Zelenogradsk ~ streets ahead with imaginative decorations
Published: 10 January 2023 ~ Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations Win First Prize
In the UK, the festive season is well and truly over. Unless you had a better time than most, the last remnants of the New Year’s Eve hangover will have sailed way into the ether, along with the memories you cannot remember and those you wish to forget. But here, in Russia, the festive holidays do not peter out until the morn of the 15th of January. This is because the Russian Orthodox Church follows the old Julian Calendar and not the Gregorian one, so, although some religious denominations still celebrate Christmas day on the 25th December and the big festive night for Russians is the same as that for the Scotties, New Year’s Eve, Russians also celebrate Orthodox Christmas on the 7th January and Orthodox New Year’s Eve on the 14th January. That’s an awful lot of celebrations in one month, but it does mean that the municipal decorations remain intact until the middle of January.
Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations Win First Prize
Bearing this in mind, I took a trip to the Baltic seaside resort of Zelenogradsk on the 9th of January to shiver in front of the sea and say hello to what are without question the most inspiring display of Christmas decorations this side of the Russian border.
I have no idea whether Kaliningrad holds a Best Decorated Christmas Street in the Region competition, but if it did, the main street of Zelenogradsk would win hands down. Words like magical and enchanting easily spring to mind, along with novel, imaginative and even bizarre!
This year I took my camera along with me and, although the snaps that I have taken do not do the panoply near enough justice, they do manage to give an idea of the thought and effort that each shop, café, bar, restaurant, etc put into producing the best expression of Christmas joy. They certainly make my Christmas baubles look pathetic in comparison, even when lit with flashing lights.
Which of the Christmas ensembles along Zelenogradsk High Street would I nominate for first prize? That’s a tough ‘un’. I’ll leave it to you to decide.
Published: 15 December 2022 ~ Kaliningrad Pavements Pave the Way for the Better
Tratooraree, said Mick in his bestest Russian. Nobody quite understood him, but that’s the story of his life, so he pressed on regardless, translating the word into English, “Pavements!” he said, triumphantly, and everyone went back to sleep.
No one talks pavements in the UK, after all pavements, and the conditions of them, are one of the reasons why we pay our council tax. They are lumped together with such essential but taken-for-granted services as emptying our bins, clearing litter from the streets (although the council rarely get round to this) and policing by consent (ie you and the police agree that when you are mugged or have your house burgled the police will give you a crime number and that anything that you say, meaning ‘mean tweets’ on Twatter, will be taken down, twisted round and used in evidence against you). Council tax, the get-out-clause for Maggie Thatcher’s controversial poll tax, has risen so high in Britain in recent years that it represents a second mortgage, so Brits expect to see as much done as is civically possible in return for the confiscation of their hard-earned cash, and that, amongst other things, takes care of pavements.
In Kaliningrad pavements are, or can be, a controversial subject* and one that has persistently percolated to the top of the restoration agenda since the dissolution of the USSR.
When does our street get its much needed and long overdue pavement renovation? ~ is not something that residents of Kaliningrad discuss on a daily basis, but it does come up in conversation, occasionally, from time to time.
When I say, ‘our street’, I use the term to imply a general anxiety and impatience amongst those residents who live in certain areas where pavement reform sits at the top of their collective bucket list as distinct from the pavement up ‘our street’, meaning the street in which we specifically live. And yet, to coin a phrase, if ‘the cap fits …’.
My wife asked someone about the situation regarding ‘our’ pavement and was told that it was not likely to happen this year, but maybe next year. Her inquiry was made in 2021, when next year was 2022 (It would be funny if it was 2023, wouldn’t it?) but next year has almost gone. I know this because when I first began to write this post snow was falling but not in sufficient quantities to entirely exorcise the pavement problem, but snow is now falling snow on snow and ‘what the eye don’t see, the heart don’t grieve about’.
For people like me, who have the ability and choreographic instincts of Fred Astaire (Mum, who’s he talking about?), the pavement problem, though not in itself altogether inconsequential, has me reach out sympathetically to others who are more affected by the inconvenience and its negative impact.
From my window, which I look out from, from time to time ~ they are good for that, aren’t they? ~ I watch the world go by, and in the process typically think to myself, how on earth is that young couple going to pilot that pram of theirs across the assault course which now confronts them? Wheels are good but tank tracks would be better. And then there’s the senior citizens, of which I count myself one, many of whom avoid the path and take to the cobbles instead. Königsberg’s road cobbles may also not be an easy terrain, but at least to trip is a trip into history.
Kaliningrad pavements
Whilst the pavement can be treacherous, especially on the way back from the bar late at night, and especially where lack of light adds to the problem, I have got round this one, partially by memorising the pavement on both sides of the street. I am not going to go so far as to say that ‘I know this pavement like the back of my hand’, because the last time I heard that expression it was back in 1983 on a dark and dank November evening when fate was in a playful mood.
At the time, we were flying along the country roads at 80 miles an hour in my Ford Cortina when, replying to an admonition from me, my brother, who was driving, said: “Ahh, you worry so much. I know this road like the back of my hand!”
It would seem, however that his hand did not have a sharp bend at the bottom of a hill and a tight grass verge on either side, which, when clipped at the speed we were doing, sent us spinning backwards through the hedge, left us hanging momentarily, headlights pointing towards the sky, and then brought us down like a spinning top bluntly to rest in a wet ploughed field.
Whilst there’s little fear of a similar thing happening as I traverse Kaliningrad’s pavements at considerably less speed in my Wrangler boots, I have been known to work up a good head of steam when steering a course to the local shop to replenish my beer supplies.
To be fair, the pavement on the left side of our street is not that unnegotiable until, that is, you reach the point where it meets the junction. Here there is an interesting piece that looks lunar in its construction, or do I mean destruction? By the way that’s lunar, with the stress on ‘ar’ in Russian. ‘We interrupt this discussion on pavements to bring you a surreptitious lesson on stress in the Russian language’. No stress and no sweat with this moon, however, because I know this patch of the lunar landscape well, yet woe betide you if you don’t, because it is precisely at this spot that in the absence of adequate street lighting the dark side of the moon begins.
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for children.”
I remember (Oh lord, there he goes, reminiscing again!), when we returned to Kaliningrad in the winter of 2018. At that time, we were renting a flat in the Kaliningrad district close to the radio mast. Believe you me, the radio mast is something you cannot miss; a welcome beacon on a stormy night to guide you safely home after one to many in the Francis Drake.
We were walking back one evening, the radio mast towering above us in all its multicoloured splendour, my wife grumbling about the state of the pavement, the deep pits and iced-over puddles, when Victor Ryabinin, whose company we were in, showed us, with characteristic insouciance, how literally one can get round this problem. “Like this!” he said, with a giggle. And he hopped and skipped and jumped, still laughing, first around the one obstacle and then around or over the next, treating them all as lightly as if they were nothing more than mirages.
