Social Distancing in Zelenogradsk

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 106 [3 July 2020]

Published: 8 July 2020

Although I am still prone to headlining this series of articles as the Diary of a Self-isolator, I have begun to wonder whether the relaxation of coronavirus restrictions warrants a change of name, say, for example, the Diary of a Social Distancer, but have come to the conclusion that in the interests of continuity the original appellation should persist.

You can see the etymological crux of the issue in the revelation that recently, whilst self-isolating, I accepted the invitation to emerge from the homestead to stay for a couple of days at a friend’s dacha in the heart of Zelenogradsk.

Zelenogradsk is considered to be the second principal seaside resort in the Kaliningrad region, the number-one slot invariably reserved for Svetlogorsk. Whilst it is widely accepted that Svetlogorsk wears the crown, in recent years that crown has been tarnished by a controversial extension of the coastlines promenade in preparation for an extensive building programme that has decimated the resort of what little beach it had.

Zelenogradsk, on the other hand, has a beach par excellence; acres of white and golden sand stretching across the curving coastline for as far as the eye can see. On a good day, that is under a bright blue sky with plenty of sun to boot, the Zelenogradsk coastline is a beach-lovers paradise and the rolling waves and surf from the sea a scintillating superlative for all that is loved about swimming and sailing about on the briny.

Zelenogradsk Coastline Russia — Natural sandy coastline: Zelenogradsk, Russia (July 2020)

Today (3 June 2020), the weather conditions could not have been better. And for reclusive comfort combined with close proximity to the front, the old German house in which we were lodging could not have been more inviting or better located.

Before heading off to the beach, we decided ~ my wife, our friend and I ~ to buy a pizza and a few edible accessories from one of the seafront bars. This was the first time since coronavirus began that I had eaten in a restaurant or been to a restaurant to buy food, and although we were sat outside on the decking and the waitresses were bemasked, the entire experience seemed strangely illicit and fraught with a sense of risk.

On paying for our order there was a poignant moment when one of the girls who had served us, possibly the manager, not only thanked us for our custom but almost begged us to return again, such is the devastation that coronavirus has wrought upon the café, bar and restaurant business.

We did not eat in the restaurant’s outside seating area, choosing instead the comparative safety of limited social numbers in the conservatory of our temporary German home.

Before eating the food we had bought we of course observed all of the risk-decreasing procedures handed down to us from the world’s health industry, which is to say that we washed our mitts and swabbed the polystyrene packaging with antiseptic wipes before opening it and then used cutlery to eat with.

I have to admit that it was good to sample fast food again, even though the preliminaries had knocked it down a gear or two.

Social Distancing in Zelenogradsk

Victually resuscitated, plus a bottle of white wine later, our friend departed, leaving Olga and myself to make our way to the sea.

I wondered, as I walked towards the beach, if the low numbers of people present was a coronavirus consequence. If so, it was the perfect tragedy, but the volumetric increase in visitors on the following day, which was a Saturday, assured me that the comparatively low turnout had been the product of a working day.

By 12 noon on Saturday the numbers of people in Zelenogradsk had swelled enormously, but not to such an extent as to render social distancing ridiculous, as it had in England when people had flocked to Brighton beach in such appalling numbers that it was all they could do to find enough room in which to stab each other.

As we walked along the widened footpath with its pedestrian section on one side and its mini-road on the other, along which whizzed all kinds of two- and four-wheeled mini traffic, and with its astonishing eclecticism of man-made buildings on one side and the rolling sea and sand on the other, I hoped for their own sake that there were no representatives of a certain American media organisation lurking around in the undergrowth. From what I have read recently the western media seems to have a neurosis regarding ‘ethnic Russian families’, ‘smiling Slavic couples with children’ and ‘traditional family values’, all of which was refreshingly evident today. It is a peculiar point to ponder on, is it not, that what matters to some is of no matter to others.

Take the preferences of my wife and I, if you will: My wife swims; I drink.

Under the Old Normal, we would find a spot that was mutually suitable. An outside drinking area for me to relax in; a section of beach close to the sea for her to get sand in her toes and completely drenched in salt water.

Under the New Normal, however, this was not to be. Although the seating areas outside the bars were reassuringly patronised, the interiors being off-base, I had decided aforethought not to frequent them but carry on social distancing. So, whilst my wife dunked herself, I simply went for a stroll, and when I had strolled enough waited for her on a bench like the perfect husband I am.

Neoclassical architecture Zelenogradsk Russia — Example of brand new old: Neoclassical building on the coastal path, Zelenogradsk, Russia (July 2020)

My fascination along this particular pedestrian thoroughfare is with the architectural anomaly. It is so outrageously ~ in an entrancing sort of way ~ diverse, with no two buildings the same either in scale or point of style. It is not visually unheard of, for example, to have a brand-spanking new hotel ~ all curvilinear, porticoed, sleek and slick in metal and glass and conspicuously erect ~ rubbing shoulders, I should say, with a great, grey giant of a building, a sad and sorry-looking concrete block of flats, neglected, uninhabited, windows open and vacant like the proverbial eyes in skulls and next to it, abstrusely, a red-brick castle pastiche, festooned with mini-turrets, or a vast building in magnolia-coloured stone boasting all the attributes of neoclassical architecture in its most defining form standing next to a humble shack, a distressed-brick and weathered wooden domicile with its roots in Eastern Prussia but with the added Soviet enhancements of an asbestos roof, steel railings and bulwarking metal sheets. I could walk up and down this road all day marvelling at these sites, which are far more interesting, and infinitely more imaginative, than anything you would see today on the fashion-circuit catwalks.

This lovely old building overlooks the sea along the Zelenogradsk coastline. Its much sought after location almost certainly means it will be demolished to make way for a palatial new residence, or, more likely, hotel. Myself, I would go for renovation. There is nothing like restoring heritage and making it your home.

Our excursion to the beach tomorrow would take me even further along this road, to a place of architectural extravagance the likes of which I have never beheld before, but more of this in a later post.

The sea and my wife having been reacquainted, it was now time to walk into town and purchase some bottles of ale from a well-stocked shop on Zelenogradsk’s high street. I would like to include these delights in my bottled beers of Kaliningrad appraisal, which I started compiling last week, but notwithstanding that they were not bought in the city itself, a minor point that could be overlooked, I have limited my bottled beer review to include brands that are generally available in supermarkets, so I will possibly leave the ones I tried today for a future specialist category on craft and imported beers.

Social Distancing in Zelenogradsk

Now, coronavirus has brought about a number of changes both in attitudes and lifestyle, some seemingly seismic, others more subtle. Like Nigel Farage, who on his Facebook page posted ‘103 days since I last drank a pint in a pub’, it has been 106 days-plus since I drank a beer in a bar or restaurant. Drinking at home is not my cup of tea, although that is what I drink there, and I have to say that sitting on a park bench and drinking ~drinking alcohol that is ~ is one of those dubious pleasures in life which up until now has passed me by. Today, however, as my wife wanted to go swimming again, and as I would rather be outdoors than in, whilst she got ready to swim this evening I packed up my beer in my old kit bag ready to find that bench.

