Архив метки: Kaliningrad Flea Market

Kaliningrad flea market is a feast for antique hunters

Kaliningrad flea market has moved to a new location

They said it would happen, and it has

4 November 2024 ~ Kaliningrad flea market has moved to a new location

The Kaliningrad flea market that has occupied the pavement area close to the Central Market, and in more recent years spilled over onto a ribbon of disused ground bordering the moat of the Wrangel Tower, has officially moved.

For me, as I dare say for many, the relocation of this sprawling and excitingly chaotic masterpiece of antiques, collectables, curios and junk, marks the end of an era. Not that we did not know that it was coming; plans to move the market on have been in the pipeline for years.  Indeed, I wrote about the proposal in a 2022 blog post: What makes Kaliningrad Flea Market a Junk Buyer’s Paradise?

Kaliningrad flea market moves to a new location

We all know that nothing stays the same forever; Königsberg can testify to that. Nevertheless, knowing that change is imminent rarely compensates when it comes to pass.

There will be some, of course, who will breath a sigh of relief that most days, but on a Saturday in particular, they will at last be able to stroll without let or hindrance along the sidewalk next to the Wrangel Tower instead of running a zigzag gauntlet through sandwiched lines of dealers’ stalls agog with curious clutter-buggers.

I, for one, however, will miss the incipient urge whenever I visit the city’s Central Market (food market) to detour to the ‘junk’ stalls to see what they have on offer that I cannot live without, such as an old tin bucket, for example.  

Mick Hasrt with his tin bucket bought from Kaliningrad flea market

There have been occasions when travelling by bus on route to somewhere else that I have accidentally alighted at the flea market. Of course, I have only gone to look, not to buy. So imagine how surprised I have been on arriving home to discover that whilst I was only looking a Soviet belt, a Königsberg ashtray, a kitsch ornament and an old German helmet have somehow jumped into my shopping bag.

Kaliningrad flea market has moved

I have not yet had the chance to work out which bus route one should take to get to the market’s new location. Gaidara Street 8 is its new address; a piece of land, I am told, that lies opposite the bridge on the way to Sovetsky Prospekt.

At the time of writing (4 November 2024), the market is not yet functioning. By all accounts, the site is vast, but a great deal needs to be done to bring it up to snuff, to make it seller- and buyer-friendly. News is, however, according to the market organisers, that the site will be ready and the market up and running in a matter of days not weeks.  

Now, where did I put my Kaliningrad map? What have I done with my bucket?

Copyright © 2018-2024 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Life in Kaliningrad in spring. Youth Park.

Life in Kaliningrad through the lens of a camera

A few snapshots from my Kaliningrad album

22 May 2024 ~ Life in Kaliningrad through the lens of a camera

They could be curated, they could be aggregated, but I suspect that they are a random collection of photographs, some more recent than others, taken in and of Kaliningrad. Judge for yourselves.

Life in Kaliningrad

Above: Trams {Click on images to enlarge}
The new and the old ~ and I am not referring to myself. Here am I riding one of Kaliningrad’s latest trams. They are smooth and swish, and you can buy your ticket using touch-card technology. The old trams, c1970s (second photograph), good looks, as far as I am concerned. For me, these two-carriage ‘biscuit tins’ have classic kudos. I love the sounds and the movements they make. I even love the metal seats. Whenever I use these trams, our old friend Victor Ryabinin comes to mind. I can see him now, holding onto the rail at the back of the tram, observing life, as artists do, through the tram’s rear window. Rear Window! That’s a good name for a film.

Mick Hart and Olga Hart at Kaliningrad vintage car show 2019

Above: 2019 Golden Shadow of Königsberg
When things were different, and they often are, the Auto Retro Club Kaliningrad held an international and classic car show. The photo of me in a wide-brimmed trilby (a Fedora) was taken in what was that year (2019) the main arena for car competitions, the carpark of the King’s Residence, Kaliningrad’s most elaborate family leisure centre and restaurant complex. (Tweed jacket courtesy of Mr Wilcox)

Mick Hart in front of Kaliningrad's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

Orthodox Christian Cathedral Kaliningrad
The photograph of yours truly was taken in March of this year (2024) in Victory Square in front of The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Kaliningrad. In days of yore, meaning the early 2000s, this spot was dominated by a large bronze statue of Lenin, since removed to another quarter of the town. With the construction of the cathedral, the centre of Kaliningrad moved from Königsberg’s cultural and spiritual centre, directly in front of the Kaliningrad Hotel, to where it is today. In Königsberg’s days, the area known as Victory Square and everything beyond lay outside the city’s defensive walls. (Yes, I know, from a compositional perspective, it would have been much better had I stood so that I was centred in the photograph in line with the door. It annoys me as well!)

