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Стас Калининград Кенигсберг Гид

Умер Калининградский Кенигсбергский Гид Стас

Потеря незаменимого друга

Опубликовано: 3 декабря 2020 г.  

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.

Copyright © 2018-2021 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

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Stas Kaliningrad Königsberg Guide

Stas Kaliningrad Königsberg Guide has Died

The loss of an indispensable friend

Published: 2 December 2020

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.

In recognition of this, I had Stas write a brief biographical account of his work and life, including his longstanding association with Victor Ryabinin, and included it, along with references to his tour guide practice, in the permanent pages of this blog, under the ‘Victor Ryabinin Königsberg’ heading.

Stas Kaliningrad Königsberg Guide

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

Stas Kaliningrad Königsberg  Tour Guide ~ links to his videos

Copyright © 2018-2021 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Getting around Kaliningrad. A montage of public transport, including Mick Hart on modern tram.

Getting Around Kaliningrad: Public Transport & Travel Guide

How to Use Public Transport and Get Around Kaliningrad Like a Seasoned Expat

1 November 2026 – Getting Around Kaliningrad: Public Transport & Travel Guide

Doddle. That’s what it is. Getting around Kaliningrad. Public transport, comprising as it does of an amalgamation of regular-sized buses, mini-buses, trolleybuses and trams, gets you where you want to go efficiently and, depending upon the level of traffic, in as rapid a time as you could wish for.

Getting Around Kaliningrad: Sections

Mini-buses
Trolleybuses
Trams
Kaliningrad Bus Routes: If in doubt, ask!

Bus Fares and How to Pay

For the foreign traveller, getting around Kaliningrad is made considerably easier by the flat-rate fare. Whichever mode of transport you choose, the cash price is pegged at 44 rubles (40 pence) payable to the driver or conductor. The price of a ride drops even lower should you happen to have in your possession a Volna Baltiki (Volna Baltiky) card and/or a Russian bank card, but as you most likely will not, keep in mind ‘44 rubles’, and with this you might think you cannot go wrong, whereas, in fact, you easily could.

Kaliningrad Public Transport Fare-Paying Options

Buses, trams, mini-buses and trolleybuses, whichever mode of travel you choose, fares are fixed per ride regardless of the distance travelled.

Payment MethodCost Per RideBest ForWhere to Buy / How to Use
💳 Volna Baltiki Card33 RUBFrequent travellers & budget backpackersThe card costs 100 RUB at local ‘Pressa’ kiosks or bus station ticket offices.
📱 Contactless Bank Card38 RUBQuick day tripsTap your material plastic card onto the conductor’s mobile terminal or use a virtual MIR card via the Mir Pay app.
💵 Cash44 RUBConvenience. No unexpected card issues!Pay cash to the conductor or mini-bus driver.

*Note: Luggage that takes up a passenger seat is treated as a passenger and will require an additional ticket, priced at the standard fare determined by your payment method.

Buses in Kaliningrad: What to Watch Out For

As everywhere and in all corners of the world where buses need to be caught, you obviously need to watch out for them. I won’t waste either your or my time expatiating on what a bus is and looks like, because if you don’t know by now, then perhaps you never will.

One thing that you do need to be aware of these days is that on some of Kaliningrad’s standard-size buses, human conductors have been replaced by electronic touch-card devices. There now follows a cautionary tale:

Oblivious to this development, I found myself a few months ago in the unenviable position of being on a bus that didn’t take money, which is something that I did have, but did take cards, which is something that I didn’t have. To avoid embarrassment, which, as you know, is the Englishman’s greatest fear, all I could do, I decided, was to nip sharpishly out of the central doors as soon as the driver opened them, a plan that could possibly not have gone wrong had he done what I thought he would do but, as it happened, didn’t. He only opened the front door so that he could cunningly check each passenger’s ticket as they disembarked. Oh dear, and what a bugger!