To be honest it was not as bad as I had anticipated. All in life is relative and when you have been cooped up for the greater proportion of 106 days, a park bench and a bottle of beer is paradise. As the song goes, ‘the bare necessities of life will come to you!’

Mick Hart Social Distancing in Zelenogradsk Russia — Mick Hart, in the company of a bottle of beer, happy to be on a bench on Zelenogradsk beach (July 2020)

What Really Matters

A day at the seaside ~ with beer
[3 July 2020]

Published: 6 July 2020

Forgetting where I was for a moment, I looked nervously over my shoulder. That man on the opposite side of the road? Did he not look a little like Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader? Relax, I thought, this isn’t the UK? Even there, there is no Ed Davey Matters movement. Even there, he and his party does not matter very much, and here he does not matter at all.

Besides, I was not about to go legally to the pub and enjoy a pint like Nigel Farage and be accused by the liberal outrage industry. In fact, I was not about to break social distancing laws in any shape or form. After 106 days in self-isolation I was off to the seaside for a change of scenery.

What Really Matters

As we sped off in the car towards the coast, I thought to myself a couple of days at the seaside matters. It matters very much to get out into the fresh air and enjoy the bounteous gifts of nature. Sun, Sea and Sand Matters, I thought. Fresh Air Matters. A Change of Scenery Matters.

We were staying for two nights in a friend’s dacha. Good Friends Matter. The cottage was an old German building. History Matters. It was not far from the sea. Being Not Far From The Sea Matters.

Before we went to the beach we sat in the conservatory, ate a pizza and cracked open a bottle of wine. Good Company Matters. Good Conversation Matters. Good Wine Certainly Matters.

The seaside town was busy but not overcrowded. Being Busy But Not Overcrowded Matters. It was clearly a family occasion. Families Matter. There were mums and dads with their children. Mums and Dads with their Children Matters.

The sea was warm and good for a swim. Warm Sea Matters. The atmosphere was family-friendly with no hint of anti-social behaviour. No Anti-Social Behaviour Matters.

What Really Matters

In the evening, I bought a couple of bottles of quality beer. Quality Beer Matters (ask Nigel Farage!). And as I relaxed and drank those beers I thought to myself, everything that I have seen today and all that I have experienced matters. It matters a lot.

What wasn’t there to matter as it did not matter at all was a matter for commonsense. But that’s another matter which in the fullness of time will matter little and then will matter a great deal less.

I took another sip of beer and something closer than the celestial spheres whispered to me in the voice of history, “Consider the matter closed!” it said. “There are those that can end the matter now if push really comes to shove, and that is a matter of fact!”

Mick Hart in Zelenogradsk musing on what really matters — Sitting on a Bench in Zelenogradsk Drinking Beer Matters!

It’s just so Outrageous!!!!

The Value of Traditional Values

1 July 2020

Published: 1 July 2020

The last couple of days have been extremely important ones here in Russia, as the citizens of the largest country in the world head off to the polling booths to vote ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ for the new constitutional reforms. My wife was among them. I cannot reveal which she way she voted, but you who know her can probably guess.

The Value of Traditional Values

The latest BBC article (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53255964) as at 20.27pm Kaliningrad time, obviously alludes to the effect that a ‘yes’ vote for the reforms will have on President Putin’s terms of office and “Other conservative reforms include a ban on same-sex marriage and reference to Russia’s ancestral ‘faith in God’.”

Whilst all this has been going on, I had lost touch with ‘home’ news, so I undertook a quick scan to see what has been happening in the UK over the last few days. I deliberately avoided any and all references to coronavirus, as I have a good friend in Leicester and did not want to think about it. These were the headlines:

22 June 2020

Reading stabbing attack suspect Khairi Saadallah

[Comment: The one thing about the Old Normal that the New Normal cannot change]

26 June 2020

Three Londoners stabbed in Bournemouth beach brawl hours after ‘major incident’ declared

[Comment: Safer to be self-isolating]

Notting Hill: Police officers attacked at illegal street party

[Comment: Could it be the price of appeasement, ie softly, softly approach’ to statue-wrecking riots?]

Hero policeman David Whyte, 42, fights for his life after trying to tackle knifeman asylum seeker who stabbed six at Glasgow hotel

[Comment: Do I need to?]

27 June 2020

Bottles thrown at police as another London street party turns ugly

[Comment: As I said in my previous article ~ never give in to the demands …]

So there you have it. I could have read more, but that’s enough for one day.

Seventy-five years of progressive liberal values, and here we are …

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)

Introduction

Published: 30 June 2020 ~ Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

Everybody knows that vodka is Russia’s national tipple, but it may come as surprise to learn that the second favourite is beer. From personal observation, I would say that here in Kaliningrad young people tend to favour beer over vodka, which would explain why the variety and availability of different beer types and brands have mushroomed in pace with the numerous new bars, restaurants and hotels that have opened in recent years.

Previous article: Preface (Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)

Gone are the days when if you felt like a beer you either went to the billiard hall or stopped off for a jar and a chat with friends at the side of the road. The little yellow two-wheeled tankers that provided this service have since been pensioned off, as far as beer is concerned, but can still be seen today now dispensing another traditional Russian drink of the non-alcoholic variety known as Kvass.

The increase in on-licensed premises since I first came to Kaliningrad in 2000 is nothing short of phenomenal and, coronavirus willing, may it continue to be that way. To service this industry there is not just a greater variety of Russian-brewed beer but also many international imports, both mainstream brands and interesting lesser known products, offering plenty of scope for exploration.

The craft beer bar has also made its debut in Kaliningrad. I believe there are five such outlets, the most popular and well-known being the Yeltsin Bar. These fairly small, but magnificently well-stocked beer bars, are reminiscent of the UK’s micro- or pop-up pubs but offer a substantially greater quantity and variety of beers at any one time sourced from around the world and purveyed on a rotational basis.

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

The brewed-on-the premises concept is also well established, with brew bars producing their own house brands and proudly displaying their brewing equipment for all to see on the premises. A good, large and exciting example of this would be the Pivovar Restaurant Brewery just off Victory Square in the centre of Kaliningrad, where the rows upon rows of deep copper brewing kettles and those mounted monolithically behind the bar are nothing short of magnificent

British ales are obtainable in Kaliningrad, such as Fuller’s ESB and various IPA varieties, most conspicuously in the Sir Francis Drake English-style pub, the first of such bars in Kaliningrad, which was certainly functioning when I first came here in the year 2000. But, as might be expected, the British ales that are served here are the keg export equivalent of their real-ale counterparts. But hey! ~ you did not travel all this way to drink a pint of Charlie Wells, did you?

