Архив рубрики: Kaliningrad: Mick Hart’s Diary

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

“Bucket!” he shouted. They hadn’t let him in!

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 608 [2 November 2021]

Published: 2 November 2021~Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

So I said to my wife, “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got better things to do this morning.”

But she looked so disappointed that I relented, saying, five minutes later, “OK, I will walk with you to the market.”

“You don’t have to, unless you want to,” she quickly said ~ a little too quickly for my liking.

I know when I’m not wanted.

I remember hearing my mother and father quarreling when I was about six months old, blaming each other, arguing about whose fault it was. I have no idea what they were arguing about, but when I got to the age of five I suspected something was wrong when I came home from school one day and found some sandwiches, a bottle of pop and a map to Katmandu in a travelling bag on the doorstep.

Never one to take a hint, I knew that my wife really wanted me to walk to the market with her today, so I swiftly replied, “Well, if you really want me to come with you, I will.”

Apart from knowing when I’m not wanted ~ it gets easier as you get older ~ I needed to buy myself a new atchkee. No, not ‘latch key’. Atchkee is the phonetic spelling for spectacles in Russian. Isn’t my Russian improving! I am a two-pairs spectacles man. I like to have one pair so that I can find the other.

This was a great excuse for being a nuisance, so I got ready, tried not to look at the cat, who always looks sour at us when he sees that we are leaving the house, and off we went, on foot, to the central market.

“Ee by gum,” I might say, if I was from Up North in England, “but it were a grand day.” Here we were at the end of October, underneath a bright blue sky and the sun right up there where it is supposed to be.

We stopped off for a coffee at the top of the Lower Pond, risked the public Portaloos and then made our way to the market from there.

Being Saturday, and good weather, the second-hand and collectables market was in full swing.

When it was our business to buy and sell, we always had an excuse to buy, now all we could say was, ‘we’ll just have a quick look’. And then leave an hour later barely able to carry what we had bought.

Today was no exception. That’s willpower for you!

During the course of not buying anything we got to talking to one of the market men, who was not wrapping something up for us because we hadn’t just bought it.

“Good thing about outside markets,” said I, no doubt saying something entirely different in Russian, such as “Would you like me to pay twice as much for that item that we really should not be buying?” It must have been something like this, because when I checked he had short-changed us.

That sorted, I continued: “Good thing about outside markets, you don’t need ‘Oo Er’ codes.”

“QR codes!” my wife corrected me impatiently, as she bought herself a pair of boots that she didn’t need.

“QR codes!” repeated the market man solemnly, with a sorry shake of his head. “It’s bad business and bad for business. You can’t go anywhere without them now.”

“Niet!” I agreed, looking all proud at myself for saying it in such a Russian-sounding way, which enabled him to sneak in with, “But if you do not have a QR code, there is another way of getting access to bars, shops and restaurants.”

My ears pricked up at this intelligence, or was it because someone walking by had laughed, as if they knew what I didn’t?

I was too intrigued to be diverted: “How is that?” I asked

“Tin buckets!” replied the market man, with stabilised conviction.

“Tin, er …?”

“Like this!” the market man infilled.

And there, in front of me, where it hadn’t been a moment ago, was this large tin bucket.

Mick Hart with tin bucket in Kaliningrad — **Old fort, old fart & a tin bucket (thanks to my brother for this caption)**

As tin buckets go, it was quite the bobby dazzler.

It was one of those vintage enamel jobs; a pale, in fact, with a cream exterior and a trim around the rim.

“If you don’t yet have your QR code,” the market man continued to solemnise, “all you need is a tin bucket and, as you say in England, Fanny’s your uncle.”

Well, there is nothing LGBTQITOTHER about that, I had to admit.

“OK,” I said curiously, “I’m listening.”

There was Olga in the background, sticking to her non-purchasing guns, busily buying something else.

“That’s it really. Just say at the door, ‘I haven’t received my QR codes yet, but I do have a tin bucket’.”

I am telling you this just in case you are wondering why I have photos in this post of me walking around Kaliningrad with an old tin bucket. (That’s not a nice thing to say about your wife!)

The next stop was the city’s central market, where I bought a pair of specs, better to see my tin bucket with.

I needed to confirm that I really had bought that old tin bucket and that it wasn’t, after all, a figment of my stupidity.

“Ahh, you are British!” the spectacle seller exclaimed.

“No, English,” I corrected him. “Anyone and everyone can be ‘British’. All you need is to arrive illegally on a small boat, and a couple of months later they give you a piece of paper with ‘you’re British’ written on it.”

Now I had my new specs on, I could see that approximately 75 per cent of the market had been rendered inoperable. Many of the shutters were down, and I could read the ‘closed’ signs that were Sellotaped to them, stating that they would remain closed for the ‘non-working week’. If coronavirus turned up here in the next seven days, it would be sorely disappointed.

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes in Kaliningrad Market — **Spot the old bucket**

Nevertheless, by the time we had exited the market at the end where the spanking brand-new shopping centre has been built, my bucket was getting heavier.

I put it down for a rest, on the pavement, directly outside of the new shopping centre entrance, thus giving myself a commanding view of the row upon row of plate-glass doors, behind which sat shops that still had nothing inside of them. Obviously, no chances were being taken. Should the thousands of square metres of space remain empty, the risk of non-mask wearers and QR fiddlers entering the building would be considerably reduced. In addition, the spanking shopping-centre was surrounded by a large impenetrable fence, creating a 20 metre no-go zone between itself and the pavement. A red-brick fortress had also been built just across the road, so that any attempt to cross the minefield between the pavement and shopping centre, if not thwarted by the mines and patrolling Alsatian dogs, would be repelled by a volley of arrows, or something closely resembling them, fired from the slits in the fortress wall. In particularly demanding circumstances, for example when everything in the shops that had nothing in them was half price, thus attracting the crowds, I would have thought that backup, in the form of mobile dart vans stationed close to the entrance, would be advisable. But who am I to say? Confucius say, “Man with tin bucket talks out of his elbow!” Confusion says, “Man with elbow talks out of his tin buttock.” (The last sentence is sponsored by The Cryptogram and Sudoku Society.)

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes Shopping centre Kaliningrad

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes front of Kaliningrad shopping centre

A lesser person would have been intimidated by fantasies of this nature, but not I. I had a tin bucket and, in case I haven’t divulged this already, that same tin bucket contained a green leather jacket, which I did not buy from the second-hand market, and a jar of homemade horseradish sauce, which I had not bought from the city market.

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

The bucket was as heavy as my heart as we parked ourselves on one of the seats outside a once-often visited watering hole, Flame. We were waiting for a taxi.

We had not long been sitting there, when I began to develop a jealousy complex. Staring back at us from the large glass windows were our own reflections. What were they doing in the bar without QR codes? It was then that I noticed that my reflection had an old tin bucket with him. What a coincidence, it was not dissimilar to mine. I recalled the wisdom of the man on the market who had sold me the bucket; his tale about old tin buckets having parity with QR codes for gaining access to cafes and restaurants.

However, before I could put his advice to the test, our taxi arrived. We said farewell to our reflections and hopped inside the vehicle. Our taxi driver, who was a stickler for rules, did insist that our bucket wear a mask for the duration of the journey. Stout fellow!

Although the taxi driver never asked, I was unable to say whether or not we managed to gain access to anywhere using our tin bucket in case the authorities find out and proceed to confiscate every tin bucket in Christendom.

The taxi driver did want to know what we were going to use that old tin bucket for, but I was not about to divulge my secret to him.

Give me a week two and I will divulge it to you. Although there will be a small charge for the privilege.

You can ‘read all about it!’ ~ as they say ~ in Mick Hart’s Guide to Homemade Vaccines.

Some posts that have nothing about tin buckets in them:
Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer

Something for the World’s End, Sir!
UK Lockdown New Board Game
Exit Strategy Board Game
Clueless World Health Game

A new QR code era in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 579 [14 October 2021]

Published: 14 October 2021 ~ A new QR code era in Kaliningrad

ON THE 9^thOF OCTOBER, the day after the QR code restrictions hit Kaliningrad, Olga and I walked through the atmospheric autumnal streets of Königsberg and then whizzed off by bus across the other side of town on an errand.

Having alighted from public transport, we decided to stop for a coffee. If we had attempted to enter a café, restaurant or bar today, we would have had to produce a QR code, but because we were buying refreshments from a pavement kiosk, we were, at least for the moment, QR exempt.

Subliminally, the advertising gimmick had worked. I saw a giant cup and a cup of coffee I wanted.

As I waited for my brew, I could not resist contemplating what it must be like to go to work each day not in an office, school, fire station, police station, on a building site or in a city bar but inside a giant coffee cup ~ and an orange one at that!

Through the little glass windowed serving hatch it did not look as if there was an awful lot of room inside the cup, and I began to imagine some of the more expansive people whom I knew in the UK working there. I concluded that they would not be so much inside the cup as wearing it.

Coffee can be bought from kiosks during a new QR code era in Kaliningrad

Joss, my brother, could live in it. I could see the place slowly converting before my eyes. It had a television arial on top, a satellite dish on the side and protruding from the roof a long metal chimney that was smoking like a volcano. Outside, there was a crate of empty beer bottles and a pair of old pants and socks, both with holes in them, hanging on a homemade line strung across the front of the cup, looking like last month’s tea towels.