Clutching at my rubles whilst attempting to work out how I was going to explain myself in Russian, I nervously joined the queue, but luck for once was on my side. As my turn to present my ticket approached, the driver was distracted, and with a spasm of glee tempered by guilt, I floated past on a sigh of relief safely unnoticed and onto the street. In mitigation of my actions, the unforeseen and awkward circumstances into which I had been thrown were completely of an accidental nature. There was no attempt to fare dodge guvnor – and that’s the honest truth. And yet since that inauspicious ride, I have solemnly failed to determine which of the buses accept cards only, other than learning inadvertently that orange ones certainly do. So, take heed of my mistake, and let that be a lesson to you!

Orange buses take card payments in Kaliningrad. This one is parked, with a passenger enquiring whilst standing outside the door.

Mini-buses (Marshrutkas): The Popular Transit Option

Services across all three bus types – standard buses, mini-buses and trolleybuses – are exceedingly frequent and cater to numerous interconnecting routes. The smaller buses, ‘vans’, run in parallel with their larger counterparts, offering a nippy, if not when laden down with heavy or bulky bags, tricky-to-use alternative.

These small units are extremely popular and, therefore, often overcrowded. On tarmac surfaces, whether you are a seated or standing passenger, they pose no imminent threat, but when they are bouncing at speed across Königsberg’s bygone, cobbled streets, you tend to dance when standing, so that remaining perfectly upright can become a bit of a challenge. Equally challenging, when jam-packed full, is rising from your seat, always assuming, of course, that you have had the good fortune to nab one, as is struggling through the standing passengers to get to the door on time before you miss your stop.

The mini-buses of Kaliningrad are notorious little devils with infamous reputations for tearing along at breakneck speed, making diving on and off something of an art form; as is swinging the heavy door shut as you climb into the bus, an occupational difficulty very much compounded by, when having paid your fare, you reach back to close the door just as the bus is slammed into gear and flies off down the road. The sudden, startling momentum can have you rolling about as daft as if you are drunk when you’re not, and when you are, alas, making you instantly, tragically sober; an awkward and bouncy situation at best, this predicament is made far worse if the road on which the bus is travelling happens to be an ancient one, one built for horses and carts when Kaliningrad was Königsberg.

Mini-Buses (Marshrutkas): For Speed and Flexibility

These fixed-route mini-buses are Kaliningrad’s public-transport equivalent in speed and flexibility to the motorbike courier: they boldly go where big standard-sized buses have difficulty in going, and they do so with a nippy, sassy attitude.

Hail a mini bus like an expat: Marshrutkas can be flagged down by sticking your arm out as you would when hailing a London cab. In central city areas drivers strictly adhere to designated bus stops, but in quieter, residential districts, should they espie you on the pavement with your arm held up aloft, they may in effect pull over. Sometimes they will just flash their lights and go merrily sailing past. This is not an act of condescension; the driver is merely informing you that the bus is already full.

If in doubt, shout!: Now you are on the bus, you will want to get off somewhere. If they, mini-bus drivers, see in their rear-view mirrors nobody making a move to get off and ahead of them an empty bus stop, they may very well go charging by. As you approach your stop, it is just as well, therefore, to adopt the golden rule: If in doubt, call out!

A last and sanguine salutary piece of advice when it comes to travelling by mini-bus. I read recently on more than one travel site and was also told by Arthur Ingram (code name A.I.) that passengers must stump up their fares as they get off these buses. Once true, but not anymore. Now you pay when you get on. That’s the way to do it.

Kaliningrad Trolleybuses: Because They Are Different

Now, these wheeled devices are an interesting collation. I look upon them as a cross between ‘normal’ buses and trams. I like them even more, as they do not exist in the UK and therefore form a novel mode of transport.

Like any other bus, trolleybuses run on pneumatic tyres without the need for tracks. They draw their power from overhead cables using a pair of spring-loaded poles hinged to the top of the roof. The bus is driven like any other, but the driver must ensure that the rods on top of the bus stay in contact with the overhead power source. Some of the older trolleybuses incorporate a battery backup and/or are fitted with an auxiliary diesel motor, both designed to permit them to stray short distances from the contact wires, delivering to mobility and manoeuvrability an extra dimension for pilot control, without which, in whose total absence, they would otherwise be reined in by absolute reliance on the wires’ prescriptive allowance.

