С большой грустью сообщаю, что наш дорогой друг Стас (Станислав Коновалов) скончался от послеоперационных осложнений во время лечения в больнице. Мы с женой Ольгой познакомились со Стасом в январе 2019 года. Нас познакомил с ним наш общий друг, художник Виктор Рябинин. Позже Стас рассказывал мне, что Виктор сказал ему: «В Калининград переезжает англичанин. Тебе следует с ним встретиться. Он интересный человек, и я думаю, вы найдете общий язык ». Я не совсем уверен, что заслуживаю быть названным «интересный», но мы нашли общий язык в нашей любви к истории в целом и в частности к истории Кенигсберга- Калининграда и его окрестностей. Важным элементом нашего общего языка было вдохновение, которое мы оба получили от нашего друга и наставника Виктора Рябинина. Вскоре после смерти Виктора Рябинина в июле 2019 года я сказал Стасу, что нашел две картины Виктора среди своих вещей в Англии. Он ответил с присущей ему скромностью, что, хотя у него нет картин Виктора Рябинина с его автографами, ему достаточно того, что у него есть «тайная гордость», заключающаяся в том, что он был «близок к этому великому человеку». «Я был его учеником много лет, – сказал он. Когда я рискнул предположить, что Виктор был его другом, Стас ответил, опять с присущей ему скромностью: «Виктор знал очень многих людей, но он, вероятно, не считал их всех своими друзьями. . Могу сказать, что я был его учеником, что я восхищался им и был счастлив в его обществе… »Затем он сделал паузу, прежде чем сказать:« Но я хотел бы думать, что он считал меня своим другом ». Стас был скромным человеком. Он скромно относился ко всем своим достижениям, даже тогда когда было совершенно очевидно, что у него было столько же, если не больше, прав их превозносить. В знак признания его достижений, я попросил Стаса написать краткий биографический отчет о его работе и жизни, в том числе о его отношениях с Виктором Рябининым, и поместил его очерк, вместе со ссылками на его практику экскурсовода на страницах своего постоянного блога под рубрикой “Виктор Рябинин Кенигсберг”. “Стас Калининград Кенигсберг Путеводитель”https://expatkaliningrad.com/personal-tour-guide-kaliningrad/ Стас очень много работал над своими проектами гида, оттачивая и совершенствуя их, снимая несколько видеороликов на YouTube и всегда спрашивая: «Что ты думаешь об этом аспекте?» “Все в порядке?” «Есть ли в сценарии видеоролика что-нибудь, что, по твоему мнению, требует пояснения?». Как и смерть Виктора Рябинина до него, смерть Стаса лишила Кенигсберг-Калининград еще одного его великого посла. Но нас его смерть лишила гораздо большего. Стас был человеком прямолинейным, открытым, искренним. Он был добрым человеком, всегда готовым помочь, он был сердцем хорошей компании. Вместе, мы делили общий язык прошлого, а я через него – общий, но очень важный язык – человеческий. В общем, Стас был самым ценным арсеналом – он был незаменимым другом, которого мы не могли себе позволить потерять.
It is with great sadness that I report that our dear friend Stas (Stanislav Konovalov) passed away recently from post-operative complications whilst undergoing hospital treatment.
My wife, Olga, and I met Stas in January 2019. We were introduced to him by a mutual friend, Victor Ryabinin the artist. Stas told me later that Victor had said to him, “There is an Englishman moving to Kaliningrad. You should meet him. He is an interesting man, and I think you will find a common language.”
I am not altogether certain that I deserve the appellation ‘interesting’, but we did find a common language in our love of history generally and specifically for Königsberg-Kaliningrad and the surrounding region.
An important element in that common language was the inspiration we both received from our friend and mentor Victor Ryabinin.
A short while after Victor Ryabinin’s death in July 2019, I told Stas that I had found two paintings by Victor among my possessions in England. He replied, with characteristic modesty, that whilst he did not have a signed painting by Victor Ryabinin the artist, it was enough that he had a “secret pride”, which was that he had been “close to this great man”. “I was his student for many years,” he said.
When I ventured to suggest that Victor had also been his friend, he replied, once again with characteristic modesty, “Victor knew a great many people and associated with a great many people, but he probably would not have considered them all to be his friends. I can say that I was his student, that I admired him and enjoyed his company …” He then paused, before saying, “But I would like to think that he thought of me as his friend.”
Stas was a modest man. He was modest about all of his achievements, when it was quite obvious that he had as much right, if not more, to blow his own trumpet with the ‘best’ of them.
Stas worked extremely hard on his tour guide projects, honing and perfecting them, making several YouTube videos and always asking, “What did you think of this aspect?” “Was that alright?” “Is there anything in my tour guide script that you think needs clarification?”.
Like Victor Ryabinin before him, Stas’ death has robbed Königsberg -Kaliningrad of yet another great ambassador.
It has robbed us of so much more.
Stas was a straight-talking, open, sincere individual. He was a kind man, always ready to help and good company.
Together, we shared the common language of the past, and I, through him, the common but all-important language of humanity.
In summation, Stas was that most precious of all commodities ~ he was the indispensable friend that we could ill afford to lose.
A sunny afternoon with Stas Konovalov, ‘Stas’, [right of picture] Kaliningrad Königsberg Guide
Three President Putin T-shirts from across the decades
11 October 2026 – Rare 25-Year-Old President Putin T-Shirts Surface in the UK
I have no difficulty in remembering when I first became intrigued by hunting out and collecting things, which is rather odd in two respects: the one is reserved for aliens, who, terminally smitten by bland modernity, deduce no value in anything else; the other is because in noting when the compulsion first took impetuous hold of me, which it did unceremoniously and without provision of explanation, I was not much more than four years old.
Looking back, I was fortunate, or, depending on your point of view, not so very fortunate, to find myself born into a family who, for reasons unbeknown to me, yet nevertheless passed on to me without the benefit of enlightenment, unquestionably conceived that throwing things away posed a dangerous risk to sentiment, an inveteracy, moreover, that extended beyond my mother and father to encompass nearly the full contingent of the two families so conjoined.
My gran’s house, the cupboards within it and its collection of garden sheds, all of which resided but a short distance from our family abode, presented itself to my youthful inquisitiveness as off-limits treasure troves and thus seemingly intended for illicit investigation by little and curious prying eyes.
The magic here to be found was superseded only by the home in which I lived, which, for an 18th-century thatched cottage, appeared to be endowed with a content-holding capacity whose pretensions were truly Tardisial, though even it, as commodious as it seemed, couldn’t compete with the several surrounding outhouses, one of which was a large stone barn, and all of which were rammed with stuff, on whose being, and also in being there, where they had been for years, my father would often, presumably wryly, declare it was because the stuff was ‘wuth a bit’. He was constantly upbraiding me for indulging in a lawless habit to which he referred as ‘furraging’, although certain lapses in his vocabulary, such as mispronouncing ‘architect’ as ‘artitecht’ and his calling a ‘pizza’ a ‘piza’, indicated, perhaps, that the word for which he was foraging was that which now has just obliged me.
Given then my illustrious background in the art and science of foraging, it is hardly a matter of great surprise that on travelling to Russia for the first time, a trip that took place in the year 2000, I – as the old song goes – ‘packed up my foraging in my old kit bag’ and, together with my toothbrush, took it along for the ride.
Three President Putin T-shirts from across the decades
If someone were, therefore, to ask me, “Where did you forage and find that particular Putin T-shirt?” the one that forms the basis of the feature photograph for this post, sincerity would reply that my possession of it required no effort on my part, as the T-shirt in question was gifted to me.
I have mentioned the precise circumstances by which it was donated in an earlier post entitled 9th May Victory Day, but I don’t suppose it will hurt any to remark on it again. It was during my first attendance at a 9th of May celebration, which, as I am sure you all will know, is one of the most important national holidays on the Russian calendar, commemorating the Soviet Union’s Second World War victory (WWII in Russia is known as the Great Patriotic War) over Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.
In the Year of our Lord 2001, Kaliningrad’s 9th of May assembly, which takes place annually at the aptly named Victory Park, was graced by the presence of – you are anticipating the ‘presence of me’, but ego defers to a greater significance – a formidable string of trestle tables, forming a long continuous line that stretched across the furthermost point of the park. As I drew near to these tables, I beheld with constrained amazement, arranged upon their surfaces in neat rows and clusters, a prodigious quantity of plastic beakers, each ready and waiting, so I was informed, for the disbursement of a generous measure of vodka.
My second surprise was on hearing the news that the vodka was free of charge; my third then followed quickly on the heels of downing the first. Serving, on the opposite side of this magnificent row of tables, was a quantity of volunteers, young, busy, bustling, some of whom were clad in T-shirts identical to the one with which you are now familiar. No sooner had I exclaimed, “I really like your T-shirt,” than immediately, without a second thought but whilst decanting my second vodka – admiring T-shirts is thirsty work – the chap who was administering to me divested himself of the aforementioned article and, passing it over the table, said, “Here you are; it’s my present to you!”
You can’t have enough stuff!
I collect experiences even more avidly than I do material objects, but when the one fosters a link that is embryonic with the other and both combined collaborate in marking with precision a specific date, time and place, which at some point in their remembered past will enter the annals of social history, then this becomes the motivation and, as time elapses, the end result.
Therefore, of the three presidential T-shirts that I personally own, this then is my favourite. I recognise, of course, that the full-colour design and the heightened production standards involved in meeting that objective raise and place the others within a category above it, recommended by virtue of their more prepossessing aesthetic, but nevertheless my money, which on this occasion I had no need to part with, would yet, if it had been required by choice, have unequivocally been reserved for the simple black and white job.
The facial silhouette and distinct black-on-white lettering get the message across with maximum efficiency and minimalistic effort. And should your knowledge of Cyrillic be having one of its off days, which mine invariably does, the slogans on the shirt read, first on the front, ‘All is OK’, and then on the back, ‘Walking Together’. According to the translator, whom we have no reason to doubt, the caption beneath the portrait is a play on words from Putin’s name, with ‘Put’ in Russian becoming ‘this is the road, the pathway’.
Three President Putin T-shirts from across the decades
The T-shirt in the photo that follows, unless I am mistaken, and so what if I am, who would be any the wiser, was purchased from one of those small shopping kiosks, those standalone metal units that so effectively but intrusively augment Kaliningrad’s retail offering and which make such a world of difference in any active comparison of its city centre and urban districts with towns and cities in the UK.
I wouldn’t want to bet my Black-and-white Putin T-shirt on it, but recollection, though hazy, suggests that the acquisition of this second shirt probably occurred in the latter half of the 2010s or in 2010 itself. Knowing, as I do, that you need no help with the Russian translation, and, it goes without saying, neither do I, thus purely for the record, and for us to rejoice in our mutual aptitude, the caption on it reads, ‘The most courteous person in the world’. Well, I’m not about to argue with him, but I thought that person was me.
My third T-shirt rolls back the years to the middle of the second decade of the 21st century. This one was bought from a clothing kiosk at Kaliningrad’s central market. I recollect the occasion well, as I wore it shortly afterwards on a tour of the city’s retro market, which, once in a time now distant, was located on a nearby street in the centre of the shopping hub. Having deduced that I was English, Kaliningrad’s market traders seemed thrilled at the sight of me wearing it. One of them actually asked, “Are you really going to wear that T-shirt when you return to Great Britain?” Was I? And, indeed, did I?
And here I am, larger than life, sporting that very same shirt, now with it on in an English setting. You, whose keen sense of observation I have always firmly admired, will not, I am sure, fail to notice a rather younger me than I am at present and, standing to my right, a corresponding youthfulness in the portrait of President Putin. And could that be, in my right hand, a Russian bottle of vodka? The slogan here is, “We’ll get through!” I’m sure I got through the vodka.
This T-shirt, the one you see here, arranged around my seriously manly chest, which, when the image went viral, had modelling agencies ringing my number constantly day and night, and it put the fear up Beckham, was produced at a time when the UK’s media was ramping up yet another example of its ideological witch hunts, blaming Russia for almost everything, from cyber failure to the price of bog rolls, from raising mountains to making mole hills (has there ever been a single time in European history when the UK media hasn’t refrained from prodding the Russian bear?). Do you recall the satirical memes that were doing the rounds at that time? My favourite was the image of a puppy, a lovely little thing, that, having torn up a mass of newspapers and made a terrible mess, was depicted looking sheepishly into the lens of the camera, which represented its owner’s eyes, meekly in search of absolution. The caption mimicked the rallying cry of the sabre-rattling UK media: ‘The Russians dun it!’ It boomed.
Among my souvenirs
Together, these T-shirts span a distinct historical period. Once they hung on the walls of a socio-cultural corridor that led from wonder and curiosity down a long and planned agenda. In a small room at the end of this walk, the West constructed an image that it could, it believed, strategically, at a propitious time of its own choosing, having lifted it onto a public balcony, publicly demolish it.
Today, these T-shirts hang in an exhibition of personal memory, charting a passage of time that, for me, commenced some 25 years ago in the Russian city of Kaliningrad. They act as markers on a rare-chance journey replete with human experience and the wonders of cultural discovery.
I am a few T-shirts short of the full quarter century of that I am aware, but, like a woman’s work that’s never done until the fat lady sings – and then it is far too late – the collector’s quest knows no end. Perhaps that’s what being a content creator is really all about: people who are content with houses laden down with content, the content of which brings them contentment.
Michael, it’s time to refold your T-shirts and put them back safely into the drawer.
Seven restaurants under one roof, and that’s not all at the Kings Residence, Kaliningrad.