Königsberg relics at fleamarket in Kaliningrad

< Left: Königsberg Relics
A lot of Königsberg was blown into bits and pieces during World War Two, so it is hardly surprising that bits and pieces of its past keep turning up, and a good place to find them ~ in fact the best ~ is at Kaliningrad’s flea market, just to one side of the city’s central market. This photo illustrates why I love this market so much.

Below: QR Code Checkers
Here’s a blast from the past ~ and let’s sincerely hope that it remains that way. Here we have QR Code Checking Officers on duty during the Coronavirus era, not letting anybody inside the cathedral unless they had a QR code proving they had been ‘jabbed’. Looking back on this sinister period of history makes walking in and out of doorways unchallenged instantly gratifying.

Life in Kaliningrad

QR Code checkers monitor access to Kaliningrad Cathedral in the Coronavirus year of 2021
Kaliningrad Botanical Gardens: an autumnal scene of the lake

Above: Kaliningrad Botanical Gardens
Unlike many cities, you do not have to travel far in Kaliningrad to enjoy nature in its natural habitat. This photograph captures the tranquility of the lake in Kaliningrad’s Botanical Gardens. It was taken in autumn 2023.

Above: Kaliningrad Sculptures {Click on images to enlarge}
Kaliningrad is renowned for its sculptures: Schiller, Kant, Lenin and the composition of two fighting bison to name but four. They may possess an attitude of assumed permanence thanks to who and what they are, but this distinction should not cancel out the ephemeral and the esoteric. This purple faceted moggy was last seen sitting statuesque outside Kaliningrad’s latest shopping centre in the central market district, and it is not everyday you will see an updated Russian samovar sitting on top of an oil drum in the grounds of Königsberg Cathedral.

Life in Kaliningrad: Three iconic buildings in Kaliningrad, but the House of Soviets is no more ...

Above: House of Soviets
A poignant picture of the House of Soviets framed between the hotel and restaurant buildings of Kaliningrad’s Fishing Village and the reconstructed ‘New Synagogue’ c.2023. Stand in the same spot today where the photograph was taken to appreciate the laws of transience by which our lives are governed.  

Mick Hart with USSR ice cream

Above: CCCP (that’s USSR to you)
As you know, because it’s general knowledge, there’s no time like the past, which is why as a collector of what’s left of it, I was thrilled to discover on a hot day in ’22 an ice cream with an historical theme. After chilling out on it, I was able to say with impunity, “ I enjoyed the USSR”.

Above: Sunny Day in Youth Park {Click on images to enlarge}
They say that ‘youth is wasted on the young’, but whenever I stroll through Kaliningrad’s Youth Park, I put this prejudice behind me and think instead ‘young at heart’. Some would say, ‘never grown up!’ I vow one day that I will attempt to complete every adult ride in the park in series. Until that day dawns, I will continue to enjoy those days when the park is less rumbustious. At the time these photos were taken (May 2024), I was more than happy simply to purchase a cup of specialty tea and sit and drink it on a park bench. The park attendants were filling the planters with flowers, and the sun had got its hat on.

Above: Königsberg Villas
It is hardly surprising that when residents of Moscow, Siberia and other far-flung places across this huge territory that is Russia, visit Kaliningrad, they fall in love with the city. Kaliningrad, in all its many and diverse facets, is, by virtue of its Prussian-Russian history, a unique experience, central to which is its surviving German buildings. Contrary to the belief that all of Königsberg was raised to the ground during WWII, many splendid, curious and fine examples of architectural merit are extant, and it is not always necessary to adopt a  ‘seek and ye shall find’ approach. In the districts of Amalienau and Maraunenhof, for example, almost every street contains something of architectural significance, and some streets have enough large houses and grand villas on them to make even the most abstemious ashamed of their secret envy.

Above: Contrasting Scenes of Kaliningrad {Click on images to enlarge}
Two cityscape views: one taken from a high-rise flat complex; the other from a balcony (May 2024), to coincide with the first blooms of spring.

Copyright © 2018-2024 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

A German Helmet lamp in Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad German Helmet in all its Steampunk Glory

An illuminating experience

11 June 2023 ~ Kaliningrad German Helmet in all its Steampunk Glory

On the subject of vintage and antiques, which we were in my last post and are in this one, the object featured today is, in its reincarnated form, neither, but as peculiar and fascinating things go, it has a promising future, and who knows who’s interest it may collect from someone for whom it was destined.