Kaliningrad’s newest super-duper trolleybuses have the capability to disconnect from the overhead cobweb of wires and drive wirelessly away for up to a quite astonishing 80 kilometres. This is a handy contingency plan, enabling these souped-up trolleybuses to outmanoeuvre traffic jams and avoid being beached by mechanical mishaps and unforeseen malfunctioning and, when they can and do happen, power supply disruptions. Everything may stop, but the trolleybus keeps on rolling.

There’s no mistaking the new, sleek, Sinara-6254 trolleybuses. They look impressively modern, because they are. Come rain, hail, snow or shine, the Sinara’s built-in climate control takes over. USB ports come as standard, and next-stop announcements are fully automated.

Paired down to a core set of lines, nevertheless, Lines 1, 2, and 7, cater marvellously for tourists, locals, and expats alike by interlinking major tourist hubs with residential satellites.

Lines 1 and 2 are a tourist’s dream. They criss-cross the city’s central squares, take in the historic gates and are conveniently accessible from the major northern transport rings.

What I like about the older trolleybuses is that they generally have a holding rail that runs along the inside ledge at the very rear of the bus, which a standing passenger can effectively use to steady oneself whilst gawping, as one invariably does, and whilst gawping to one’s heart’s content, out of the large rear window. I cannot begin to tell you whether the modern versions are similarly equipped, because, surprisingly enough, I am yet to travel on one of them.

Trolleybuses are truly lovely things, but they are not so plentiful in Kaliningrad as their standard bus or mini equivalents, so I do not get to journey on them as often as I would like. But in the general scheme of the city’s transport system, their contribution to getting around is no less valuable a transit resource than any of its partner vehicles.

A sleek, modern, green trolleybus on a wide Kaliningrad street with mid-rise buildings in the background,

Kaliningrad Trams: Scenic and Historic Routes

When I first came to Kaliningrad, which is now more than a quarter of a century ago, much of the old Königsberg tram network was still functioning, albeit after a fashion. The classic red-and-white-coloured trams, the ‘biscuit tins’ as I affectionately call them, whose history dates to the 1970s, would rattle along quite famously, as indeed today many still do. Nothing about them has changed that much, except perhaps for here and there the urban curse graffiti and for here and there again vandalistic etchings trending on victimised window panes, although looking back at the turn of the century there were a lot more trams in operation and many more tracks on which to operate.

Like a lot of things, its got smaller over time, meaning the Kaliningrad tram network, but riding the tram remains the best option for romancing the past, as it gently weaves its way across the city’s historic landscape.

My consciousness

In those days, now lost forever, when life was a lot more raw and real, children would make their own entertainment by hitching an illegal ride on the coupling link of the tram’s last carriage, hopping on and off at will. Some people never grow up, and I remember regarding these antics with more than a twinge of envy. In these health- and safety-conscious, robustly regulated and X-Box times, such daring-do is outlawed, and though much of the 1970s’ tram stock continues to rattle and roll, they are at any rate gradually being replaced by gleaming, swish, updated models, with significantly higher comfort specs, which do not include, as I recall, a child seat at the rear.

The traditional tram, comparatively speaking, already appears bone-shakingly basic and ambivalently dated, and whilst those with poetry in their hearts might be tempted to say all the more quaint for the fact, anything that holds back time is a feather in my romantic cap, the practical story inside is one of cold, hard, metal, lack-of-comfort pan-shaped seats, hardly supporting the folklore prejudice that because things in the past were simpler, particularly public-transport seats, simpler equals better. It is the sovereign right of pampered rumps to rail against the sacrifice that anachronisms such as this condone, but if you are owned by one of these, there’s always the option of standing.

Kaliningrad’s Vintage and Modern Trams

Venerable Vintage: Kaliningrad’s classic bright-red and cream trams are Soviet-era Czech-built Tatra cars. They have been roving around Kaliningrad for decades, and as with first come, first served, first seen, first loved. Given the choice, me being me, these are the trams I like riding best.