30 September 2026 -The Kings Residence Kaliningrad: it’s a big one alright!
When I first clapped eyes on it – I believe it was in the summer of 2015 – I thought, “My, what a big one!” Almost immediately, and certainly instinctively, a refrain from the 1970s began to ring in my ears, and I found myself singing, “I’ve never seen one as big as that before!” Which is understandable because at that time, even before the term became a Western media buzzword, I had become a disinformation victim due to someone wrongly informing me that the aptly named Kings Residence (Residence of Kings is the literal Russian translation) was a, as in ‘one’, bar and restaurant, when in actual fact it is a massive entertainment complex, a multi-purpose hybrid centre endowed with several restaurants, an elaborate children’s play area and a tavern built in the image of a traditional German beer cellar equipped with its own onsite brewery.
‘You are here!’ – the Kings Residence
From a distance, I was astounded. It wasn’t quite Disney World, but it was certainly Dizzy World. Architecturally, I attempted to assess it as I would if I was confronted by an exotic piece of antique furniture, highly carved and intricate in the various parts of its construction, by breaking down its components visually, step by step, by isolating the different elements of its structural composition and weighing up its aesthetic principles, a method I have discovered is as good a way as any of making the most of anything, including human nature, which at first sight blindsides through complication of detail, as in the cases cited here, referring to art philosophy and to human psychology, and which, by defying immediate sense, fly from mere mortal grasp into the clouds of the great beyond until all at last is perplexed and obscured.
Simultaneously thinking that the last time I experienced a confectionary of this calibre, I was visiting Bletchley Park, no sooner had I thought it than I amended the comparison. Whereas Bletchley Park, it is true, has icing touches on its architectural cake, it nowhere comes near as close to this palace of pastiche into whose mixed and confusing character several styles of historic note have been baked together.
I have heard discussions about its form describing the structure with words like ‘sprawling’, which is somewhat similar to the course of my life, but be this as it may, it sprawls with the very best of them, bringing together, as it does, albeit bizarre and haphazardly, substantial Baroque and Gothic elements, which it plays out in the manner of theatre like an adaptation of Camelot or as scenes extracted from coloured plates in a book that draws from myth and fairytale as illustration for its ancient lore.
Inevitably, as a thoroughly commercial enterprise, there are some among the architectural fraternity who have derided the building’s appearance as being completely over the top, and we will not attempt to defend it on that score, but as OTT as it is, it fails to give the impression of being completely out of place (OOP) by striking back with a palatial grandeur that does what it is supposed to do: stimulate your curiosity and get you over the threshold.
If first impressions count, then the second adds to the first: the one does not disappoint the other. If anything, the inside of this latter-day palace appears so bold, so huge, so sprawling that whatever overtures to magnificence may legitimately be ascribed to the grandness of its brash exterior, the grandiosity of its interior matches it card by card.
The Kings Residence Kaliningrad: it’s a big one alright!
So lavish and sumptuous does it appear that I thought myself fortuitous that prior to leaving home I had seized on the occasion to garb myself in smart attire, which would not have been even half that it was, or should I say it seemed to be, had I omitted from the ensemble my Regency cravat, to which, with the aid of afterthought, a further dash was cut with the timely installation of a three-point pocket handkerchief. By these material subterfuges to whom I imagined I was or could be, I saw myself as one who was confluent with surroundings that deserved no less from each of us, and in the mirror whilst strolling past – I think I might have paused – saw none no better in close proximity, as all were dressed in jeans and trainers. Thus, in me, I saw, if plausibly no one else did, a reason for proclaiming that the King was in his counting house – the Mick Hart flag flew not at half mast, which is more than could be rightfully said for his far-too-hitched-up trousers. This obsequiousness to extollation and the ego that went with it was soon, however, remediated when I almost, but accidentally, having handed my coat to the ‘hat’ check lady, discovered myself in the ladies’ bog. It is a hazard common enough when living in a foreign country, for which even a nice pocket handkerchief is insufficient to make amends.
Whilst always an advisable prelude is to book one’s table in advance before descending on any restaurant, at the Residence of Kings, where half-a-dozen eateries jostle for attention, booking is essential if you want to configure your choice of table with your choice of cuisine and entertainment or to repose in an environment that complements your cravat.
Dropping in on the off chance is not an illegal act, but should you incline to this risky purpose, it is best that you prepare yourself to play the part of intrepid explorer. However, losing yourself completely, the feeling is forever, should not be the problem you think it could be, given the size of the place, as the Kings’ staff have a vigilant eye. They are trained to spot lost sheep at thirty paces, and they are always conveniently there on hand to shepherd you to the nearest table if, and unless, they are not all taken, for although the complex is big, it often attracts big groups and not infrequently bigger parties, who gobble up the seating space quicker than sheep can graze a pasture. As I have said, it’s best to book.
There are seven restaurants at the Kings Residence Kaliningrad
Cafe La Russe (Russian: traditional Russian dishes)
Veranda (European: grill restaurant)
Giuseppe (Italian: trattoria)
Shafran (Oriental/Eastern: selected dishes)
Khinkalnaya (Georgian: khinkali is its speciality)
Korolevskiy Dvorik (Banquet hall, concert venue and courtyard restaurant)
Bretsel (German brew bar)
As in most Kaliningrad drinking establishments, the norm regarding receipt of alcoholic beverages is that they are ferried to your table by the waiter or waitress with whom you placed your order, but the Kings Residence does have a bar, where drinks can be bought and at which you can sit, and this bar conveniently lies directly in your line of vision as soon as you make your entrance.
The bar is a standalone job, which cannot be overlooked, which cannot be mistaken for anything other than a bar, as it stands out twice as much as it stands alone, similar, in this respect, to the console in Dr Who’s TARDIS when, over the course of the later series, it grew in size and proportion, and then, by some terrible quirk of woke, the Dr turned first female and then, unfortunately for the viewing ratings, no sooner had he grown a pair than he turned a funny colour. Poor old William Hartnell, bless him!.
Let’s go no further down that passage.
It’s got seven restaurants!
The Kings Residence boasts seven restaurants in all, each individually stylised, but mutual in voluptuousness. Each room or banqueting area has in its possession a sumptuous, mediaeval grandeur played out effectively in a distinctive and an eclectic range of decors fit, you might be tempted to say, for a king, every one of which is purposed to invoke innate and latent desires to be the one that wears the crown or at least to pamper personal fantasies of living it up like a lord.
Selection is nigh impossible: choose from the interior terrace that isn’t really a terrace, which sits below an arcaded veranda, which isn’t a real veranda, and from antique chairs which are not antique but whose arms scroll down so deeply that you could be persuaded to accept that they are no less antique than need be; or, if a real terrace is what you are after, where you can dine and look over the royal gardens, wishes at Kings can come true; for groups there are refectory tables stolen away in their own private booths with velveteen seats of a rich ruby red; or a vastly spacious vestibule appropriating time with the help of a galleried half-timber building, which looks as though in a previous life it could have belonged to a film set; or for privacy in a small group, traditional facing cubicled tables hived off snob-screen fashion, with button-backed seats in a deep blue leather, which you wouldn’t know is not the real thing but probably, if you did, would not be pleased not to know, if, like me, you are vegetarian: “I’ll have the button-backed faux leather seats, please, with a side-serving of cauliflower and a portion of sautéed potatoes.”
The cuisine at the Kings Residence is food that is fit for a … er, what shall we say? – how about ‘fit for a king’? Indeed, for the palates of many kings and all with different tastes. Inside this gastronomical ecosystem, one can dine not only on Russian dishes but also on recipes sourced from other parts of the world – Georgian, Italian, European and oriental nosh, all are on the eclectic menu. And just to ensure that the chefs aren’t cheating and taking it out of a tin, you can watch the culinary masters rustle up your grub through windows in the grand hall that beckon you visually into the kitchen.
Meanwhile, downstairs, and now you can be sure that I am about to reveal my favourite location, is Bretsel, a beer bar styled on authentic German legend. This inviting cellar bar, which isn’t really a cellar, as it actually lies at ground level with the entrance to the complex sitting above it on the first floor, but it seems in order to get to it because you have to go downstairs that you are descending into the castle’s dungeon, is where the beer is brewed. Yes, you heard me correctly: Beer is brewed right here on the premises: five delicious varieties of their exclusive Müller brand.
The Kings Residence Kaliningrad: it’s a big one alright!
As with every room beneath the giant roof of the Kings Residence, the space occupied by the beer bar is the opposite to mean; it is a sizeable retreat, but with cosy nooks and crannies. It is mood-lit and time-honoured with benches in dark wood, and its walls are hung with detailed frescoes that echo the legends of kings and pirates in homage to the dark ages. It also has in its principality an area put aside for those unable to help themselves but shimmer around the floor whenever music is piped to their ears, a species of spontaneity that is leveraged not inconsiderably by the magical influence of beer on the brain. And here it is helpful to know, if beer is your elixir, that the copious fermentation tanks finished in copper but shining like gold as though the precious nectar within radiates from out – mark that haloed luminosity! – that guests can observe the brewing process as they lovingly down the end result.
That’s all you get until I write about it later …
Lest we should forget, which hardly could be possible whilst one is on the premises because the sound of it reverberates around the many interconnecting halls, the Kings Residence, or as Russians say, ‘Residence of Kings’ (Rezidentsiya Koroley), is billed as an entertainment centre as well as a restaurant complex.
Musical entertainment, both vibrant vocal live-performances and their recorded equivalents, takes place at different times and on different nights across the multi-format halls and restaurants. The principal restaurants, such as Veranda, offer live music cabaret-style, mainly on Friday and Saturday evenings, with the starting times of gigs being typically 7pm. Guest acts by distinguished artists are complemented by the resident band, which has built a solid reputation for singing legendary cover hits.
Night-lifers, those with an irrepressible need to strut their stuff into the wee small hours, flock at weekends to Berry, which is the Kings’ karaoke and dance bar, where they give it all that they’ve got, and some might say far too freely, never mind too much.
The Kings Residence Kaliningrad: it’s a big one alright!
The big one, both in the sense of dining and in the luxury entertainment stakes, is the as-grand-as-it-sounds Royal Court, not to be confused with the ‘Royals caught in the act!’, which is something that Britain’s daily tabloids are constantly on the lookout for. The Royal Court (Russian: Korolevskiy Dvorik) is where one goes to banquet as distinct from commonly eat, and where the same ones eschew karaoke for more in-tune entertainment provided by touring artists who they like to think as they like to think of themselves, are considered a cut above. Such events are ticketed, and the Kings Residence hosts them regularly. You must wear a cravat to these!
I don’t think Elton John played this one …
Meanwhile, back in the German-style beer bar (where else would I be?), the option exists to hire the room and stage your own entertainment, as Bretsel is one of the Kings Residences’ more seclusive areas and therefore lends itself most admirably to parties of the private kind.
If music be the food of love, play on, but not everyone is into a raucous orgy where jumping around to a thumping beat and committing murder by karaoke dominates. The Kings have done well to recognise this, for it also caters for the serious drinker, we wont go so far as to say for the serious sober drinker, who likes nothing better than acquiring knowledge and then relating that knowledge at length in all its detail to all in sundry, whether they want to hear it or not, about craft beers and their brewing techniques. With these people in mind, the Residence of Kings thoughtfully provides instructive and enjoyable tours of its brewing facilities and tasters of its range of beers, and by the way, it doesn’t discriminate if you happen to love your karaoke as much as you love your beer. Stranger things, I have heard it said, are likely to happen at sea.
The Residence of Kings: The Brewery and its Beers The brewery-restaurant complex brews five varieties of its own-brand Müller beer. The beer is served in all of the Kings’ seven restaurants and also in its German-style pub, called Bretsel.
The five varieties of beer are:
Müller Light (Светлое): A classic, filtered lager with a crisp character
Muller Dark (Темное): A smooth dark ale with a strong malt taste rewarded with hints of caramel
Muller Wheat (Пшеничное): An unfiltered German-style Weissbier, the notes of which combine distinctive fruit and clove elements
Muller Velvet (Бархатное): A smooth, unfiltered beer with a dark complexion, slightly sweet taste and a velvet smooth texture
Seasonal Brews: These special-recipe beers tend to vary, depending on the season
It is said that in addition to learning the brewer’s code, also on these tours the participants get to hear about certain ‘mysterious legends’, surely not me in the ladies’ toilet, get to sample all Müller beers and are provided with a ‘beer lunch’, a buffet consisting of snacks that go down well with beer (this is an art in itself), and rounding off this unique excursion, they are invited to take part in a programme of entertainment in which contests are staged and presents awarded. For more information about these tours and reservation bookings, the number to ring is as follows: +7 (4012) 300 360.
He often pops in for one at the Kings Residence
This brings me to a feature in the Residence of Kings’ portfolio about which I have little or no detailed knowledge, having not been a child for quite some time – childish, yes, child, no – and who continues to associate children’s entertainment with a day out at Wicksteed Park, riding the swings and the slides.
From the looks of it, however, things have moved on since then. Young visitors to the Residence of Kings have the golden opportunity to wave goodbye to mundanity and migrate (not like migrants on rubber dinghies on a one-way ticket to Britain) to the exotic and charm-filled Faraway Kingdom – whose only relevance to the United Kingdom are the words ‘kingdom’ and ‘far away’.
Situated on the building’s third floor, the Kingdom functions as a multi-recreational centre, containing a superabundance of game machines, stimulating creative workshops and tailored entertainment programmes, and, pay attention to this, every Saturday is a free theme-party day.
And if this doesn’t keep the little darlings amused, there’s always the
*Inflatable jungle park *Rope town *Lego town *The dolphinarium *The electric car park *The wind tunnel
I think I’ll stick with the Bretsel bar.
To say that the Residence of Kings is a unique venue and to use words like ‘large’, ‘imposing’, ‘impressive’, ‘multi-functional’, ‘diverse’ and to describe it as an all-round restaurant, bar and entertainment complex presented under one big roof, or, for the sake of accuracy, a compendium of different roofs, is hardly an act of necessity, as I think that I may have touched upon some of these points already.