If this coffee cup was for sale in London, it would be described by London estate agents as ‘a most desirable property’, well-appointed and almost offering commanding views over the road to the bus stop. You certainly would not get much change out of a million quid for it. Five miles outside of Dover, with a 5-star sign above it, the cup would be housing a boat load of migrants. Why Nigel Farage is gazing at it from a hilltop through his binoculars the British government will never know ~ and don’t want to! But this is hardly surprising, as Nigel has a reputation for waking up first and smelling the coffee!

With no one any the wiser as to whether we had a QR code, a bar code, a one-time code, a code that needed verifying or a code that was Top Secret, we took full advantage of our incognitoism by finding a spot in the autumnal sun in which to savour our brew.

Giant pavement-side coffee cups, even bright orange ones, do not as a rule run to tables outside, but just at the back of this one there happened to be an old, long, green Soviet bench, where one could drink one’s coffee whilst ruminating upon the good old days when the proletariat sitting here would have been comfortably unaware that the USSR when it folded would eventually be replaced with coronavirus QR codes. This long and sturdy bench also facilitated my admiration of the pretty and well-stocked flower bed and enabled me to keep an eye on the plums.

Plums! What plums? Whose plums were they? And how had these plums got there? They weren’t aloft growing on a tree these plums but scattered upon the ground. Someone, I conjectured, must have sworn bitterly, perhaps a bit stronger than blaher moohar, when the bottom of the bag that they had been carrying split, plummeting plums all over the paving slabs.

The who and the why of the plums, whilst inspiring at first, soon gave way to the far more exciting realisation that by observing people’s reactions to the plums, I could play the psychoanalyst and categorise them according to plum personalities. Of course, the way they approached and dealt with the plums would not help me to determine whether or not they were in full possession of their QR codes, were evading pricks or considering vaccination at any moment, possibly when they least expected it, but when all was said and done the experiment would be an interesting one, and, besides, I had a cup of coffee to drink.

Twenty sips or so into my coffee and a substantial cohort of pedestrians later, and I had been able to determine that there are basically four types of plum approachers.

1. Those that spotted the plums and walked around them, giving them a particularly wide berth. Any wider and they would have needed a visa, not to mention a coronavirus test or six, as they inadvertently crossed the Polish border.

2. Those who spotted the plums but carried on walking anyway, chatting casually to their companions as though they were no strangers to plums in public places, yet who picked their way through them gingerly as they would a minefield on their way to buying a Sunday newspaper.

3. Next came the sort of people that you would not want to walk across a minefield with, since, seemingly oblivious to their feet and where they were putting them, they inevitably stepped on one or two plums, immediately looking down in alarm at the squish beneath their shoes, no doubt fearing that the lack of fines for Fido’s indifferent owners had landed them in it yet again.

4. Finally, it was the turn of “I’ll give them plums on pavements!” This category was mostly comprised of manly men; you know the sort, either their arms don’t fit or they have gone and grown a beard, not knowing why they have done it and because, quite obviously, it certainly does not suit them, it was the last thing on Earth, next to deliberately stepping on plums, that they should have gone and done to themselves, unless it really was their intention to make themselves look like a bit of a dick.

This category saw the plums but chose to pay no heed to them. They juggernauted along as if plums grew on trees and these boots were made for walking. Unbeknown to them, however, plums can be slippery customers and more than once were the over-confident nearly sent arse overhead. They would step, squash, slip a little, look around really embarrassed, hoping no one had seen them, and then hurry on their way, leaving behind the priceless memory of a bright red face burning like a forest fire in a beard to which they were both ill suited, as well as a boot-imprinted trail of squishy-squashy plum juice.

So, what I had learnt from all this plum gazing? Not a lot. It had been a different way of occupying one’s mind whilst drinking a cup of coffee, although it had made me wish that I was 14 years’ old again, so that I could shout, “Watch out for the plums!” or simply “Plums!” But you can’t go around doing silly things like that when you are (ha! ha!) a ‘mature person’, especially not when you are in somebody else’s country. I bet Adolf Hitler never shouted “Plums!” when he was cruising about the streets of Paris. Boat migrants to England certainly don’t. They just shout, “Take me to your 5-star hotel and give me benefits!” And liberals, who always find something to shout about, would, on seeing the black shiny plums in their path, have been unable to resist the wokeness of going down on one knee whilst crying, “My white knees are in trousers, please forgive me, I am too privileged”.

Conkers on the day of A new QR code era in Kaliningrad

Young boy: They ain’t plums!
Me: I know. But I just wanted to show that in Kaliningrad at this time of year there are also a lot of horse-chestnut tree …
Young boy: You put those there because you ain’t got any pictures of plums …
Me: Why you cheeky little f …

I finished my coffee, wished the entertaining plums good day, and off we went to complete our errand.

On the way, on this second day of QR codes, giant cups and plums (plums, no less, my friends, which had fallen by the wayside), we overheard a lady at a bus stop complaining loudly to anyone who had a mind (or not) to listen.

It was quite evident by her excited, ruffled and animated manner that she had recently undergone a most traumatic experience. Apparently, she had ventured into a small café to buy some jam and was horrified to discover that not only were most of the people inside the shop not wearing masks but, as far as she could ascertain, none had been asked for their QR codes. “I shall report them! I shall report them!” she wailed, shouting so loud that had her mask been properly in place, which it wasn’t, it would have fallen from her nose, like plums from a wet paper bag, to end up uselessly wrapped around her chin. It was fortunate, therefore, that such a calamity could not occur, as that is where her mask was anyway ~ swaddled around her chin protecting it from coronavirus.

On completion of our errand (there has to be some mystery in this post somewhere!), whilst sitting on the bus with my mask strapped to my elbow, I drifted into contemplation of the feasibility of QR codes extended to encumber access to the city’s supermarkets.

I wondered: “Does it mean that if you do not want to get vaccinated you will have to buy your own shop?” And: “What is the going rate for one of those giant coffee cups?”

Mick Hart on Day 2 of A new QR code era in Kaliningrad

If it does happen, if they do impose QR code restrictions on shops, I can see some astute entrepreneur, some Russian equivalent to Del Boy, quickly cashing in on the act. It is not difficult to imagine a fleet of shops on wheels whipping about the city from one estate to another, selling everything from buckwheat to outsize, wooly, babushka-made socks.

Alternatively, we could convert our garage into a Cash & Cart-it Off. Our garage stands at the end of the garden, some distance from the road, but in these coronavirus-challenged times what once might have been regarded as a commercial disadvantage could potentially be transposed into a positive marketing ploy.

All that was needed would be to install large glass windows in the sides of the garage, stack shelves behind them full of sundry goods, position two telescopes on the side of the pavement, preferably coin operated so as to make a few extra kopeks and, Boris your uncle, Svetlana your aunt, you’re in business!

Potential buyers viewing our wares through the telescopes provided could place their orders by Arsebook messenger. On receipt of their orders we would select the goods, load them on the conveyor belt and ship them from store to roadside before you could say, who’s making millions out of the sales of coronavirus masks? What could be better than that? Accessible shops, you say?

Come to think of it, there are probably not a lot more inconvenient places than shops where QR codes could be implemented, except, of course, for public lavs.

Imagine getting jammed in the bog turnstile unable to get your mobile phone from your pocket to display your QR code whilst the call of Nature grows ever more shrill!

This situation, difficult though not insurmountable, would stretch both the imagination and the resources of even the brightest entrepreneur, who would be faced with the daunting prospect of rigging up some curious contraption or other, consisting of a series of pipes, funnels and retractable poes on sticks.

On a less grand but no less adventurous scale, my wife has suggested that we plough up the lawn at our dacha and use it for growing potatoes, which is not such a bad idea, as it would mean no longer having to mow the lawn. But would it mean that we would have to get a statutory dog that never stops barking as a deterrent to potato thieves and to ensure that our neighbours are completely deprived of peace? “What is the use of having a dog that don’t bark? An intelligent lady once said to us. Answer: about as much use as one that never stops barking! Or about as much use as a dog owner who allows its dog to incessantly bark.

Whilst a constant supply of beer and vodka would not be a problem as we could always convert our Soviet garage back to what it was obviously used for when it was first constructed, alas ploughed up lawns will not grow washing sponges or cultivate tins of baked beans. And the last thing that I would want, even if my potato patch was the best thing since Hungary stood up to bullying EU bureaucrats, was to own something so useless that all it does is shite on pavements and bark as if a potato thief has thrust a firework up its arse before leaving the garden with a sack on his back.

Of course, all things considered, it would be far easier and, perhaps, far wiser, certainly less embarrassing, just to go and get vaccinated. But if you do that, will you be tempted to go out every night to the city’s bars and restaurants, just to say that you can? And if so, can you or any of us for that matter, be 100% sure that, even after vaccination and thirty years of boosters, whichever vaccine it is and from wherever the vaccine comes from, will we, the little ordinary people, be guaranteed at some point, preferably sooner than later, a return to the life that we had before? Er, or any life, for that matter. >>‘This statement is false!!!! (See G Soros’ Fact Checker). You will now be redirected to the neoliberal globalist version, which is as honest as philanthropy and almost twice as honest as the EU parliament ~ which is not exactly difficult (Source: An Open Borders Publication}’<<

Plough a straight furrow or walk a taut tightrope, whichever path you choose to take, do ‘Watch out for those plums!’