Bottled British-brewed craft ales are also no stranger to Kaliningrad. You can expect to find both mainstream and more exotic brands in Kaliningrad’s specialist beer shops, and some supermarkets, both small and large, often stock a surprisingly diverse range of British beers.

Imported beer is, not very strangely, more expensive to buy than home-grown varieties, whether bought for consumption in restaurants or bars or as an off-sale from specialist beer shops. The typical price of half a litre of British beer in the Sir Francis Drake, for example, would set you back 250 to 360 rubles, which is between £2.90 and £4.18, whereas a half litre of Russian beer in one of the Britannica bars (a chain of British-themed ale houses along the lines of Wetherspoons) will leave your pocket a lot less stressed at around 130 rubles (£1.51).

Naturally, beer purchased from supermarkets can be obtained at more economical prices. My favourite Kaliningrad bottle beer, Ostmark (strong), which weighs in at a not inconsiderable 6.7% alcohol by volume ~ rather too strong for my normal preference of 4.5% max, but with more taste than most lager beers ~ costs between 160 rubles and 136 rubles for a 1.35 litre bottle, the price differentiation can be explained by the presence of two small supermarkets close to where we live, one of which is cheaper. In the cheaper supermarket, special offers occur on a daily basis, and I have seen good quality beers in 1.35 litre bottles going for less than a quid. Incidentally, this same supermarket does a good discounted range of quality vodkas as well, from around £2.80 for a 75cl bottle.

Another must for the beer connoisseur and further testimony to the take-up of beer in Kaliningrad specifically and Russia overall are the well-patronised specialist beer-dispensing shops. These establishments offer a wide selection of Russian and imported speciality beers on tap, which once purchased are conveniently decanted into screw-topped 2-litre plastic bottles.

Surprisingly, given its relatively small size, one of our local supermarkets incorporates an outlet of this nature. It stocks around 10 different beers on tap as well as some bottled varieties. The beer is good, both in terms of variety and quality, and is also competitively priced, making this venue a particular favourite of my brothers when he visited us last summer.

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

In Russia, beers tend to be grouped into categories determined by their hue: light, red and dark. In restaurants or bars, you will also often be asked whether you want a particular beer to be filtered or unfiltered. Simply translated this means that you have a choice between cosmetic surgery or beer in its natural state.

As the articles which follow deal exclusively with beers that I have been buying at random from our local supermarkets in 1.35l bottles, the light, dark, filtered and unfiltered taxonomy is only relevant insofar as appearance is concerned, and you can only really determine this once the bottle is open and the contents have been poured.

These beers may not be the crème de la crème in the sense that they are supermarket bought, not purchased from craft-beer outlets, but they do have something very important going for them: they have helped to sustain me through the isolating process, and during social distancing have become a much appreciated part of my personal New Normal in the wake of closed bars whilst the dreaded spectre of Coro continues to stalk the land.

😏 Feature image: Mick & Olga Hart enjoying a beer on the terrace at the palatial Residence of the Kings, Kaliningrad, in the pre-coronavirus summer of 2019

Coronavirus in Kaliningrad 25 June

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 98 [25 June 2020]

Published: 26 June 2020

After hiding out for what seems like forever and making a splendid job of it, even if I do say so myself, I had to see a doctor last week. We hypochondriacs have to, you know. We are a bit like train spotters. When the mood takes us, we are sat there outside the medical centre notebook in hand, recording the types and make of doctor as they come and go.

Although I instinctively feel that the majority of people are being lulled into a sense of coronavirus false security by the relaxing of this and that, I, for one, am not. So, I did not relish the thought of laying myself on the line (an old train spotter’s metaphor) by exposing myself (an old hypochondriac’s joke) to the greater risk of coronavirus-catching in one of Kaliningrad’s medical centres.

Whether it is better or whether it is worse, I have no idea, but the medical centres here ~ at least, the ones that I have been too ~ are nothing like the huge great rambling hospitals that we have in the UK. I realise that there are hospitals here as well, but my doctor-spotting experiences have so far, and thankfully, been limited to clinics or centres, all of which have certain things in common.

As with Kaliningrad’s dentists’ surgeries, before you cross over the threshold into the reception area it is mandatory that you don a little pair of light blue, transparent, elasticised protective-shoe thingies over your footwear.

The reception usually comprises a tall counter, divided into numbered sections with three or four receptionists behind it.

You say who you are, reference your appointment and off you go, Dr spotting. What you do not do is head off into a monstrous waiting room full of the world and its wife, and several others, of every ethnic extraction known to person.

No, you set off along a series of little narrow corridors with lots of numbered doors on one or either side. Once you find your allocated door, you take a seat. There are five or six opposite each door. Now, the corridors are rather tight, but there are very few people in them, and every two seats have the third one rendered void as indicated by the presence of a red strip of vertical tape, thus alerting you to the social distancing rule.

All in sundry are wearing masks, naturally ~ it is the New Normal, you know ~ but the nature and layout of the building means that folk are still quite close.

In UK hospitals, in the never-ending sized waiting rooms there is more space but, as we all know, lots and lots of people, so perhaps the two differences equal themselves out.

Coronavirus in Kaliningrad 25 June 2020

We did travel by taxi to the centre, with all windows open and masks on, but we walked back home. On the way we discovered an old German block of flats on its last historic legs and marveled at the existence of such things in a large modern city such as this, and the natural habitat in which it stood, which has to be for me one of the enduring joys of Kaliningrad’s character ~ this place of eclectic contrasts. I am so used to England, where every square foot of land has been built upon and every barn and factory requisitioned for residential housing, and every garden carved up for more housing, and every piece of city space gentrified beyond necessity that to find a large garden which is what it has always been and a leafy lane with a fence constructed out of old barn sides and doors, takes me back to the England of my youth, where Britons were Britons and things were real, not virtual.

As for this old German building, alas, its days are numbered. But we did pay homage to it by taking a couple of photos of the building and its surrounds.

Mick Hart celebrates the natural environment of Kaliningrad — Mick Hart celebrating Kaliningrad’s natural environment

Coronavirus in Kaliningrad 25 June Diary of a Self-isolator — Remains of a Königsberg building ~ Kaliningrad 25 June 2020

On our walk back home I also noticed, with a strange sense of alienation before relief, that there were people sitting eating and drinking in the outside area of one of the Britannica pubs, a phenomenon witnessed again and on the same street at another café bar.

It was grand to see these drinking establishments engaged again, although I am not quite ready myself to return to the café-bar circuit!

Coronavirus in Kaliningrad as at 25 June 2020**
👁2373 people have been infected in the region
👁Of these, 1356 recovered
👁38 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic
👁17 cases of coronavirus infection identified today

Source (accessed 25 June 2020):
**https://www.newkaliningrad.ru/news/briefs/community/23819274-v-oblasti-za-sutki-vyyavili-17-novykh-sluchaev-koronavirusa-vypisannykh-menshe.html

Is the UK in Multicultural Meltdown?