This item, which is a lamp, was made by and purchased from a Kaliningrad metalwares’ sculptor and is yet another example of the talent and creativity which artist Victor Ryabinin spoke of when he talked of the special people who are drawn to, or who have been nurtured within, the ancient Königsberg region.

The components of the piece are identifiable enough: the shade most obviously is a WWII German military helmet; the stem is a length of shaped and sculpted pipework; and the base, though not so easily categorised, seems to have been taken from an engine of some description.

The industrial look, the interior design concept which continues to dominate cafés, bars, restaurants and nightclubs is simpatico. A close relative of steampunk, it, too, cuts to the basics, wedding and distorting common objects from the industrial past with their future in the present.

Kaliningrad German Helmet goes all steampunk

My lamp, or rather the lamp I am looking after for future generations, is artistically endowed with an evocative bronze patina, which, when the lamp is lit, creates a deep and mellow aura.

Sometimes, when I am alone in the attic regarding the lamp over a beer, a macabre realisation seeps quietly out through the helmet’s ragged holes and makes its way into my mind: “Just think,” it says, “once upon a time the light bulb in this helmet was nothing of the sort; there was a German head inside the helmet.” And I go on to wonder who that German was and what eventually became of him. Did he survive the war?

Hmmm? Pieces from the past do that to you sometimes; they talk to you in your present and make you long to complete the jigsaw.

Copyright © 2018-2023 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Mick Hart at Kaliningrad Flea Market

What makes Kaliningrad Flea Market a Junk Buyers paradise?

I went, I saw, I bought … and I am still buying!

Published: 16 June 2022 ~ What makes Kaliningrad Flea Market a Junk Buyers paradise?

In 2000, the first time I set foot on Kaliningrad soil ~ a giant step for a man who had never been to Russia before ~ one of the major attractions very quickly became the city’s flea market or junk market, as we like to call it.

Linked post > Beldray at Kaliningrad Flea Market a Surprising Find

The junk market was located at the side of Kaliningrad’s central market, a monolithic and cavernous complex consisting of all kinds of exciting combinations of traditional stalls, units and multi-layered shops, selling everything from fruit and veg to jewellery.

In those days, to get to the market we would cut around the back of Lenin’s statute, which occupied the place where the Orthodox cathedral stands today (irony), and making our way along a make-shift pavement of boards raised on pallets, often treacherously slippery as winter approached, we’d pass amidst the wagon train of covered craft-sellers’ stalls, trek across the city’s bus park and on the last leg of the journey sidle off down a long, wide alley with rattling tin on one side and a towering building on the other. I have no idea why, as I was often in Kaliningrad during the sunny seasons, but my abiding memory of walking along that alley was that it sucked wind down it like the last gasp of breath and was always wet and raining.

Another ‘in those days’ was that the junk market extended along the side of the road which is now a pedestrianised space between buildings ancient and modern and the latest super monolithic shopping centre. Dealers could be found in an old yard opposite, plying their trade from a shanty town of stalls, all higgledy-piggledy and cobbled together, whilst public sellers set up shop on a narrow sloping scar of land, a grass verge worn down by years of junk-seller hopefuls.

In our militaria dealing and 1940s’ re-enactment hey days, we bought twenty pairs of sapagee (high leather and canvas military boots) from a bloke stalled out on this piece of ground over several consecutive days. We also bought Soviet military belts from him, the ones that he was wearing. On the last day of purchasing, we would have had his belt again had he more to sell, but all he had left by the time we were through was a piece of knotted string to keep his trousers up. 

Kaliningrad Flea Market Soviet belt

When we left Russia at the end of a month’s visit, this was in 2004, the border personnel searched our vehicle, and on finding twenty pairs of old Soviet boots, rolled up, tied down with string and stashed in bin liners, sniggered to themselves. But we had the last laugh. We hadn’t sneaked off with an icon, but boots at one quid a pair that could be sold in the UK to re-enactors and members of living history groups at £35 or more a pop was lubbly jubbly. Whilst we wouldn’t get rich on the proceeds, it would certainly offset the cost of our trip. It shames me to recall, comrade, what a despicable capitalist I once was.