As an architectural fantasy, the Residence of Kings is an undisputed dream piece, an awesome tribute to the Gothic legacy which is part and parcel of Kaliningrad’s Königsberg past. In bringing its lingering presence back, the Residence of Kings takes it to another level driven by emulation and defined by 21st-century excess. On the outside it’s a curious palace; on the inside it’s palatial. On the outside it’s a modern monument; on the inside it’s monumentally modern, albeit with a retro twist. One thing that could be said of it and stated with impunity is you could visit it every day of the week, make that twice on Sundays, and, whilst eating your way around the world, never leave the novelty loop. Who says size doesn’t matter!
Things you need to know
The Kings Residence (Residence of Kings) Ulitsa Aleksandra Nevskogo, 10, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, 236041
Opening hours (Main complex and restaurants) Sunday to Thursday: 12pm to12 Midnight Friday to Saturday: 12pm to 2am
Note: Certain venues inside the complex operate under different closing times, for example the Berry karaoke bar and the children’s entertainment centre. For up-to-date information, contact the Kings Residence administration.
I think those chaps at RT write a jolly good article …
22 September 2026 – RT Breaking News: Why Don’t They Want You to See It?
😱 If you’ve arrived at this page from the EU, look away now!!
So, there I was a few weeks ago flicking through the western news channels which saturate the internet trying to dream the impossible dream, ie to find one whose coverage wasn’t overtly couched in the propaganda of the liberal left, when I came across an article on the United 24 Media website, described by Media Bias Fact Check as ‘centre-left’ [https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/united24-media-bias-and-credibility/].
At the time I had no idea, honestly, m’lud, that United24 is in fact a fundraising platform launched by erstwhile comedian, now Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Excuse me for droning on, but you learn something new every day!
For the purpose of this post, however, whatever it was that Zelensky was up to had everything to do with nothing as far as I was concerned. It was the article’s headline that interested me:
‘EU Court Confirms Blanket Ban on All RT Russian State Media Content’ “The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that the EU ban on distributing content from Russian state broadcaster RT (Russia Today) applies to non-commercial websites that provide free access to such material, regardless of whether they generate profit or the specific content being distributed.” – United 24 Media
“Well, I never did (honestly). They’ll be banning straight bananas next! – Don’t believe it if they tell you differently; MEPs seem to prefer anything bent or twisted, such as expecting us to believe that boatloads of migrants pouring into Britain after a nice sojourn in France are not part of an EU plot conceived in pique at Brexit, which the froggy French and the Gerries saw, and indeed continue to see, as an audacious British rebuttal of their suicidal – you could say insane – open-border policies.” – A man who never voted to Remainbut wishes to remain anonymous. Only his mum knows who he is, but not, apparently, by whom. His mum comes from Wellingborough.
By the way, on the subject of France, let’s talk about Germany and say well done to the AfD for its recent seismic shift of the EU’s leftist political landscape. Onwards and upwards, one might say, without führer mention of bent bananas.
RT describes itself as providing an “alternative point of view” and a “second opinion” on world affairs, framing its coverage as a counterweight to mainstream or censored Western media. – AI Gemini, 7 September 2026
Like the UK, which, allegedly, has seen more than 60,000 arrests for online communications offences over a five-year period* but isn’t very hot when it comes to halting illegal migration and/or stopping the rumoured money-laundering racket fronted by a growing succession of high-street barbers shops, nail bars and sun-lounge boutiques (guess which sector of society owns most of them) – every small town has a dozen or more – the EU is shit hot on clamping down on RT links but doesn’t do much at all, except take the UK’s money, about stopping the migrant boats that sail merrily and unhindered from its teeming shores, except, perhaps, to help Britain-bound migrants pump up their monstrous dildos dinghies, grant them rights of passage, and wave them off as they happily go. John told me that. He’s a six-year-old far-right activist who was given a very powerful pair of binoculars by his mum for his birthday – incidentally, she comes from Wellingborough – and he took them with him to Dover. So there!
How the UK treats RT News
Whilst RT is officially hampered in the UK, the legalities surrounding its access and sharing links via social media and through one-off blogs like this are nowhere near as Orwellian as they are in the ‘liberal’ EU.
The UK is a country that fields many regulators that regulate things to make them seem regulated, like Ofgem, Ofcom and Ofwat (the only thing missing is ‘t’). It even has a special body, Ofsted, which is devoted to the science of persecuting teachers by way of enforcing woke in Britain’s state-run schools. When Reform eventually comes to power, I hope to witness the rollout of an entirely new and much-needed regulator officially known as OffFck (the only thing missing is ‘u’), whose powers will heavily regulate the landing on Britain’s shores of thousands of things which, by look and presence, could spark a prodigious uptick in balaclava sales.
The Ofthing that regulates UK media is the regulator Ofcom, and it was they who ruled, for the good of the public, naturally, that RT News’ broadcasting licence be revoked in Britain, possibly because the news that it promotes is nowhere near as laundered, by which I mean clean and impartial, as that disseminated by the BBC, The Guardian (of what), and the thoroughly speculative Independent.
As far as I can ascertain, because UK law is as comprehensible as a bowl of dropped spaghetti, which is why we need such erudite people as lawyers, judges and the like, to whom we can pay lots of money to untangle what they’ve tangled for us, it is illegal in the UK for television companies to transmit RT across the airwaves. Similarly, the big lefty tech companies and lefty-controlled social media platforms actively restrict RT’s distribution channels, but there is no restriction, as far as I can discern, should Joe and Abdul public wish to access RT’s coverage via alternative digital sources.
Andy Burnham pledges to stand ‘shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine’ but appears to have adopted his predecessor’s, Sir Kier Starmers’, strategy of turning the other cheek and kicking Britons so hard up the arse regarding the migrant invasion that perhaps he hopes by the laws of cold shoulder they might stay indoors and forget it is happening – Political Anatomy by A.R.S Elbow et al
Part II: RT Breaking News: Why Don’t They Want You to See It?
Lookee here for RT links!
Note> “The views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of individuals or companies that grow and/or ship bananas, manufacture rubber dinghies, and make up colourful stories about old white ladies living in Dover being ‘genuinely disturbed’ by white men saying hello to them whilst wearing black balaclavas. Even though in days of yore they tuned in every Saturday night to the BBC’sBlack and White Minstrel Show – and while you’re at it, take down that flag; it’s British and you’re in Britain!”
Please note that in the present Western geopolitical climate of mass Russophobia, I have provided links to RT’s articles not to its website itself but via the Archive.org website so as to mitigate suggestions that the objective of this post is to direct traffic to RT. As if!
Headline: Starmer out, Burnham in: What you need to know about leadership change in UK
Can you see anything inherently wrong with the substance of an article, which considers the strange way in which new prime ministers are elected internally when one becomes unpopular and not fit for purpose and provides valid reasons why Starmer had to go whilst questioning the media-hyped regenerative powers of his Labour makeover Andy Burnham? Is there anything in this RT article that reeks of the untrue, or isn’t it merely confirming what we already know?
Headline: White students in minority at nearly one in five UK universities – Telegraph
The headline says it all, but it doesn’t say anything more than we know already, given the anti-white ethos of British politics. RT merely highlights a disproportionality which, if it is correct, proves that white British are fast becoming a subordinate class in their own country. Whilst most of us are aware of this, our political elites would rather it not be shouted around the globe megaphonically. The word ‘surreptitious’ or even ’embarrased’ springs readily to mind.
Headline: Pakistani serial child rapist cannot be deported from UK – media
Is it true? Or do we, the British, need to be protected from a story that beggars belief?
Well, judge for yourself.
“A Pakistani rape gang ringleader convicted of dozens of child offenses in the UK cannot be deported under British immigration law despite being stripped of his citizenship, the Oldham Chronicle newspaper has reported.”
Who thinks that something like this just couldn’t happen in Britain today?
Headline: Britain needs war: Why London can’t afford peace in Ukraine
Intro: “The UK’s power machine runs on war, and conflict in Eastern Europe is its new fuel”
I fully comprehend and appreciate why the content of this article and its alternative perspective on the perpetuation of the Ukraine conflict might be something that the British establishment would rather we did not read. But if, as we are constantly told, we live in a democracy and not an Orwellian state, then surely different points of view matter as much as black lives, and whilst avoiding a knee-jerk response to either is an excellent act of prudence, what we choose to view and read could be considered a sovereign right.
There is one statement within this article that I do find hard to agree with, and that is “Britain has always known how to turn disaster into capital.” Could it be the exception to the rule then, the ongoing, never-ending and soon-to-be-fatal full-scale migrant invasion?
Headline: King Charles loses historic ‘Defender of the Faith’ label
And in yet another cultural and historic climbdown in which we cede our Christian heritage to appease those who oppose it, we have another prime example of Woke in the Royal Family’ (We won’t mention the other one …)
RT reports:
“Buckingham Palace has dropped “Defender of the Faith” from King Charles’ official job description, swapping the 500-year-old title for a vaguer pledge to safeguard religion across Britain’s “multi-faith nation,” according to the UK’s annual royal finance report.”.
Why not just open Buckingham Palace as a bus-them-in-migrant-hostel and donate the Crown Jewels to Black Lives Matter? If you’re going to give the country away, at least make a proper job of it.
Headline: British MPs demand ban on Russian children’s cartoon
So does a Russian cartoon about a little girl and a bear pose any threat to Britain? Or is the call by ‘more than 50 British MPs’ for a ban on this children’s programme ‘a culture-war theatrics’ staged as a diversionary tactic in our pantomime of politics to steer us away from our homegrown nightmares? “Look out! They’re behind you!” – a little girl and a cartoon bear.
A spokesperson for the Russian company that produces the cartoon, which has been entertaining families in more than 100 countries for nearly two decades, states that the programme contains no militaristic content and has gained popularity purely for its “friendship, kindness and imagination.”
The article goes on to say “Moscow has condemned these measures [the call for a ban on the programme] as censorship and Russophobia, accusing Western governments of using the Ukraine conflict to suppress Russian culture, language and media.”
Perhaps if Russian culture, language and media came from where the bananas come from, all may be forgiven, even, perhaps, exhorted.
Read the article yourself and see what you think, and then go and watch the cartoon. I think you might enjoy it.
I am not sure which, if any, of these RT articles could be credibly lambasted as either mis- or disinformational, and if they stand up well to scrutiny, why ever is RT blocked?
If you live in the UK and want to tune into the web version of RT, all you need to do is key ‘RT International’ into your internet browser.
Purpose and Intent: This article is published solely for the purposes of journalistic commentary, media analysis, and public interest debate regarding freedom of expression and state-enforced censorship. The inclusion of links to archived material is intended to provide historical context so that readers may independently evaluate the subject matter.
Disclaimer: This is a small, private blog hosted in the US for informational, educational and entertainment purposes. Posts may contain references, links to web archives (like the Wayback Machine), or embedded media. Due to varying international regulations and sanctions, some external links or videos may be geoblocked or inaccessible in your country. The inclusion of a link is for reference only and does not imply endorsement. Visitors access external sites at their own risk.
More money for Ukraine and migrants, but shhh, don’t mention the boats!
9 September 2026 – Britain Goes Balaclava as the Boats Keep Bowling In
On the day that it is proudly announced by an Andy Burnham’s Labour Party that the UK will give away £100,000,000 to Ukraine’s air defences this winter, whilst spending approximately £4 billion to £6.4 billion on illegal migration over the last fiscal year*, a second wave of illegal migrants in less than three days sailed merrily into Britain, first into Dover and then into Portsmouth, causing a double dose of understandable protests.
Immediately, and no longer surprisingly, our out-of-touch, arrogant left-wing politicians demonstrated their unstinting commitment to putting migrants above Britons, condemning protestors as thugs, whilst saying nothing and doing nothing about the thousands of third-world young men whose alien cultures they complacently accommodate, even though they come from countries which are arguably among some of the most dangerous places in the world.
A comprehensive distillation of the sad and dangerous magnitude of the British establishment’s blameworthy migrant crisis, which, with the first boat of its obnoxious cargo waltzing into Portsmouth, has taken Britain to a new threat level, is delivered here by Patrick Christys, presenter and journalist for GB News.
I personally watched GB News’ coverage of the balaclava protests and thought how smart and well togged out those who were wearing them looked, though doubting seriously at the same time that their choice of head dress was sartorially motivated but had more to do with the need to conceal their identities at all costs from a proven leftist-prejudicial law and justice system.
NEWS JUST IN (like the boats) >> The answer to the UK’s migrant problem is to ban balaclava-wearing. Here’s the Independent (My Arse!). headline: “Balaclavas to be banned from major UK city as wearers face instant £70 fine.”That will solve the problem, won’t it? 🤣 Far be it for me to advocate non-mask-wearing disguises, but one way of getting around this is to boot polish your face up, don a pair of Roy Orbison glasses and stick a muskrat beard on your chin. There is, of course, a much simpler disguise, but we won’t go into that here. Do we really have to?
As Patrick Christys’ balanced coverage shows, there is, as with UK policing in general, a disturbing political two-tier response to anti-migrant protests, verging on the totalitarian, compared to the pussy-footing, arms-length way in which social disorder issues perpetrated by Black Lives Matter, Asians, Arabs and liberal lefties are handled.
Britain Goes Balaclava as the Boats Keep Bowling In
“Black-clad Dover vigilantes will return if police do not act” – this was The Guardian’s headline, shortly after the British boys donned their balaclavas. The skewed view is predictable, but did you catch the alternative Guardian headline, ‘Black-clad things will keep on coming if the government does not act’? No, of course you didn’t, because this is the one they will never publish. And yet it is food for thought and enough to give you indigestion that if the government does not act to curb this leftist agenda soon and stop the boats from coming, they might find that by not acting, it may be their very last act. As that well-known call for action goes, “When it’s gone, it’s gone!” But will it be the boats, or will it be the country?