With his usual gift for doing so, Victor had taken an everyday problem and made a moral out of it, namely that there’s more in life to worry about than pavements or more to life than pavements to worry about or, as Leonard Cohen put it, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in …” {Leonard Cohen’s Anthem: let’s dedicate it to Victor’s pofik!}
Kaliningrad Pavements
The pavement in our street on the opposite side of the road earns itself the reputation of being an obstacle course of sorts and, therefore, compared with its parallel relation, demanding of greater navigation skills and sense of co-ordination. Once again, for some unknown reason, the most challenging aspect of it lies at the end of the street closer to the junction. Some way from this, it is mainly earthen, then tarmacadam before becoming, albeit briefly, spanking new and modern.
Incongruously, but only in looks not reason, this updated portion of pavement made from very nice decorative blocks has been laid down privately, and at personal expense, by the owner of a large house ~ impressively designed as a mediaeval fortress ~ for the express purpose of aiding both the ingress and egress of his personal vehicles and also, and understandably, as an improvement to the appearance of the frontage of his property.
Whenever I arrive at this particular section of pavement, the thought that I am about to walk across it christens me with guilt. I feel intuitively that I ought to change my boots for my carpet slippers or, at the very least, pay a toll for the privilege of crossing. Now then, now then, don’t go putting ideas into certain people’s heads!
Unfortunately, however, after this magic carpet ride, it’s downhill all the way. The configuration of a worn and rutted entrance to a private commercial carpark, not much more than hardcore in construction, pocked with serious cavities and craters on either side, which in the rainy season fill with water, makes for a treacherous path indeed. But force of habit and the challenge that it presents has, over a period of time, deluded me into thinking that I can almost walk on water, using the stepping-stone techniques learnt when we were children for crossing fords and streams.
Knowledge is king, as they say (who does?) and as with everything in life the difference between a safe passage and one you should not have attempted (there’s a lot of those in Brixton) is knowing where to put your foot without putting your foot inadvertently in it (innit, man!).
Where’s Sir Walter Ralegh with his cloak when you need him?
As a not-too-young person, whenever I return from the shop with five pints of beer and a tomato, I pick and mix my pavements ~ sometimes hopping on this one, sometimes skipping on that, sometimes weaving around that section, sometimes straddling this, just as Victor taught me or rather like the tightrope walker at Robert Brothers’ Circus that I almost but never eventually became.
I go to these lengths because (a) it tests my memory (which is important as you get older, for you would not want to run the risk of forgetting what you went to the shop for: “Sorry, dear, I forgot the tomato.”); and (c) (having problems remembering the alphabet), it helps in honing the essential skills of balance and agility.
You might think that the topic of this post is right up my street, and you’d be right, but there’s a good chance that if you live in Kaliningrad, you are streets ahead of me, for this city has some wonderful streets, many with wonderful pavements, and with pavements that as each year passes are clearly on the mend.
In step with everything …
But if the pavements on your street are still waiting on the waiting list, console yourself with the image of how things used to be! Those of you who are old enough should be able to cast your mind back to earlier times, when the mean streets of Kaliningrad were very mean indeed!.
Way back when, in the formative years of the 21st century, a pastime that I quickly cultivated whenever I visited Kaliningrad was to watch the women as they walked by. For purely scientific purposes naturally, I observed the tall, leggy women in short skirts and six-inch stilettos teetering precariously ~ but never tripping, mind! ~ strut their stuff as confidently as any model on the catwalk could across the pits, crevices and uneven ground where, prior to perestroika, Kaliningrad’s pavements once would have been but sadly were no more.
It may come as a surprise to you, but I never tired of watching these ladies; I suppose because they were so adept.
But times, as they say, have changed: the skirts are not so short, the heels are not so high and the pavements, though not as exciting, have attained for the greater part an air of respectability and those that haven’t are getting there! Sigh, progress can be a lot like love: it depends on the beholder.
Former posts What I like about Kaliningrad Our friend, the late Victor Ryabinin, used to refer to Kaliningrad and its surrounding territory as ‘this special place’, and I am with him on that. Whether it is because I see Kaliningrad through his eyes and feel it through his heart, I cannot rightly say. Certainly, his outlook and philosophy on life influenced me and my intuition bears his signature, but I rather imagine that he perceived in me from the earliest time of our friendship something of a kindred spirit, someone who shared his sensibility for the fascination of this ‘special place’.
Why I left the UK and moved to Kaliningrad I did not decide to leave the UK and give up the country where I was born and everything I had ever known simply because it would furnish me with a first-class opportunity to laugh at the way the UK media brainwashes people.
Published: 8 December 2022 ~ Badger Club Kaliningrad a Bohemian Night on the Tiles
My wife, Olga, went to a concert recently (see the photos below). I know exactly how my eloquent and highbrow musician friend in the UK will respond when he attempts to equate ‘concert’ with the images from that evening: “WTF?! Let’s go there!”
Now I am not the world’s most mainstream guy, but I have to admit when I saw the photos and heard an account of the evening, which did not happen until the following day because my wife rolled back at some ungodly hour in the morning, they made me feel positively ~ as the American author Henry James might say ~ ‘Ground into the mill of the conventional’.
It is not clear from the photographs whether the establishment is cavernous, but it certainly looks covenous ~ all that dim lighting, candles, hanging masks, dolls, natural-wood sculptures, enchanting (and possibly enchanted, Gothicised cabinets), and, moreover, wild and whacky costumery! Right up my surrealist street!
The top hat and tailed gentleman, the owner of the club, Aleksandr Smirnov, is obviously a ‘quick-change’ expert ~ one minute impresario, the next an updated rock-star figure from the minds of the Brothers Grimm. He, I am told, is a chimney sweep, only he isn’t, he is an accomplished and original artist who produces highly detailed bronzed relief plaques (apologies if I am slightly less than accurate, but I am having to base my opinion on mobile phone snaps) and, as you will see from the photographs, is also a bit of a wizard in the costume creation department. That’s him in the photo with his chopper in his hand. I’ve never seen one as big as that before; and me having been active in the antiques and militaria trade!
Choppers aside, this particular evening was dedicated to accomplished musicians and good music: There was a soulful and original indie art-folk band, Sfeno, first-rate singer guitarist and a young lady violinist, a virtuoso of her craft, who was on the fiddle a lot that evening. Vodka was not rationed, people got up and jived and my wife, much to her great surprise, if not unalloyed delight, was both chatted up and propositioned, which is always good for the ego (I’ve lost count of the number of times that the same has happened to me (you wish!)). The location, in fact the whole evening, was so spellbinding that it reduced Harry Potter to as much comparative magic as a meeting of the Women’s Institute at the local village-hall on a wet afternoon in the 1930s.
Never one to moralise, even when occasion justifies, whilst all this frivolity was going on in Kaliningrad’s answer to Alice’s Wonderland, I was at home with the cat, genning up on Königsberg and the history of East Prussia by reading (both the cat and I) that excellent publication Legends of the Amber Land, by Andrey Kropotkin.
Although I must say, with my wife rolling in at some unseemly hour of the morning ~ we won’t say when! ~ I would have been quite within my conjugal rights had I demanded of her, “And what time do you call this then!?” or have cast myself in the role of the heavy-handed Victorian husband, with “Why, you dirty stop-out.” But I contented myself with the elevating thought that if I have learnt one thing and one thing only in my brief visit to this muddled world, it is reflected in my born-again status as a stay-at-home Captain Sensible. Stout fellow that I assuredly am: resisting the lure of the bright lights nightlife in order to set the perfect example of how people of a certain age are expected to, and should, behave.