ON TOPIC>
A trilogy of games by that renowned board-game maker John Wankinson: the perfect way to unlock, unwind and vaccinate whilst taking your mind off coronavirus and the interminable elusiveness of returning to normality:
UK Lockdown New Board Game
Exit Strategy Board Game
Clueless ~ a World Health Board Game

Image attributions:
Yapping dog: https://www.clipartmax.com/download/m2i8Z5H7G6A0N4H7_barking-dog-animal-free-black-white-clipart-images-yap-clipart/
Plums: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/539028.htm

QR Codes Enforced in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 576 [11 October 2021]

8 October 2021, QR codes are officially introduced in Kaliningrad and across the Kaliningrad region. What are they? Think Vaccination Passports in the UK and you are on the right track.

Published: 11 October 2021 ~ QR Codes Enforced in Kaliningrad

Since the 8^th October 2021, it has no longer been possible in Kaliningrad to access restaurants, cafes, bars, canteens, buffets, snack bars and similar establishments, without flashing your QR code. From 1^st November the QR code restriction will be extended to cover swimming pools and fitness centres, cinemas and cultural institutions such as theatres, philharmonic societies and concert halls¹.

How all this works exactly, with regard to official documentation delivery and locating your personal QR code is explained in this article¹.

How do you get a QR code? You’ve guessed it, vaccination! Once you have completed a full vaccination course you will then have access to your QR code

Mandatory vaccinations for certain categories of workers have also been extended².

Here are some statistics about coronavirus in the Kaliningrad region²:

“Since the beginning of October, the Kaliningrad region has broken several records for the daily increase in coronavirus cases. Every day, more than 250 people fall ill in the region. In September, mortality from infection increased by 20%.”

And here are some more:

“As of early October, more than 330,000 people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus in the region. About 311 thousand people underwent a full course of vaccination. According to Rospotrebnadzor, these indicators are insufficient to combat the spread of infection.”

QR Codes Enforced in Kaliningrad

Rumour also has it³that somewhere along the line QR codes might be needed for visiting shopping centres. Just in case, I have stocked up the larder with seven tins of baked beans and 356 bottles of beer. Will it be bog rolls next?

Sources:

1. https://www.newkaliningrad.ru/news/community/23958084-kovid-fri-po-russki-kak-v-kaliningradskoy-oblasti-budut-rabotat-qr-kody.html

2. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/97260-ne-menee-80-v-kaliningradskoj-oblasti-rasshirili-spisok-dlya-obyazatelnoj-vakcinaciikgd.ru

3. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/97271-v-kaliningradskoj-oblasti-rassmotryat-vopros-o-vvedenii-qr-kodov-dlya-poseshheniya-torgovyh-centrov

Image attribution:
Bear slamming door: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/832345.htm

Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast

A funky, flower-power, fabulous day

Published: 13 September 2021 ~ Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast

It didn’t go exactly according to plan, but then what does? I am talking about our hippy party, which was scheduled to take place on the 11^th September 2021. The main stumbling block was the weather. We had decided to hold the event on the 11^th because two weeks before the day assorted internet weather services were predicting uninterrupted sun, but as the days fell away from the calendar, so the forecast changed erratically.

One consultation revealed that it would be overcast, another that we were in for intermittent rain, another that … In desperation, I even turned to the BBC weather site, knowing only too well that their forecasts, like everything else that they do, has a sharp liberal left slant to it, so the probability of getting the truth, the half-truth or anything but the truth was rather hit and miss, and yes, their forecast was also chopping and changing, like the way they had reported Brexit and the EU referendum.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, that as the day drew near, one by one, people cried away; and on the evening before the day that the party was to take place, we cancelled it.

Between times, we had succeeded in completing the renovation of Captain Codpiece, the deteriorating statue in our garden. Our friend and artist Vladimir Chilikin, with the help of a beer or two, had transformed Codpiece from the worn concrete man that he had become over the past 40 years into a strapping bronzed figure, in which many lost details could now be clearly seen.

Olga Hart with Russian fisherman statue — Olga Hart with renovated fisherman statue

We, my wife and I, had been admiring Chilikin’s work from the pavement at the end of the garden when who should materialise but our friendly stout babushka.

“Hello,” we regaled her, cheerily.

“Why have you spoilt him?” she asked.

I knew she could not have been referring to me, so she must have meant the statue. Before we had chance to reply, she had exclaimed “He’s black!”

I heard someone saying, but I know not from whence the voice came, that it would not surprise me if it was black. Being British, I am only too aware that white statues are an endangered species, at least in the UK, and that, unless they are all painted black, it won’t be long before they will all have been run off with and thrown over some wall or other into a watery mire. But I ignored this voice and simply retorted, “No, in fact, he is bronze.”

“Well,” replied the stout babushka in a rare moment of concession, “I wouldn’t know because I am peearnee (drunk).”

I think in all fairness we can say ‘tipsy’, because when Olga collected some litter from the side of the road and placed it in our rubbish bag, babushka was quick to comment: “Huh! Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time!”

The statue, which is bronzed not black, was completed that afternoon. We had brought the marble glazed plaque to Victor Ryabinin with us, and before we left at the end of the day, we dragged the boat into place and finished the ensemble.

Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast

We came back on the 11^th September as, on the morning of that day, we discovered that the weather forecast had changed again. Now we were informed that it would rain but not until 8pm, and until that time it would be bright and sunny, with temperatures reaching 26 degrees centigrade.

It was too late to rally the fringe, but the old faithful were ready to go and at a moment’s notice, so our hippy party went ahead, albeit reduced in numbers.

An executive decision was reached that it did not seem proper to combine the opening of Victor’s memorial with everyone dressed in flower power, even though Victor’s Boat with Flowers put flowers centre stage. But we abided by the decision and reserved the ceremony for a later date

The renovated statue, rocks adorning the plinth and Victor’s Boat with Flowers joined forces with our rather silly attire, caricature wigs, bright-coloured cushions and mats and, with the help of Arthur’s classic Volga and the dulcet tones of the Beatles wafting from our music system, attracted many a stare and comment from passing villagers.

The stout babushka was not in evidence today, which was a shame. I am sure that she would have had a thing or two to say had she witnessed our shenanigans. But at some point in the early evening a different distraction occurred. Someone had sent a drone buzzing over the garden and consigned us all and our antics to film.

I am sure that a hippy party, themed or not, would not have gone down well had this been the former USSR, even though, or especially since, drinking cognac from cognac glasses gave our particular brand of hippyness a rather bourgeois air.

Peace man! (no sexism intended, of course)

Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast — Mick Hart with Artour, who looks like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Benny Hill

Mick Hart with Egis Kaliningrad — Mick Hart with Egis looking as cool as cucumbers on a hot day

How to Grow Old Graciously

Tums, bums and bald heads

Thoughts inspired by my school reunion in 2021

Published: 7 September 2021 ~ How to Grow Old Graciously

For the past week, I have been preoccupied with the 50^thanniversary of my former UK school. The school opened officially on 6 September 1971, and I was among the first batch of inmates. To mark the occasion (not me having been there 50 years’ ago but 50 years of the school’s existence) a reunion had been planned to coincide with a book written by the school’s first and longest serving headmaster, the book being an anthology of amusing anecdotes gleaned from his 25 years of tenure.

Although I would not be attending the reunion in person, owing to coronavirus restrictions and the global money-making industry that has sprung up around it in the form of multiple tests and fines for non-compliance, I did join the reunion’s Facebook group to see if I could identify anyone by name or by photograph who was at the school at the same time that I was there. As I had been one of the school’s first intake, I did not expect to find many people that I knew, and I was right. We were the vanguard, the founders, the golden oldies. There were many more who came after us. We were, inevitably, in the minority.

Nevertheless, as I scrolled down the page the odd photograph of people from ‘my time’ at the school and then the names of fellow pupils crossed my memory radar, and before long I was communicating with people that I had not spoken to for half a century.

Having kept a diary for the same amount of time, I was able to regale group members and my fellow alumni by posting extracts from it, which, I was surprised to discover, were greeted and read with unbridled enthusiasm. Within 15 minutes of posting, I was harvesting Facebook likes as if I had paid someone to make me look popular, and my computer was bonking, perhaps a better word would be bonging, like a cash register on Black Friday morning, alerting me to the fact that Facebook comments were flooding in.

Mick Harts Diary 1971, shows How to Grow Old Graciously — Mick Hart’s 1971 diary

It was all nostalgic and all good, except for one peculiar facet. As the day of the reunion grew closer, a number of posts and comments began to appear in which the posters confessed that they were ‘getting cold feet’, in other words that they were having second thoughts about attending the reunion. The reason they gave was almost always the same: they were self-conscious that in the past 30, 40 or 50 years their appearance may have changed. Get away with you. Really!

The more they whinged the more their former friends and colleagues rallied round and sort to comfort them, cajoling them to come to the reunion at all costs!