By and large, and mostly large, UK mainstream media made much more fuss about the naughty balaclavas than the reason for wearing them and the protests.
The BBC ran this headline: “’No excuse’ for threatening behaviour or disruption, says minister after small boats protests.”
Here are some pretty, or not-so-pretty, taken-in-the-literal-sense, credible excuses, which some people might offer up as counterarguments to ‘no excuse’ in the absence of political will and of positive action by UK governments who have serially refused, and continue to refuse, to listen to the people who elect them. {Strong hint> The only way to end this deleterious situation is to vote Reform! Don’t be suckered in by the smear campaigns of the leftist media. They will stop at nothing to persuade you to vote for the same old parties, whose only credible manifesto, if they were honest enough to publish it, is to transition the United Kingdom into a migrant wasteland. {On condition of anonymity, I am not at liberty to divulge who it was who told me that.}
Credible excuses that might force UK citizens to put on balaclavas:
1. A dramatically and drastically overpopulated island where more migrants are the last things needed 2. A rising tide of violent crime directly linked to the migrant invasion 3. Streets becoming more dangerous as police lose control of them year on year 4. Asian rape gangs plying their trade as leftist politicians and its collaborative media turn a blind eye in fear that failed multiculturalism and free-for-all open borders, plotted by the EU, might be exposed for what they are – a programme of wilful mayhem 5. High-profile migrant-linked gratuitous violent atrocities, sundry murders and terrorist acts and a growing divisive cultural imbalance 6. The astronomical cost of supporting the migrant invasion 7. Loss of Britain’s culture and its ancestral-home identity, which is increasingly visible in every city and virtually every town in the country 8. Labour’s creepy dispersal plan to shift unwelcome migrants out of hotels they occupy in an attempt to hide the true numbers by relocation to private houses scattered across the country, which will have the lasting effect of leaving nowhere British, nowhere feeling safe, and which will ultimately threaten national security.
The list as to why there is an excuse not for ‘threatening behaviour’ so-called and neither for ‘disruption’, but for the British people to make a stand, make themselves seen and heard, goes on, but no excuse would be necessary if our politicians would only protect us, which is one of the reasons we elect them and grant them their well-paid jobs, from the threats and disruption to our lives, which every Briton today is faced with, by weaponised migration.
Cutting back to that BBC article, the one that advocates ‘No excuse’, what I found particularly telling was the typical guest appearance, almost mandatory and thus always suspect, by comments reportedly made by a person or by persons unknown, who, ‘on condition of anonymity’, frame every British protest so that the leftist narrative has the last word.
For example, in the BBC article cited, we have a very convenient yet unnamed, if they exist, silly old bugger who is supposed to have whinged to the BBC that on the day of the protests “it was difficult not to worry ‘where people hold and openly express [and they called them] such extreme views.'” So, protesting about the migrant invasion is judged to be ‘extreme’, whereas letting migrants in without limit and the police turning on protestors wielding batons and PAVA spray is a completely acceptable situation. Inside out, upside down, back to front and arse about face, welcome to Britain today.
Conversely, someone, whose anonymity we must respect as we do all others, posted this comment on the net:
“The police 👮♂️ used battens, etc., to bash the balaclava-clad demonstrators so as the invading 🚤 [beep] could safely arrive at their destination, Ha!” Ha!”
Yes, Britain really is the laughing stock of the world.
Quoting again from that BBC article, Police Minister Sarah Jones (is she a woman? I suppose she must be), stated: “People who ‘cross the line from peaceful protest into illegality will face the full force of the law.'”
Oh no, there it is again, that silly old hypocritical ‘Let’s get tough with white Britons’ slogan’, which, adopted as a soundbite by former Prime Minister Starmer, helped to make him a former prime minister.
Britain Goes Balaclava as the Boats Keep Bowling In
I am one hundred per cent and a little bit extra certain that the vast majority of the British electorate would feel considerably reassured about their chances of survival and of the existence of a future for their children if such mambys (sorry, Sarah, old girl) would dedicate the law’s full force, of which we hear so much about, to stopping and stopping and stopping the boats – you can almost put that to music! What, ‘They’ll always be an England’? No, that song played out long ago.
Mark Twain emphasised that there are three kinds of lies: “lies, damned lies, and statistics” (thank you, Mr Twain; does he work for GB News?), an observation which lends itself perfectly to the let’s-pull-the-wool-over-the-halfwit-nation’s-eyes approach, which has Labour and its partisan media boasting as it blags a 43 per cent reduction in the arrival of small boats.
Politicians lie, and politicians love statistics. But, as we see on GB News, if we see it nowhere else, the boats, indeed the much bigger boats, crammed with all that the left could wish for, still keep romping in, despite pleas from the British majority to their elected government to stop the boats completely and – here’s a vital and honest statistic – crash migration down to zero.
As for the media-incited uproar about intimidating men roaming the streets in balaclavas, I couldn’t agree with them more; it is very intimidating. In fact, I would go so far as to say that all face coverings are intimidating and that no matter what form they take or pretend to be, they all should be banned with no exception. Indeed, if I owned a newspaper other than a leftist one, I would push the following line: “There is no excuse on Britain’s streets for threatening behaviour by people in face masks.” Hoodies and face masks must be banned right across the board! Savvy? But, in the interests of staving off a crisis which, in the final analysis, neither government nor police will eventually have sufficient power to act upon at all, let’s make our first priority, please, stopping the boats from coming, and if you don’t, won’t, or can’t, then please get out of the country’s way and let Reform do the job for you.
Mick Hart’s difficult job of reviewing craft, imported and specialty beers in Kaliningrad
29 August 2026 – Old Bobby Ale – is it what it says it is?
At a time in history when it is no longer possible to define what exactly is British and what is not – for example, people with a different-coloured skin given a piece of paper by the Home Office claiming that they are British may not be anything near so British when compared with some white-faced bloke who can trace his UK family lineage back across decades and centuries.
“Ah, yes,” I hear you say. “But does he own a dinghy?”
Britain today (whatever that is and wherever it is) is littered with (please don’t anticipate me!) legions of impersonators and impersonations.
Men impersonating women and women impersonating men; weird and unnatural pink things impersonating human beings; liberal lefties impersonating intelligence, and may I add, not with conviction; impersonators impersonating themselves; men and women in Number 10 impersonating prime ministers; a police force intent on impersonating a social-worker-public-relations hybrid, often with a worrying political slant; mixed-race adverts impersonating a melting pot dream, a modern fantasy of middle-class Britain in which every loveable actor, irrespective of race, creed or colour, is homogeneously unified by a revisionist version of British values, when sadly the streets outside tell a very different story, but hey ho, as long as it sells a fridge, a bland and boring living-room suite, or a multicultural weekend in Spain, does it really matter? ; and then there is the BBC, The Independent (laughably called), and The Guardian (of what?), all to one impersonating unbelievably comic strip news – nothing which only the dumbest of us could bring ourselves to swallow – but it makes us snigger if nothing else.
And yet, as surreal and unrestrained as this impersonation is, there is one element of British life – although they are trying to squash that too – which remains essentially undiluted, and that one survivor is British beer.
There are a number of distinguishing characteristics that set British beer, by which we mean ‘real ale’, apart from its worldwide cousins. For a start, it is top fermented, meaning that during fermentation yeast at warmer temperatures rises to the top of the liquid, whereas lager is bottom fermented (you thought that might be the case!). Once in the cask (barrel), British beer undergoes secondary fermentation and natural conditioning. When it is ready to be drawn from the cask, it is done so by mechanical means with the help of a hand-pulled beer pump; carbon dioxide is not added. Consequently, British cask-conditioned ale has a reputational low-fizz profile when generically compared to sharply gassy mass-produced lagers. And then there are Fuggles and Goldings, terms with which you may not be familiar. Sounds like a firm of chartered accountants or the names of my two favourite teddies? Not even close, I’m afraid. Fuggles and Goldings are the classic hops to which age-old British beers owe their celebrated taste and guaranteed authenticity.
And now we come to a British-styled beer manufactured by Russia’s Baltika Breweries, which is so keen on emulating Britain’s inimitable beer culture that at 4.5% it has modelled the strength of its brew on British session tipples and has even gone so far as to market and sell the product in British imperial-pint-sized bottles.
Traditional British beer, as distinct from the citrus revolution, which since its inauguration in the 1980s has gained impressive traction among British beer enthusiasts, of whom naturally I am one, is immediately identified by its deep copper to amber colour, flat compared-to-lager appearance and is occupied by tastes predominant in biscuit-like malts and a balanced hoppy bitterness.
Old Bobby Ale – is it what it says it is?
Baltika Breweries’ Old Bobby, not to be confused, as it easily could be, with ‘Old Nobby’, a village gentleman who … well, we haven’t got time to expand on that … has to be awarded at least 6 out of 10 in its quest to impersonate Britain’s real ale, that of the amber variety.
The packaging goes a long way in pushing the image of the product; for example, there’s the Old Bobby name. I am sure you will agree with me that it just wouldn’t have struck the right note had they called it OldAbdul, although that brand is expected soon, and on an industrial scale, from Dover’s Daily Dinghy Brewery. The bottle also carries the image of a ‘dug’ (bow wow, in English and guv gav in Russian) wearing an old flat cap. Is there a suggestion here that this Russian beer comes from up North, from the land of flat hats and whippits, and if that is the general idea, wherefore art thou pigeon shit?
The bottle, as already noted, is the right pint size, and the deep red and intense blue label and the clever use of white-printed text are a livery nod to the Union Jack and therefore to British tradition.
So much for appearances, but as we who come from the UK know, that is, those of us who have been here longer than it takes to get bussed to a free hotel, appearances can be deceptive. “I say, excuse me, old chap, are you sure you are really British?”
In the glass, Old Bobby has the look of an old-fashioned English ale. However, the aroma is a little heavy, accruing to certain ingredients, particularly the malt, which leaps out when the cap is removed – the cap from the bottle, not from the ‘dug’ – like a non-elected Labour prime minister or an Arabian genie in full flight. The effect is so audacious that it nearly knocks your socks off!
In keeping with Britain’s brewing tradition, Old Bobby is top-fermented. Additional Bobby Brownie points are its use of imported pale ale malt, which functions as a foundation ingredient in many British ales.
The flavour of the beer is on its way to authenticity but falls down at various hurdles, for although it impersonates British ales in various selective and commendable ways, its brewing methods and scale of production place it irrefutably within the industrial output category. When all is said and done, it is macro rather than micro-brewed, and the flavour reflects this difference, as the complex notes of real ale are lost in this stringent process. Intense filtration and pasteurisation slim down the fuller body typically associated with many British amber beers (and one could say the size of many British beer drinkers), leaving Old Bobby’s finish a comparatively bland experience. Moreover, Old Bobby’s adherence to the kind of super-charged carbonation almost every lager could be condemned for is seriously at odds with cask-conditioned ales, whose relatively flat consistency is one of its leading hallmarks.
For those of us who were unfortunate enough to have been brought up with the terrible fizz of Watney’s Red Keg Barrel and are still waiting to this day for Double Diamond to work the wonders promised by its advertisers, the voluminous effervescence and pronounced afterburn taste, which are salient features of Old Bobby, might well bring back ambivalent memories of British beer before its rennaisance.
Old Bobby Ale – is it what it says it is?
Old Bobby is not Old Nobby; he’s a man who … well, never mind about him. Old Bobby comes in a bottle that could have been made in Britain, and the bottle contains a pint. The beer is deeply malty and matched in depth by its caramel taste, and providing you have never drunk a pint of handpump-pulled genuine fresh real ale drawn from a British pub beer cellar, Old Bobby’s impersonation is as complementary as it is passable, especially in the absence of a head-to-head evaluation, where ignorance is bliss and being none the wiser deserves to be called a positive virtue.
Impersonation, like mimicry, is one of the highest forms of flattery, and that’s the way that these things work.
😊BOX TICKER’S CORNER Name of Beer:Old Bobby (English Ale) Brewer: Baltika Breweries Where it is brewed: St Petersburg, Russia Bottle capacity: 1 pint Strength: 4.5% Price: 105 roubles (92 pence) [28 August 2026] Appearance: Coppery amber colour Aroma: Malty with tinctures of toast, wood and caramel Taste: Medium malt, sweet to begin with but with a slightly bitter finish Fizz amplitude: 65% Label/Marketing: Red and blue with a ‘dug’ on the collar Would you buy it again? It’s not outside of the bounds of possibility
Beer rating
According to Emalt, the brewer had this to say about Old Bobby when it was launched: “Old Bobby is a beer brewed according to traditional English recipes. England is a country with a rich history of brewing, and British ales are known worldwide as an essential part of any good English pub,” said Lyudmila Yakushina, Brand Director, Licensed Beers, Low-Alcohol Beverages & Non-beer Brands at Baltika Breweries.
“Currently the only ales sold widely in Russia are expensive imported brands. Old Bobby Ale will be the first ale brewed in Russia in the best of British traditions and sold throughout the country,” she added. [03 November, 2010] Webpage cited: https://www.e-malt.com/mnewsasp/news.asp?Command=ArticleShow&ArticleID=18015
Wot other’s say [Comments on Old Bobby ale from the internet, unedited] 🤔I had the impression that it was as much an ale as Belfast is a stout. [Comment: Belfast is a stout, isn’t it?] 😊 Very flavorful beer, great drinkability, hop aroma is very volatile, disappearing quickly. The flavor is not very intense but pleasing and contributes to drinkability. [Comment: A satisfied customer.] 😐 A very good beer to drink, but it can’t be considered a benchmark within the style. It has a slightly hoppy aroma and a sweet taste with some strong woody notes and a slightly smoky hint. With a fleeting head, it’s a beer with good drinkability and nothing more. [Comment: Some would argue, but never a beer enthusiast, that this is all a beer is and all that it will ever be.]