Thus, by the time my wife had sneaked in from her evening of ‘reasonable refreshments’ ~ making it difficult to imagine that she had been brought up in the social climate of anti-decadent Soviet-Russia! ~ I had read my book, patted the cat, drunk my cup of cocoa and with teddy tucked snugly under my arm had taken myself to bed: zzzzzzzzz.
Have you ever had the feeling that you are missing out on something?🤔
Aleksandr Smirnov introduces singer guitarist Andrey BerenevOlga Hart withAleksandr SmirnovOlga Hart in the Badger clubBand Sfeno performingAndrey BerenevOlga Hart surrounded by the esotericOlga Hart with vintage oil lamp and fantasy fairy tale furniture made by ‘Chimney Sweep’ Aleksandr SmirnovInara looking hornyConfronted with a large chopper
Aleksandr Smirnov By all accounts*, Aleksandr (Chimney Sweep) Smirnov is an artist, costume designer and consummate wizard at conjuring up interior design of a distinctly unusual and exotic nature.
Able to work with all kinds of material, including wood and metal, much of what you see in the photographs in terms of fixtures and fittings are said to have been made by his hand, the same hand that has orchestrated the natural, historical and decorative elements that set apart the club’s interior from any other you may have encountered. The syncopated fairy tale feel that you get from all of this is no coincidence. A little fairy tells me that he writes fairy tales as well. *Дом трубочиста или выходные в сказке (turbopages.org)
The Badger club, Kaliningrad The Badger club has a dedicated clientele who value not only the décor and entertainment but speak with great warmth and affection about the club’s welcoming ethos and its friendly, inviting atmosphere. Why not go and see for yourself? You may just become a regular in the process?!
Links to bars, restaurants to visit in Kaliningrad
A kind, charming, thought-provoking and sentimental animation
Published: 2 December 2022 ~ Hedgehog in the Fog seen in Kaliningrad
Before setting off to London/Bedford England last month, we were walking back from a coffee in the café gardens (Soul Garden) by the Upper Pond, Kaliningrad, when we were thrilled to discover that some artistic person or other had painted the perfect impression of the star (Yorshik) from the famous 1970s’ animation, Hedgehog in the Fog. Normally, or abnormally, depending upon your personal prejudice, I am unable to accept painted or spray-canned text or images plastered on public or private property as anything else but what it truly is ~ a brazen example of vandalism. But, as with most things in life, exceptions to the rule exist, and this, I have to admit, is as true of graffiti as it is of anything else, providing that you want it to be.
Hedgehog in the Fog is a highly acclaimed Soviet-Russian multiple award-winning animated film. It was written by Sergei Grigoryevich Kozlov [Серге́й Григо́рьевич Козло́в] and animated and directed by Yuri Norstein [Ю́рий Норште́йн]. It is both an animation and intellectual masterpiece, capable of myriad interpretations, but whose ultimate message is as simple as it is sublime as is it sentimental: that we all need someone in this world with whom we can count the stars.
Once seen never forgotten, the majority of Russians would recognise Yorshik’s likeness instantly, certainly as unmistakeably as they would the stars of such classic Soviet films as Irony of Fate and Office Romance.
The portrait was also discovered and recognised by Kaliningrad’s administration department, and before we left for England, I caught sight of a media report in which the administration was asking the public to cast their vote ~ with the proviso that the paint used was harmless to the tree ~ on whether the image should be removed or be allowed to remain.
Since I have not walked that part of Kaliningrad recently, I have no idea what the fate of Yorshik might be, although I for one would hope that when the votes were counted, they favoured Yorshik’s continued presence.
Not only does the composition capture Yorshik’s appearance perfectly, but the artist has also located him within a beautiful blue graduated background, where he shares space romantically with twinkling stars and fairies.
Whether Yorshik has survived or not, if the artist would like to contact me, I have a canvas, an interior wall, which is just crying out for this work of art to be replicated!
Hedgehog in the Fog (Yorshik) painted on a tree in Kaliningrad
Hedgehog in the Fog is a Soviet-Russian animated film about a hedgehog (Yorshik) who sets off on foot to visit his friend, a bear cub (Meeshka), and finds himself lost in the fog. As in folklore, fairy tales and fantasy and in Gothic and psychological suspense genres, fog as a literary/cinematographic device is typically employed in the film to deviate objective reality, turning the world as we know it ~ or think we do! ~ into a claustrophobic and distorted realm where the heightened possibility of supernatural occurrences amplifies the vicissitudes encountered in everyday life.
In this state of altered consciousness, Yorshik’s imagination supersedes logic, creating a new and unnerving reality in which, for example, an owl and white horse ~ one commonplace the other rare but possible ~ take on puzzling and sinister shades of meaning.
When Yorshik stumbles into the river he assumes that he will drown, but carried along by the current he relaxes into his situation, resigning himself to the journey wherever it may take him.
His ordeal culminates when a mysterious submersible benefactor, a ‘Someone’ as the subtitles tells us, lifts him onto his back and conveys him safely to the water’s edge.
Once on dry land, Yorshik hears his friend, Meeshka, calling out to him through the fog and by following the direction of his friend’s cries the two are at last united.
Hedgehog in the Fog is a simple story, but one which arguably manages to achieve what no other comparable animation has in its simultaneous creation of an atmosphere of dread tempered by quiescence. The kinetic tempo has a lot to do with this, as does the steady, hushed and neutral tone of the omniscient narrator, but the fundamental appeal of the film and the extent to which it engages us lies in its ‘seen through the eyes of a child’s perspective’, its lilting dream-like quality and its effortless ability to invoke and mirror the childhood world which we all once inhabited, with its troublesome symbols and shadows, its half-open doors to what, where and who, its many unanswered questions and its never completely understood what may lie within and beyond.
In following the classic tradition of all that is best in fantasy motion pictures ~ The Haunting (original version), Night of the Hunter and, with one or two exceptions, the complete canon of Hitchcock’s works ~ the key to Hedgehog in the Fog’s allure is that just below the surface of fairy tale enchantment it taps profoundly and incisively into our childhood psyche.
It calls upon the fog and the river for their habitual literary symbolism: the first for its incarnation of a supernatural milieu where anything is possible, the second for its depiction of life as a predetermined current against whose superior will we are powerless to resist, and it besets the journey with downstream dangers, credible menace, innate fears and the almost tangible presence of death. All the things that we learn about living as we are hurried along by the current of life.
The still frames from Hedgehog in the Fog are every bit as resoundingly emotive as the narrative in flux. Single static images such as the looming face of the owl, the white horse, apparition-like and luminescent, the bewildered expression on Yorshik’s face and, most memorable of all, the concluding frames of the film where the re-united Yorshik and Meeshka sit on the log together, with their jam, tea and samovar and the scent from the burning juniper twigs, counting the stars in the heavens, are each and every one blissfully indelible.
Hedgehog in the Fog works, even for we adults, not only because the artwork, the cinematography, pace and timbre are as spot on as they can be, but because the overarching feel of the film is unashamedly affectionate and applaudably sentimental.