I could not help but wonder what the object of this exercise could be. If, for example, it was simply a way to solicit reassurance, you know the just-finished-exam patter, ‘I did not do well in my exam, how did you do?’, it seemed to me to be a rather cack-handed way of going about it. For if all they hoped to gain from their confessional was a sympathetic ear and the indulgence of their ‘friends’, surely if they then allowed themselves to be persuaded to attend the reunion, which I presume was what they wanted, then would not the revelations about their fears come back to bite them? Let’s face it (no pun intended), online their former acquaintances may have been kindness personified but after that pot boiler (no pun intended) once offline what would they be thinking? Alas, Human Nature informs us that it would be something like this, “Tom so and so, or Sally such and such, must look a right old state. I cannot wait to clap eyes on them!!”

To draw a parallel, it is a little like telling everyone that you will becoming to the reunion wearing a big false nose, when the last thing that you want is for people to know that you are wearing a big false nose.

Naturally, when we go to reunions or even just bump into someone that we have not seen for yonks, being British we instinctively yearn to say the right thing, which is, and ironically is not, ‘Hello Frankenstein, you haven’t changed a bit!’ Not many people cotton on to the fact that this seemingly innocent line, as over polished as a piece of trench art on an old lady’s mantlepiece, is deliciously offensive, viz: “Hello Frank, you haven’t changed a bit!”

Response: “Really, so what you are saying is that I always looked 65!”

And off goes your old school chum, calling back at you, “We shouldn’t leave it so long next time”, whilst muttering, “Never wouldn’t be a day too soon!”

To be honest, I cannot think of a better way of putting yourself under the microscope than by letting on that you are worried about your appearance.

Some people were obviously so convinced that they had changed beyond visible credibility and that as a result no one would recognise them that they had made name plates for themselves and hung them around their necks or pinned them to their shirts, which must have made them look very official indeed.

I can only imagine how much worse it must have been for name-plate wearers to have recognised someone immediately who had not tagged himself or herself with their names, only to have that person peer studiously at their name plate and then look at their face with bewildered astonishment!

Obviously, with so many ex-pupils from so many different years milling around, name plates performed a valid function, but think how excellent it would have been to have swapped the name plates around a little, and then stood back to see how many people disingenuously greeted others with ‘you haven’t changed a bit, Tom’, revealing that they didn’t know Tom from Adam.

How to Grow Old Graciously

My youngest brother made no bones ~ old and aching bones ~ about the fact that one of the reasons he was going to the reunion was, apart from the legitimate one of looking up old friends, to spot the bulging tums, big bums, double chins, bald heads and grey beards. He omitted ‘lines on the face like the British rail network’, but I am sure if he had thought of it, he would have included it too.

Indefensible? Inexcusable? Come now, let us not be hypocritical. I am sure there were many of you who were doing the self-same thing!

I do not expect there were many, however, if indeed any, who took this strategy to its next logical level, which is to have amused oneself by keeping a written record, something akin to a train-spotters’ notebook, to enable them to judge at a later date who had aged the least gracefully, ie possibly by using a point system to determine the size of bums and tums and the absence of hair on pates.

Unworthy, yes, perhaps, but I can think of a lot worse things to do on a Saturday afternoon.

The point I am making is that whilst people do genuinely go to school reunions to rekindle relationships with their old chums, generally shoot the breeze and chat about old times, they also go for reassurance. By the time we start going to school reunions, any reunion in fact, we have usually arrived at an age of advanced deterioration and hope that by seeing someone we know who is more advanced than ourselves it will make us feel better about ourselves. There is nothing wrong in this, since, as everyone is at it, it falls ironically into the category of mutual appreciation ~ er, or should that be, mutual depreciation?

Perhaps, that is why it is such a sod when you meet that one, really well-preserved person, and you have to say, begrudgingly, “you haven’t changed a bit!” And mean it!

Let’s face it, and I know we would rather not, it’s life. And life is all about deteriorating and then, a bit later on, decomposing. Who sang, “What is the use of trying the minute you’re born your dying?”

I know it was Leonard Cohen who sang, “Well, my friends are gone, and my hair is grey; I ache in the places where I used to play …” And “Who in your merry, merry month of May; Who by very slow decay …”

Hmm, better Auld Lang Syne, me thinks!

The other reason for going to reunions is to discover who has made it and who has not. I mean apart from talent and brains, if we all went to the same school, it figures that we all started with the same hand, the hand that life has dealt us. Thus, whilst at the reunion, if you meet Jane, who wasn’t academically the sharpest knife in the drawer but now has her own international fashion business with several shops sprinkled around the world, a large London town house, a villa in Spain, two beautiful children and, most likely given this profile, a husband who is a merchant banker (see cockney rhyming slang), whilst you have been sitting on the dole for the last 30 years nursing five A levels, you might not be too chuffed.

But, please, do not despair, help is at hand. It is called Bullshit.

This is not something that you can get O and A levels in, more’s the pity or I would have got a PhD, but it is something with a little practice and resolution that you can perfect. So, before you go to your next reunion take a tip from me, re-invent yourself. Determine who you are, what has happened to you, where you have been and where you are going. You can still be you and be somebody else at the same time: you can be you and the you have always wanted to be. Let’s be honest, isn’t that what most people do on social media, invent themselves and the world they live in? And, as almost everybody is on social media, then it follows that this is one skill that everyone possesses.

You may be a dustman, a drain cleaner or even, God forbid, a TV celebrity, whatever lowly station you hold in life, you can change all that, if only for one day! Say, for example, you are by nature a lazy, idle, layabout loafer, a ne’er do well, no good no-hoper, so what of it! Hone your bullshitting skills and by the time you arrive at that next reunion you could be Bill Gates or someone infinitely worse. You could be so successful that you are envious of yourself! And filthy rich, or just plain filthy. Whatever it is you are selling, it’s a way of buying respect!

Never lose sight of the fact, however, that when you are making your own reality, whatever you do in life, be it the ‘real’ one or the one that you have created, you really can change nothing.

Deterioration is the name of the game, and the game as we know it is life.

A friend once said to me, when he was approaching 75 years of age, that he was driving along in his car when he saw his reflection in the rear-view mirror. “I’d better call the police!” he thought, “Some old buggers just stolen my car.”

Or, to look at it from another perspective, at a funeral of a mutual friend, I said to one of the mourner’s “It’s a sad day,” to which he philosophically replied: “Well you can’t stop it!” meaning death. And, as a prelude to it, you can’t stop the ageing process. So just keep slapping on that Oil of Ulay, doing those press ups, eating all of the right food and injecting yourself with Botox, then, when it all fails, sit back, put on Monty Python’s Always look on the bright side of life and have a good chuckle at yourself.

Is becoming an old fart really that bad? Yes, of course it is and more! But he who laughs last laughs longest, which is especially true when you laugh at yourself.

The Oldest Swinger in Town!

Offstage: “So, Mick, why didn’t you go to the reunion?”

Mick: “As I said, coronavirus restrictions.”

Offstage (sounding like Sergeant Wilson from Dad’s Army): “Ha! Ha! Oh yes, of course, coronavirus restrictions …”

Mick Hart’s Diary 2021

Image attribution:
Elderly man & clock: Openclipart (https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Old-man-and-his-clock/71948.html

A Memorial Garden for Victor Ryabinin

Pushing the boat out

Published: 30 August 2021 ~ A Memorial Garden for Victor Ryabinin

The idea to create our own, modest memorial garden to Victor Ryabinin came to us when we were deliberating on what name to give to the dacha. My wife, Olga, said that she wanted to name it ‘Boat with Flowers House’ after one of Victor’s paintings, which was also used as an illustration for the front cover of his and Sam Simkin’s book on East Prussian poetry.

Victor Ryabinin’s ‘Boat with Flowers’, shown here as the front-cover design for his and Sam Simkin’s book on East Prussian Poetry

We already felt obliged, motivated by our sensibility for history and heritage, to renovate the statue that stands in our garden. The statue is that of a fisherman. We did not put him there and neither did the Germans. In German times the dacha was the village hall, but in the Soviet era it became a hostelry for fishermen. Now it is a place where Olga plays houses and gardens, and I drink beer that I have bought from the local shop. And although I believe that a statue of me with a pint glass in my hand would be something that Nigel Farage would approve of, as the fisherman was there first, there he should remain.

The statue is Captain Codpiece. That is not his real name, of course, but one that has been bestowed upon him by my brother. I don’t think Codpiece minds. He knows we respect him, and he has certainly benefitted from our recent ministrations.

A Memorial Garden for Victor Ryabinin

I started the ball rolling by removing the moss, most of which had gathered on the plinth of the statue, and cleaned the flaking concrete from it, then some chaps from the village, whose building skills are far superior to mine, reconstructed the plinth using wooden planks for shuttering and pouring fresh concrete into the mould.

**The statue with its new plinth under construction**

Last week, our friend Chilikin, artist and conservationist, drank beer and vodka with me, and he also gave Codpiece the once over with a wire brush before saturating him in a transparent sealing compound, which will also act as a base substrate for the paint job that is to follow. In Soviet times, the statute was bright silver; the paint acted as a weather-shield, but it also transformed the concrete man into something resembling a metallised robot. Times change, and as the silver has worn off and with it the sheen of dubious taste, we have decided to act on Chilikin’s advice and go for a mottled bronze. The ‘distressed’ look will preserve antiquity, and a fresh coat of paint will give the statue a new lease of life.