Hats the way to do it! There are uniforms, but there’s nothing uniform at the Uniform Museum Restaurant
15 August 2026 -Trying it on at the Uniform Museum Restaurant Kaliningrad
What is it about hats that wants to make you plonk one on your head? Perhaps it’s because if you plonked one anywhere else, it might look suspicious.
Suffice it to say, when we owned a vintage warehouse, we had a lot of hats, and, of course, people tried them on. We didn’t mind that, as long as they were doing so with a real intent to buy. But some people came to the shop to try them on and try it on, simply because they wanted to take photos and selfies and stick them on social media. Very often, as they handled the genuine vintage merchandise, which they had no more intention of buying than I have of voting Labour, and may I say, handled it in a cavalier fashion, including the cavalier headgear, I felt as though I could stick one on them. Such was my annoyance that I could have very easily cast myself as the Basil Fawlty of the antiques world. Indeed, I am fairly certain there were some who believed I was.
Trying it on at the Uniform Museum Restaurant Kaliningrad
In Kaliningrad, where there is no shortage of one-off bars and restaurants, a quirky venue exists which resembles a giant wardrobe, hung with historical military uniforms and hats from bygone eras, allowing patrons, as they see fit, and even when they do not fit, to try on at their leisure. No Basil fawlty there!
Cunningly catering to the selfie and social media crowd, this dine, drink and dress-up emporium located on Gorkogo Street stands recessed from the thoroughfare, its large glass-fronted prospect belying the formal municipal image which people of a certain age freely ascribe to venues traditionally charged with the responsible task of curating, preserving and presenting the remnants of former epochs. I would say that its modern appearance works in an opposite way to mine, in that on the other side of purported modernity, when you become familiar with it, lies a sanctuary for the old and interesting, the curious and the antiquated.
Furthermore, in keeping with the adventurous proclivity exercised by today’s museums to fully embrace modernity, turning to all that interaction can bring to the minds of those that cannot live without it, the Uniform Museum Restaurant does not attempt to confine itself to merely encouraging admiration for selective obsolescence, which is something, for example, that Kaliningrad’s London Pub has got off to a fine art. By contrast, this unusual restaurant, because remember that this establishment is first and foremost a place to eat and drink and not a vintage clothes emporium, is an open invitation to see, touch and then try on any clothing that takes your fancy, be it any one specific garment or multiples thereof, which, for those whose lives are ruled by the constant need to nurture social media, is an opportunity made in heaven; nor is it one to be discouraged by the restaurant-bar itself should you naturally have the inclination when posting yourself in their attire to name the location that made it possible.
The number and the variety of uniforms on display combine to produce a rather staggering prop piece, and whilst, as one might not unreasonably expect, the majority of the uniforms are rooted in Russia’s Soviet past, interspersed among them, spanning several Soviet-era decades and covering all of its three main military services, together with law enforcement clothing, are equivalents fetched from further afield, from countries that spark the dealer’s question, “I wonder who they sourced those from?” This consideration makes for a quiet sport; convenient, pleasant and erudite in the distraction it affords, as you wait to receive your orders from the bar, which, unlike certain orders, are ones you will want to act upon with relish and with gusto.
As I was waiting for my beer to arrive at the table appointed for that purpose, my observations had yielded examples of various military uniforms pertaining to, I estimated, several different nations. The compulsion to leap out of one’s seat in defiance of the natural instinct to honour one’s drinking fidelity and to do so with an alacrity that might dangerously suggest one wasn’t nearly as old as the uniforms surrounding one, was not, for all its magnetism (bygone clothing has this effect), a powerful enough enticement to waylay enjoyment of the restaurant’s beer, arguably the best of which is brewed there on the premises. Forbearance in this matter was not induced by mind over matter but rather by what mattered most; as beer outranking the highest office projected by the most powerful uniforms mustered in that place commanded unstinting obedience and called for immediate respect. This was indeed a ceremony I honoured to its utmost, raising my hand several times in a dignified salute, which just happened in the process to have a tankard grasped within it.
The restaurant’s onsite brewery centres its craft on brewing beers Germanic in style and origin (Quick! Put that German helmet on! And now, just as quickly, take it off!) offering connoisseurs the loyalty incentive which a regular rotation of fine premium beers never fails to recruit.
I was slurping my way through one of these beers when some battered mushrooms and smoky cheese straws as limp as an evening without Viagra requisitioned my mouth, whilst other diners in my vicinity resourced the pleasure of choosing fare from a rather more substantial selection of European and Russian dishes or, staying strictly within the rigid framework of masculine convention, organised their eating campaign around a manly well-done steak or tactically mapped out a safer strategy by enlisting burgers and chips.
“Tell me,” a voice enquired, heavily tinged with exasperation, “do you ever eat a proper meal?” The gap from where the voice ensued was wrapped around the very thing that the adjective ‘proper’ qualified.
“Only when I do,” came my guarded reply, “but if I were wearing that suit of clothes –” I pointed my hand in such a way as to suggest the arrival of reinforcements, which, pursuant to my gesticulation, were at the bend of the stairs – “I’d do it 18th-century style. ” For that was my conclusion.
Trying it on at the Uniform Museum Restaurant Kaliningrad
Of all the garments arrayed that day in the Uniform Museum Restaurant (like many Russian names of restaurants, the translated version can be a bit of a mouthful), there was none among the myriad that recommended themselves more strongly than those that adorned the turn of the stairs, garments which, in their masterful cut and sparing no expense in the tailored art of procuring embellishment, were all that elegance could possibly wish for. And here we have reached a stage convenient in our encomium on the triumphs of a restaurant interior second only in bygone clothing to the renowned costumeries of Angels and Bermans’, where nothing can deter us longer from digressing into a proverb that will, I ardently promise you, return full circle in later paragraphs.
The proverb ‘Manners Maketh Man’ must surely, at the didactic level, a place where virtue and morality superintend its every attribute, be underwritten by the observation that the part played by sartorial elegance underscores the doctrine and, whenever elegance is commendable – and when feasibly can it not be? – attends to the spirit of that attainment that William of Wykeham most properly endorsed, his being the sort of opinion that one would expect from the Bishop of Winchester installed as such in the 14th century.
In today’s world, however, anywhere in that portion to which the conceit ‘developed’ can be pinned, clothes, and not just they alone, reflect our fall from grace; but the former in loss of style and finesse stands as our greatest reminder of the miserable depth to which relentlessly we are descending because visually clothes so boldly demonstrate how cattle-minded we have become.
Try to imagine, for example, how liberated you would feel if you caught yourself in the act of casting aside those ruddy awful, oh-so-ugly work-like pants hung with unsightly cargo pockets, or divesting yourself and your tortured image of that ‘Ee-mon!’ thuggish hoody, or burning those nasty cheap tracksuit bottoms, like those pitiful, sad, ill-advised and now quite droopy feminists did back in the 1960s, who were made to look so very daft by burning their bras in public; and you, having reclaimed yourself by shedding those awful clothes like the skin of the snake or the caterpillar, with an independence beyond your experience, attire yourself instead in such an elegant livery of bold exquisiteness as that depicted faithfully on the unassuming stairway wall of the Uniform Museum Restaurant. (See, I told you we’d get there in the end!)
UNIFORM MUSEUM RESTAURANT
… garments which, in their masterful cut and sparing no expense in the tailored art of procuring embellishment, were all that elegance could possibly wish for.
Imagine the dash you would cut, the Beau Brummell you would unfurl, and how, on a scale of 1 to 10, effectively transformed and influentially transformational, you and your image would become; better by far than any sex change, if not more controversial, the outcome of such a wardrobe shift would be marked with approbation, your own, of course, for yourself included.
On the feasibility of this exercise I leave you to ponder thoughtfully, examining the 18th-century styles that hang on the bend of the stairs, as, thinking it proper between pints, I venture now to reconnoitre the restaurant’s upper quarters with a wish to observe the scope and nature of the uniforms it holds and to assess the ambience that dwells therein.
To me, that is to say, to my particular way of thinking, which, I most humbly own, is not the way of everyone’s or, to tell the truth, of anyone I’ve met, the restaurant’s extensive room upstairs is a low-lit, smoochy, mood-infusing, clubby kind of a place, whose snob-screened and comfortable encompassing cushioned booth-style seats make the prospect of assignations an almost mandatory ritual, whether in your own mind you consider yourself to be one of a kind with Leslie Phillips, that is to say, an old-school romantic, or are one half of a typical pair of timeless canny canoodlers.
Both the ground and first floors of the Uniform Museum Bar in Kaliningrad are bathed in a uniform dimly lit style, which brings out the best, I feel, in drinking and dining ambience if liking it darker is your thing, whilst allowing the spotlights to do what they do at their most effective, which is to highlight and illuminate the thematicising principle donated by the vintage attire.
It would not be based on empirical science should I venture the suggestion that the upper echelons of this most eccentric, most unusual bar and restaurant are more replete with uniforms than its contemporaneous downstairs cousin’s; possibly yes, possibly no, but whatever the final reckoning, the amount of such is prodigious and wants for nothing in great variety; moreover, the lower ceilings of the upstairs room and the lowered lighting framing the spot-lit clothes lend something familiar to its character, which, I would bet my best cravat on, is akin to a boutique feel, as though the venue in its entirety would not be out of place should it be lifted and transported back to the days when Carnaby Street in London was incontestably chic, that is, back to the 1960s, before London became a migrant warehouse (I did mean ‘warehouse’, didn’t I?). This is an image also bolstered by hat stands full of hats – what else! – and where military visors in abundance are contrasted here and there with civilian and vernacular headwear, which, like those in the shop I used to own, immediately tempt you to pick them up and plonk them on your head. I said so, did I not, in the opening sprint of this post?
Trying it on at the Uniform Museum Restaurant Kaliningrad
I was most surprised, and may I say not only a little impressed, to find displayed among these hats a traditional British coppers’ helmet, one of those Noddy-like pointy things, sometimes called the ‘custodian’, which sadly Britain’s ‘bobbies’ wear less and less these days because life on the streets has become too dangerous and nothing short of a reinforced bucket, painted regulatory police force blue, would do the job intended of it.
It is only the second of these helmets that I have witnessed in Kaliningrad; the other is known to me, as it was the one I carried from England, circa 2007. I gave it as a present to artist Victor Ryabinin, later to be told by him, with a grin lighting up his face, that of all the many and interesting items dotted around his studio, the one that intrigued his art students most was the British policeman’s helmet.
But let us now put our helmet away and make that significant move from anecdotal reverie to ponder on the nitty-gritty that makes a restaurant and a bar, and, where they still exist, a UK public house, the particular place you think it is, and go there via our intuition with a word or two on personality.
The selection process by which we nominate any one person for membership to our private club of liking and appreciation, an individual whom, from the moment of introduction, stands unambiguously out from the crowd, is one that sifts computer-style through numerous character attributes, sometimes instantaneously, at others with measured deliberation but certainly decisively, all but for the exception of those who are wanting in judge of character, before approval can be stamped. Yet, deeper qualities notwithstanding, the mostly initial yet often sustaining credentials by which these fellows gain admittance to the inner circle of ourselves are defined intuitively and subjectively by that all-appealing influence that goes by the name of personality.
You may ask, or if you won’t, I may ask it for you: what is there that makes one place more memorable than the next, assuming that nothing too bizarre or rather out of the ordinary happens to exert a disproportionate influence over recall and reflection, be such as they are thought good or bad? What is it that attracts us to one particular bar and restaurant to the full and obliging extent that with the first visit now completed, we vow to return and do? The perceived quality of beer and food, of course, plays a major part, but there is never not at least something persuasively more in addition, the absolute magic ingredient, unless you are a cheapskate whose only seduction is less to pay, and that extension to delight is synonymous with, or no different to, our reaction to personality.
Personality, when ascribed to objects other than strictly human, is typically, generically and often loosely defined by the substitution of atmosphere. We often do not say that a venue has personality when, in actual fact, we do, for personality is what we mean when we talk of a somewhere or something which, according to our sentiments, is endowed with attractive, positive qualities to which we are receptive and of which our senses firmly approve.
An example here in Kaliningrad would be if I were asked to judge which of the two, the London Pub or the subject of this post, the Uniform Museum Restaurant, tops the personality league. And the winner, ladies and gentlemen, but only by a narrow margin and perhaps because the building itself is old, is to pull no punches or wriggle from under the clinch and to honour honesty without reservation none other than the London Pub.
The reasons for this evaluation are beyond the scope of this current post, but a word or two in explanation should make the distinction clear enough, for what the Uniform Museum Restaurant surrenders in personality to its charismatic competitor, apart from and including an excellent range of beers and, I am told, a competent menu, it more than advances positively with a gimmick that stamps its mark not casually, nor sufficiently, but with a lasting indelibility, like the backstamp on a fine piece of Minton, except that in this case, on the ledger of your memory.
By building itself around the theme of vintage military clothes, it guarantees by power of novelty, uncontested as the restaurant is by any Kaliningrad equal, a retentive, singular character trait more than considerably capable of rescuing its reputation from run-of-the-mill obscurity. This leitmotif of archived military clothing, which, when it is shared with others, both by word of mouth and inevitably via the techie-grapevine, will encourage those that learn of it and feel they are missing out to hurry along there double quick to try on those lovely tunics and hats. They may also, whilst they are doing this, purchase food and drink, thereby making the circuit complete.
And when you acknowledge the unholy alliance forged between the ubiquitous smartphone camera and social media’s inducive drug-like fix, linking that manipulation to the irresistible urge to bedeck oneself with vintage clothes and to plonk on a vintage hat or two, which I did, mark my words, and with no less care for restraint than I appear to have for hypocrisy, then Wallah! Look no further! Your restaurant-bar has a winning formula.
