear glass underpants throw them, nor, I might add, should the latter attempt to go horse riding.
At times like these, befuddled and confused, I often defer to my brother’s opinion. “What do you think of the badger’s head pants?” I asked.
Studying the photo provided, I heard him mutter something, which may or may not have been, ‘where does he find those horny women?’ And then I thought I heard him say something about it could be worse, that at least it was only a badger’s head and not a full-sized badger standing proud and erect on its hind legs.
The motto of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes is ‘No Man is at all Times Wise’ (Latin: Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit). I wonder what the Latin is for ‘No Man is at all Times Wise when it comes to the Choice of his Underpants’?
Please note: No badgers were harmed in the making of these underpants, but one or two were extremely embarrassed.
Published: 15 February 2023 ~ Is the Königsberg Amber Room still in Kaliningrad?
Last seen in Königsberg Castle before the end of the war, ever since the Amber Room went missing ~ missing presumed dead by some, missing presumed purloined by others ~ historians and treasure hunters alike have turned the search for the Amber Room into a latter day Holy Grail that has kept them guessing and occupied for more than three-quarters of a century.
We don’t all love mysteries, but we sure do like to solve them, and so it is with the Amber Room, which disappeared from Königsberg Castle in the final months of World War II. The search for what was once described as the Eighth Wonder of the World has become an historians’ and treasure hunters’ Holy Grail. Numerous theories abound regarding the room’s vanishing act and its whereabouts today.
Recently, my wife Olga attended a lecture delivered by one of these Argonauts, a man who has spent considerable time and energy researching the history of the Amber Room and most of his ambition engaged in a quest to locate it.
Unlike a good many historians, the gentleman in question does not hold with the popular conviction that the Amber Room was destroyed either as a result of the RAF’s bombing raids or by the artillery fire of the advancing Soviet army. Neither does he hold with the myriad theories that would have the room plundered and shipped elsewhere. In his opinion the Amber Room that was, is the Amber Room that very much is. Furthermore, he believes not only is it alive and kicking but kicking about in Kaliningrad.
Is the Königsberg Amber Room still in Kaliningrad?
For those of you unacquainted with the story of the Amber Room, it goes like this:
The Amber Room was a chamber richly decorated with ornate amber panels, elaborately highlighted with gold leaf, complemented by magnificent baroque-framed mirrors and illuminated with flickering candles. Those who had the privilege of beholding it in person were overwhelmed by its singular beauty.
Amber: What it is and why is it so precious?
In order to protect themselves from parasites, harmful insects and to act as a restorative for external damage, trees produce a protective resin. This substance exuded through the bark of the tree, eventually hardens, forming a seal, against which the gnawing activities of harmful insects are rendered inoperable.
Extinct, fossilised tree trunks from primordial forests produce fossilised resin, and this is the substance we now call Amber. The Kaliningrad region on the Baltic Coast contains the world’s largest amber reserves; more than 90 per cent of the world’s amber is located in this region.
Amber has been appreciated for its natural beauty and colour for thousands of years. Its tactile quality and variation in hues from light yellow, dark brown, green, blue and white, the latter referred to as milk amber, make it the perfect gemstone for jewellery and for use in the creation of a wide variety of decorative and functional objects including framed art, vases, paperweights, plaques, pens and elaborate clocks.
Naturally sticky, in its mobile state amber resin would sometimes entrap plant life as well as small insects. Known as inclusions, amber containing organic matter from times of antiquity often command higher prices than pieces that are clean.
The Amber Room was designed and crafted by the German sculptor Andreas Schlüter and the Danish amber artisan Gottfried Wolfram in the early years of the 18th century and completed from 1707 by Gottfried Turau and Ernst Schacht from Danzig (now Gdańsk).
Originally part of the Berlin City Palace, in 1716 the Amber Room, then considered the Eighth Wonder of the World, was gifted by the Prussian King Frederick William I to Peter the Great of the Russian Empire. It was reassembled, renovated and expanded in the summer residence of the Russian tsars, the Catherine Palace, a grand Rococo edifice approximately 30km south of St Petersburg. By the time the room was completed, it is said to have contained over six tonnes of the precious resin, amber.