Riotings the Name, Blackmail the Game

Published: 24 June 2020

I am not sure what it seems like to you but from where I am, in Kaliningrad, Russia, it appears as if the UK has descended into multicultural meltdown. The ‘mainly peaceful demonstrations’, to cite the demonstrator-friendly British press, orchestrated in the name of Black Lives Matter, have seduced some and disgusted others.

In the midst of the social disorder, a Russian friend telephoned us to say how appalled he was to witness what was happening in the UK and asked the unanswerable question, what is the UK government doing about it? I was unable to provide him with a credible answer. I realised that the apparent apathy was not strictly down to the government but a systemic paralysis of the entire British establishment. I tentatively suggested that just because the unrest had not been nipped in the bud when it should have been did not necessarily mean that the movers and shakers, the people in authority, had moved behind the last statue standing and were shaking there, wherever that was, but if at home self-isolating or preferably around the boardroom table somewhere in Number 10, hopefully they were growing a pair. The same astounded man pointed out that amongst the black rioters whites were running amok. I corrected him ~ no, I said, these are callow students or liberal-left extremists.

Hot on the heels of the first riots came a terrorist attack, which, if the prime suspect is a Libyan asylum seeker as the mainstream press reports, is not only tragic but also embarrassing. I wondered how long it would be before the terrorist faction raised its ugly head. After all, the riots are receiving so much good publicity from the UK’s liberal media that your average terrorist probably feels upstaged.

The riots have certainly upstaged coronavirus, albeit temporarily I suspect, but the rioters, like other groups that hunger for the limelight, are bound to stage a sensational comeback this autumn, the likes of which Tony Blair is bent on emulating but alas can only dream of. And what if a substantial number of these rioters through their self-made inability to social distance catch coronavirus and die as a result? And will the government be blamed for it, for making them take to the streets as the only means of leveraging racial justice, and will it then lead to a second wave of rioting? And will that become a conspiracy theory also?

According to western mainstream media sources, top of the conspiracy pops is the George Soros conspiracy theory. It appears that he has kicked the number-one favourite, the Bill Gates conspiracy theory, into second place. Rumour is that extreme right wingers are blaming everything on George Soros, but then if he is funding the migrant invasion of Europe on multiple fronts and bankrolling certain adverse world events, as many people believe, I suppose it is only natural to ask the question why? Even the most philanthropic, billionaire or otherwise, cannot fail to see that something is going terribly wrong, unless that wrong for some is terribly right for others? But then, what do I want with conspiracy theories? There is enough real trouble going around without icing it with conjecture.

Sticking to the facts, it does not seem that long ago when I was editing scores of articles about championing diversity, embracing multiculturalism, celebrating enrichment and wondering what one had to do to land oneself a job as a diversity director at 55 grand a year. What went wrong? Was it ever right?

Now, whenever I have the misfortune of catching a glimpse of the news I get these goosebumps and something of a shiver. It is all do with that large black cloud hovering over our summer of discontent. Is it a plane, is it a bird or is it the doom-laden shadow of Enoch Powell’s wilderness?

The other thing that is tainting the air is the mood of the British people ~ something that every British government fails to acknowledge or grievously underestimates. The British nation, that is almost everybody who does not live in London, is waiting in that tolerant way for which it is renowned, or simply enduring as it has always done (but remember, endurance and tolerance can surely run out!) for its absentee leaders to do something, to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of appeasement and grasp the bull by its nettles. I, for one, understand the reticence: Blackmail is never an easy business, but if Hollywood has taught us anything it is pay the blackmailer once and you will never stop paying.

Meanwhile, the mob are flying on a magic carpet fuelled by government qualms, indecision and sponsored by media showcasing, the bit of power is between their teeth and the scent of success in their nostrils. And, the impresario whisper is we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Really, it would have been better in the long run if someone had taken the initiative and pulled the rug out from beneath the mob before it left square one, instead of allowing the game to continue up the ladders and down the snakes.

What we can say, without taking sides, is that a mob is a mob whatever and whatever the stated cause.

Powell’s wilderness is one thing; his river quite another.

Is the UK in Multicultural Meltdown? — If he had a statue I bet it would be listed in ‘The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook‘
[Photo credit: Allan warren / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0); https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enoch_Powell_6_Allan_Warren.jpg)]

❤Feature image (Union Jack): Dawn Hudson: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=127662&picture=uk-splat-flag)

Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad

Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)

Preface

Published: 21 June 2020 ~ Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad

Prompted by no other motivation than a love of beer drinking, I have decided to review some of the bottled beers I am drinking here in Kaliningrad, Russia, whilst the bars remain closed due to social distancing rules. This is the preface to a series of posts on that most hallowed of subjects, beer. It places my own beer-drinking experiences in a biographical and historical context and is a precursor to explaining how I am surviving without real ale in Kaliningrad, the alternative beers available and a personal review of the quality and marketing success of the bottled beers that I have sampled. As they say, it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it!*

Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad

When I told fellow Brits that I was moving to Russia, three responses stick in my mind. The first, and the most obvious, was aghast amazement that I was leaving behind the most celebrated democracy in the world (Ha! Ha!). The second, a rather cynical comment on the number of times I visit the doctors, was made by one of my brothers: “It’s a long way to travel to see Dr Kelly each week!” And the third, “How are you going to survive without real ale?” The last one worried me.

I was a victim of the first wave of lager drinking, which infected the UK back in the 1970s. I will not call it a love affair, it was more like sex for sale. In those days, the UK pub industry was dominated by the Big Six ~ six major breweries that had consolidated their monopolies by buying up many smaller regional breweries and their tied houses and incorporating them into their business portfolio. Real beer had long since been challenged, and in many public houses replaced, by what CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) pejoratively dubbed ‘fizz’, keg beer, which was spearheaded in the 1960s by the now infamous Watneys Red Keg Barrel, both brewer and beer having since become a cipher for poor quality, mass produced.

Watney Mann in Bulk — A former Watney’s brewery tanker reincarnated as a water tanker for farm use.
**(Photo credit: Roll Out Red Barrel;**
cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Michael Trolove – geograph.org.uk/p/1028498)

It is an irony of fate that the beer and the brewery which set out, and partly succeeded, in changing the drinking habits of the nation ended up as the beer-drinkers’ pariah.

Remember the Firkin pubs?

Of the many insults levelled at Watney’s, possibly the quintessential one, certainly the one that I remember best, was when the Flamingo and Firkin in Derby, one of the David Bruce-inspired craft-ale chain of pubs, refitted the gents toilet with an oversized water cistern masquerading as a Red Barrel. The barrel design, shade of red and even the Watney’s name emblazoned across the front in a typeface identical to the one that Watney’s used, was the pièce de résistance of piss taking, and in that respect it was in the right place.