Chilikin renovating Statue — **Valordia Chilikin restoring the statue of the fisherman**

Whilst Codpiece will stand tall, literally head and shoulders above the ensemble, iconic to the composition will be the boat we acquired some weeks previously, which will be used to recreate Victor’s Boat with Flowers.

Mick Hart Painting boat. A Memorial Garden for Victor Ryabinin — **Mick Hart applying preservative to the boat that will be used in**
**Victor Ryabinin’s memorial garden**

A memorial plaque has been commissioned and is in the process of being made. Next week we hope to find a suitable boulder on which to mount the plaque.

If we adhere to our timetable and complete the garden by mid-September, there is talk in the air of commemorating the event with a private gathering of clans. The occasion, I have been told, will not be black or white tie, but all attendees will be expected to wear some kind of hippy dress that backdates them to the 1960s. Codpiece was erected in the 1960s, so somehow it only seems right.

F.A.B. cats!

Links to posts on Victor Ryabin, Artist

Victor Ryabinin at One with Königsberg

Its Curtains for the House of Soviets

The Soviets never got their house in order, but will a lesson emerge from the past

Updated 29 March 2024 | First published: 21 July 2021~ Its Curtains for the House of Soviets

It is official: 51 years after its construction and the same number of years of non-occupation, arguably one of Kaliningrad’s most iconic buildings, and ironically one of its most lambasted, especially by the western press, is about to be demolished. I am, of course, referring to the House of Soviets, ninety per cent of which was completed in 1985 on a site close to where once stood the magnificent Königsberg Castle, the East Prussian city’s jewel in the crown, which was extensively damaged in the Second World War and then, in 1967, dynamited into oblivion.

Rumour has it that the House of Soviets was regrettably erected on top of a labyrinth of subterranean tunnels connected to Königsberg Castle which rendered the structure unsafe, from whence came the folk story that the concrete behemoth was doomed from day one, never to be completed, never to be occupied, cursed by an act of celestial sabotage bent on avenging Königsberg’s fate.

Personally speaking, the House of Soviets was the first building to attract my attention and the one that imprinted itself on my memory when I arrived in Kaliningrad for the first time in winter 2000. I do not believe that it had anything to do with the avenging shadow of Teutonicism, but that it was rendered more significant and considerably more memorable by virtue of its epithetic pathos. As a statement it was one that would have been better had it never been made. At best it was a back-handed compliment and at worst a symbolic fiasco, for, in spite of its formidable name, it never was the House of Soviets, in fact quite the opposite, and would have been more aptly called the House Where No Soviets Were or the House Where the Soviets Ought to Have Been or, well, you get the picture …

Like many who live in Kaliningrad, my feelings for the House Conspicuous for The Soviet’s Absence are ambivalent. By any stretch of the imagination, the building is not a pretty sight, but it is very much of its time. Similar structures in the UK, hailed in the 1960s as a new dawn in architectural design, have mostly gone the way the House of Soviets is going, although a handful won reprieve from the demolition hitmen by forging themselves a new identity through the listed buildings’ honours and have since become a footnote in Forgets Guide to the Architecturalocracy.

There are some in Kaliningrad who believe that the House of Soviets deserves similar status, that it is iconic enough to be preserved, but the official view is that restoring the house, which is a hundred times bigger than any house that I have ever seen (perhaps the Soviets got lost in there), is a far too costly enterprise.

The House of Soviets’ problem — what should be done about it and what should become of it — has been the subject of ardent debate for many years, as has been what should replace it. The cultural-heritage lobby has never had any doubts: the House of Soviets borders on hallowed land. It is right on the doorstep of Königsberg Castle, or rather where Königsberg Castle formerly stood, and this group, which allegedly boasts notable architects among its membership, holds firmly to the opinion that that any regeneration project destined for this patch should pay homage to the cultural and the architectural significance of all that has gone before, and this includes, but is not restricted to, pundits who are of the unswayable opinion that nothing less than the reconstruction of Königsberg Castle will suffice.

Understanding the negative answer as to why Königsberg Castle cannot be reconstructed requires a lot more insight into large-scale building projects than the romantic desire to have it rebuilt. Like you, I gain great satisfaction from architect’s drawings, scale models and, nowadays, the ubiquitous computer-generated 3-D virtual tour, but what do I know about the real nitty gritty — about materials, logistics, the ins and outs of engineering and, most importantly, expense?

I appreciate that should Königsberg Castle or part thereof be reconstructed that the international community would be obliged to rethink Kaliningrad, to review it not for its over publicised fixation on military might but as a showcase to the world of the highest cultural, historical and architectural values, and that any design programme forward-thinking enough to incorporate features from the castle could not help but be held in the highest esteem by architects, city planning departments, civic leaders, politicians and socio-cultural historians throughout the world. Not a bad thing, you have to admit, for a place that has had to endure a recent lifetime of negative press, propaganda and impolitic criticism.

So, has the moment been lost forever? Is Kaliningrad standing at the crossroads of its destiny yet again, and are those people to whom its destiny is entrusted going to steam it on down the highway that leads to fame, honour and fortune or put it into a barrow and wheel it down a side road?

Whilst the House of Soviets stood … and stood, and stood, and stood … its fate undecided, and whilst the debates of what should and should not be done reamed on inconclusively, conservationists, historians and culture-conscious lobbyists nurtured a ray of hope that shone, if not as brightly as they would have liked, at least with some conceivable lustre. Hope, after all, dies last, they say.

But even Hope is not immortal. The fate of the House of Soviets, which hung in the balance for so many years, has finally been decided, not only with respect to it coming down but also with regard to the nature of its replacement.

Exit stage left the House of Soviets; enter stage right controversy.

It’s Curtains for the House of Soviets

As I understand it, the days of debate are ended. Various regeneration plans were invited and submitted for what will effectively become, when the curtain falls on the House of Soviets, Kaliningrad’s new city centre, and one of the plans has been chosen. The problem is, however, that the Chosen One, is not everybody’s choice. The plans have, to coin a phrase, received a mixed reception, both from Kaliningrad’s Joe Publicskee and a handful of Russia’s respected architects. But isn’t this par for the course, you ask? Whenever has it been possible to please all of the people all of the time?

At the end of the day, whether it is a city redevelopment project or putting up a garden shed, people will take sides. Heels dig in, opponents pull and tug from their respective corners and opinions harden and grow more vituperative.

I do not have to voice where my allegiance lies, because I am an old fart who lives in the past and rarely likes to come out of it. But if you are one of those who are sorely disappointed by what they propose to build on the grave of Königsberg Castle and the haunted House of Soviets, the best advice I have for you is learn to time travel as I have done!

Allow me to elucidate with a word (not the last one, I hope) from the Hope Dies Last Society: “Just because they are not going to reconstruct Königsberg Castle in 2021 does not mean that they never will. 2021 is a small part of the ever-changing present; it isn’t something written in stone.” You see, the beauty of time travel is that not only can you go backwards but you also get to flirt a little with the secrets of the future!

Take England’s King Richard III, for example, who never listened to me. This great and majestic nobleman who was known for centuries as the lost king, eventually turned up, or rather was turned up, in, of all places, Asian Leicester. Where exactly? Under a city carpark! Had anybody told King Richard III whilst he was alive that he would end up under a carpark in predominantly Asian Leicester, he would, having executed the person first who dared to suggest such a terrible thing ~ Leicester of all places!! ~ most assuredly have avowed “Never!” And, of course, he would have been wrong!

So, never ever say never! Only time will tell!

*Note that in the interim, between the time this post was written and revised, rumour has reached me that the new city-centre project has been shelved and when the House of Soviets goes, it is being replaced with parkland.

See >>> Kaliningrad House of Soviets Melts into the Past

It's curtains for the House of Soviets, Kaliningrad, Russia, 2021 — **Farewell old friend! The House of Soviets, Kaliningrad, Russia, 2021**

Репетитор английского языка в Калининграде

Stay Young & Avoid the Vaccine

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 483 [10 July 2021]

Published: 10 July 2021

Growing old is an occupational hazard of being born, but by staying young forever you can avoid untested vaccines and serious complications from catching Covid-19.

Just when I was absolutely certain that I would soon be certain about changing the name of this series of diary posts from ‘self-isolating’ to something more applicable to the lifestyle I am leading, like what?, along came the Delta variant, the call for bars and restaurants that do not have outside seating areas to close, renewed attention to maskee wearing and a rallying cry for mass vaccination, which has as its masthead the controversial word ‘mandatory’. Thank heavens for that, I thought: self-isolating it is and thus it will remain.

An inveterate worrier, and a professional at that, who is more worried about not having something to worry about than worrying about something, lately I have done a lot of introspective soul-searching as to why coronavirus has not bothered me as much as it should, and in the process have asked myself the questions: Is it because I have adopted a reckless and cavalier attitude? Have I been turned by the myriad conspiracy theories? Or have I just dropped out of the panic circle by living one day at a time and by allowing the news that I can be bothered to read to simply wash over me?

Not much news is good news and no news even better, but if you have ever tried avoiding mainstream media, along with the gabbling gibberish of social media, you will inevitably have discovered that it is not that easy. There always seems to be some well-meaning soul on hand to replace the valve in the radio that self-preservation removed.