Current ‘Corsairs’: Sleek, air-conditioned, roomy, cushioned, with large viewing windows, low-floored access, smooth, silent acceleration and even USB charging ports, the modern ‘Corsair’ (Korsar) trams are a different beast altogether than their classic Tatra forbears. Payment options include touch terminals used in conjunction with Russian bank MIR cards and Kaliningrad’s dedicated transit card, the Volna Baltiki, (the cheapest fare option); or paying cash to the onboard conductor.

Green and white modern Corsair tram, showing the sleek, braod windowed front on an autumnal street in Kaliningrad, illustrating ways of getting around Kaliningrad.
Mick Hart, expat Englishman, getting around Kaliningrad on a modern tram with a contactless card machine, centre.

The past was certainly a time when ‘Commonsense ruled, OK! ’ – a time when self-preservation deferred to this and little else and on which its application solely depended, not, as it does today, on written laws and regulations. I cannot imagine, for example, witnessing now as I did then, at a busy intersection, the driver of the tram clambering out of his cab and with a long metal pole in his hand using it to lever the points to alter the tram’s direction. Does it still happen? I ask. But not availed of the answer, content myself with the supposition that this might be what is meant today when people say that he or she is very much a ‘hands-on’ person. It’s not conclusive in itself, but the explanation could hold water, and sometimes an iron pole, and after all it is less risqué.

Over the past 26 years, an interval in which Kaliningrad became the second home it is to me, large sections of its tramline system have suffered ignominiously the ravages of neglect (it’s not my fault) and have fallen, as a result, haphazardly, into a right old state of decline, as evidenced today by the long, broad, roadside stretches which, terminally abandoned, have been taken up and requisitioned as convenient car-parking spaces.

A long, green, tree-lined avenue, centred between a dual carriageway showing an abandoned tram line in the historic German district of Maraunenhof, Kaliningrad

Abandonned tram avenue in the historic German district of Maraunenhof, Kaliningrad

Until about a year ago, or perhaps by dint of accuracy it could be slightly more – time has a habit of slipping away unnoticed, don’t you know – the only tram line functioning was tram route Number 5, but Number 5 has been recently augmented by the newly restored route Number 3.

Together, these two tram lines service the city’s key central routes and, since they retrace in part sections of the tram map original to Königsberg, offer to their passengers a distinctly historical, often scenic and trundlesome alternative to getting around Kaliningrad. Seeing and stopping off at the sights in whatever proportion takes your fancy, you pays your money and you takes your choice, and you takes your choice and pays your money: getting around Kaliningrad is choice-replete and inexpensive.

Tram Line Number 5: Scenic and Nostalgic

Tram line Number 5 potters along through some of Kaliningrad’s finest urban memories.

In autumn, when Kaliningrad is a sea of russet browns, auburns and gold, you can expect to delight in leafy vista journeys retracing the transport pathways of old Prussian Königsberg. On the way, you will meet with the red-brick fortifications housing the Amber Museum, you will circle and swoop by the soaring gothic spires of Königsberg Cathedral on Kant Island and wend your way through the half-timbered Fishing Village, its eclectic array of hotels, boutique shops and cafes embroidered by the Pregolya River.

Unlike Kaliningrad’s buses, big or small, that shoot along at a frantic pace, Kaliningrad’s trams offer the tourist a more sedate travel experience, allowing that smartphone camera of yours to earn its pocket- and bag-bulky keep whenever an ancient or Soviet landmark yearn to become your keepsake.

A classic Kaliningrad Soviet-era tram, red and white, on a Kaliningrad street in autumn, illustrative of getting around Kaliningrad on public transport.

Identifying Kaliningrad Bus Routes: If in doubt, ask!

The one consideration, and it is a relevant one, that a lot of travel guides forget to mention, or suggest you tackle with ‘handy learnt phrases’ is the language barrier. A short course in Russian specifically tailored to bus-type questions could be in order, but are you going to? And will you? Really?