Whilst no one can defend with any credibility the instigatory role that Watney’s played in the fizz revolution, Red Barrel was not alone for long. Who can forget the dubious delights of such mass-produced keg mediocrity as Ind Coope’s Double Diamond (‘Double Diamond Works Wonders’ ~ it didn’t) Whitbread Trophy (‘Whitbread Big Head Trophy Bitter the pint that thinks it’s a quart’ ~ well it would; it was all head, no strength and as inflatable as a hydrogen balloon) and Charles Wells’ Noggin (its bar-top beer-pump head made of wood to look like a nautical mooring post complete with rope wrapped around it, presumably to remind you that the 15 pence you had just spent was ‘money for old rope’).

The bland and sterile taste that these truly revolting beers left in one’s mouth was gradually, but then meteorically, replaced by something not dissimilar. It, too, was gassy, bland and sterile but sold well, thanks mainly to the money thrown at it in mass advertising campaigns that succeeded in hiding its meretricious nature behind a macho, blokey image, similar in aspiration to the rugged sexuality exploited by aftershave brands Brut and Hai Karate and enlisting the same flared trousers, tight-fitting tank tops and downturned droopy moustache approach.

Make way for lager

Initially, the lager market was aimed at female and young mixed clientele, but its rapid uptake quickly recommended it as a manly alternative to keg, escalating sales into brand warfare as brewers vied with one another to gas-tap their product into the number one slot.

My lagers of choice at that time were Lamont, Tuborg Gold and Tennent’s Extra. But the gold standard in lager for myself and my drinking confederates was undoubtedly Stella Artois, which, unfortunately, we could only seem to find in freehouses, and in our area these were few and far between.

My return to beer drinking and my induction into real ale is a vivid memory. It was 1979 and I was on a pub crawl in Norwich with a fellow student from the University of East Anglia, a chap called Clive. We had not known each other long, but long enough to know that we both liked beer. We met in the student’s bar on the then Fifers Lane campus. It was a full house that evening and a group of us were sitting on the floor surrounded by beer cans. Clive had just rolled in from a late game of squash. “A fitness fanatic,” I thought. I revised my opinion six pints later, but I have to say it was beer at first sight.

Clive was a Londoner and as such, insofar as beer-drinking trends were concerned, he was far ahead of the game than folk like myself who hailed from the sticks or from small provincial towns, places at that time where the only escape from the big brewers and their bog-standard fare was the occasional hard-to-find freehouse.

It was Clive who introduced me to real ale. We were in a pub overlooking Norwich market when Clive asked if I would like a pint of Director’s. As a lager drinker, used to less esoteric names, such as ‘Extra’, ‘Gold’ and ‘Red Stripe’, I remember thinking ‘what a bloody silly name for a beer’. Moreover, I had not drunk anything from a wooden handle pulled at the bar since my light and bitter days. Gas-tap beer was typically dispensed through a little plastic box with a light bulb behind it, whilst lager frothed and foamed worse than the liberal-left from out of conspicuous chromium taps, large, brassy and brazen things which over the years have become incredibly more stupid. Where does the light and bitter fit in? We were young when we started drinking in pubs, about 14 I think, but even then we eschewed Charles Wells’ bitter, which, unfortunately was a staple brew in most of the pubs in our area. We could drink it, but only ‘half-and-half’, that is a half pint of Charlie from the handpump diluted with light ale from the bottle.

Silly name or not, Directors was my first pint of real ale, and to me, at that time, it tasted like nectar. I was hooked from the first sip. Here, at last, was something different; something which had flavour!

All praise to CAMRA!

It was CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) which revived the fortunes of real ale and put the final nail in the keg-bitter coffin. CAMRA launched a relentless campaign throughout the 80s and 90s, encouraging small and later micro-breweries to experiment with and increase their beer type and range and as the ‘cold tea’, as my cockney friend called ale, caught on the major brewers were forced to follow suit and up their real-ale ante to keep pace with the craft-beer experts.

Local beer guides and national Good Pub Guides coinciding with the arrival and development of the soon to become ubiquitous beer festival, which ranged from large-scale events featuring scores of brewers from around the country, fast-food outlets and live music to mini-festivals held in pubs, compounded and accelerated what for real legacy Britons such as myself is a unique and treasured part of our national heritage: proper beers and British pubs! No wonder that our saviour from the European Union, the indefatigable Nigel Farage, is himself a beer connoisseur!

Opening time at the Rushden Cavalcade beer tent c.2017

But these are troubled times, comrades. Coronavirus’s New Normal is sweeping across the land like an out-of-control temperance league and ideological agendas threaten British life with a rehashed version of British heritage. Our only hope is that beer-drinking patriots stand firm in the face of adversary. Keep the beer-drinking faith and stamp the virus out! Pubs are a national treasure and beer the jewel in its crown.

It is not ‘Time Gentleman, please’, yet gentlemen!

Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad

In the next astonishing instalment of Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad, we will see how exactly Mick Hart adjusted to the New Drinking Normal of no real ale!

*If you make your obsession your profession you will never work again ~ so some clever fellow once said. Well, I was fortunate to make one of my obsessions, beer, my profession for a while, and yes, if I had not moved on to something else, I might never have worked again! I was fortunate enough in my publishing career to work on and contribute to various licensed trade publications, hospitality titles, pub guides and drinkers’ manuals, which also gave me the opportunity to interview brewers, publicans and report on real ale and cider festivals. Consequently, I can vouch for the fact that you can have too much of a good thing, so I switched from drinks’ publications to medical ones, thus exchanging the fear of becoming an alcoholic for becoming a hypochondriac.

NEXT ARTICLE IN THIS SERIES: Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

Plyushkin Bar & Restaurant Kaliningrad

No Mention of the Extreme Left

SSSShhhh Don’t Mention the Extreme Left!

Published: 17 June 2020

On encountering this news article¹ about the continuing civil unrest pertaining to Black Lives Matter protests and the scuffles in Westminster on Saturday 13 June, my reaction was that it was a prime example of imbalanced journalism. I am sure it is not intentional. See what you think?

Whilst the headline ‘Ten year jail sentences for desecrating war memorials’¹is encouraging, leading the reader to the erroneous conclusion that the article’s focus will be on bringing to justice vandals and subversives who throw national monuments into rivers or deface statues of national heroes, it transpires that the acts of desecration are disproportionately narrowed down to one clash in Westminster and (at the time this article was written) an alleged act of disrespect, that of a man with ‘far-right connections’, urinating next to a monument.

The first couple of paragraphs look promising, but as the quotes are rolled out the narrative seems to hang on a piece of elastic, which keeps pulling it back in one direction.

‘Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, and Suella Braverman, the Attorney General, are understood to be discussing proposals to make it easier to prosecute people who damage monuments to those who died during wars. The measures under discussion could also cover some of the statues currently being targeted by activists.’

Here we see statues being targeted by ‘activists’ but without reference to the political affiliations of the activists, or, indeed, their collective identity. The following paragraph reads:

‘… the Cenotaph daubed with graffiti, while demonstrators pulled down a statue in Bristol and are targeting many others across the country. In another incident last week, paint was found to have been thrown at two memorials in Lincolnshire.’