Dropping out is a great feeling, truly emancipating, and what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve about, but bad news like coronavirus itself has an aerosol effect (at least, I think that is the right word for it), and when I turned on and tuned in I discovered that in the UK Matt Hancock had left his post, disgraced but lustfully happy, that the man who had replaced him, Mr Sajid Javid, the brown man with a bald head, was calling for ‘F’ Day and that western media was adopting an ‘I told you so’ attitude to Russia’s latest Covid predicament, eagerly using words like ‘forced to play catchup’ and ‘caught on the back foot’ to describe Russia’s clamour to get as many people on the vaccination bandwagon and in the shortest time possible as the Delta variant stalks the land.

Our World in Data ¹ states that 18.5 million people have been fully vaccinated in Russia, representing 12.8% of the population, compared to 48.2% fully vaccinated in the United States and 51.3% in the UK. So, perhaps the phrase catchup is not as undeserved as it first might appear.

From The Moscow Times² I learn that the Delta variant is surging ~ now, where did I put that maskee? ~ that someone in Moscow has been detained on suspicion of selling fake coronavirus vaccine certificates and that Moscow’s first criminal case against someone has been opened for allegedly purchasing a counterfeit QR code, which could be used to grant the perpetrator access for indoor dining in Moscow’s restaurants. It is times like these that make me feel glad that I am a beans-on-toast man.

So, does this all mean, taking into account the ‘success story’ of the UK’s vaccination programme, that jumping onto a small boat and heading to the Sceptered Isle would be strategically fortuitous. After all, if I was to set off now I might arrive just in time to celebrate Britain’s big ‘F Day’.

And yet, there is no confusion like coronavirus. Google News UK throws up any number of articles claiming that the virus can be spread and caught even by those who have been fully vaccinated; that thousands of Brits are destined to catch coronavirus once restrictions are eased; that ‘breakthroughs’ are happening all the time (that’s not victims breaking out of lockdown but coronavirus infecting people who have had the vaccine); that Brits are being told to carry on social distancing and wearing masks even when they have had two jabs; that booster jabs will be needed … etc

The Mirror³ reports, for example, that the UK can expect 100,000 cases per day as restrictions are eased. Another Mirror⁴ article tells us to watch out for Long Covid, and identifies 14 symptoms that could be signs of Covid, from insomnia to earache. Looking down the Mirror’s list I thought, “Well, I’ll be buggered, it looks as though I may have had Long Covid since I was 14, or even before”.

Then there was this report from the BBC⁵ which informed me that due to escalating cases of Covid that the NHS Covid contact tracing app used in England and Wales must be made less sensitive to take account of the hundreds of thousands of new cases that will emerge after ‘F Day’, which, in case you are in any doubt, means Freedom day. I had to back-track through the news and read up on what exactly this app is and what it does. Apparently, it detects the distance between users and the length of time spent in close proximity, which is currently 2m or less and for more than 15 minutes. In doing so it seemed as if I had stumbled upon the latest chapter in How to make your life technologically unbearable and become neurotic in the process. But then, what would I know? I do not have a mobile phone.

On reflection, I do not think that I will travel to the UK after all, although given the inconvenience, costs of tests and what have you, if I was to go I would most likely go by small boat across the Channel, as thousands of illegal migrants can’t be wrong.

Stay young & avoid the vaccine

So, back to taking the vaccine, or not as the case may be.

It occurred to me that instead of taking any vaccine and exposing myself to any number of unknown, possibly critical and censored, adverse side-effects, I could try getting younger, as the incidence of coronavirus cases in the young is relatively low as is the risk of developing serious illness and dying from it.

But whilst the young may feel good about this now, unless they do as I am doing, which is getting younger, they too will eventually grow old, which is not advisable, given the depressing prediction that coronavirus may never go away. All of which points to the unsettling conclusion that growing old is becoming a far more risky business than it was and always has been.

After serious consideration, I think we could do worse than to take a leaf out of Charles Aznavour’s philosophical song book. Asked about ageing, the acclaimed singer/songwriter reputedly said, “There are some people who grow old and others [like me] who just add years.”

Seems like the only way to go.

References
1. Our World in Data [https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL] [accessed 9 July 2021]
2. The Moscow Times [https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/07/09/coronavirus-in-russia-the-latest-news-july-9-a69117] [accessed 9 July 2021]
3. Mirror Online [UK records 29,000 Covid cases in worst day since January – with 37 more deaths – Mirror Online] [accessed 9 July 2021]
4. Mirror Online [ Long Covid: 14 symptoms that could be signs of illness – from insomnia to earache – Mirror Online] [accessed 9 July 2021]
5. BBC [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57772515] [accessed 9 July 2021]

Image attribute
Cute Baby: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/pi58ypdKT.htm

Vaccination Rollout is not Russian but World Roulette

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 460 [17 June 2021]

Published: 17 June 2021 ~ Vaccination Rollout is not Russian but World Roulette

My sister wrote to me today from England and at the close of her letter asked, and I quote, “Just to touch on the most current topic … How is the [vaccination] ‘roll-out’ going in Russia?”

The answer that immediately sprang to mind was, I don’t know.

Vaccination Rollout is not Russian but World Roulette

The reaction to and media coverage of coronavirus in the UK is world’s apart from its counterparts in Russia. Even making allowances for the fact that we do not have broadcast TV and that I rarely read the news on the internet, my wife is an inveterate Facebook twiddler so news filters through to me, whether I want it or not.

One thing is certain: There is less hysteria here in Russia, both in respect of media coverage and the reaction of the populace to coronavirus. True, my wife reads news clips on Facebook, but she is more concerned with the ambiguities, ambivalence, seeming double-talk, twists, U-turns and general, what might be scientifically referred to as, arse-about-face of it all than she is in who has had their first or their 55^th jab, the proclamations of new strains and dire warnings of further mutations. She is diehard ‘anti-maskee’ and is always quoting, whenever I mention the vaccine, that never in the history of the world have governments embarked upon a global vaccination programme such as the one they have launched in the name of addressing Covid-19, which she finds suspicious, and she is more concerned with the impact that never-ending social distancing, lockdowns, isolation and general fearmongering is having on the psychological health and wellbeing of millions of people robbed of their need of personal and social interconnection, which in her philosophy is both the essence and hub of human existence.

It was she who sent me the following video link (after twenty-one years of marriage communicating by email is more popular than you might think!), telling me to listen to “what your favourite person [Katie Hopkins] has to say”: https://youtu.be/qQV1Ww9QGmU

It is not that my good lady wife disbelieves the existence of coronavirus or the potential of it pernicious effects, simply that she like many others questions the efficacy of the measures imposed upon us by ‘those in the know’ and like a lot of us is none too comfortable with the gold-rush mentality to be injected with something that has not been tested according to the usual standard protocols. In discussions on the subject, she likes to remind me that I was one of those who casually opined that come the vaccine come the silver bullet, whereas we now know ~ or rather are now told ~ that nothing much has changed and possibly will not change until 2023/24 and perhaps not even ever.

An article published by Elsevier¹ supports my wife’s criticism of me, the commentary clearly stating that ‘Vaccines are not yet a silver bullet’. And yet, I quote from the same article [my emphasis], “In other words, to help societies avoid transmission vectors and start imagining the “new normal”, continued communication about the need for face masks, personal hygiene, and social distancing is of instrumental importance.”

As I understand it, however, in the UK the new normal is resulting in a great deal of new suffering ~ psychological, physical and emotional ~ by those whose livelihoods are threatened, whose businesses are going under and many more who, because of coronavirus prioritisation, are finding that they are unable to gain access to the vital healthcare that they need if they are to survive existing illnesses, regardless of whether they get coronavirus or not.

Whilst controversy over the fallout from coronavirus restriction rules is buzzing around on social media as if someone has kicked the hive, a large vacuous hole continues to exist both in media spaces and authoritative places. Without answers, there are only rules; and rules without answers are there to be questioned, challenged and even ignored.

Nevertheless, my sister’s comment about the ‘most current topic’ had left me feeling out of the loop, so I turned for the answer in the pages of The Moscow Times². Well, why not, for a change!

Accessed on the 17 June 2021, under the headline Coronavirus in Russia: The Latest News | June 17, here is my update:

~ Russia has confirmed 5,264,047 cases of coronavirus and 127,992 deaths, according to the national coronavirus information center. Russia’s total excess fatality count since the start of the coronavirus pandemic is around 475,000.

~ Russia on Thursday confirmed 14,057 new coronavirus cases and 416 deaths. Of today’s cases, 6,195 are in Moscow.

~ Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Wednesday announced mandatory vaccination for service sector workers, saying the measure is necessary as the city grapples with 12,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients and levels of illness equal to last year’s peaks.

And there is more about closing bars and restaurants early and working from home.

But that is Moscow. What of Kaliningrad, where we live (I last checked about 12 weeks ago!). Here is today’s update³:

~ In the Kaliningrad region, 80 new cases of coronavirus were detected. The total number of infected reached 34 694.

~ 56 patients were diagnosed with ARVI, 15 with pneumonia. Nine more had no symptoms.

~ During the day in the region, 73 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 33,525 people have recovered, 538 have died.

So there you have it!