Hand-coloured photograph of the original Amber Room, 1932
Following the invasion of Soviet Russia in WWII, the Amber Room was swifty removed by the Germans, taken to Prussian Königsberg and reconstructed in Königsberg Castle. In early 1944, as Königsberg braced itself for the inevitable Allied onslaught, it is alleged that the Amber Room was dismantled and its components stashed away in the castle basement.
In August 1944, Königsberg came under heavy bombardment by the Royal Air Force (RAF). A large percentage of the munitions used were incendiary by nature and in the conflagration that followed the city was all but consumed.
Extensive damage was further inflicted by Red Army artillery fire in the days and hours immediately preceding Königsberg’s capitulation on 9th April 1945.
Photographs and ciné films taken shortly after the Soviet victory document the extent of Königsberg’s destruction. Both city and castle were gutted, and the Amber Room was never found.
Whilst the simplest and most credible explanation for the disappearance of the celebrated room is that like the rest of the castle and most of the city it had gone up in smoke, absence of hard evidence to nail this theory firmly to fact sparked a plethora of alternatives whose versions of the room’s fate live on to this day. So far, however, none of these would-be explanations have come up with the goods, and thus the Eighth Wonder of the World is currently having to bide its time as one of the world’s enduring mysteries.
It is well to remember, however, that mysteries rarely live alone; they tend to cohabitate in tormented sin, in a hotbed of rampant reveries, many of which over time turn radical or romantic. And the Amber Room is no exception.
Of course, there are conspiracy theories. It is far more palatable to indulge the notion of the Amber Room spirited away, living the life of privileged ease in some Oligarch’s chateau or other, than to accept the unthinkable thought that this irreplaceable work of art has been indifferently obliterated. Nevertheless, the official position seems to endorse this postulate.
This is because once Königsberg had fallen, Soviet soldiers were dispatched post-haste to investigate the castle ruins for the presence of the Amber Room. It is a matter of public record that their report concluded ‘Amber Room not found’, from which intelligence it was inferred that the Amber Room had perished.
However, drawing a line under the mystery with no hard evidence to back it up was and continues to be a red flag to more bullish minds, which persist in bringing into the field of debate alternative theories, speculation and hope.
For example, eyewitness reports place the missing room’s whereabouts in at least two underwater locations: one, that it went down with the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German ship sunk by a Soviet submarine on 30 January 1945; two, that it lies in part at the bottom of the sea, put there by Soviet aircraft when they attacked and destroyed the SS Karlsruhe, a German evacuation ship that sailed from Königsberg in 1945.
Such theories, which provide the basis for the ongoing search, gained particular impetus from the 1997 discovery of one of a series of four stone mosaics, ‘Feel and Touch’, which, once an integral part of the Amber Room, turned up in the family home of a former German soldier, who claimed that he acquired the mosaic whilst helping to pack the dismantled room in crates for transportation. As far as I am aware, however, he did not recall, or did not name, the final destination for which those crates were bound.
A year later, two unrelated teams, one German and the other Lithuanian, stated publicly that they had found the Amber Room. The German team alleged that it was secreted in a silver mine; the Lithuanian team that it was immersed within a lagoon; neither were correct.
Although a detailed assessment of the evidence such as it was, as undertaken in 2004 by two British journalists, concluded that the Amber Room may not have survived the combined devastation of the 1944 air raids and subsequent shelling by Soviet artillery, which was also the official Soviet line, not everyone is convinced.
The Amber Room in the Catherine Palace, 1917
One of the most enticing theories, by virtue of its ongoing nature, is that the Amber Room never left Kaliningrad. This theory postulates that it is either squirreled away in one of the many tunnels that are alleged to form a labyrinth beneath the Royal Castle or is safe and secure in secret rooms beneath the bunker of Otto Lasch, the general who was tasked with the unenviable responsibility of commanding the defence of Königsberg in 1945.