This paragraph tells us that the Cenotaph was ‘daubed with graffiti’ but it does not tell us who daubed it, the same applies to paint throwing in Lincolnshire. We are told that it was ‘demonstrators’ who pulled down the statue in Bristol, but we are not told who the demonstrators are and there is no mention of their ideological background.

In itself that would be no problem, if it was not for the fact that no such reticence was exercised in the censorship department when it came to attributing identity to those people who travelled to Westminster on Saturday 13 June 2020 to protect the country’s heritage statues.

‘On Saturday, missiles were thrown at riot police attempting to move far-right activists away from Whitehall as their self-proclaimed mission to protect the Cenotaph and statue of Churchill descended into hours of violence.’

Here we have ‘far-right activists’ ~ a clear and categorical identification attributed to, presumably, all those in attendance. And then something strange (or, rather, not so strange) happens: the entire article pivots on one incident:

‘One man linked to a far right group was seen urinating next to the memorial to PC Keith Palmer, who died protecting Parliament from a terror attack in 2017.’

Forget for a moment the ambiguous ‘linked to’ and the ‘far-right’ label and concentrate on the phrase ‘next to the memorial’, and then read this:

‘Home Secretary Priti Patel condemned the incident. “We have seen some shameful scenes today, including the desecration of Pc Keith Palmer’s memorial in Parliament, in Westminster Square, and quite frankly that is shameful, that is absolutely appalling and shameful,” she said.’

Priti Patel states that ‘we have seen some shameful scenes today’, but then we have seen some shameful scenes all week, not the least of which has been the necessity of boarding up Winston Churchill’s statue and the Cenotaph to protect them from ‘demonstrators’ intent on criminal damage. She also asserts that PC Keith Palmer’s memorial has been desecrated.

At this point in time (when the article was published) the alleged far-right affiliated man had been described as urinating ‘next’ to the statue not on it. So was he being intentionally disrespectful? He was later found guilty of outraging public decency but not of acting with intent.

As disagreeable as this incident was, it should not be used to eclipse offenses of an even more disturbing nature, such as dragging statues off plinths and dumping them into rivers, daubing paint on the Cenotaph, attacking Winston Churchill’s statue and causing widespread civil unrest. Neither should it be used as a pretext for diverting our attention away from the many other distasteful acts committed during the recent period of civil disorder by people who certainly have no right-wing connections or by making tenuous links intended to demonise all counter-protestors as being of far-right extraction.

Back to the article: After a couple of paragraphs in which various commentators refer to the conservatives as the ‘party of law and order’ and the ‘defender of our culture and our heritage’, the article quickly reverts disproportionately to this one protest in Westminster and the ‘shameful behaviour’ of the far-right. Remember that the headline of the article leads one to believe that is about bringing statue violators to justice not just far-right activists in Westminster and a man relieving himself on the street.

‘Mr Johnson said “racist thuggery has no place on our streets”.’

Quite right!

‘The violence – which came as Black Lives Matter protestors gathered in mostly peaceful protest elsewhere around the country – were described by Ms Patel as “thoroughly unacceptable”.’

‘In mostly peaceful protest’? So has the Black Lives Matter ‘protest’ been mostly peaceful? According to this BBC article², it would appear so: ‘Some peaceful anti-racism protests also took place in London and across the UK’

Apparently, these peaceful protests took place elsewhere but on the same day as the one in Westminster. But were there any not-so-peaceful protesters from or associated with the Black Lives Matter movement in Westminster on Saturday 13 June?

Political fog over Westminster — Dense fog over Westminster
(Photo credit: Sandra Ahn Mode on Unsplash

Moving on:

‘In their public letter to this newspaper, Ms McVey, along with MPs including Lee Anderson and Brendan Clark-Smith, state: “The recent protests have been dominated by criminals who are undermining the very real fight against racism by burning flags, vandalising sacred war memorials and attacking police officers and this has caused outrage in our newly won constituencies in the Midlands and the North.

‘”It’s time for these subversive individuals to be arrested, prosecuted and punished in accordance with the law.” ‘

Here! Here! But who are these people who are ‘burning flags (and which flags?), vanadalising sacred war memorials and attacking police officers’? To whom do they owe their political allegiance?

Quickly wheel on Ken Marsh!

‘Ken Marsh, Chairman of the London Metropolitan Police Federation, called violent protesters to be jailed. “A faction of people only had one intention – to be violent and unlawful, they didn’t come here to protect the statues, it’s just disorder and unruliness.

The first sentence is spot on, but then he has to ruin it by referring specifically to this one protest in Westminster, which, in the context of this article, implies that the only assaults the police have had to contend with during the Black Lives Matter furore are those from the far-right on Saturday 13 June.

Let us ask the question again? Are we to believe that each and everyone of the counter-protesters (there’s an expression that is typically reserved for the left) were of far-right persuasion and that on this day in Westminster the police had no one else to contend with, that is to say no unruly and violent behaviour from the subversive left?

No Mention of the Extreme Left — (Photo credit: Alexander Mils on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/mCUI2v4LomE)

When it comes to obtaining a clear and credible picture of events, especially when intuition suggests that those events are having difficulty passing the politically correct litmus test, you could do a lot worse than give the UK mainstream media a wide berth and look elsewhere. And, indeed, as I trawled through the UK press in the rapidly disappearing hope of finding something that sounded more tenable, I found myself repeatedly reciting the Rolling Stone’s refrain, “I can’t get no, satisfaction”, and then I went to India*.

It is a bit of a bugger when you have to travel halfway around the world to find something that has a ring of truth about it, but in my opinion I found it here in an article titled ‘Patriots defending statues clash with Black Lives Matter protesters and police in London’, an article which appeared online on The Times of India website*.

The Times of India³ report cuts through the PC soup served up by the UK media, dissolves the ambiguities and provides, in my opinion, a clear and balanced perspective of what shaped the events that day. You will also note that it pulls no PC punches when it comes to identifying who is who.

‘A hundred people were arrested and 27 people including six police officers injured when patriots defending statues clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters and riot police in London.

‘Black Lives Matter (BLM) had officially called off their protest on Saturday when war veterans, football supporters and other groups, including far-right Britain First, announced they would be travelling to the capital to defend its statues and war memorials after many had been daubed in graffiti by Black Lives Matter activists last weekend.’

On the subject of the composition of those who travelled to London to defend its heritage, The Times of India refers to war veterans and uses the all-important word ‘including’, with reference to the presence of the ‘far-right Britain First’: ‘including’ the far-right but not made up exclusively of the far-right. It also states unequivocally who it was who ‘daubed’ the statues.