However unnerving the fog may be, the narrator takes us by the hand and, like the dreamy river of life upon which the hapless Yorshik floats, albeit with philosophical tranquility, he leads us reassuringly from opening credits to heartfelt conclusion.
If you have the samovar, the juniper twigs and the raspberry jam, all you need to count the stars ~ as the stars are always above you ~ is the log on which to sit and that special someone next to you for whom those stars shine as brightly and mean the same to them as they do for you.
Published: 16 November 2022 ~ How to blog when you are not
Not seen nor heard of since the last time I was seen and heard of, people have no idea why they are asking where is he, when, by all that was two and thruppence, I should be posting things to this blog. After all, you don’t buy a blog and bark yourself.
People are saying things and jumping to confusions:
Ms Nosepoke: “He hasn’t posted anything since 18th October. If you ask me, he’s up to no good.”
Ms Nogood: “What are you suggesting?!”
Ms Knowsitall: “What the eye don’t see …”
“More tea vicar?”
And then there are the rumours; the dark and sinister rumours:
He turned gay and joined the BBC. He got himself a job with The Guardian as Chief Wokesperson. He won the lottery and bought himself a beach hut in Brightlingsea (aah, how he remembers Lynn and that hot summer of 76!).
The media says (so it can’t be true) that the sanctions worked (we know it’s not true!). They forced his return to Devil’s Island, where he is currently doing penance. Each time he goes to the supermarket, he carries with him an old lady’s shopping bag and solemnly swears at checkout, “No, don’t give me a carrier bag; the UK is saving the planet’, even whilst its government, ignoring the needs of the NHS, continues to ship thousands of tons of ozone-depleting munitions to far-away lands at a time when the country’s cost of living and inversely its standard of living are exploding and imploding respectively as if every day is November 5th.
He’s in the UK, there’s no doubt about that! Someone who knows him, saw him. He has cunningly disguised himself as Lord Lucan. He was spotted in a Paki shop in Peterborough buying some UHU to hold his moustache in place and an overcoat to wear in bed! “Such selfishness! He always was a selfish man; a man of toxic masculine aspirations!” (previous mother in law, twice rejected) “And his poor, poor, neglected greenhouse tomatoes, what’s left of them, shivering in that conservatory with ho heater to call their own, recalling at their tormented leisure the chilly and chilling maxim, ‘politicians in glass Number 10s should never throw stones or tantrums !” Poor Liz Truss, she never got the chance. No sooner on the inside than on the out, she was not in the glass house long enough to do any permanent damage: Smash! And now what has become of her? And what has become of the blogger?
We will accept a reward
His family, who are extremely concerned that he might come home, are offering a substantial reward, payable to them, from anyone who has any information pertaining to his whereabouts and who hasn’t got the decency to keep it to themselves.
Retired police officer Superintendent Clampit, from the City of Armston, warns that anyone discovered not to be withholding vital information about his whathaveyous will be subject to the full and most serious rigours that the law can implement, and, on conviction, which will never happen as the police are far too busy arresting people for allergic reactions to Liberal (I heard it on the Grapevine) Jeremy, could face five years in Vine Street Prison or be sentenced to a lifetime’s subscription to The Guardian, whichever of the two is perceived to be the most terrible, vile and odious.
Lifetime friend, Professor Toalbucket, who met him yesterday, but don’t know where, don’t know when, had this to say: “It’s all so peculiar!” And after a moment’s reflection: “It don’t make sense!”
How to blog without heating
The missing blogger’s neighbour saw him in the garden once. He was going back into the house. This did not stop him wondering, however, why a man who to all intents and purposes was a born-again extrovert but hardly ever went out was where he was when he should have been blogging. His neighbour had an awful lot to say on the subject but, being Russian, he would keep talking in his own language in spite of attempts by trillionaire string pullers of western-leaders to cancel Russian culture. Since sanctioned, he no longer has access to things that he never knew he had and didn’t need, but he knows that he has a lot of gas and he’ll use it to heat his house this winter.
One theory is that the blogger has stopped posting because he hasn’t posted anything recently; another that he might have posted in invisible ink; and yet another ~ conceding that the previous two are as silly as a country that fills its hotels with thousands of migrants at a cost of millions each day (Are you a politician or a politician’s friend who owns or has a stake in a string of British hotels?!) ~ that he may in fact still be posting but posting surreptitiously using a false identity and assumed name.
Someone, someone who makes money out of things that have no relevance to the real world, has suggested that he could be posting in an esoteric way, such as posting somewhere in a parallel universe or at an earlier time in his life, when, for example, he was at school, in those inconceivably terrible days before internet and arsephones.
Chrystal Bollocks, YouTube’s Number One snake-oil salesperson, called upon her disciples, the gullible and emotionally vulnerable, to tune into her latest meditative video, and there, amongst the postsynch sounds of tinkling tubes, tiny bells and dubbed-on heavenly choirs, in a husky half-monotone whisper (barely audible above the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs) she pulled the answer to this and to everything else in the Uniperverse, as if it was rabbit pure and simple, out of her magician’s hat. We are so lucky, don’t you think, that we live in an age where, without recourse to qualifications, nuisance of track record or the inconvenience of credible reason, we are blessed with so many experts.
Whether it is better to be trapped inside the mind of some meditating monk or stuck in Dr Who’s wardrobe with a gaggle of prissy old BBC wokists, it is widely believed, from one end of Hackney to the other, that he will just turn up like a bad Rupee. Some say that he should have stuck to the straight and narrow; others that he did, but it sent him round the bend and then, with the full complicity of the French Government, across the Channel to Blighty.
The Dover Port Police, acting on information received by George Sorryarse, have already launched several more boats to ferry migrants freely across the Channel. At the same time, they are conducting a dinghy-by-dinghy search.
Should, during the course of this extensive operation, it be discovered that he has concealed himself among the deserving illegals, make no mistake, said a Labour MP, we shall turf him out.
“We simply won’t tolerate English people wanting to live in their own country!” said a spokesvestite from the Home Office. (Patriots live in hope that one day they will rename this department the Go Home Office and that once renamed it will at last succeed in performing the vital function for which British taxpayers’ money funds it, namely to ‘send the buggers back home!’. Anything less than this should immediately see the department renamed in the spirit by which it is highly regarded, in other words the Home Orifice.)
“Bugger!” his kindly uncle retorted, inspired to do so by some word or other he’d see in print recently: “He wouldn’t come looking for me so why should I go looking for him!”
Asked to comment on his whereabouts, all his old university tutor was willing to say was (He had a wry smile upon his face when he said it): “One can only hope that he doesn’t end up like his favourite author, Edgar Allan Poe, paralytic, face down in the gutter, garbed in somebody else’s clothes … mind you, if my memory serves me right, it wouldn’t be the first time.”
Someone with his mind so thoroughly grounded in the mundane and his logic so infused with and underwritten by commonsense that it couldn’t possibly do him any good had the impertinence to suggest that his whereabouts is Kaliningrad, and that, having recently returned from a sojourn in his native country, England, he is preoccupied with solving the question ‘Is Bedford UK Worth Visiting?’ And that once he has answered this question to the accord and dictates of his own satisfaction, he will post his response forthwith. Even bloggers take holidays, this venerable person ventured.