Whilst there is no shortage of public transport to get you where you want to go, strangely enough, apart from the Arabic numbering system, all destinations are written in Cyrillic. You could, of course, ask someone waiting for a bus, except that most of Kaliningrad’s city bus stops are fairly, if not, frantically busy, so there is little time to get out your phrase book or resort to your translation app. With the latter, however, you can at least stop and and ask someone what you want to know before you reach the bus stop; a precaution simple enough, but one I have found that works rather well. Alternatively, see below: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

What You Want to SayRussian (Cyrillic)Pronunciation GuideWhen to Use It
“At the stop, please.”На остановке, пожалуйста.Na os-ta-nov-ke, po-zhal-uy-staCall this out to a mini-bus (marshrutka) driver when you want to get off.
“Do you accept cards?”Можно картой?Mozh-no kar-toy?Ask the bus conductor if you want to pay with a contactless bank card.
“One ticket, please.”Один билет, пожалуйста.O-deen bee-lyet, po-zhal-uy-staUse this when buying a single ticket with cash from a conductor or driver.
“Does this go to…?”Этот идет до…?E-tot ee-dyot do…?Show a landmark name on your phone to double-check if you are on the right vehicle.
“Are you getting off at the next one?”Вы выходите на следующей?Vy vy-kho-dee-tye na slye-doo-yush-chey?Say this politely if someone is blocking the exit on a crowded bus.

Getting around Kaliningrad: The Last Word … or more

Kaliningrad’s internal transport system is like a perfectly handcrafted toupée: it works, is convincing and you can’t see the joins. If anything will be daunting to the city’s first-time visitor, it will not be for want of ways to travel but the many ways of travelling and the umpteen routes to travel on. Navigating the hybrid options provided by the transport system may take some getting used to, but, once you’ve passed your logistics exams, getting around Kaliningrad is, as I should have made clear at the outset, really a bit of a doddle.

Associated posts

How to Get to Kaliningrad from the UK
Is the Poland-Kaliningrad Border Open?
Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information
From Kaliningrad to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

1940s' living room. A seated child asks mother. "Why is Britain's future all used up?"

UK Pledges Billions to Stop the Boats and Britain Freezing

Roy Orbison sang ‘In Dreams’

29 October 2026 – UK pledges billions to Stop the Boats and Britain Freezing

There’s not much to laugh about in the UK today, unless it is the kind of laugh that shrieks and echoes hysterically through the tortured corridors of the insane asylum, but stop me if you have heard this one before: The Labour government is proud to announce that it is giving £10bn to Ukraine and has pledged to stand with Ukraine until the earth freezes over or until we get nuked, whichever comes first. It’s a pity it cannot stand by its legacy citizens, who are already freezing over from exorbitant utility bills – we can hardly afford to switch the heating on – and stand by national security and law and order by stopping the full-scale migrant invasion.

Ha! Ha! But you have to laugh, don’t you? How does it go? ‘If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry!’

UK Pledges Billions

Taking into account the parlous state of Britain today, giving away money to Ukraine hand over fist could be considered to be an act of criminal negligence, unless you have a bank account in a foreign country, then it might be thought of as a blessed munificence.

Meanwhile in the UK, everything, especially under Labour, is spiralling insanely out of control. Cost of living through the roof; quality of life in the opposite direction.

The UK Pledges Billions

Look at that screenshot.

“Mummy?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Who is that Twat with the red briefcase?”

“Oh, he’s an overpaid lefty nincompoop. His red briefcase symbolises Britain in the red, financially and morally bankrupt. The UK is giving billions of pounds to a country that it pretends to support in order to save its sovereignty when really it is desperately clinging onto the globalist dream to stave off the emergence of a multipolar world. It’s nothing to do with security and all to do with maintaining the so-called world order, which is, of course, an order imposed by and for the exclusive benefit of the Western globalist cartel.”

“Is he real?!”

“No, not really. That’s a man who believes that Brits will vote Labour if he gives all our money away to support a conflict which we stoked and then raises taxes to pay for the deficit. He is, as you quite rightly defined earlier, something of a twat.”