I think that the ‘most current topic’, as my sister refers to coronavirus and the issue of vaccination, is, like a lot of other things, evaluated in a markedly different way by the Russian population compared to the mindset in the West.

As usual, would-be pundits in the West are seemingly confused about why the take-up of the Covid-19 vaccine is not steaming along at full tilt as it is in countries like the USA and UK. I say, ‘as usual, because the inability of western Europeans to understand anything Russian, or to assume that they do not, is not a new phenomenon (understatement intended). Take a look at the screenprint (you may have to magnify the image) that I have included in this post, which returns from the Google search ‘vaccination in Russia’ [accessed 16 June 2021]:

Vaccination statistics for Russia 16 June 2021

In the circles in which we move in Kaliningrad, there is a lot to be said for my wife’s theory that people tend to judge the coronavirus situation, and personally react to it, depending on what is happening closest to them. In other words, each individual weighs up the pros and cons of the restrictions and vaccine-taking depending on how many people they know who have had a mild attack of the virus, a serious attack, how many people they know who have died as a direct result of contracting coronavirus and how many people they know who have not been infected at all, and then they act accordingly. In the UK, mass opinion is mobilised, and large swathes of people motivated, by what politicians tell them to do and by the national media’s complicity to bring about a desired result by whatever means it has and whatever it takes ~ and it does not take much.

On the wearing of masks, for example, here I have heard it said that most people who wear them, wear them to avoid a fine rather than give credence to the unproven science of their latent life-saving properties, which is possibly why most people wear them with their nose poking out or as under-chin accessories. In the UK, however, whilst some people wear masks for the same reason and in the same way, the majority of mask wearers wear them purely because they are told to do so. In the UK, compliance is king.

On the slow take-up of vaccination in Russia, as you can see from the following screen grab (you may need to magnify), which returns from the Google search ‘vaccination in Russia’ [accessed 16 June 2021], western media is more than happy to tie Russian vaccination reluctance to their efforts to discredit the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, which resulted from a fit of pique when Russia won the ‘vaccine race’.

My take on the low uptake from people I have asked is that no such specificity exists. It is not that the Russian people are crying out for western vaccines, just that they are more individualistic and selective in their approach to the whole question of vaccination safety and efficacy. I mean after the latest revelations about the AtsraZeneca vaccine⁴ …

Let’s face it folks, life is a roulette wheel. Whether the vaccine is running around inside you or not, until they finish those vaccine trials, which will not happen before 2023 or 2024 earliest, it is still a game of chance. So, fingers crossed.

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!

References:
1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666354621000077?via%3Dihub [accessed 16 June 2017]
2. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/17/coronavirus-in-russia-the-latest-news-june-17-a69117 [accessed 17 June 2021]
3. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/95599-za-sutki-v-kaliningradskoj-oblasti-vyyavili-77-sluchaev-koronavirusa [accessed 17 June 2021]
4. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2280446-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-may-hinder-blood-clotting-in-rare-cases/ [accessed 16 June 2021]

Photo credits:
Roulette wheel
Photo credit: PIRO4D (https://pixabay.com/illustrations/gambling-roulette-game-bank-2001128/)

Globe
Photo credit: Arek Socha (https://pixabay.com/illustrations/earth-world-planet-globe-1303628/)

Репетитор английского языка в Калининграде

Калининград Винтажралли Восток-Запад 2021

“Я не хочу хвастаться, но мы пришли к финишу вторыми и отстали от победителя гонки всего лишь на несколько секунд!

Published: 13 June 2021 ~ Калининград Винтажралли Восток-Запад

Мы только что съехали с ухабистой, изрытой выбоинами проселочной дороги и снова выехали на главную магистраль. Наш водитель сдал назад.

“В современной машине такие повороты в порядке вещей, – сказал он, –
но для этой машины, у которой высокая посадка, это может быть опасно.
Видите ли, она легко может …”

Он остановился, когда мы свернули на крутой поворот.

“… легко перевернуться.”

Речь шла о машине 1956 года выпуска ГАЗ-М20 “Победа”. В машине имелись: коробка переключения скоростей, переднее сиденье, состоящее из двух частей, ветровое стекло, отделка под дерево, большие рабочие часы, кнопка индикатора движения в верхней центральной части приборной панели, небольшие боковые вентиляционные окна на передних пассажирских дверях и солнцезащитные откидные щитки. В машине также присутствовал ее владелец-водитель по имени Юрий Грозмани, а также я и моя жена Ольга.

Yury Grosmarni, Olga Hart & Mick Hart in Калининград Винтажралли Восток-Запад — **Yuri Grozmarni, Olga Hart & Mick Hart: Калининград Винтажралли Восток-Запад 2021**

Причина, по которой мы находились в автомобиле, внимательно следя за временем и неотрывно сверяясь с навигационными картами, заключалась в том, что мы принимали участие в первом региональном ралли ретро-автомобилей калининградского автоклуба.

Калининград Винтажралли Восток-Запад 2021

Мы стартовали с приподнятой платформы для автомобилей ровно в 13.21. Тщательно рассчитанное время нашего путешествия от начала до конца составляло один час десять минут, не больше, не меньше – от фасада Кенигсбергского собора до Гвардейска. Все было рассчитано буквально до секунды. На пути было два контрольно-пропускных пункта, и прибытие на эти контрольно-пропускные пункты должно было точно совпадать с назначенным временем прибытия. Если вы опаздывали, вам нужно было жать ногой на акселератор; если же вы опережали время, вам нужно было убирать ногу с газа и выжидать время. Юрий был за рулем, я был штурманом, Ольга стала импровизированным вторым пилотом, сверяя показания времени на каждом этапе гонки со временем в её мобильном телефоне.

Для тех, у кого есть хотя бы элементарное понимание и умение читать карты, эта навигация стала бы пустяком, и даже для меня , у которого нет ни понимания, ни умения этого делать, не составило труда установить связь между четкими линиями с их символами в квадратах, а также с ориентирами и с их направлениями, и понять куда нам нужно было двигаться. Навигационные карты были составлены так просто, чтобы любой школьник смог ими воспользоваться. На каждой странице была таблица, разделенная на три части. В первой колонке отмечено время, которое должно пройти от линии старта до прибытия в определенную точку пути, во второй колонке-простая, но четкая иллюстрация поворота или полосы движения, а в третьей колонке дополнительная информация, которая могла оказаться полезной, например, имя населенного пункта на указателе.

**Навигационные карты Калининградского ралли старинных автомобилей 2021 года**

Вскоре я освоился с навигацией; жаль, что у меня это не получилось, когда дело дошло до сверки времени. Ни я ни Ольга, в школе не получили никаких наград по математике, мы даже призов не получили, и поэтому с первого запроса от водителя с требованием сколько времени осталось до первого контрольного пункта мы оба были в замешательстве. Расчетное время прибытия на первый контрольно-пропускной пункт составляло 31 минуту, и нам было трудно вычислить, сколько нам осталось времени с учетом пройденного маршрута. После того, как мы показали себя не с лучшей стороны, Юрий вмешался, и мы оба в конце концов согласились, что он был прав, мы не знали был ли он прав или не был так как подсчитать время мы так и не сумели.

Калининград Винтажралли Восток-Запад — **Мик Харт, Ольга Харт и Юрий Грозманиавтомобиль “Победа” 1956 год Калининград**

Сегодня в Калининграде движение было не особенно интенсивным. У нас выдалось несколько напряженных моментов, когда мы свернули с однойглавной дороги на другую, особенно на дороге в непосредственной близости от стадиона, где проходил Чемпионата мира по футболу в Калининграде, но как только мы выехали на открытую дорогу, “Победа” рванулась вперед, как и подобает такому первоклассному автомобилю.

Мы сверили время и обнаружили, что несмотря на относительно удачный старт мы отстали от графика на несколько минут. Юрий нажал на газ. Через несколько минут мы сверили время опять и обнаружили, что, хотя мы ехали быстрее, время все же обгоняло нас. А потом появилась проселочная дорога, ведущая к первому контрольно-пропускному пункту.

“Победа” сошла с конвейера в 1946 году и в течение последующих трех лет претерпела ряд усовершенствований. Среди улучшенных, в 1949 году, новшеств “Победы” стала ее “подвеска для всех местностей”, и на этом участке дороги Юрий испытал ее. 64-летняя машина показала на что она способна, подвеска и губчатые сиденья оказались более чем подходящими для алгоритма отскока, позволяя нам наслаждаться особенно привлекательным видом из окна – сельской местностью, изрезанной холмами, впадинами, озерами и живописными старыми немецкими зданиями.

Внезапно в поле зрения замаячил первый контрольно-пропускной пункт. И знаете что произошло? Мы опередили график на 60 секунд! Юрий остался невозмутимым; с темпераментом опытного танцора, он ослабил упор ноги и доставил нас на пункт назначения секунда в секунду! Зарегистрировавшись на контрольно-пропускном пункте, мы снова отправились в путь.

Мы опять поспорили о том, сколько времени у нас осталось до того, как мы должны прибыть на следующий контрольно-пропускной пункт. Где-то что-то было не так. Но я отказываюсь выяснять кто был прав, и кто неправ! Выяснилось, что между первым и вторым контрольно-пропускными пунктами у нас было всего семь минут, очень немного времени для того чтобы расслабиться. Мы думали, что не успеваем, но на самом деле мы опережали.