He was immediately slammed a conspiracy theorist and has had his culture cancelled!
Published: 19 October 2022 ~ Toast Making in Russia an Important Tradition
One of the great joys of making friends in Russia is the party invitation. Birthday, anniversary, public holiday or simply a get together in someone’s home, whatever the occasion and scale, you can always be assured of a warm welcome, tasty food, plenty of vodka and good company.
Like any party should be, Russian parties are a celebratory experience, an opportunity to bring family and friends together in an atmosphere of goodwill and conviviality. But Russian parties are more than that. They enable the participants to express their feelings openly to the person or persons to whom the event is devoted, and to pledge their admiration, esteem and/or love for them before and in front of the company present.
Toasts, personal speeches in someone’s honour culminating in the act of drinking to their health and good fortune are, you might be surprised to learn, even more traditional and realistically Russian than bears, snow and furry hats with ear flaps. No matter where you are or who you are with in Russia, once the drinking starts a toast or several is unavoidable.
As someone who has no difficulty saying ‘cheers’ before I raise my glass (don’t even think of it!) but is by no means qualified as an after-dinner speaker, the seemingly natural public-speaking faculty of ordinary Russians never ceases to amaze me. If anything exceeds this skill, then it can only be the speaker’s ability to thoroughly bare his or her soul to the loved one or dear friend to whom the toast is pledged.
Toast making in Russia is an important tradition
I was once inclined to believe that Russians must spend ages learning, rehearsing and polishing their toasts but, having witnessed toasts every bit as touching and verbally accomplished at impromptu gatherings as at pre-planned ones, I am driven to conclude that the Russian nation is endowed with a certain remarkable and natural propensity for oratorical genius. It is a national characteristic that tends to belie the notion that the only toast you need to know in Russia is the one that hardly anyone uses, Na zdorovye! ~ which literally means ‘To health!’ But if you are lost for anything better to say, then this is better than nothing.
It is expected of all party guests that at some point in the proceedings a toast will be presented. Sometimes toasts are organised on a formal, rotational basis but mostly toasts are performed ad hoc, when and as occasion dictates.
It is to be reasoned that the necessity of committing oneself to such a public undertaking is not to be relished by shrinking violets, a plant with which I am personally acquainted and one to which I am most endeared, but if long experience has taught me anything it is that necking sufficient vodka before you take centre stage is often conducive to a fair result. If you are more than a trifle self-conscious, it helps considerably to make your debut at a later rather than earlier spot in the course of the festivities, by which time, it is to be hoped, you will have accumulated enough Russian Courage (which is not dissimilar to the Dutch variety) to impress yourself and the rest of the room. And even if you do muck it up, chances are by then that most everyone around you will be safely in the same squiffy boat and your falling headlong overboard won’t be particularly noticeable.
The art of toast making in Russia
There’s a very good chance that if you have been called upon to make speeches at UK parties and have developed a knack for it, that it won’t help you in Russia at all. Unlike in the UK, where short party speeches err towards the frivolous or are laced with suggestive digestives and saucy innuendo, the intimacy of Russian toasts tend to be pitched on a quite different level.
Some may be intellectual, some political, some artistic, but almost all Russian toasts, whatever form they take, are philosophical, frank, open and sincere, and resonate with the quality of unalloyed genuine feeling. When Russian relatives and friends toast fellow relatives and friends, they do so from the bottom of their heart. They do so with unreserved emotion and a poetry of the soul that is the touchstone of love and integrity. There is nothing to ask and nothing to doubt. The sentiments expressed emanate from and reaffirm the importance of traditional values, the core values of family and friendship, and their intimate public disclosure strengthens inter-family and community ties on which social cohesion depends.
Good Russian parties, like everything else in life, eventually come to an end, but the feel-good factor lives on, not just in the individual in whose honour the party has been held but in each and everyone who has attended and contributed to and embraced the ethos of kinship and camerarderie.
The photographs included within this post are from a recent party of innumerable toasts. I could have lost count of the number of toasts and could have remarked, had I been sober, on the emotional, poetic and linguistic integrity with which these toasts were delivered, but I was too busy raising my glass (there he goes again!) between taking turns on the dance floor.
Six of the best for raising my glass too often!
Toast at undercover Soviet Spy Centre UK
Note the retrospective Soviet theme and the wonderful, old, industrial building in which this event took place!
It is also known for the Amber Legend, a novel and attractive restaurant cunningly constructed on a split-level plan.
Built on a fairly steep incline, the pavement entrance to Amber Legend accesses what is effectively the upper ground floor, while the doors at the rear of the building lead to the lower level.
Externally, the building is invested with more than a touch of the neoclassical. It follows a simple but imposing geometrical outline, with dominating rectangular upright supports, a balustrade balcony traversing the width of the building and a matching balustrade parapet. After an introduction of this calibre, anything less internally, both upper and lower level, would be disappointing, but happily this is not the case: aesthetic integrity and continuity are safely, indeed inspiringly, assured.
The question is, however, why did the proprietors of the Amber Legend not call their establishment ‘Blue Flag restaurant’, ‘good clean air’ or ‘split-level neoclassical eatery’? Why the ‘Amber’ and why the ‘Legend’?
There are two possible reasons, one lesser known to some and the other, one trusts, obvious to anyone who has frequented the restaurant in person. The first most conceivably has to do with Yantarny’s massive amber reserves. Approximately 90 per cent of the world’s amber resources are sitting in Yantarny. They are mined upon an industrial scale using the open-quarry method.
The second, inspired by the first, has visible connotations, since both the exterior and interior of the building are lavishly decorated with variegated stones of genuine polished amber. Inside the restaurant the precious ancient resin is taken to another level of artistic meritocracy, as richly inlaid amber panels of many different hues sharing geometrical space with amber art assemblages. (Thanks for the word, Vit!) vie for your attention.
There are amber trims to the seats; amber-studded back rests; inset amber wall plaques; the bar is adorned with amber; and the ceiling-suspended lamp shades, bowls of amber inlay, are interwoven tiffany style.
Of particular note are the broad wooden panels, chain-hoisted close to the ceiling, each containing a window of different coloured amber stones lamp-backed for illumination.
Confoundingly, when we visited the restaurant, it was during the daylight hours, so that although in the room’s darker recesses some of the lamps were lit, the full effect of the interplay between light source and amber creation was lost in the dilution of overpowering, brilliant sunlight. However, the upside to this was in the excuse that it presented, which was as good as any that I could invent, for returning on an evening to witness what most assuredly must be a lighting display of artistic splendour.
Another sphere of artistic splendour, according to my wife, who had dined at Amber Legend before, was lurking in the toilets, and this, she said, was something that I must see.
Amber Legend Yantarny legendary toilet
Now, contrary to what you may have been told, I am not in the habit, not even rarely, of taking a camera into the toilet, but called upon by my wife to do so, strictly on account of the brilliance of the interior décor, I cast caution to the wind, in a manner of speaking, and made an exception on this occasion. The result of this promiscuity is documented here in two revealing photographs, illustrating the continuation of the amber theme, both in the ornamentation surrounding the wash basins and, more spectacularly, in a glass-windowed chamber recessed within the toilet floor, where chunks of amber of novel shapes and some of prodigious proportions turn everyday humble toilet into a veritable natural history museum, even at the inconvenience of others wanting to use the convenience.