Soviet boots Kaliningrad Market

When I first came to Kaliningrad  (2000) I was buying stuff mainly for myself but as I turned dealer, as most collectors are obliged to do to reclaim the space they live in, I did what all collectors do when the fear of decluttering wakes them from their slumbers in a cold sweat, I went out looking for more things to clutter with, the justification being that I was no longer buying it for myself but selling it on for profit. Believe you me, sooner or later (usually later) every junk hoarder reaches this critical stage of consciousness, when they finally have to admit that buying old stuff is more than a compulsion it is in fact a disease. After confession, however, comes absolution and, like all professional sinners, hoarders quickly learn that regular confession and regular sin go hand-in-hand together.Thus, wherever we travelled the story was always the same ~ be it Lithuania, Latvia, Poland or Ukraine ~ junk markets and antique shops loomed large upon the itinerary.

What makes Kaliningrad Flea Market a Junk Buyers’ paradise?

Be it ever so difficult for the likes of us to understand, but old stuff is not everybody’s cup of tea, and the first victims of the development and progressive gentrification of Kaliningrad’s market area were the junk sellers. Speaking euphemistically, they were ‘politely asked to move on’.

I must admit (there you go, I am at it again, confessing!) that when I discovered they had gone, I was truly mortified: new shops, block-paved and tree-inset pedestrian-only streets and a face lift that no amount of Botox or plastic surgery could replicate is all very nice, but oh, what had become of the junk!?

As it happened there was no cause for alarm. All I needed to do was go around the bend, something that I am known to be good at, and there it was, as plain as the specs (the vintage specs) on your nose.

The precise location of the junk market was ~ I use the term ‘was’ because rumour has it that the purveyors of indispensable high-quality items and second-hand recyclables may be moved on again to make way for more civic tarting ~ parallel to the road at the side of the fort opposite the central market, thereupon extending at a right angle along a tree-settled and sometimes muddy embankment that follows the remnant of Königsberg’s moat.

The better-quality items ~ militaria and Königsberg relics ~ are generally to be found on the stalls that line both sides of the pavement. Here you can discover gems, although not necessarily or even regularly at prices to suit your pocket.

German helmets & ceramics Kaliningrad Flea Market

The pavement-side sellers are mainly traders, people ‘in the know’, who are hoping to get at least market rate for their wares or substantially more, if they can wangle it.

Experience has taught me that in dealing with these chaps movement on prices is not unachievable, but don’t expect the sort of discounts that are possible to negotiate at UK vintage and boot fairs. Sellers in Kaliningrad are skilled in the art of bargaining ~ seemingly absolute in their conviction that if you don’t want it at the quoted price some German tourist will.

The pavement Kaliningrad Flea Market
A busy Saturday at Kaliningrad Flea Market

If you are after military items, especially those that relate to WWII and Königsberg’s German past, then it is along this stretch of pavement where you will most likely encounter them. Badges, military dog-tags and Third Reich medals are quite prolific, as is cutlery, ceramics and fragments of ceramics backstamped with the symbols and insignia of the time.

Although, given Kaliningrad’s German heritage and the fierce battles fought here during WWII, you would reasonably expect to find a preponderance of genuine military relics, as anyone who collects Third Reich memorabilia and/or deals in this field will tell you, counterfeit and reproductions abound. Memorabilia, both military and civilian, bearing ideological runes attained collectable status almost before WWII ended, and a thriving market in good quality reproduction items to service this growing interest emerged as early as the late 1940s.

Party badges, military decorations, particularly of the higher orders and those associated with the SS, are difficult to distinguish from the real McCoy since many were struck from the same dies or moulds used to create the originals.

The rule of thumb when hunting out Third Reich bargains from dealers’ stock is that you are less likely to get a bargain than to experience a hard bargain, as the pieces that dealers have acquired will almost certainly have been exhaustively studied and meticulously researched but, if you are tempted to buy, pay attention to the item’s appearance. Remember that genuine military items dating to the Second World War are now in their dotage ~ 70-years-plus ~ and, just like ‘mature’ people, will generally exhibit signs of age-related wear and tear and sundry other defects from natural use and handling.

The other thing to watch out for is a proliferation of similar items at any one time. When in the UK I was a regular attendee at the Bedford Arms Fair, then held in the now demolished Bunyan Sports Centre, you could guarantee that each year there would be a ‘bumper crop’ of one category of Third Reich memorabilia or another. What an alarm bell that is! For example, one year almost every other dealer had German army dress daggers, all sharing the same mint condition; another year it was flags, which looked and smelt the part ~old ~ but whose labels did neither. Caveat emptor!