Of course, the litmus test for any bar or restaurant worth its weight in food and beer is, after having drunk and dined there, will you recall the holistic event as one of quality and with affection, and will you have the will, or even better, a great desire, to make yourself no stranger to the venue? If the answer to both is ‘yes,’ and recommendation by word of mouth asserts itself with no hesitation or obstructive second thought, then all the right boxes have been ticked. Apropos of which, I think we can let on here that the Uniform Museum Restaurant has all the vital boxes covered and has therefore lost little of that which otherwise could exert itself to impactful lasting detriment; its only concern, maybe, is that the presence of all those vintage clothes, should this review be appraised by moths, attract the opposite of the right clientele, the sort of clientele that any keeper of ancient textiles would rather do without. About which I am able to speak with no less of a lot of authority, having, as I undertook to mention in this wise post’s prologue, been once the proud and insufferable owner of a vintage clothes emporium. So, that is where we’re going to leave it now: trying them on, taking them off, and generally enjoying the food and beer at the Uniform Museum Restaurant, Gorkogo Street, Kaliningrad.
Vital Statistics
Uniform Museum Restaurant 150a Gorkogo St, Kaliningrad 236029 Russia
Tel: +7 963 350-73-09
Opening times Monday to Thursday: 12pm to 12 midnight Fri, Sat and Sunday: 12pm to 1am
Food – International Cuisine German, European, Russian, Eastern European, Ukrainian
29 July 2026 – Racists in the UK! Tips for Barmaids on How to Do Their Job
The images in this post have been generated using artificial intelligence and are intended for illustrative purposes only. None of the visuals imply any real-world endorsement, affiliation, or association with any specific product, brand, or entity. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), places, or events is purely coincidental.
[Posted in category Mick Hart’s Diary 2026]
In case you haven’t noticed or are a liberal lefty in lefty denial, there is, in the UK today, a severe and palpable sense of racially aggravated unease among the rightful heirs of our British heritage. Failed socially engineered multiculturalism, the daily arrival of ‘boat people’ flooding with open government arms into blighted Britain, high-profile racially motivated vicious crimes where the victim is almost exclusively white, a tension that is tangible and alleged two-tier policing are polarising the political spectrum into those who crave more woke and migrants and those who never asked for either and feel they could do quite well without.
Our esteemed former prime minister, the man who everybody likes to dislike, even by those of his own kind, who, in spite of loss of support, including from those in his own party, refused to take the glaring hint and would not pack his bags and go until he was given the royal arse-boot, was too busy during his time in office posing for cheesy, smarmy photos with Ukraine’s converted comedian, the ubiquitous Mr Zelensky, rather than do what Britons demand and ultimately deserve, which is to tackle the immigrant crisis.
Any hope that the new Labour hopeful, Andrew ‘call me Andy’ Burnham, and his newly elected cabinet (bye-bye, Mr Lammy) will apply themselves to this existential problem is not a hope that we should cling to. As long as the old two past-it parties continue to be voted in by the stuck-in-their-ways, heads-up-their-arses, gormless British electorate, the streets of Britain will grow more dangerous, and our towns and cities will become, as many are already, the unrecognizably menacing places that the prophet Enoch Powell predicted all those years ago.
Meanwhile, as Andy Burnham and his Labour cohorts celebrate accession into the breach, a little-known chain of public houses, once celebrated for common sense, seem bent on repositioning themselves as number one in the woke parade.
Racists in the UK! Tips for Barmaids on How to Do Their Job
A few weeks ago, I ventured out for a pint at my friend’s local WokeForkers. It was that evening on the day of the week when I expected the pub to be quiet, which, indeed, it initially was, little knowing, however, that the latest roster of bar staff (these pubs seem to change their bar staff faster than I can change my underpants – old proverb, every gusset has a suspect lining) had just emerged from company training, from which, and I kid you not, not one of the dunces or dullards had mastered the art of anything, least of all, I warrant, the essential public relations skills which, for as long as hospitality has existed, have always been first and foremost for running a pub successfully.
This, however, was not the least among their greatest disadvantages, although the one begets the other, for they were also of that dismal generation, which, duly processed, packed and prepared by the corporate liberal sausage factory, the British education system, programmes the poor unfortunate wretches for a life of second-class citizenship, making them fat between the ears, ready for the country’s future, which many pundits see as comparable to a slaughterhouse.
I have no idea, do you, where some pubs get their staff from? They seem, by their dour expressions, surly, disinterested ways and chip-on-the-shoulder attitudes, as if, like Zelensky’s army, they have been dragged off from the streets. Whatever it is they teach them at Pub Mismanagement School, devotion to duty isn’t it, neither are the principal tenets required of the hospitality trade, such as amiability, affability, congeniality and conviviality, and above all and most importantly, the indisputable golden rule that customers should at all times be treated with respect – as the customers are those very people who, by putting their money over the bar, pay the barmaids’ wages.
Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that most of the staff are female, and those who aren’t are not much different, for even those whose gender poses difficult questions look and act as though every moment is a hormonal crisis. It only goes to show that in any mismanaged democracy, you need to be extremely careful who you give the vote to, let alone give them leave to stand mardy and daft behind the bar as if the menopause arriving early has turned off the smile along with the taps and all they are waiting to do is call ‘last orders’. Now, don’t call me sexist! Like the WokeForker’s staff who earole everyone, I am merely repeating what I heard someone say at a table whose conversation was personal, private and had nothing to do with me whatsoever. {The opinions in this post are not necessarily those of the person you might think I am.}
On the drinking night in question, the night I had anticipated would be pleasantly quiet, the one thing I had not bargained for was a themed evening revolving around “You can’t say that; it’s racist?”
Tips for Barmaids on How to Do Their Job
Now this particular pub in Wellsford Garden City stands at a junction with Ethnic Street. And one of the reasons I like to drink there is that by sitting next to the windows, you can watch the world, such as it is or as it has sadly become, go by, whilst wishing it would go away. How much nicer it would be to gaze through those same windows and see on the other side of them Britain as it used to be before the migrant invasion (a cluster of wistful, heartfelt sighs!).
“You’re not supposed to say that!”
“I know. It’s a bugger, isn’t it.”
Psychologist, psychiatrist, anthropologist, social historian, time traveller, circus trainer, zookeeper, most emphatically zookeeper, but anyone, in fact, who is seeking a snapshot of UK life can get it from one of these window seats, and once you are over the shock of it – to do this takes two or three visits – the spectacle unfolding is almost as freakishly entertaining as it is distressing. We’ll say no more of that. Ungird your loins, as most of them do, and go and see for yourselves.
On the evening when my account took place, we had not long taken temporary residence in these very seats, which look out onto the madness at which I have hinted, when, flying around the corner on two wheels, like something out of an ancient Sweeney episode or a cartoon from the 1960s, came a cop car at full tilt.
Something serious must have occurred, but what? Had someone been making mean tweets on his phone? Had an act of terrorism taken place that urgently needed to be hushed up in the interests of ‘race relations’? Was the High Street under siege by a terrifying far-right rally attended by two old grannies; a woman who dared to call herself that; and a moved-from-Rochdale (quickly) choirboy who, whilst not yet supporting Labour, might be trained to do so when he’s given the vote at the age of 13? (Roll up! Roll up! Here exclusively in the UK, Labour’s young performing poodles!) But no, we were wrong on every count. Whatever it was that had kicked off, it was here, among us, at WokeForkers, whose highly intelligent bar staff had gone and called the old bill.
The marauding cop car screamed to a halt, as they so dramatically do in 1940s black-and-white films (careful what you say there!), and seconds later in they marched – two of Britain’s finest: one with a head that was really quite bald and the other wearing his colleague’s toupee, which, dislodged when the driver hit the brakes, had landed on his chin, lending him the appearance of the Wild Man from Borneo, which I suppose must mean he lives in Luton.
AI-generated image
As we were sitting miles away from the bar (it’s a prudent thing to do, out of earshot of the WokeForkers’ Stasi), we couldn’t at all make out what was going on, but we knew that it must be serious, for why else would the police have been called?
After a full ten minutes in which nothing happened at all, a tall gent, foreign-looking, wearing what looked like a Chinese face and carrying a populist tote bag (it had a Union Jack on its side) marched defiantly, with no police escort, as though he were guilty of nowt, apart from the tartan kilt he was wearing, across the space of the room and disappeared onto the street.
You would have thought that being let off by our more than lenient British policemen (well, I said that he was foreign-looking, or he would have been arrested), the accursed fiend would have counted his blessings and made himself particularly scarce, but this he did not do. No sooner had he exited than he was spotted by one of our party eating apples near the pub’s back door. Eating apples! Near the pub’s back door!!!! His unacceptable presence must have been detected by one of WokeForkers’ ever-vigilant CCTV installations (for if ever a street was in need of a camera, then Ethnic Street is it), as moments later, the dynamic duo – Baldy booby and Beardy bobby – were out there on the street giving the culprit a piece of their minds, which he, the ungrateful recipient, looked as though he neither wanted nor knew what use he could put them to.
At this point in time, we had not the faintest idea what it was that had gone down, so naturally we were all of a mind, “Well done, those boys in blue; it’s best you move him on!” The truth of the matter is, however, that this extremely dangerous man, for what else could he be, tried himself three or four times to move by his own volition, but whenever he made to walk away, the coppers were on him again.
Just as they, as a group, drew level with our viewing window, a female member of the establishment’s bar staff came to collect some empty glasses. Someone in our party asked her what the problem was. I think we were all expecting to hear a sorry tale of attempted murder – after all, it’s fast becoming a national pastime in Britain – but what we got instead was a sorry something else.
“Oh dear!” went the girl, her attitude and countenance struggling to contain the dreadful trauma she had just experienced. “He [the Chinese man in a kilt] was making racist remarks at the bar … saying things about !*!*… When I argued with him, he brought up the subject of !*!*and {here was the real big hit!} He mentioned Tommy Robinson!” At the uttering of Tommy Robinson’s name, she literally, physically shuddered, and I thought for a moment she would fade away like a latter-day Gothic heroine or crumple into insignificance like tomorrow’s and the next day’s and every edition before and after of that mamby-pamby left-wing pamphlet, now on the web, the Guardinistan.
“But he’s not a white bloke, is he?” one of our party asked, presuming by prescription that no one could be accused of racism unless they were unconditionally white.
We all peered out of the window to test the validity of this assertion: it was hard to tell just what the man was, standing there in his Chinese face, looking all Jock-like in his kilt and feverishly eating apples, but what he expressly wasn’t, or had no reason to look like, was a man that was guilty of anything more than not having chosen his pub too carefully.
“Oh yes, he is a white man,” returned the wilting maiden, in an emphatic tone of voice and a horridly fraught expression that clearly suggested he could be no other.
“But you have to admit that his eyes aren’t British and his complexion is …”
She peeped through the window alongside me: “I suppose he must have a suntan.”
What a lucky chap, I thought; he must have been somewhere nice, somewhere other than WokeForkers, as there certainly was a definite dearth of any sunshine here, or anywhere, for that matter, where sunshine is employed symbolically to reflect a happy cultural climate, the likes of which we no longer have in the Disunited Migrant Kingdom.
If the barmaid had expected a commiserative response from us, she would have been sorely disappointed, since we were all too busy trying to fathom why a racist comment, if indeed there had actually been one, and a verbal reference to Tommy Robinson (I always get his name mixed up with a certain lefty actor) justified the deployed resources and exceedingly precious time of not one but a brace of coppers – and they were not even hobby bobbies! – whose only contribution, from what we were able to discern, was a forty-minute ideological lecture.
At length, and quite a long length at that, the taken-to-task white imposter, for so he seemed to us, made his third or fourth attempt to quietly walk away, only to have himself recalled by yet another officer. Had someone mentioned Tommy again? They had brought in reinforcements!
Racists in the UK!
At this juncture, the harangued man was literally at a junction; he was standing on a traffic island in the middle of the road, and as he reserved his legal right not to return to the beckoning copper, Mr Plod-come-lately, who was rather of that group which included PCs Baldy and Beardy, the most pugnacious of the three, marched across the road to him, where the poor man duly received yet another remonstration.
This peculiar – and rational people might say – preposterous police procedural episode persisted for yet another twenty pointless finger-wagging minutes, with the man, who was no doubt ardently wishing he had gone anywhere else in the world but WokeForkers, standing, in every respect, head and shoulders above his inquisitors and responding to their pontifications in a cool, calm, and collected manner, giving, from what we could see, a lot better than what he was getting, as people do when knowing that by being in the right they have natural testimony on their side, finally, having had enough of it and not having lost his temper, as I suppose this is what the coppers wanted, waved his hands in tired conclusion and strode away in his riding-up kilt, his single man’s sack – full of apples – swinging in the breeze, like a man who had clearly won his argument and was off to a decent pub.
AI-generated image
The irony of the situation, as irony tends to lurk, don’t you think, around virtually every corner in life, like racist men in kilts armed with bags of apples, was that it wasn’t more than ten minutes after this extraordinary piece of theatre, which, according to our collective opinion, was a complete and utter waste of time, that I trekked off to the bar to replenish our party’s glasses.
The young barmaid behind the bar, who was entirely where you’d expect her to be, with a must-have ring thrust through her snout and her hair all dyed in a laughable colour, asked me what I wanted to drink. So far, so good, so proper, but I couldn’t quite make up my mind. WokeForkers sell mighty fine ales, unmatched, unfortunately, by their bar staff, and often one is spoiled for choice, which is sadly and far too commonly not the case with their bar staff.
It just so happened by a quirk of Time that a middle-aged chap had arrived at the bar contiguous with my own arrival, and with me being in full dither, he was given the option to order his beer ahead of me, but he, like me but for different reasons, was also finding the simple task of placing his order difficult due to the row from the TV set, which was showing a BBC broadcast of a gaggle of noisy migrants celebrating the short bus ride from the shores of Dover to a 5-star hotel.