You may have liked the loo, but do you like the blue? In my humble opinion, the TARDIS-blue woodwork that repeats itself throughout the restaurant, including the toilet, creates the perfect frame for the amber displays. It is just neutral enough without subsiding into plain and functions as a recall feature of Amber Legend’s personalised style. I call the colour TARDIS blue because recognisably that is what it is, which is why I should imagine we chose this colour for our TARDIS, the one that we built at home. But then, I suppose, it is not that unusual; just the colour of choice for everyone’s TARDIS.
At this point I would normally add a footnote about the food, so why disappoint. But first a caveat. As you probably recall, whilst making allowances for having been called gormless ~ and who wouldn’t want to be, for it is such a lovely word ~ gourmet I am not. Beer needs volume; food needs volume. There is only one winner. But, when we visited Amber Legend I was feeling rather peckish, so I did partake of the pizza, which was pretty good as pizza goes. However, my fellow patrons, who needless to say were more adventurous in their choice of dishes than I, as most normal people appear to be, reliably informed me that their meals were most enjoyable. And I have no reason to doubt their sincerity.
The verdict is, therefore, that when visiting this coastal jewel in Kaliningrad region’s amber crown (remember the name, Yantarny) make sure your experience is complete: Discover the Amber Legend!
Essential details
Amber Legend 66A Sovetskaya Ulitsa Yantarny Kaliningrad Olblast Russia
Updated 18 April 2022 | First published: 2 March 2021 ~ Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West
[INTRO} I wrote this piece over a year ago, at a time when western media had nothing better to do than push a hysteria-fomenting narrative about the coronavirus pandemic; now, apparently, it has nothing better to do than to push a hysteria-fomenting narrative about the situation in Ukraine. Bearing this in mind, I dutifully revisited my post to see if anything had changed regarding my opinion of life in Russia and to what extent if any western media had succeeded in convincing me that I would be happier in the UK than if I remained a sanctioned Englishman living in Kaliningrad. I am pleased, but not surprised, to say that other than one or two grammatical improvements, there was nothing to revise! Here’s that post again …
We left the UK for Kaliningrad in winter 2018, but things were far from settled. Over the next twelve months I would have to return to the UK three or four times to renew my visa and to obtain official documents and then return again to pay an extortionate sum of money for a notarised apostille, a little rosette-looking thing verified by a notary that once clipped to the official documents could be used to complete my Leave to Remain in Russia. It was expensive; it was a rigmarole; but obtaining Leave to Remain meant that opening visas would be a thing of the past.
The last time that I was in the UK was December 2019. I returned to Kaliningrad just in time for the New Year celebrations and a month or so afterwards was granted Leave to Remain. We had intended to return to the UK in April for a month, as we had some business to attend to, but before we could do that coronavirus came along and the rest, as they say, is history.
In a previous article I revealed the circumstances which persuaded us to leave the UK and move to Kaliningrad. Now, with December 2019 to the present date being the longest uninterrupted period that I have been in Kaliningrad, it would seem appropriate that I pause to reflect on what it is about Kaliningrad that drew me to it and continues to endear and fascinate.
Our friend, the late Victor Ryabinin, used to refer to Kaliningrad and its surrounding territory as ‘this special place’, and I am with him on that. Whether it is because I see Kaliningrad through his eyes and feel it through his heart, I cannot rightly say. Certainly, his outlook and philosophy on life influenced me and my intuition bears his signature, but I rather imagine that he perceived in me from the earliest time of our friendship something of a kindred spirit, someone who shared his sensibility for the fascination of this ‘special place’.
Nevertheless, my feelings for Kaliningrad are in no way blinkered by a Romanticist streak, which, yes, I do have. If Victor could describe himself as a cheerful pessimist, then I have no qualms in describing myself as a pragmatic Romanticist. But I am no more or less a stranger to Kaliningrad’s flaws and imperfections than I am to my own.
When we arrived in Kaliningrad on a very cold day in winter 2018 to make arrangements for moving here, we were thrown in at the deep end. Early in the morning, still tired from our flight the night before, we had official business that would not wait, which meant trekking off to one of the city’s less salubrious districts. We had given ourselves sufficient time, allowances having been made for the usual protracted queuing, but on reaching our destination discovered that the office we were bound for was working to a different timetable than the one advertised, and consequently we had a two-hour wait before we would be seen! Asking some kind people if they would reserve our place in the queue, we ventured out to a small eatery, a cubicle on the side of the road, for a coffee and a bite to eat. I wrote in my diary:
“Outside, we were confronted yet again by downtown Kaliningrad at its ‘finest’: those ubiquitous concrete tower blocks, stained, crumbling and patched; pavements cracked, ruptured and sunken; kerbstones akimbo; grass verges churned by the wheels of numerous vehicles so that they resembled farmyard gateways; small soviet-era fences rusting and broken; and roads so full of potholes that I began to wonder if it was 1945 again and looked anxiously above me to check for the presence of Lancasters.
When I returned to Kaliningrad from England in December 2019, I wrote: “I am not sure whether I love Kaliningrad in spite of its imperfections or because of them”.
Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West
They say that it is people that make places what they are, and it is a difficult-to-disprove logic. In the UK, for example, left-leaning commentators, liberal media editors, state-blamers and apologists are continually referring to ‘disadvantaged’ people from ‘deprived areas’, whereas in my experience it is people who deprive areas not areas that deprive people and the only disadvantage is yours, if you should wander into these areas by mistake.
Case in point: Back in the 1990s I had a female acquaintance who lived in a notorious concrete citadel in south London’s Peckham; her reputation I was assured of, but when I visited her one late afternoon in autumn, my knowledge of the Badlands where she lived was incipiently less important to me than my amorous intent. Ahh, the follies of youth!
When it came time to leave, I was ready to phone for a taxi. It was then that she informed me that after dark taxis refused to enter the estate, in fact the entire area! I suggested hailing a black cab in the street and was told that black cabs were as “rare ‘round here as rocking horse s!*t!”.
There was nothing for it: I would have to walk. I cannot say that I was unduly perturbed by this prospect. I was young, well relatively young, and these were the days of my London-wide pub crawls, which would take me to every corner of London no matter which corner it was.
On this particular evening, I had not walked far before I espied my first pub. I was still some distance from it, and though the light from the one or two working streetlamps was dim, the building was easily distinguished as the front was bathed in a low, lurid glow.
As I drew closer, I discovered to my surprise that someone had propped a large mattress on the side of the pub wall and had set light to it. It must have been very damp, the proverbial piss-stained mattress I suppose, because the conflagration was limited to a slow, puthering, smoulder.
Being the Good Samaritan that I am, I popped my head around the pub door and called to the chap behind the bar, “Hey, did you know that there is a burning mattress strapped to the side of your pub?” I need not have felt so daft for saying this, as, barely looking up from his newspaper, the barman grunted in reply, “It’s not unusual around here, mate.”
I had not walked far from The Burning Mattress pub before I found another: The Demolition Inn. All of the windows on the pavement side were smashed, and one pathetic light shone miserably through the broken glass in what otherwise would be a superb and original 1920s’ doorway. I couldn’t just walk past!