Калининградское ралли старинных автомобилей 2021 года. Приборная панель "Победа" 1956 года выпуска — Калининградское ралли старинных автомобилей 2021 года. Приборная панель “Победа” 1956 года выпуска

Прямо перед нами стояли две “Волги”, выехавшие из Кенигсберга раньше нас. Они обе свернули с дороги, вероятно, потому, что тоже опережали график, но, увидев нас поехали вперед.

На втором контрольно-пропускном пункте требовалось въехать во двор, сделать отметку в карточке, а затем снова выехать на дорогу. Машина впереди развернулась, но мы с Юрием сумели ее подрезать на контрольно-пропускном пункте. Я уверен, что это было сделано из хорошего намерения, но все же, нам ответили сигналом гудка.

Мы снова помчались вперед и у нас оставалось около 25 минут, чтобы добраться до финишной черты в Гвардейске. Гвардейск-небольшой городок с большой площадью, что делает его идеальным местом для проведения подобных мероприятий. В последний раз мы были здесь с моим младшим братом летом 2019 года с Авто Ретро-клубом, участвуя в международном фестивале “Золотая тень Кенигсберга”.

Нам с Ольгой нравится этот город. Он хорошо спланирован, имеет сбалансированную пропорцию немецкого и советского происхождения, несколько прекрасных старых готических зданий, музеи,специализированный сырный магазин, и в нем можно совершить прогулку вдоль живописного берега реки. Сегодня мы буквально не теряли времени, добираясь сюда, и нам пришлось помедлить, чтобы выждать несколько минут, прежде чем заехать на городскую площадь под шум ликующей толпы, музыку и щелканье камер.

Как только мы приехали, молодая дама преподнесла нам с Ольгой подарок. Это был большой круглый пирог с абрикосовым джемом, только что испеченный и еще теплый из духовки. Такие добрые жесты не остаются незамеченными.

Калининград Винтажралли Восток-Запад 2021 — Мику Харту подарили большой пирог в Гвардейске, Калининградская область.
Юрий Грозмани и Мик Харт с большим пирогом Калининградское ралли винтажных автомобилей 2021

Так как мы живем в эпоху смартфонов, ФБ и блицкрига изображений, то нет нужды говорить, o том что не было никаких ограничений на количество фотографий, сделанных сначала на камеру одного человека, а затем на камеру другого, а затем с этими людьми, а затем с теми. Мы с Ольгой решили проветрить винтажную одежду, так что это была еще одна причина для того, чтобы иметь дело с папарацци. Однако мы все же нашли время ускользнуть.

Первым пунктом посещения был общественный туалет. Я странный, поэтому мне нравится использовать общественный туалет а Гвардейске. Для меня это настоящий советский опыт: спуститься по узкой лестнице, заплатить бабушке, сидящей на самодельном стуле-троне внизу, а затем повернуть направо в самодельный тронный зал. Я не могу представить себе ни одной поездки в Гвардейск без использования или, по крайней мере, посещения этого заведения.

Теперь пришло время для расслабляющей прогулки по городу, осмотра достопримечательностей, посещения сырного магазина и посиделок в старом дворе кошачьего заповедника, чтобы перекусить, любуясь иллюстрациями кошек и старинной немецкой атмосферой этого уединенного места.

У нас было даже больше свободного времени, чем мы себе представляли, поэтому я успел угостить себя мороженым, не больше, не меньше – с названием ‘CCCP’!

Когда мы вернулись на площадь, нас ждали желающие сфотографироваться. Именно здесь молодая женщина спросила, можно ли ей сфотографироваться с нами. Оказалось, что она хорошо владеет английским языком, и в процессе беседы она призналась, что мечтает уехать в Америку. Когда моя жена спросила, почему, она подумала, а потом сказала:

“Американская мечта”.

Мы ничего не сказали. Я помню, как Леонард Коэн сказал: “Но ты не хочешь лгать, только не молодым”. Кроме того, эта молодая женщина, должно быть, была либо чрезвычайно проницательна, либо она забыла надеть очки, так как она сказала, что я выглядел “красивым”. Ревновала ли моя жена? Я думаю, что эта реплика ее позабавила!

Перед тем как мы покинули Кенигсбергский собор, Юрий поднял красный флаг, сообщив нам, что у его машины возникли проблемы с системой охлаждения, но пока все хорошо: нет необходимости доливать воду. Однако незадолго до того, как мы покинули финишную черту, он наполнил бак топливом, и я был заинтригован, увидев, что он может проверить, сколько в баке, используя небольшой тестер, который он хранил в багажнике.

Мы покинули Гвардейск колонной с полицейским эскортом – от площади до границы города и под фанфары, еще более восторженные, чем те, что приветствовали нас по приезду. Старинные автомобили, похоже, оказывают такое воздействие на людей, вызывая уважение, любовь и удовольствие. Многие люди стоят на обочине дороги, фотографируя их на свои телефоны и снимая видео; люди в машинах сигналят и машут, когда проезжают мимо. Это прекрасно!

Сегодня, на обратном пути в Калининград, мы проезжали замок Вальдау, дорога к которому проходит параллельно главной магистрали, и когда мы откинулись на спинку сиденья, повернувшись лицом к дороге, по которой мы ехали, нам открылось великолепнейшее зрелище: машины клуба образовали длинную непрерывную процессию, полированный хром и краска блестели в лучах послеполуденного солнца, а автомобильные флаги с названием и логотипом клуба великолепно развевались на ветру.

К сожалению, замок Вальдау сегодня будет только проездом, но не успели мы въехать на его территорию, как я почувствовал ощущение де жавю. Это было так глубоко, волнующе и органично, что этот знакомый призыв из давно минувших дней захватил меня полностью. Ольга была того же мнения, и поэтому выразила неудовольствие, когда обнаружила, что сегодня нет времени для дальнейшего осмотра территории. “Мы вернемся!” – утверждала она, продолжая ворчать на меня Юрию за то, что он ”никогда никуда не хочет идти … просто сидит на чердаке и пишет”. Как человек, которому журналистика не чужда, я знал, что Юрий меня поймет.

Территория перед замком Вальдау не такая обширная, как можно было бы ожидать, на самом деле она похожа на рощу, образуя центральный остров из деревьев и травы, с дорогой идущей внутрь и тропинкой на противоположной стороне. Подъездная дорожка расширяется перед зданием, и по мере того, как машины одна за другой и очень медленно въезжали на эту более широкую территорию, группа из пяти дам, выстроившихся в дверях замка, приветствовала их, махала руками и смеялась, когда каждая машина проезжала мимо. Эта веселая группа была одета в прусском стиле и играла свою роль так убедительно и с такой искренностью что когда каждая машина сворачивала за угол, пассажиры были поражены искренностью этого приветствия. Их искренность освещала лица, как будто кто-то превратил их лица в человеческие фонари. Никто, кроме президента клуба, Артура, который метался, пытаясь вместить слишком много машин в недостаточно большое пространство, и явно преуспевал в этом деле, не остался непосвященным. Веселье было заразительным и распространялось, как стремительный лесной пожар. Даже внушительное готическое здание не могло изобразить неодобрения, здесь было так много веселья, даже больше чем веселье, как будто к вам во всех нужных местах прикасалась Молл Фландерс.

Сотрудники в традиционных прусских костюмах приветствуют старинные советские автомобили в замке Валдау, Калининградская область

**Мик Харт и Ольга Харт с сотрудниками замка Вальдау 29 мая 2021 года**

От замка вереница разъехалась, и каждая машина отправилась по своему предпочтительному маршруту обратно к Кенигсбергскому собору, чтобы снова встретится у входа в собор под аплодисменты и приветствия, достойные героев-завоевателей.

У нас было достаточно времени до момента истины, чтобы перекусить в одной из закусочных, выпить кофе и отдохнуть на деревянной скамейке которая располагалась в лучшем месте, освещенном солнцем. До момента, когда мы узнаем кто прошел курс идеально, вписался во временные рамки и занял одно из трех призовых мест.

Для победителей были приготовлены три главных трофея, а также кубки меньшего размера и сертификаты для тех, кто справился с заданием не так хорошо, как им бы хотелось бы, но был награждён за участие.

Мы заняли второе место, будучи всего в одной секунде от первого.

Как только наш статус был объявлен, мы сели обратно в “Победу”, и Юрий, ловко и на скорости завел машину на приподнятый автомобильный пандус так красиво, что я мог бы только мечтать о таком высшем пилотаже.

Это было время принятия призов и выступлений.

Для меня это была нелегкая задача. Я был единственным англичанином в гонке, и я не собирался навязывать ни толпе, стоящей передо мной, ни себе, мой несравненно плохой русский язык. Это означало, что мне придется обращаться к толпе по-английски. Я уверен, что в толпе, стоявшей передо мной, должен был быть один или два человека, которые поймут, о чем я говорю. Например, там была моя жена, которая никогда меня не понимает. Так почему же я решил что она начнет понимать меня сейчас? Тем не менее, после того как я закончил свою краткую речь, Юрий сделал краткий перевод.

Это был долгий день, полезный день, совсем необычный день. Как говорится, все случается в первый раз, и мы получили огромное удовольствие от этого первого раза!”