He apologised to the barmaid for not being able to make himself heard: “I’m sorry,” he said, politely, “but some illegal migrants on the telly are talking rather loud.”
The barmaid immediately froze; her jaw shot down several metres like Frank Zappa’s Billy the Mountain’s; her ridiculous blue hair bristled; her face underwent a monstrous change, which wasn’t exactly a bad thing because it wasn’t particularly pleasant even in its ‘normal’ state, but now it appeared all bent and twisted as though savagely infected by a virulent dose of that plague exclusive to the liberal left called ‘outrage’ or was cast in a mask of tormented virtue like Hope not Hate’s at its most hypocritical.
“What did you say?!” she demanded.
I tried to prevent the middle-aged man from reiterating his previous utterance, for, being an expert on leftist ire, the motivation behind the question was all too plain to see: the harridan behind the bar was gunning for confrontation. But the inoffensive middle-aged chap, believing no ill in what he had said, merely repeated what he had said.
Those of you familiar with Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist will have no difficulty, I am sure, in recalling the manner in which Mr Bumble reacted when Oliver asked for more, and had our rancid barmaid been auditioning for Bumble’s part in the soap-operatic drama that she had taken upon herself to direct, I would recommend her before you could say, ‘Does she not know how to smile?’ but I wouldn’t employ her behind a bar for all the inflatable dinghies in France or all the beer at WokeForkers (OK, well even I can make concessions!)
With her hackles raised, which made her hair look dafter, and inconsolably rigid with outrage, she could hardly muster utterance, but when she retrieved her articulation, she suddenly cried out, “Racist! What you’ve said is racist!” and straightaway she was on it, like a chronic dose of the shits, calling loudly along the bar, “We’ve got a racist here!”
Immediately, in response to her wailing, a beanpole excuse for a man sporting a bun on his head, without an arse in his trousers and masquerading as something that was worth the space he occupied, lickety-splitted fast-like from the opposite end of the bar, where no doubt he had been lying in wait to pounce on the first errant customer (who, for public consumption, had to be white) for making racist remarks.
The female Mr Bumble reported her findings to him, and immediately he went from looking absolutely and totally gormless to adopting a posture of high alert, as if he needed his nappies changing and the only one he could trust with this task was wonderless woman the manager – well, lefties are known for their kinks. Not to dwell on that too much, a second racist in one evening had been unmasked at the WokeForkers’ bar! [Dramatic chords of music!]
The manager, female I think, but then I could be wrong, was on the scene like a butcher’s dog, but the amiable white middle-aged man, who was clearly racist because of this fact if not for any other, knowing what they were at, waved his hand contemptuously and with a rewarding complacent smile casually walked away, leaving his three would-be antagonists, all of whom he had made quite clear he wouldn’t touch with yours, which is to say, your resentment and anger, looking perfectly stupid. And one has to raise the question, could they look anything else?
AI-generated image
Left standing alone as I was, the dangling-in-the-wind manager had no one else, only me, to turn to, so rounding on me, it said, as if I really wanted to know, “Like every responsible pub, we adhere to a zero-tolerance policy.” Should I have been impressed? It sounded lame and weary.
I wanted to say it was a pity that we didn’t have a similar policy to stop the boats from flooding in as well as one to prevent the left from ethnically cleansing the white population and its sovereign culture, but I contented myself by thinking these things and tried to suppress a smirk as I said, with remarkable cheerfulness, “And what an effective policy it is to be sure (crikey, I was close to sounding Irish!), but as all I am trying to do is order a pint of beer, perhaps someone would be so kind as to take my order and serve me.” I almost had to shout to be heard as the illegal migrants on the telly were having such a raucous time here in dear old England that it sent a shiver of pride from the nape of my neck to my balls, er of my feet, and elsewhere throughout my body, or something of that persuasion, to acknowledge that I belonged to such a recklessly tolerant nation.
The immediate panic over, and the alarmist barmaid having returned from wherever she had scuttled off to fortify her troubled self with intakes of air and smelling salts, I promptly ordered my pint.
As she pushed the glass against the tap, it was then that she took her Marxist role just a little too far.
“I suppose you’re racist too?” she rasped.
Woke Watch UK!
Now call me old school or even old-fashioned, but in my long and illustrious career of supporting the British pub, I have had the belief instilled in me that barmaids are there to pull your pint, not to pull your chain.
The answer that I was ready to give was manifold, such as “Has your girlfriend left you? Is it the wrong time of the month? Or don’t you know what gender you are?” But I knew that she was goading me, so the compliant answer given was, “Yes, of course I am; I’m a white English male; how could I be anything else but racist? ” But then I went on to correct her, saying that I am not a racist; I am a realist, and that, whilst the words have a similar ring to them, there’s a world of difference between the two, and it is only the left who confuse them because it suits their divisive agenda.
Having failed to elicit the response that she was so keenly after and not knowing what further to do to advance her cunning plan, from then on she shut her trap and did what she was paid to do – poured the pint and took the money.
Racists in the UK! Tips for Barmaids on How to Do Their Job
Now, you may be thinking, and rightly so, that all that I have related is a silly storm in a teacup, and in this you would be right; in itself, it is. But when you collate these issues — a ‘zero tolerance policy’, which works like a one-way street; an almost hysterical urge by giddy-headed girly staff to adopt the role of brain police rather than confine themselves to what they are paid to do, ie take your order and pull your pint; the praises sung of ethnic enrichment, in tones of a drugged-up parrot, when nothing could be further and more nauseatingly far from the truth; and the programmed decrying of racism aimed at native Britons living quietly in their own country, because it is their country and because it is their heritage, and they would like to keep it that way – when all these factors are added together, rollocks! A piece of general advice would be that people that work in pubs should do the job they are paid to do and never stick their oar in. Comprehendi lefties?
Should, dear reader, in spite of the evidence that I have laid before you, an element of doubt yet persist, then ask yourself the following: Did an alleged racist comment by a man in a kilt with a bag of apples standing at WokeForkers’ bar warrant the intervention of not one, not two but three police officers? Did the chap who stood at the bar and wryly referred to the noisy migrants deserve the reaction he received from the neurotically troubled barmaid? And wasn’t it, don’t you think, just a little bit on the impudent side, not to mention provocative, when the lowly underpaid serving wench overstepped her mark by calling me out as racist (not that he gives a f*ck, shouts an inconsiderate heckler) when all I had said and done was order a pint of beer?
A week or so in the aftermath of that evening of entertainment, how dire the weather was for June inserted itself, as weather does in English conversations, during a chat between yours truly and a stranger in a pub, which was not, I hasten to add, WokeForkers’, for you have to be careful, very careful what you say in there!
“Considering how vile the weather has been of late,” said I, “the UK has to be the last country on earth where you’d want to be faced with extortionate fees for gas and electric heating.”
Quickly the man addressed replied that these are not the only things that are wrong with this country today, and discovering from that moment forward that we were mutual travellers not only in kind but also in destination, off we went down the bumpy road on route to collapsing Britain, stopping off on the way at the cultural climate of fear engendered by accusations of racism and what it did for a man called Nowak; the knife-wielding migrant butcher prowling the streets of Belfast; the ethnic-obsessed two-tier cop shop; tragic Southport; indefensible Rochdale; and the saddo younger generation, whom our pied piper politicians are leading up the garden path and tossing over Culture Loss Cliff. We also took a detour to reflect upon the situation of an authoritarian incumbent PM, whom, no matter how many want him out, simply won’t F Off!* Naturally, when we had gotten to where we knew our journey would take us, which was around and around and around in circles, I apprised my fellow traveller about the ‘spot the racist night’, hosted by Wellford’s WokeForkers.
“Civil war,” is coming, he said, solemnly shaking his head. “Everyone you talk to is thinking and saying the same.”
One cannot deny the uneasy feeling that the hands on the doomsday clock identified by Elon Musk are moving inexorably closer to that retributive midnight hour.
Close the curtains, bolt the doors and turn the television on for a counter-intuitive narrative, if that’s the only defence you have against what is lurking out there on the streets, but confront, do not avoid, those disturbing images of the migrant boats as they keep flooding in, and if anyone calls you racist when you speak your mind, remember what terrors silence will bring and wear your antagonists’ failed agenda as you would wear a badge of honour.
How will it all end, you ask? “Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”
* He’s gone, and the panacea replacing him is ‘Nice to see me being nice’, good old Andy Burnham. What are you going to do about violence on the streets, Andy, the steamrolling immigration problem, and the boats flooding into Dover? Are we ever going to get a PM who is brave enough to grow a pair and save us from extinction, or are our PMs and our much-maligned country forever doomed to be controlled by pseudo-liberal globalists?
PS: If you are planning on getting stabbed in the not-too-distant future, you could do a lot worse and be a lot more stupid by doing it in Manchester, since ‘news just in’ informs us that in selected parts of the city, wall-mounted ‘bleed kits’ are being installed. How reassuring is that! Who needs law and order when you’ve got a political plaster?
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller, knocking at the moonlit door’
‘No!’ was the answer from Number 10. At least no one here who will or dares to give you the answer you’re looking for.
It holds a special place in my memory, for in a brief snapshot, a split second in time, it captures one of Victor’s most endearing character traits, that admirable part of his personality which demonstrates his ability to play down adversity and take everything in his stride.
Victor Ryabinin Artist: a man who continues to inspire
Staying with my recent focus on the small, Baltic coastal resort of Otradnoye, the aforementioned photograph was taken on Otradnoye Beach in January 2005, following an unseasonably wet November and December.
The high earthen banks skirting Otradnoye beach had, after two months of nigh-incessant rain, sunk sponge-like into themselves, and the underlying soil erosion, together with high winds, had, by the dual action of undermining and invisible climatic battering, caused the banks to slip and the trees to break and splinter. In the worst scenario, entire trees had been brought out by their roots, and those not already strewn across the beach were stumbling like a drunken orgy to join the ones that had.
Victor Ryabinin Artist: a man who continues to inspire
Somehow, our gallant little group, consisting of Victor, Olga, Olga’s son Daniel, myself and an English friend called Barry, had descended to the beach by way of the crumbling banks. Our walk from Svetlogorsk had been a dicey one, rain-soaked and windswept, alleviated only by a planned excursion to Brachert House Museum. Now, standing on the beach, ready to take that iconic picture, although the wind had dropped a little, the rain was with us again.
Whilst I huddled up in my totally inappropriate London city overcoat, which, being made of pure new wool, would, by the end of the day, thanks to the teeming rain, be twice as heavy as when I had taken it from the wardrobe, Victor, demonstrating typical nonchalance, lowered his umbrella. And that’s the spirit in which I knew him and also how I remember him. For all I know, he may have been privately carrying all the cares in the world on his shoulders, but if such had been the case, he certainly never showed it.
It is true his symbolist art betrayed a tormented sensibility. It had been with him since his childhood and was the driving force behind his work. Victor sometimes hinted that he was locked within an eternal struggle, with haunting apparitions of the ruins in which he had been born and the echo of the city’s suffering ringing in his ears. Growing up in this traumatised environment, his gentle disposition and vulnerable romanticism experienced at first-hand the slow, grinding metamorphosis from scarred and bombed-out shell to modern-thriving urban centre, but the world beyond which shaped his city never left his heart.
I sometimes felt this pain and made it mine, but for me it was but a fleeting impression, not something forged across a lifetime. I could drop the catch, whilst he could not, or give it back whenever I chose, or so I erroneously told myself, whereas for him his only escape, albeit one which spiralled inwards, was through consultation with his muse and by working daily through his recollections on the level of social history. However, if this had been his mortal lot, he rarely ever showed it. To us, he was always and forever a pennies-from-heaven man, holding aloft his open umbrella, a twinkle in his philosophical eye and a smile upon his kindly face, skipping over the Kaliningrad potholes and singing in the rain.
There is music in his memory, and I am privileged that it comes back to me almost every single day.
^Why is that man carrying that dog? That’s a good question. Because he was convinced that it was a stray. So, he carried it for a mile or more along a narrow and winding seawall, and when he put it down, the ‘rescued’ dog trotted calmly away up and over the bank and presumably went home.
Restored breweries should brew and purvey craft beers. Polessk Brewery does.
7 July 2026 – Polessk Brewery: Revisited in the autumn of 2025
POLESSK BREWERY, formerly the Albert Blankenstein Brewery, founded in 1840, is no small building, so, not surprisingly, the renovation project on which I expatiated in a post entitled Restoring the Polessk Brewery (2021) is still ongoing. During autumn past, I took time out to revisit this splendid neo-Gothic monolith, whose social and economic significance and, more to the point, the nature of the products that it historically purveys – and here we are talking beer – conjoined with its architectural style, have everything going for them that appreciation could desire.
Prior encounters, of which I believe there were three, were either undertaken in summer, the height of the tourist season, or coincided with special events, so it felt rather odd but no less fascinating to venture to this exotic place in an out-of-season capacity when other mortals were busy elsewhere, doing what, I have no idea, when they could, like me, have been up to something not without validity, such as supporting their local brewery by toasting its venerable history with beer once again brewed on its premises.
The feature image shows the Albert Blankenstein Brewery reproduced in postcard format during its turn-of-the-20th-century heyday. Comparisons of this view taken from the front of the brewery can be made with the photographs taken by us of the restorative process as it appeared in 2021: see Restoring the Polessk Brewery.
It did not bother me a jot, on completing the flight of stairs and making an entrance into what is effectively the brewery’s main reception hall, that apart from Olga and me, the only other evident person was the young chap behind the bar. Ye who are acquainted with my predilections and lifelong habits will not need me to tell you that the motive for this reprisal, I am not ashamed to say, was to ascertain if the worthy project had remained true to its stated trajectory and was now, as in days of old, brewing and selling beer again, in which regard I am pleased to disclose I could not have been more delighted.