UK pledges billions to Stop the Boats and Britain Freezing. A retro advert featuring a 1940s sitting room, containing a mother and child, the mother knitting and the daughter looking beseechingly at her from the stool she is sitting on. The slogan is 'Is Your Tomorrow Spoken For?'.

“But I thought America was trying to broker a peace deal?”

“Well, yes, that nice Mr Trump is, but, by the looks of it, Britain doesn’t want one?”

“Why not, Mummy?”

“Globalists and hegemony, dear.”

“Mummy, can we have the heating on?”

“No, darling, we cannot afford it. Labour need to tax us more so that more money might find its way into private bank accounts in a certain foreign country.”

“But what of Britain and your children’s future?”

As Marliene Dietrich incisively put it, “Your future’s all used up!”

UK Pledges Billions ... A symbolic image of the Titanic striking the iceberg. The iceberg captioned 'UK's Future'

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

All aboard!

Britain Goes Balaclava: a black balaclava

Britain Goes Balaclava As The Boats Keep Rolling In

Life in the UK - It's all so peculiar. The map of the UK on its head.

Life in the UK: It’s All So Peculiar!

Immigrant invasion of the UK sparks riots

UK Anti-Immigration Riots Herald New Dystopian Era

Hot water bottle with UK flag. The only way to combat the UK Utility Bills Fiasco

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the writer, anyone in the Labour Party or mothers and children in the 1940s.

King of Manchester pants. A red pair of trunks, featuring a crown, with 'Manchester' below the image

Astonishing ‘King of Manchester’ Pants Found in No. 10

Even king for a day would be too much!

17 October 2026 – Astonishing ‘King of Manchester’ Pants Found in No. 10

Having apprised you in a former post about the existence of President Putin T-shirts, in this, the follow-up episode of ‘You Can’t Have Enough Stuff’, but you can have enough migrants, more than enough in fact, and would like considerably less of them and a lot less of the Labour Party, I aim to thrill the pants off you with a personal peep into private political drawers, exposing the exclusive collection of the ‘King of Manchester’s’ underpants

‘King of Manchester’ Pants

These liberal-lefty panties, with the PM’s (Prime Migrant-supporter’s) photo on the inside captioned ‘Bumem’s full-scale invasion’, and outside across the back of the cheeks a self-explanatory dinghy loaded with cheeky migrants chanting, ‘Old Ma Mood’s made an arse of herself, who needs a silly resettlement plan when we can romp unchallenged across the Channel!’ are by no stretch of the imagination, or elasticated waistband, a limited edition.

King of Manchester pants. Red trunks with a crown and 'Manchester' on the front and a dinghy full of migrants on the back.

‘King of Manchester’ Pants

Indeed, these once on, one-off pants – pants in which to be seen and indiscriminately taxed in, all of which have been signed by some of the country’s wealthiest people who, since Labour came to abusive power, are sensibly quitting the UK at a reported rate of one in three – will, like the migrant hoards who even now are queuing to quit their countries to come over here and take over ours, be distributed in their millions, unless Reform steps in and saves beleaguered Britain before it completely hits the skids as caused by migrants and marked in underpants – by which I mean the sale of. Help yourself by helping Reform oust the migrant-adoring Labour Party, before it is too late. Vote to save your country in the forthcoming General Election, which is widely anticipated to be staged in May of 2027.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to know how it feels to be the ‘King of Manchester’, place a cardboard crown upon your head, put your arse in a pair of these pants and perch yourself on a fly-blown dung heap. Even Manchester’s glad he’s gone; now’s your chance to feel glad too. Get him and his lefty cronies out. Get out there and Vote Reform!

Note: The views expressed in the following video are not necessarily those of this unbiased blog’s proprietor. Nor does he remotely endorse any claims arising from it made by beings manly-haired and possibly gender-compromised that are daft enough to put on record silly, corny, and embarrassing things intended for justification of and to shamelessly promote government-authored and approved, but largely suspect, encomiums on never-wanted, never-asked-for, forced-upon-us diversity. For the other side of the mantra coin, watch it yourself and see.