Otto Lasch’s command bunker survives to this day. Known simply as the Museum Bunker, it is situated at the front ofthe Kaliningrad State University, a few minutes’ walk from Victory Square and likewise from Königsberg Cathedral.
From what I can gather, the theory that the last resting place of the Amber Room is but a short distance away from the place where it was last displayed, namely Königsberg Castle, is not new. It has been in circulation for years.
Indeed, in a news report published on 5 December 2022*, it was made public that surveys of the bunker of the last commandant of Königsberg, Otto Lasch, had been resumed ~ resumed meaning that the latest investigations were a continuation of those last undertaken in autumn 2009.
The 2022 resumption, which was supervised by the head of the bunker museum, as well as local historian Sergei Trifonov, used echo radar in an attempt to penetrate the voids behind the walls and the ground beneath the bunker.
“Trifonov himself said that the researchers ‘found what they were looking for’, but the press service of the museum noted that the survey report is not yet ready and will be published in the near future.”*
We wait with bated breath.
I hear tell, but don’t quote me on this, that what they found was a considerable depth of concrete, so considerable that anything that might be concealed beneath it fell outside the range and spectrum of the electronic equipment used.
Apart from being a historic treasure, and one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring interior works of art that the world has ever known, the estimated value of the Amber Room in strictly material terms was quoted as $500 million in 2016. One presumes that in the past eight years its value has appreciated.
The decision to excavate the historic Königsberg bunker presumably rests on the presentation of sufficient credible evidence to justify the disruption and ultimately the cost of the amount of work involved. It is by no means an easy decsion to make. On the one hand, it might unearth a unique historical legacy immense in artistic and material value; on the other, a whole lot of concrete, half a dozen incumbent worms and the odd German helmet or two.
Until that decision is taken of one thing we can be sure, the search for the Amber Room goes on.
Illustrations of classical architecture attempting to convey the innate quality and time-honoured grandeur that we associate with ancient Rome, together with heraldic symbols are not necessarily the certified hallmark of either a good or barely drinkable beer that we might be beguiled into thinking it is. And thus, we have a case in point: Hemeukoe Pils.
The packaging of Hemeukoe (Nemetskoe) Pils reminds me of a house I know in Northamptonshire made singularly unmissable by a pair of concrete horse’s heads squatting on its gate posts. Are such embellishments an admission of, or indeed an admission to, the aristocracy of quality? No, and they never have been. But from their ostentatiousness you do get a whiff of something else.
That whiff, once the top has been removed from the Hemeukoe Pils’ bottle, reminds me of a lot of things, none of which belongs to beer. I am not going to tell you what it is exactly, because exactly doesn’t come into it, but try to imagine something pungent strained through a pair of unwashed gym shorts.
Urban gentlemen of the road, those who doss down on the forecourts of London’s mainline stations, could feasibly conclude that the smell is not unlike that damp sheet of cardboard they rescued from Asda’s bin last month and on which they have slept every night since.
The smell improves in the glass but doesn’t become a bouquet of roses. It is rather like opening the window of a sleep-in-late hormonal teenager’s bedroom. And that’s as good as it gets.
Hemeukoe Beer in Kaliningrad
It does say ‘Pils’ on the bottle, but very soon I got to thinking that perhaps they spelt it wrong, when what they intended to print was not exactly ‘Pils’ but ‘Really Peculiar’.
Ambiguity in the smell was repeated in the colour. At arms length, it looked yellow and slightly hazy in the glass, but on closer inspection neither here nor there nor even anywhere. It was as it was and what that was, was strictly not what I thought it would be: Pils.
The colour was like nothing I had ever seen; the taste like nothing I have ever tasted, wished I hadn’t and would never want to again. In both respects, it even excelled the Baltika 3 taste problem. And that ~ as The Velvelettes once warbled ~ is ‘really saying something’!
Sweet and buttery with a chemical twist, the latter usurping the former and occupying the aftertaste like 1940s’ Germans in Paris, this was my first taste of Hemeukoe Pils; was it trying to tell me something?