However, it is the second paragraph that most importantly distinguishes the account of what happened in Westminster on that day from the UK mainstream media narrative:

‘Despite being called off, hundreds of Black Live Matter protesters still did turn up and they ended up facing off against the counter-protesters, causing outbreaks of fights and violence all day.’

The remainder of the article covers something that either was omitted or marginalised by the mainstream UK press, that Britain’s war veterans who had travelled to London to protect the statues from thugs (political affiliation withheld) were not exactly chuffed to learn that they had been labelled “extreme right-wingers“ by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

But then it is not only Mr Khan who likes to label people ‘extreme right-wingers’. And here is your homework. Flick through the UK media coverage of the past week on this whole sorry episode of civil unrest from when it started to, and including coverage on, the urinating man, and see how many times you can spot references to the ‘far-left, extreme-left’, and how many times the words ‘extreme-right’ and ‘far-right’ crop up. In fact, you can repeat this exercise for news stories from the UK media over a 12-month period in the full and certain knowledge that this is a far less reprehensible hobby than destroying the nation’s heritage.

It is a sad reflection on the state of the UK’s much-vaunted free press that at a time when it is shouting the loudest against so-called fake news, we, the public, are still attempting to get over the first hurdle and find news that is accurate and that, in order to accomplish this, we have to look elsewhere.

References [accessed 13 & 16 June 2020]
1. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/ten-year-jail-sentences-for-desecrating-war-memorials/ar-BB15rB0n?ocid=spartan-dhp-feeds {link no longer available [12/04/22]
2. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53031072
3. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/patriots-defending-statues-clash-with-black-lives-matter-protesters-and-police-in-london/articleshow/76365525.cms

*The Times of India(TOI) is an Indian daily newspaper owned by The Times Group.

❗Feature image: (Photo credit: Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/14RqNPmDOno)

Statue Erections Matter UK

An Address on Statue Erection in the UK by Chief Police Officer Raymond Ironside for CricketDick County, North Dorsetshire

Published: 15 June 2020

Keyfacts
Venue: The Village Hall
In attendance: 7 people (The Chief of Police, His Auntie (from Virginia) and something else that could not fully decide on which box to tick and was therefore counted as 5 Others)
Tickets: Parking ones £85; O.A.P.s double the price for living so long and drawing their pensions; Students ~ we’ll pay you to stay away
Refreshments: Imperialistic tea and biscuits free at twice the price in the Indian Pavilion

Chief Raymond Ironside’s address:
Good afternoon, it is so nice to see such an excellent turnout for this event (looking out of the window at an Antifart-induced riot that is going on outside over monocultural yoghurts being sold at the village fete).

First an apology (we’re good at that). Many of you have written to us at the police station asking where the police station is and why it isn’t where the police station should be? We apologise for never replying ever, and twice never on Sundays, as the postman, sorry postother, hasn’t a clue either ~ that is about who or what he is and where the police station has been relocated to. Some people believe that is in Mr Sado Khan’s Hall of Smoke and Mirrors, others that it was last seen disguised as a mobile yam and breadfruit shop. We advise people who don’t know their arse from their elbow to do what we always do whenever we want to find it: ask a policeman.

Taking into account the current trend for not being able to spell and the younger generation’s flatulent use of the word ‘like’ and ‘LoL’, even if we had received your letters, we would have had to employ an interpreter, and as the recorded message tells you on all those helplines you love to ring, ‘our interpreters are all busy helping other customers at present’, most of whom have come to Dorsetshire in the middle of the night, when they are least likely to be seen, in small boats without a TV licence.

CricketDick Police are, however, on Facebook. That’s our Facebook page. You can’t miss it. It’s the one with a mugshot avatar complete with number underneath. Please note that the face we are using is a fictitious one in order to comply with the Data Protection Act and the We Dare Not Arrest Anybody Who Looks Like That Anymore in Case of a Riot Act.

Now we know that there are an awful lot of you ~ and a lot of you who are awful ~ who are concerned about the increasing numbers of burglaries, muggings, knife crimes, terrorist activities and murders in CrippleDick but never mind that, today we are here to talk about the dos and don’ts (mostly the don’ts) of statue erection. This is most important as transgressions of the erection laws carry stiff penalties, as I believe my colleagues, Detective Constable Ron Condom and Police Woman Cliterthroe, advised you last week during the talk they gave to the ‘High-5 Size-55 Yoga Pants Club’ on Camel Toes Matter. Get this wrong and it could, as the missionaries used to say, land you right in the soup. Indeed, contravention of the I Should Not Be Proud of My National History Act, carries a penalty of 5000 Obamian Dollars, two years in parts of London where I really don’t want to be, or both.

This is why I say if you do intend to raise a statue in your back garden, on your patio, in your front room or on the empty plinths in Parliament Square ~ and every other municipal centre in England ~ please remember that there are a few legal points that you need to take into account before your erection takes place.

Here, I am reminded of the case Viagra vs Cialis, which was thrown out of court and hit someone on the head who had so many rights they didn’t know what to do with them. He, she, or whatever it was, was compensated to the tune of their own national anthem with a package consisting of two kilos of hashish, the winning numbers of the EU lottery, housed for free at Buckingham Palace and was offered an unlikely position, which IT’s husband complained about, on the Statue Shatterers Board of Directors. It was also offered an OBE but turned it down on the basis that it was racist, imperialist and you couldn’t snort or smoke it.

I know I am here to talk about statues, but our job, the job of the Defunded police (now consisting of one man and his bicycle and a huge handbook of what he can’t say, do or arrest), is first and foremost to ensure equality and fairness is exercised in all thongs pertaining to inclusivity. We will only arrest if there is absolutely no other way or whilst we are looking the other way as instructed in the statuet book.

Here is a checklist of things you should ask yourself before you put up your statue:

1. Is your statue of a pale complexion?
2. Is your statue a pre-eminent historical figure who has made an inestimable contribution to the nations’ stability and advancement, without which the current generation would lack the entitlement to which they presume they have a God-given right?
3. Has your statue ever owned a pair of dark coloured underpants with a white band of elastic around the top?
4. Did your statue read Noddy when he was a little statue?
5. Has your statue ever, with or without your knowledge, been labelled by the liberal media as Far or Extreme Right because he or she is not a self-culture loather who objects to national identity theft?
6. Has your statue ever been caught listening to the National Anthem?
7. Did anyone hear your statue say ‘Good Riddance’ when Meghan Markle shipped out?
8. Is your statue more inclined to cheer Churchill than another statue in the near vicinity?
9. Does your statue confuse the word ‘rap’ with ‘stereotypifying crap’?
10. Was your statue a friend of Jimmy Savile’s statue, or anybody else’s statue who worked for the BBC?
11. Has your statue ever owned the Vera Lynn Collection?
12. Does your statue’s family have centuries-old British lineage or were they given a piece of paper with citizenship written on it, or did they not come from the East but knew Ron Geest?
13. Is your statue balanced or does it have a large chip on its shoulder?
14. Does your statue play cards ~ regularly and deal from the bottom?
15. Is your statue an inanimate object that if pulled down will not make a ha’p’orth of difference to the person it represents as he died in 1835 and is too busy laughing in his grave?