The place was empty and quiet, but it had not always been. Evidence had it that not too long ago it had been extremely lively. In one corner there was a pile of broken furniture and that which was still standing had bandaged legs and strung-up backs. The mirror behind the bar was bust, western-film style, and all of the more expensive bottles, the shorts, had been removed from the shelves and the optics, presumably for their own safety.
I never did ask what had happened. It just did not seem the polite thing to do. I just ordered a pint from the man behind the bar, who had a lovely shining black eye and his arm in the nicest of slings, and spent the next thirty minutes on my own in this disadvantaged pub, philosophically ruminating on the nasty way in which bricks and mortar and the wider urban environment deprived people to such an extent that there was nothing they could do but set light to piss-stained mattresses, smash up backstreet pubs, terrify London cabbies and (a popular sport in London’s predominantly ethnic areas) mug the hapless white man.
So, what can we conclude from this? Most large towns and cities have rundown areas, but the difference between the rundown areas in Kaliningrad and those that we know and avoid in London and other UK cities ~ the ‘deprived areas’, as they are called ~ is that you are less likely to be deprived of your possessions, your faculties even your life, whilst walking through the Kaliningrad equivalents of the UK’s infamous sink estates. Although, to be precise, such equivalents do not exist.
Thus, without sounding too fanciful, let us agree that it is people ~ the way they act, talk, behave, dress and generally conduct themselves in public ~ that makes a place what it is. An observation that applies to anywhere ~ be it a 1920s’ terraced street, a 1970s’ concrete estate, a pedestrianised city centre, anywhere ~ from region to region, country to country.
I am not about to make any silly sweeping statements about what Russian people are really like. I could not accomplish this with any degree of validity if someone was to ask me to ‘sum up’ British people (not the least because true British are lumped together with people from foreign lands, who in appearance and behaviour are anything but British, and yet have a stamp in their passport that contradicts good sense) simply because every individual is different no matter where he or she hails from. What I can say hand on heart is that in the 22 years that I have been coming to Kaliningrad, I have had the good fortune to meet, and in some instances become friends with, people of the highest calibre in this small corner of Russia.
It is true that in June 2019 we lost Victor Ryabinin, which was and still is an inconsolable loss, and tragedy would overtake us again in November 2020, when our friend and Victor’s protégé, Stas Konovalov, who helped us through the emotional period of Victor’s death and with whom we shared so many good times, died also. For the second time in less than two years, irreplaceable people had been taken from us. We continue to miss them both.
As it had been for Stas and Victor, history plays an important part in my relationship with Kaliningrad. There is, of course, my own personal history of Kaliningrad, an interaction that stretches back over two decades, and then the energy of the greater past that flows from antiquity into the present. In Kaliningrad, and its region, the past and present parallel each other. There are times and places where the past seems so close that you feel all you need to do is reach out, pull back the curtain and take its hand in yours.
“There is something magnetic in this city; it pulled some of the world’s most significant people into it as it has pulled me. I cannot explain this magic, but I know that this is my city.”
Victor Ryabinin
For some, this confluence of the past has more disturbing connotations. My wife’s mother, who is attuned to the ‘otherness’ of our existence, complains that although she likes Kaliningrad, there is something inescapably ‘heavy’ about it, defined by her as emanating from its dark Teutonic and German past. And I am inclined to agree with her. But I do not share her more gloomy interpretation of the dark side or its negative affect. For me, the cloud has a silver lining: it is profundity and, at its core, cultural sensitivity, interlaced with creative energy. Indeed, creativity and creative people thrived and flourished in Königsberg and that legacy, I am pleased to say, lives on to this day.
Königsberg ~ the retrospective world of artist Victor Ryabinin
Whilst the bricks and mortar of Königsberg’s ruins ~ the haunting landscape in which Victor Ryabinin spent his susceptible childhood ~ may have largely been replaced, the spirit of the old city and the spirits of all those who passed through it, whether peacefully or violently during times of war, are ever present. And I earnestly believe that the energy of our two departed friends, Victor and Stas, walk among the living here as countless others do who were brought to this place by fate.
Königsberg after allied bombing ~ the childhood landscape of Victor RyabininKaliningrad 2019
Victor wrote that “there is something magnetic in this city; it pulled some of the world’s most significant people into it as it has pulled me. I cannot explain this magic, but I know that this is my city.”
I was told by someone, not by Victor himself, that Victor believed that no matter how we felt about the past, we have to live in the present. I never did get chance to ask him whether by that he meant that we had no choice but to live in the present or that we each had a moral imperative to do so, but whichever version you choose, I would qualify both by adding that to a certain extent we can pick and mix, take what we need from the past and present and leave the rest behind.
In my case, the past and present converge, and I am attracted to modern-day Kaliningrad as much as I am fascinated by its East Prussian, German and Soviet history.
When English people call me out, asking pointedly what it is I like about Kaliningrad. I reply, glibly: “What’s not to like?”
Of course, I start with the historical perspective ~ it would not be me if I didn’t ~ referring to the Teutonic Order, ancient Königsberg, Königsberg’s fate during the Second World War and its Soviet reincarnation. I emphasise what a fascinating destination it is for those who are interested in military history and woo antique and vintage dealers with seductive tales of dug-up relics, the incomparable fleamarket and colourful descriptions of alluring pieces hidden away in the city’s antique shops.
Relics of Königsberg & Soviet Kaliningrad’s past
Then I go on to say that Kaliningrad is a vibrant and dynamic city, a city of contrasts, of surprises; I talk up its superb bars and restaurants, the variety and price of the beer, the museums and art galleries, the excellent public transport facilities, the attractive coastal resorts that are a mere forty minutes away and cost you two quid by train or a tenner by taxi, the UNESCO World Heritage Curonian Spit, the small historic villages, how friendly the natives are to visitors and, when the wife is not about, the presence of many beautiful women.
Above: Kaliningrad region’s main coastal resorts: Svetlogorsk & Zelenogradsk
*********Editorial note [18 April 2022]******** In the paragraphs to follow, I refer to the onerous restrictions which at the time of writing were impacting international travel in the name of coronavirus. Since then, you will have probably noticed that we have entered a new, dramatically more restricting chapter in the history of international travel, thanks to the West’s anti-Russian hysteria and its sanction-futile attempts to isolate the largest country on Earth. This ill-advised and not very well thought through economic warfare programme has added multiple layers of estranging complexity for global travellers everywhere, not just for potential visitors who want to leave the West to travel to Kaliningrad. From a purely selfish standpoint, these self-defeating impositions have merely made the ‘special place’ that Kaliningrad is to me that little bit more special, its taboo status, difficult-to-get-to location and mythicised risk to westerners making my ‘secret holiday destination’ even more enticing, albeit, ironically, somewhat less secret since in the latest round of Russophobia it has been singled out as a strategic military obstacle to the New World Order aspirations of neoliberal globalism.