Manchester then; Manchester now …

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Recent Posts

A black on white President Putin T-shirt from 2001, captioned 'Walking Together', from MIck Hart's collection

Rare 25-Year-Old President Putin T-Shirts Surface in the UK

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.

Front and back view of a black & white President Putin T-shirt captioned, 'Walking together', with a line drawing of Putin's face on the front

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.

Putin T-shirt from Mick Hart's collection, Putin head and shoulders' image wearing a tiinted pair of aviator glasses. Very gung-ho, with the caption 'The most courteous person in the world'.

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.

Mick Hart wearing a Putin T-shirt, with his thumb up and winking imitation of Putin's expression as it appears in the T-shirt's picture. Mick holds a bottle of vodka in his right hand, and, on the wall behind him, there is an official portrait photo of Putin, when he was young.

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.

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Check this post out and see the other side of the story from Russia’s RT News

RT Breaking News: Why Don’t They Want You to See It?

Residence of Kings Kaliningrad: a gothic-broque fantasy functioning as a multi-complex restaurant and entertainment complex

The Kings Residence Kaliningrad: it’s a big one alright!

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.

Map of the Kings Residence, a multi-format restuarant and entertainment centre in Kaliningrad, Russia
‘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.

Residence of Kings Kaliniingrad: a seven-restaurant entertainment complex constructed in the red-brick Gothic style

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.

Half-circular tower inside Kings Residence Kaliningrad with ornate church-style gothic windows, with tracery and stained glass encased within white painted pretige stonework bands connected by pillars.

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.

The highly ornate standalone bar, which looks like a giant cathedral organ, at the Residence of Kings

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.”

Its medaieval time at Kaliningrad's Kings Residence. The walls of this restaurant precinct are made to look like a portrait-festooned half-timber galleried building

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.

A long, rectangular internal restaurant window in a red brick facade looking into a kitchen where staff are working. A restaurant complex in Kaliningrad.

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.

Stairs leading down to the Bretsel German beer bar in Kaliningrad
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!

A seat in front of urban planters containing foliage. The seat is modelled as a giant piano keyboard, Residence of Kings, Kaliningrad
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.

A bronze patinated figure of a tankard-bearing swashbuckling piratanical figure leaning against a table in the Kings Residence Kaliningrad.
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!

Open-plan restaurant in Residence of Kings, Kaliningrad, with zig-zag ceiling, a rectangular brick pillar, fairy lights, comfortablle cushioned bench seating and chairs

The Kings Residence (Residence of Kings)
Ulitsa Aleksandra Nevskogo, 10, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, 236041

Tel: +7 (4012) 300-360 (Alternative delivery/booking number: +7 (4012) 30-83-08)

Website: http://landing.rk-rk.ru/en/

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.

You might like to sample these

🍴Georgian Restaurant Kaliningrad the Magic of Kavkaz

🍴The Uniform Museum Restaurant

🍴The Art Depot Restaurant

🍴Pivovar Restaurant Brewery

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

RT Breaking News: A TV set showing RT News superimposed with a question mark

RT Breaking News: Why Don’t They Want You to See It?

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/].

Media Fact Check Screen about United24

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 Remain but 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’s Black 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!

Comedy and Tragedy Masks. RT Breaking News about the farcical process by which prime ministers in the UK are voted into office from within the party.

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?

https://web.archive.org/web/20260720043923/https://www.rt.com/news/643240-uk-leadership-change-explainer/

A black silhouette of a graduate symbolising a preponderance of foreign students at British universities

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.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260703041317/https://www.rt.com/news/642502-uk-white-students-minority/

Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs used here to symbolise female fragility in the UK due to migrant rape gangs. RT Breaking News published this article on their website.