For a moment I thought that this something had something to do with identity and was something to do with Kvas, but before I could completely trash the dynastic reputation of a soft drink which in Russia is regarded as a national institution, the taste had turned to strong, rank tea, heavy on the tannin.
Hemeukoe Beer in Kaliningrad
Whatever you may say about its taste, there is a lot going on in Hemeukoe. It is just not going on in a very complementary or remotely satisfactory way.
There is an ascending scale of sourness in the aftertaste, which in its unexceptional way hangs on the back of your throat and leaves you wondering, anxiously, whether come the morrow, you will still be on good terms with your digestive system and bowels.
It was late at night when I was drinking Hemeukoe. It was the only beer that I had in the house, so even had I spotted the clue secreted in its name ~ Hemeukoe ~ the anagram would not have, could not have, saved me from indulging in what was without exaggeration quite simply the most appalling brew I have ever had the misfortune to sabotage my vitals with, and one which I ardently hope I will never experience again.
I am tempted to say that you could do worse if offered a glass of this than to politely refuse and remain an onlooker. Never mind the prejudiced cliché that innocent bystanders always get hurt, refusing to drink Hemeukoe Pils might well just prove to be the exception to the rule.
A friend of mine who considers himself to be something of an expert where beer is concerned disputes the taxonomy of Hemeukoe Pils, claiming that HP is not so much a beer as an alcoholic infusion, and it is this that makes it taste like nothing on Earth and more like something imported from the planets Heavy and Oily.
Even without empirical evidence I might be inclined to agree, but I was busy jotting the name of the beer onto a piece of paper and committing it to memory in order to ensure that even if my life depended on it, I would never make the mistake of buying Hemeukoe Pils again.
TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS Name of Beer: Hemeukoe Pils (Nemetskoe ot Bochkarev (German from Bochkarev) Brewer: Heineken Where it is brewed: Saint Petersburg Bottle capacity: 1.35 litre Strength: 4.7% Price: It cost me about 137 roubles (£1.54) [at time of writing!] Appearance: A washy brown colour Aroma: It doesn’t smell like beer Taste: It doesn’t taste like beer Fizz amplitude: 4/10 Label/Marketing: Bold to the point of misleading Would you buy it again? Read the review! Marks out of 10: 2
*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.
Published: 5 February 2023 ~ Zalivino Lighthouse Restoration Reaches New Heights
Returning to Zalivino lighthouse last month, it was remarkable to see what progress had been made since we first explored the site in 2021. Let’s start with the cosmetic improvements first and then proceed in order of importance:
3. A new addition is the weather vane, with the intricately designed rotating ornament and stained-glass inclusions
4. The compound has been enclosed with a new fence and a gate at either end, the effect is both cosmetic and security oriented
5. The boardwalks laid down last year from the sandy cove to the compound perimeter have been extended into and across the site
6. The outlying buildings have been reroofed
7. The outlying buildings have been given new wooden doors; good solid stock, with a vintage chevron and diamond-pattern finish
8. Three solid-state buildings constructed from red brick have been added to the site. They consist of a utilities building, ticket office and the now completed tearoom, which on our last visit was at a functional stage minus proper windows.
Zalivino Lighthouse Restoration: the lighthouse keeper’s cottage
The most significant development is the structural renovation and the complete interior restoration of the former lighthouse keeper’s cottage.
The first photograph below denotes the condition of the cottage in 2021; the photograph beneath it, how the cottage appears today.
BEFORE
AFTER
The following account of our latest visit to Zalivino lighthouse is an extract from my personal diary:
Zalivino Lighthouse Restoration
At last, numb and red nosed, we reached the perimeter, by way of the coastal route, of Zalivino Lighthouse. Outside the lighthouse grounds, the old German buildings lining the water’s edge facing out across the Curonian Lagoon appear to have been given the once over, either that or I missed this fact on my previous visit. The brickwork looks cleaner, and the lovely wooden doors and window shutters strike me as being recent installations along with the terracotta-modelled roof.