Albeit a little early in the day for a wise and sensible man like me to initiate imbibing, as there was no one else to do it for me, it would have been rude, as the saying goes, had I deferred for the sake of propriety an act that seemed unconditionally proper in contrast to the alternative, which would have been to observe misguidedly a churlish point of temperance. Besides, the day it was rather cold, so what could be more appropriate than warming it up with a chilled glass of beer?
Barrels and what have you. What could be more natural?
Mick Hart, enjoying history at the Polessk Brewery.
Mick Hart reflects on good beer at Polessk Brewery.
Just one of many rooms in this capacious brewery!
They’ve spelled “beer” incorrectly, but we know what it is.
Wholesome and natural, that’s beer for you.
If it was for sale, I would have bought it.
Highly decorated traditional German beer bottles.
Girders and traditional wooden beer casks – a fine sight indeed!
Polessk Brewery: Revisited in the autumn of 2025
As there was no one to compete with, which meant that we had the unbridled run of the place, there was ample space and opportunity for getting reacquainted with this fine old building’s history, aided and abetted to no unexceptional extent by its superb exhibition graphics and many excellent didactic panels, and all the while enjoying in their various appointed places scattered memorabilia of assorted brewing shapes and kinds, all of which, in their obsolescence, were glorious and engaging. The fact that this educational as well as recreational tour can be undertaken, as it should, whilst indulging in the very product on which the 19th-century brewing plant had built its reputation enhances and consolidates the overall experience
Indeed, whilst indulging in absorption, I was so absorbed by industrial history that I bought two litre bottles of the end result to take away for further contemplation, as there was little doubt in my mind to instigate the contrary that I would not give them my best attention later that evening at home. And on this score, I could hardly have been more accurate than if history yearned to prove to me that it does indeed repeat itself, as we are frequently led to believe it does by those who know better than you and I. An exotic doctrine, to be sure! But perfectly acceptable if the space or place prescribed by history to which we must return is one we are ready to vouch for and one that is worth revisiting, and here we need to introduce that unequivocal asseveration that the Polessk Brewery has worked so hard for and which, therefore, it so richly deserves. Praise where praise is due: Raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen; let’s drink to the brewery’s continued success!
Revised 30 June 2026 | First published 16 November 2024 ~Is the Poland-Kaliningrad Border Open Yes But?
Update: Since first writing this post and revising it, I have passed through the Poland-Kaliningrad borders a number of times. Much has remained the same, except on the last occasion I travelled, the Polish were no longer hopping on the bus and taking photographs of each and every person with a hand-held camera. However, it is still necessary to have your mugshot scanned when you produce your documents at border control.
The other change, again at the Polish border, is that both travelling into and out of Kaliningrad, we were made to cart our luggage into the border control office and have that scanned, too. This is a new one, as border security used to check the baggage randomly by peeping into the hold underneath the bus.
Having your baggage scanned is no great shakes, as long as you haven’t got a bootlegging and tobacco-import fetish, as the Polish are hot on the alcohol and fags trail. However, the building into which you have to traipse to have your credentials and yourself gawped at is up a short, but rather steep, flight of steps, so stand by to struggle and curse as you drag your heavy luggage, like the Grand Old Duke of York, up to the scanner and down again. There are some who say that borders border on insanity and others who would reply, “Where would we be without them!” I’m saying nothing; just my rank and serial number.
The answer to the question is ‘yes’. Yes, it is possible to access Kaliningrad via the Polish-Kaliningrad border and vice versa. The only caveat is that before you go, stock up on patience.
In the not-too-distant past, the bus from Kaliningrad going to Gdansk was held up at the Polish border for as long as it took to miss a flight at Gdansk – seven hours, in fact. Whilst this particular case may be the exception to the rule, lengthy delays are not, and in response to this and other inconveniences generally assumed unnecessary, and some infer deliberately obstructive, a petition has been launched, which you, dear reader, can access here. Against the intolerable conditions on the Russian-Polish border (Kaliningrad)! {Note: to read this in English, you will need to click on ‘Translate’ and change the language from German.}
Is the Poland-Kaliningrad Border Open Yes But?
Not all border crossings are as bad as the last one you experienced, but some can sometimes be worse, and some can be worse but interesting. For example, take a crossing I made in 2024.
We cleared the formalities at the Russian border without let or hindrance and trundled off with great expectations, fifteen of us in all, onto Polish territory.
There were no other vehicles in transit, only our bus, and the usual procedures went smoothly enough. We were gawped at, our credentials were examined, we had our mugshots taken (again!) and, after 30 minutes, we were back on the bus.
We took our seats, brum, brum (that’s the sound of the bus starting up), and off we merrily went.
Traditionally, it is at this point of the journey when, with the inquisition over, the invisible stays shared by all release themselves collectively, letting relaxation spill palpably out in a sigh-giving rush of relief. The advent of this liberation is customarily celebrated by proper professional travellers in possession of proper professional travelling cases with a dignified mass unzipping, whilst those of us who own neither dignified travelling cases nor commendable travelling standards have to be content with rustling through our carrier bags. The end result is the same, however. Having given stress the elbow, it’s time for comfort eating.
Is the Poland-Kaliningrad Border Open?
I had just begun to tuck into my penultimate hummus and tomato sandwich when, ay up, mother! What’s going on? Instead of hitting the open road, our bus was being syphoned off into a fenced and gated compound.
“Ay up?” I thought again. Well, you would think that, wouldn’t you.
I cannot say for certain whether it was my fault or not. Perhaps I want to believe it was for the sake of an impudent ego. But the question kept repeating itself: were we locked inside this compound, sitting motionless inside our bus in front of this big, this bland, this ominous, this nondescript and bureaucratic building because of something I had said?
When the clam-faced female within the Polish border office had fired the question at me, “Cigarettes and alcohol?”, my facetious reply had been, “Yes please?” And then when she did not get the joke (what joke exactly would that be?) and barked the question again, I had waved it away with an Englishness, simpering yet polite, which Leslie Phillips would have been proud of, but possibly she was not.
Cigarettes? Alcohol? Never touch the stuff!!
Whoever was or was not to blame, there we sat on the bus, and we sat there for a bad 10 minutes, us and this dull, brick, windowless building, facing each other down, one with complete contempt, the other suggesting complete containment.
Is the Poland-Kaliningrad Border Open Yes But?
There was something about our situation and the building that confronted us that nudged my idling imagination into the realms of the deep mischievous. That sign at the compound’s entrance, did it really say ‘Work sets you free’? I am glad to say it didn’t. But what exactly did it mean, this reference to a ‘Revision Centre’?
The bland building was giving nothing away. Indeed, there is not much more to say about its external aspect, except that high upon the roof it had a prominent funnel-shaped air vent.
I could not see anything clearly, as the sun was in my eyes, but I am almost willing to swear on anything other than a stack of beer bottles that for one second I saw, or bore the conviction that I saw, poised at the mouth of the air vent, the shadows of two men. They were crouching down at the sides of the vent, leaning in towards it, and each had something in their hands, something that looked like canisters. I had just begun to focus on the containers’ labels when a shard of light leaping out of the sun temporarily blinded me. Through the eclipsing halo that ensued, and with the bus now moving in reverse and distorting my perspective, the words on the label were reduced to a blur, and all that I could make of them was a capital ‘Z’ at one end and a capital ‘B’ at the other.
Our bus had not entered the building by the floor-to-apex roller door in front of which we had initially parked. It had taxied around to the back of the building, where it slowly disappeared through a similar portal at that end. Creeping at a snail’s pace, it inched its way gradually in, permitting me to regard at will the character of the chamber into which we were being swallowed. We were saying goodbye to the outside world, but one hoped it was temporarily.
We were passing into an alley, just the right width for the size of the bus. To the left of us was a platform, solid, broad and deep, not unlike one you would loiter upon whilst waiting for a train. It was not the height of the vehicle’s windows but fell just a little below it.
At the back of this platform at regular intervals were two or three large doors. They were big doors, metal doors, with handles of such prodigious proportions that the only way to open them would surely be to enlist the brawn of two thick Polish men with arms that did not fit. In a corner close by the doors stood a bag that seemed familiar. It looked like one I had seen before on the lorry of KG Smith & Son, Northamptonshire’s premiere coal merchants.
Until now the bus had been trickling forward, but it suddenly drew to a shuddering halt. The driver got up from his seat, made an announcement I did not catch and opened the doors of the vehicle. Before you could say Polish sausage, especially before you could say it in Polish, a man in paramilitary uniform had bounded up the steps and, standing at the front of the bus, all officious-like ~ did I hear someone say ‘full of piss and importance’? ~ was presumably ordering us all to get off. Simultaneously, a larger man armed with a big black dog had stationed himself strategically next to the door at the side of the bus, from which the young and old, singles and couples, some with children, some without, two or three middle-aged gents and a peculiar sort of Englishman with a grey and straggly beard were struggling to alight, laden down as they uncomfortably were with their assortment of bags and chattels.
The platform to which this innocuous group had descended was considerably narrower than that on the opposite side. Folk were bumping into each other as, ‘Roust! Roust! Schnell! Schnell!’, they were ordered to take their travelling bags from the hold beneath the bus.
Nobody seemed quite to know what it was that was expected of them. A big, as in overweight, man, looking not unlike Hermann Göring – perhaps it was his time-travelled brother – had already started rummaging through one of the passenger’s bags. He had the bag perched on a table placed at the side of the wall and was going through the contents as if he was pulling the entrails out of a late-for-Christmas turkey. He looked much more like a TV villain or an officer from the Guesswho than a man who ought to be showing respect to the public he was frisking.
Hermann’s brother had a very loud voice, which he used to good effect. Stopping in mid-rummage, with his hands inside some lady’s lingerie, he bellowed, “Form a queue!” at the meek, the innocent and the inoffensive, over whom he lauded ultimate power and whose only crime today was that they wanted to get from A to B. Obediently, one by one, they fell silently into line.
During this demonstration of ‘I’m a man in a uniform, so you’d better do as I say!’, two other guards had joined the jamboree: a flint-eyed woman in a boiler suit spoilt only by its insignia and one of those strutting cockerel types: ‘I’ve got tattoos on my neck, and I’ve come to throw my weight about’.
And now the carnival commenced in earnest: The man who had the sniffer dog was sniffing; the cockerel was in and out of the bus as if someone had knocked him off his perch. The flint-eyed thing was glaring. ‘Look at those eyes! Those eyes! Those eyes!’; and the mountain man with a skinhead haircut who went by the name of Hermann’s Brother was rifling through one’s personals as if he were mixing cement.
His brawny arms were in there, his paddle hands a-swirling. He had obviously learnt his cultured trade from washing his pants in a tub.
Fortunately for me, no such ignominy would besmirch my person. I was, as they say, travelling light. I only had a carrier bag, in which I had placed my laptop and the sad remains of a pack-up meal prepared for me by my wife.
Most of what had been packed for me, I had already scoffed. All that remained was a lonely sandwich, lolling half in and half out of one of those flimsy, thin plastic boxes routinely used in supermarkets for the display and sale of cakes.
Although I was not in the least bit hungry, having eaten just minutes before, the thought of the Polish strangler rinsing his mitts about my sandwich spurred me into action. Better to eat the sandwich now than have it used like a paper towel hanging next to the gents’ urinals. The problem was that Fatty Arms was getting through those bags like Joe Stink from the Secret Service, and the combination of hummus and bread not being the easiest thing to masticate resulted in a situation of alarming prematurity, an unfortunate occurrence whenever it chooses to strike and one not entirely limited to such incidental matters as love, proposals, life and death but also, or so it would seem, during the crucial business of crossing borders.
Thus, when the big you-know-what turned to me and barked, “Cigarettes? Alcohol?”, it was an effort of no small magnitude for me to reply, “Yes please.”
He glared at me contemptuously – well, can you blame him, really? – and pulling his girt big shoulders back in a show of manly authority (he had done the same with the 80-year-old standing frail and tired in front of me), said slowly and precisely, “We will wait until you have stopped eating, then you and I will talk!”
“Oh, really, what about?” I spluttered, choking on my sandwich. “The weather? Football? Religion? Politics? ~ Er, no, anything but politics.”
The sandwich safely swallowed, he sang the refrain again: “Cigarettes?” and “Alcohol?”
Do you know what I think? I think that he was asking me whether I had the aforenamed items concealed about my person or stashed inside my laptop. When I answered in the negative, first he looked suspicious, then profoundly disappointed.
I took a swig of mineral water. He probably thought the alcohol was hidden in that bottle ~ as if! ~ and that I had hurriedly eaten the illicit cigarettes between two slices of bread. Whatever it was he didn’t know, and I think it was a lot, he was not a happy man, which is hardly surprising really, looking and acting the way he did. But he wasn’t finished yet.
Furtively, he glanced down, looking at my little one – at the little bag that I was carrying – and a tiny ray of hope shone briefly through his cold pork pies, though it was tinged with disbelief by the answer he anticipated but did not want to hear.
“No big baggage?” he asked.
I could, of course, have just said ‘no’, thus putting him out of his misery, but Bernard Manning answered for me, “Just the wife,” said Bernard, “and she’s at home at present.”
Hermann Rummage pursed his lips, shuffled, scowled and then dismissed me. The interrogation over, I climbed back onto the bus.
Ten minutes after my ascension and with no contraband having been found, we were out on the open road again, steaming towards Gdansk: the young and the old, singles and couples – some with children, some without – two or three middle-aged gents and a peculiar sort of Englishman with a grey and straggly beard.
Those lovely chaps at the Polish border, I mused, stood a greater chance of finding a rational thought in a liberal’s head than illicit fags and booze on the God-fearing lot inside this bus, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it. Who of us can say with any degree of certainty what goes on in the cranky minds of liberals?
Yet the trees were green, the sky was blue, and every cloud has a silver lining: after all, we hadn’t been gassed, just inconvenienced and harassed.
It was just another sourpuss day at Checkpoint Proper Charlie.