You will also find in my later comments evidence supporting Russia’s assertion that the West’s attempts to stigmatise and degrade its international standing and denigrate its culture did not start with Ukraine. The events that we see unfolding today have been a long time in the making and by comparing my honest depiction of life in Kaliningrad with life as you know it in the UK, you should begin to understand why Russia’s traditional cultural ethos inflames the rancour of the West and why it fuels a burning desire in its governments to corrupt, transform and replace that culture with something sub-standard resembling their own. All I can say is Heaven forbid! *********End of Editorial note [18 April 2022]********
Admittedly, as with everywhere else in the world, access to Kaliningrad and accessibility with regard to its facilities have suffered restrictions through the outbreak of coronavirus, but hopefully it will not be long before the borders are open again. Before coronavirus struck, I was looking forward to excursions into Poland and to Vilnius, Lithuania ~ one of my favourite cities ~ and I want to make that train trip across Russia to Siberia.
As I say, what’s not to like?
Above: Scenes from Kaliningrad and its Baltic Coast region
I realise, of course, that this is not what most English people expect or even want to hear. The UK media has done a good demolition job on Russia over the years, especially Kaliningrad. True, each year that goes by, as things improve here and grow inversely worse in the West, the UK media is finding it increasingly difficult to slag Kaliningrad off. Who can forget its failed propaganda coup in 2018, when it pulled every trick in the book in an attempt to terrify British fans from travelling to Russia for the World Cup?! The plan backfired spectacularly, since the fans that trusted in their own intuition and came to Kaliningrad in spite of media hype were later to report how immensely they enjoyed themselves. What an ‘own goal’ for the West and an embarrassing one at that!
Nevertheless, UK and American liberals continue to bang their conspiratorial heads against the door of this nation state, taking solace in the belief that should they ever run out of tall and sensational stories, there’s always Kaliningrad’s ‘military threat’, to latch onto. Simultaneously, they promise to bestow on Mother Russia ~ as if she is an ‘it’ or an ‘other’ (now, isn’t that just typical!) ~ the rights equivalent of the Emperor’s New Clothes, and all for the knock-down bargain price of Russia becoming a vassal state of the New World Liberal Disorder.
When I am asked about Kaliningrad, I respond to the critics by saying that I can only tell it how I find it, from my point of view, and that the Kaliningrad that I know is not the one readily fictionalised by UK mainstream media. They listen, but I suspect that Brits being Brits they routinely dismiss me as a latter-day Lord Haw Haw, even though the only hawing I do is when reflecting on their entrenched dogmas I allow myself a good chuckle.
However, there is one thing about Kaliningrad that has changed decisively for me: When I first came here, I was a tourist. I came for the good times; I had a good time; and then I went home until the next good time. I was a tourist.
Holiday venues are like that, they exist in the distance of your life, somewhere on the periphery. It’s a bit like having a mistress, or so they tell me: you can call round when it pleases you, take your pleasure, vow one day that you will move in together and then return to your life and forget it, until that is of course holiday time comes round again.
The risk is, however, that by returning time and time again ~ to places not mistresses (although …) ~ you develop friendships, and before you know it you have become a part of their life and they a part of yours. Your lives become enmeshed. You learn about each other’s hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, dreams and aspirations. You gain an informed insight into each other’s past and the course your lives have taken, and whilst you are living in each other’s lives fate, which is working behind the scenes, is quietly writing you into its narrative
The point at which you find yourself no longer living on the outside but looking in is indistinct, but it occurs somewhere at that imperceptible juncture where you are not only sharing the ‘ups’ of people’s lives but also the ‘downs’.
This is particularly true when you fall into the raw, barely consolable emotion, grief, in which fused as one by pain and despair, you eventually emerge on the other side less intact than you were but brothers in arms and sorrow. Such experiences are not peculiar to me or to Kaliningrad, or for that matter to any one time and place; they are timeless, universal. But it is these experiences that will ultimately determine which are the stations on your way and which your final destination.
And do you know what is most awesome? It is that you never know where it will be until after you arrive there.
Zelenogradsk in the sun … It’s not always cold in Russia!!
In the grounds of the Polessk Brewery, Kaliningrad, Russia
Published: 15 November 2021 ~ WWI/WWII German Gun Emplacement Polessk
In a post published on 8 November 2021, I wrote about the restoration of an old German brewery in the former German town of Labiau, now known as Polessk, located in the Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia.
The grounds of the Polessk brewery back onto the Deyma River (German: ‘Deime’). Contained within those grounds, facing the river, sits the dramatic remains of a wartime German gun emplacement.
Polessk WWI/WWII German Gun Emplacement Kaliningradregion
This chunky, reinforced concrete, above-ground bunker or blockhouse, which ever description you prefer, is one of the few survivors of a battery of such emplacements, more than sixty in total, which formed an awesome line of defence along the Deyma River.
The emplacements date to the First World War but were recommissioned during the Second World War as part of the formidable East Prussian defence system constructed by the Germans in preparation for the Soviet invasion.
WWI/WWII German Gun Emplacement, Polessk, Kaliningrad
According to what I have been told, after Königsberg fell to the Soviets in April 1945, the concrete fortifications along the Deyma were systematically obliterated in order to ensure that should the tide of military fortune ever be reversed they could not be employed again.
Relatively speaking, the surviving emplacement is in sound condition. Although the back has been taken out, the living quarters and the gunnery room are virtually unscathed, and the inside still retains the reassuring feeling of immense solidity. Cramped, some might think horribly, the bunkers were not completely devoid of some semblance, albeit slight, of ‘home comfort’. The existence of a metal flue shows that at least provision had been made for a source of warmth and possibly the means by which to make a brew and heat up food. The reinforced metal door to the combat room has gone, but the giant iron hinges on which it used to pivot remain intact as do other metal fixtures.
The gunners’ view from the front of the emplacement, which now faces the reed bed on the edge of the Deyma River, is, in every sense of the word, a commanding one. In theory it should have offered the bunker’s occupants a strategic advantage against any attack launched from across the water but as history has proved on many occasions the notion of an impregnable defence system is purely that ~ a notion.
View from the WWI/WWII German gun emplacement in the grounds of the restored German brewery in Polessk, RussiaPlan of the wartime gun emplacement in Polessk, Kaliningrad region, Russia, including medals awarded for Soviet bravery during the East Prussian campaign
History boards on and inside the emplacement detail its method of construction, describe its operational system and place its fortification principle in the wider military context of the WWII East Prussian campaign.
Mick Hart next to the history board in the WWI/WWII gun emplacement in Polessk, Kaliningrad region, Russia
So, when you visit Polessk Brewery stave off your irrepressible need to imbibe knowledge on beer production, and when brewing recommences your overpowering need to imbibe beer too, and take a few minutes or more to lap up the historic information and martial atmosphere redolent in and around this monumental defence post. It is an intriguing and poignant window upon German/Soviet military history.
History of Soviet military action in East Prussia and the former Labiau Brewery, now Polessk Brewery, which is undergoing restoration
Related Posts on WWII History of Königsberg (Kaliningrad)
Image attributions Königsberg in ruins as a result of Allied bombing. (Photo credit: Dylan Mohan Gray. (Public Domain)) German soldiers in trenches: (Photo credit: By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R98401 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5368820) Königsberg in ruins as a result of Allied bombing. (Photo credit: Dylan Mohan Gray. (Public Domain))
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.
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.
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.)
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.