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?

https://web.archive.org/web/20260701105345/https://www.rt.com/news/642412-rape-gang-leader-not-deported-uk/

A violent sword marauding washing machine projected as clipart, symbolising Britain's desiire to perpetuate the Ukraine conflict

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?

https://web.archive.org/web/20251112152617/https://www.rt.com/news/627673-britain-needs-war-in-ukraine/

King of Spades playing card, illustrating King Charles' buckling under woke pressure regarding his title 'Defender of the Faith'

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.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260629151222/https://www.rt.com/news/642356-king-charles-loses-defender-of-faith/

And now for something completely different …

A blue teddy. RT Breaking News. Why does the UK want to ban the cartoon Marsha and the Bear?

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.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260703232540/https://www.rt.com/news/642534-uk-mp-russian-cartoon-ban/

Postscript

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.

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Now, here’s a sign of the times!

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.

Reference
*https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/save-free-speech/

Image attribution

Vintage TV Set: https://freesvg.org/vintage-tv-vector-image
Comedy & Tragedy Masks: https://freesvg.org/comedy-and-tragedy-masks-vector-image
Blue Teddy Bear: https://freesvg.org/blue-teddy-bear
Graduate: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Image-of-a-graduate/42725.html
Snow White: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Snow-white/61195.html
Warring Washing Machine: https://freesvg.org/washing-machine-character
King of Spades: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/King-of-spades-playing-card-vector-drawing/11230.html

Britain Goes Balaclava: a black balaclava

Britain Goes Balaclava as the Boats Keep Bowling In

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.

GB News, Patrick Christys> Instagram

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.

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?

Patrick Christys from GB News reporting on Britain Goes Balaclava

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.

Britain Goes Balaclava

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.

Vote Reform and Stop the Boats! – It’s really the UK’s last chance!

Reference
* https://ifs.org.uk/articles/home-office-budgeting-and-asylum-overspends

Image attribution:

Balaclava: https://pngimg.com/image/60093

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Old Bobby Ale reviewed by Mick Hart

Old Bobby Ale – is it what it says it is?

Craft, Imported and Specialty Beers: Old Bobby

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.

Beer review links:

[Butauty] [Kanapinis (light)] [Kanapinis (dark)]
[Keptinis Farmhouse][Bistrampolio] [387 Osobaya Varka][Double Mother T.]
[Tapkoc Belgian Blond Ale] [Evening in Bruges] [Primator Double 24 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.

Old Bobby Ale, a bottle of it produced in Russia with a small British flag in the background.

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 Old Abdul, 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

Mick Hart's beer in Russia rating's system

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.]

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

AI- generated image advertising the Uniform Museum Restaurant in Kaliningrad

Trying it on at the Uniform Museum Restaurant in Kaliningrad

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

Cozy industrial cafe with warm lighting, wood tables, and a long bar lined with stools on the right. The Uniform Museum Restaurant in 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.

Bar half-lit, with stools in the foreground. Scene inside the Uniform Museum Restaurant, Kaliningrad.

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.

Three ornate, embellished coats on display under studio lighting, with white wigs above them on mannequin heads above the rack. Some of the vintage clothes in the Uniform Museum Restaurant.

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.

Museum display of a medieval suit of armor with a red-and-black shield and a dark British policeman's helmet on a wooden stand.

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.

Smiling man with a gray beard wearing a captain's hat in a dim room, standing beside vintage red and leopard-print sarmorial plaques with brass accents. It's Mick Hart in Kaliningrad at the Uniform Museum Restaurant

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.

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

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Racists in the UK! WokForkers pub in London, where the staff monitor everyone for racist comments - if you are white! AI-generated image

Racists in the UK! Tips for Barmaids on How to Do Their Job

A racist-themed evening down at the local

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.

Racists in the UK! Police in UK WokeForkers pub march in: one is bald, the other is wearing his colleague's toupee on his chin. AI-generated image
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.

Racists in the UK! A man in a kilt, holding a bag of apples is told off by three police officers.
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. Female bar staff at WokeForkers pub shocked by racist remarks"
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 PC UK!

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.

🎶🎶Things aint what they used to be 🎶🎶

Vote Green for Migrant Detention Centres Near You! – Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

Life in the UK – it’s all so peculiar – Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

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