Inside the compound, everything looked immediately more presentable. To the left and right are single storey buildings, red brick with Georgian-style roofs. One, I imagine, is the toilet block; the other the ticket office and, next to that, the completed tea and loitering room, which on my previous visit had thick translucent polythene sheeting where windows were wanting but wanting no more.
Olga Hart in proud receipt of her ticket from the ticket office
The former lighthouse keeper’s cottage, which had been nothing more than a shell, ravaged by time and cannibalised by thieves when the site fell derelict after perestroika, has been renovated to such a high standard that had I not witnessed the dereliction with my own eyes and taken photos to prove it, I would have scarcely believed it was the same building.
Although the museum it would like to become has a long way to go, for those interested in marine life, the old keeper’s cottage contains an interesting display of marine paraphernalia and artefacts associated with lighthouse history.
The two rooms of the cottage also contain some rather fetching reproduction antique furniture and other curios. For example, a not-for-the-squeamish stuffed and mounted seabird and a round-shaped Deco-style early plastic radio that may or may not be original but is endowed with vintage appeal. There is also a Vienna-style wall clock, two hefty wagon wheels and, in the centre of the room, a polished wooden dining table and corresponding chairs.
I think it is safe to say that this level of homeliness is not the one that the lighthouse keeper would have been accustomed to, and yet the warmth transcending the basic need for warmth on a bitterly cold winter’s day would have probably been no stranger to him.
What also affected me was the solidity of the building which, considering its exposed location, was reassuring indeed, since no amount of huffing and puffing was about to blow this house in. Strong, solid, durable and intuitively enriched, the lighthouse keeper’s cottage could hardly have been more welcoming.
Zalivino Lighthouse tower
A visit to Zalivino Lighthouse without climbing the tower would be like going to the pub and ordering an empty glass. Thus, even on this coldest of days, off and up we went.
At the time of our ascent, or rather a few minutes before, Zalivino suffered a power outage, so we had to climb the tower without the aid of electric lamps. The first few steps were enveloped in darkness, but the windows in the tower walls, as small as they are, are sufficient to light the way and as you reach the base of the lamp room the light pours in from the dome above.
The elevated view from the lighthouse window reveals the extent to which the outlying buildings and the site in which they stand have been improved and whilst up there in the Gods, we got to gaze across and enjoy the scene of the winter landscape complete with icicle-petrified coastline.
As stimulating as these prospects were, there were two impressions from the top of the tower whose tenacity cannot be equalled. The first was the sound of the wind, rushing across the lagoon, curling around the lamp room like the giant tentacles of a phantom sea squid.
The second was that of Olga daring to step outside onto the wind-swept lighthouse’s viewing platform so that I could take a photo of her. Of course, I was champing at the bit to get out on the ledge myself, make no mistake about that! But someone had to cower inside in order to take the photo.
The renovation and refurbishment of Zalivino lighthouse has come on in proverbial leaps and bounds in a relatively short space of time. If you are not personally acquainted with the near demolition site that it was in 2020 at the outset of the project, the photographic collage within the keeper’s cottage will give you a good idea of just how bleak the damage was, as will the photographs used in my earlier post.
You will also find in the keeper’s cottage a framed composition of images depicting where the restorationists want to be with the project by 2024. Unfortunately, the photograph that I took of the wall-mounted display is not good, as my hands were in need of a warm cup of tea and the light from the window reflected badly into the lens of the camera.
Comparison of the photographic evidence of the condition of the lighthouse, its ancillary buildings and site as they appeared in 2020 with the photos taken this year (2023) demonstrate the achievements to date, making the 2024 target a less ambitious objective than might otherwise be supposed.
Without a shadow of a doubt, a lot of work, care and attention has been invested in the project, not to mention wonga. The results so far are superlative, returning the lighthouse to its historical origins and turning it, metaphorically speaking, into a restoration beacon for other projects across the region to follow.
Support the project
Raising funds for the restoration of the lighthouse is an ongoing process, and any donation that you would care to make would be greatly appreciated. Your generosity will help to preserve an important element of marine cultural heritage and if that’s not reward enough, your part in the preservation will be forever a part of the lighthouse’s history.
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