In addition to these questions you should also give appropriate consideration to the decorations that surround your statue ~ Union Jacks, Sunday lunches, a pair of Morris dancer’s socks, the entire BBC collection of the Black & White Minstrel Show and a certain record about Christmas by a man whose surname is very similar to someone else’s (unfortunately), should be avoided at all costs. For advice on street signs, please address your queries to Nickerless Sturfried at Scotty Parliament, or email: nomorereferendumsplease@straw.grasping.sc.

And remember, if you intend to do anything with your statue that does not concern the local leftwing council planning department, please seek advice from your local leftwing council planning department. If in doubt, you should always hide your statue in your loft, under a heavy tarpaulin away from skylights, where it could be noticed by third-class passengers hiding in the wheel-wells of passing airliners and offend their sillybilities.

Next week, your visiting lecturer will be (name withheld in accordance with The Name Witholding Act) who will be discussing her latest books, which she wrote in Yarlswood, Rewriting British History and Blackmail: Apologising and Appeasing with your statues down.

Statue Erections Matter UK — The Time-Travelling Policeman says, “I love it here in 1910. We are all well-funded, you can stand in the middle of the road and be really embarrassed if you get hit by the once-weekly bus, the government and law-abiding public all support us, the Riot Act takes care of anything vaguely subversive and all our statues and national monuments are safe and happy within their ancestral home!

The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook
“If you don’t know where they are they’ll box them before you trash them!” ~ described by the B.B.C. as a ‘mainly peaceful demonstrator’

Max Aschmann Park Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 84 [11 June 2020]

Published: 14 June 2020

We were outside and walking down the street! It felt alien and wonderful at one and the same time. ‘O brave new world that has such people in’t!’ And, as I reflected on recent events in the western media, by the kindness of history, where we were today, no such people innit …

We were on the way first to the post office to post a letter to my mother and family, which I had started writing in March but had not posted due to coronavirus close-down, and then our mission was to find the whereabouts of Königsberg’s Max Aschmann Park.

Max Aschmann Park Kaliningrad

We knew it was not far away, and we were aware that it is a park of some magnitude, but our objective was to discover the way in, so that at some point in the not-to-distant future we could lessen the more austere effects of isolating by going on a picnic.

It was a beautiful summer’s day and Kaliningrad was at its greenest and, therefore, at its best. On the way we bought a couple of ice creams and stopped off at a small park not far from where we live. In the centre of this park, and a few feet away from where we were sitting, was a Soviet statue. I winked at him. “You’re safe mate,” I thought. “This is not the UK.”

Proceeding from here, feeling extremely grateful that I was far enough away from the multicultural malaise that is now, as Enoch predicted, blighting every aspect of British daily life and threatening to obliterate its cultural identity, we spotted, peeping through a small fringe of trees at the side of the road, another monument. Further investigation revealed that this great carved slab of granite sitting on a concrete plinth and vandalised only by the same natural influence that vandalises our bodies ~ Time ~ was German and of Königsberg origin, dedicated to 100 graduates of the Altstadt Gymnasium who lost their lives during the First World War.

Königsberg monument WWI Altstadt Gymnasium — WWI MONUMENT, KÖNIGSBERG (Kaliningrad), IN MEMORY OF 100 GRADUATES OF THE ALTSTADT GYMNASIUM WHO DIED IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR

As the photograph in this post shows, the monument is flanked by two trees which, as the architects intended, have now grown into mighty and impressive sentinels.

WWI GERMAN MONUMENT KÖNIGSBERG (Kaliningrad) MARAUNENHOF SUBURBS

Criss-crossing the streets a couple of times, and feeling a little foolish asking people ‘do you know where the Max Aschmann Park is?’ aware as we are that the park is huge, our bearings suddenly returned to us. Olga declared, “We are on the road that leads to the yellow church.” I also knew that this road led to a couple of café bars, which I also knew, courtesy of Coro, sadly would be closed.

In the heat of the day, against the green and blue backdrop of trees, shrubs and sky, a reference to this time last year flashed through me. It was a little schizophrenic moment, a duality of emotion, part sorrow, part joy ~ one rooted in grievous loss, the other in poignant memory. For a split second I saw, and quite vividly, our deceased friend Victor Ryabinin walking by our side, as he could well have been in life. The moment passed as quickly as it had arrived, and I was left with that bittersweet sensation to which we are helpless when we miss someone dear to us, something between chasmic wistfulness and eternal gratitude, the longing for yesterday softened by the sense of privilege for paths that could so easily not have crossed on our strange little journey through life.

My wife, being an advocate of predeterminism, saw it as a fait accompli ~ whatever will be is meant to be ~ and she must be right, because in next to no time, after a brief excursion into the grounds of an interesting church, we arrived at the undisclosed entrance to Max Aschmann Park.

We had never been here with Victor, but Boris Nisnevich does refer to it in his biographical essay An artist that can hear angels speak. Victor cites the park as one of the places that had been earmarked for restoration, although rumour has it that whilst some remedial work has been undertaken the project has stalled.

The Max Aschmann Park

The Max Aschmann Park was named after its benefactor who, in 1903 bequeathed the Maraunenhof estate to the city of Königsberg together with a substantial sum of money to aid in the park’s construction. The 25-hectare park took seven years to complete. By the 1940s the park had been greatly improved and expanded. It was now approximately three times the size of the original and equipped with an elaborate network of ponds, natural habitats ringed and intersected with paths and bridges, woodland groves, sporting facilities, playgrounds, curious buildings and monuments. As with most of Königsberg, the park fell victim to the Second World War and, thereafter, was neglected. Its abandoned status made it the perfect venue for itinerant drinkers and a place to rendezvous for impromptu barbecues, further contributing to its fall from grace. Sporadic maintenance has taken place in more recent years and plans for a more elaborate renovation programme are known to have been discussed. Victor Ryabinin, artist and local historian, refers to such in Boris Nisnevich’s biographical essay An artist /that can hear angels speak, but rumour has it that any plans that may have been discussed have been postponed indefinitely which, if true, is rather sad.

Our meeting today with Max Aschmann would be brief. As I said earlier, we were on a reconnaissance mission. But we followed the winding block-paved road that led to the park and tarried awhile in the wooded perimeter at the side of a large pond, a delightful interlude interwoven with beaten tracks and so natural that you could have been anywhere, anywhere that is except in the suburbs of a bustling city.

We wended our way home via a different route, stopping off at a magazin for victuals and, oh yes, a couple of litres of beer. Well, it was such a nice day after all …

One of these beers, a monopolistic mainstay of the Soviet era, has an interesting history, which, if I can remember anything about it after drinking the beer, I will jot down for your edification.

Hmm, it will soon be time to open Mick’s Bar.