When I buy German items these days I do so mainly for nostalgic reasons, not to sell on, and because it is the historic not monetary value that attracts me, I am content to purchase military decorations, party badges and so on that have been dug up. Naturally, the condition of such items range from considerably less than pristine to battered, biffed, corroded and poor, but as such they are more likely to be the genuine articles than their ‘remarkably well-preserved’ counterparts and, moreover, you can get them at a price that will not break your brother’s piggy bank (is that another confession?).

Iron Cross Dug Up in Kaliningrad
It should come up nicely with a light polish …

The same can be said for architectural pieces such as enamel and metal signs that are Königsberg in origin. Enamel signs, advertising, military, street plaques, whatever, are a personal favourite of mine, since they make excellent and historically evocative wall-mounted additions to any thoughtful home design. In purchasing these, the same rule applies: signs of any type and description will in most cases have been used; they will have hung on walls in both internal and external situations, and wherever they were and whatever they are they will demonstrate commensurable signs of age.

In the past four decades, as original signs, especially enamel ones, have grown in popularity and correspondingly price, various retro companies have been successfully plugging the gap in an escalating market and meeting demand with repro goods. Some of these shout repro at you from a telescopic distance, but as techniques in ageing have evolved it can often be hard at first glance, and even several glances or more and even if you study them, to separate the wheat from the chaff, particularly when your impulsiveness has knocked caution quite unconscious. And it is not only signs that have been skillfully ‘got at’. I recall a ‘19th century’ ship’s wheel turning up at our local auction house in Bedford that was so well aged and distressed that had it not been so convincing you could easily have talked yourself into believing that it was the genuine article.

This is what to look out for: Signs that are ‘uniformly’ aged or show wear and tear in the places where you would most expect to find them but not to the extent that it dissuades you from making a purchase are to be put on the suspect list. The last thing you want, after years of gazing lovingly at the antique sign in your home, thinking to yourself this was once on a shop front in Königsberg, long imagining how eyes like yours lost in time and to memory alighted on it as yours do now, is to learn that your treasured piece of history was made in China a week before you purchased it.

Königsberg antique enamel signs in Victor Ryabinin's art studio, Kaliningrad
Original German/Königsberg signs (photo taken Victor Ryabin Studio, c.2010)

Anything to be had forming a direct link to Königsberg can only be irresistible, not just signs but home appliances, kitchen ware, tea sets, ornaments, furniture, garden tools, anything in fact, especially when that anything bears irrefutable provenance in the form of a maker’s mark. Metalware and ceramics embossed or printed with commercial references, ie references to specific brands or retail outlets, are desirable collectors’ pieces. Old ashtrays, which come in all sorts of inventive shapes and sizes, are top whack in this category. Many are chipped and cracked, but even so still command high prices, and as for the best examples, which are usually in the hands of dealers, after you have exclaimed “How much!” in those same hands they may well remain.

Konigsberg relic at Kaliningrad flea market

For a less expensive and in-profusion alternative, you could do far worse than plump for bottles. Bottle bygones are dug up in their hundreds, possibly thousands, in Kaliningrad and across the region, but as there are as many different shapes, sizes and hues as there is quantity, it is not unreasonable to discover rare, curious and even exquisite bottles rubbing shoulders with the more mundane.

In the UK, old bottles from the end of the 19th century to the 1960s are as cheap as chips (used to be, before the West sanctioned itself), but Kaliningrad is not the UK, so don’t expect to get bargains on a par. The trade here adjusts the market price according to the needs and instincts of German visitors, many of whom are easily swayed to part with more money than they seem to have sense for a fragment of their forbears’ past. But “Ahh,” I hear you say, ‘what price, philistine, can you put on nostalgia?’ Must I confess again?

Mick Hart buys vintage bottle at Kaliningrad Flea Market

I have been known to part with as much as ten quid for an interesting and unusual bottle when it has caught my fancy, but this kind of impetuosity acts in defiance of common sense. If you haven’t got the bottle to part with that much, and you shouldn’t have (Frank Zappa: ‘How could I be such a fool!’), when visiting Kaliningrad’s ‘flea market’, turn 90 degrees from the pavement and head off along the well-worn and sometimes muddy embankment, where you will find bottles and a vast range of all sorts, spread out on blankets, perched on top of little tables and even hanging in the trees from mainly domestic sellers.

Königsberg antique collectable bottles from Kaliningrad market
Sundry items Kalingrad junk market

I have bought all sorts of things from this part of the market that I never knew I did not need, not to mention clothes that I have not worn and would never wear. For example, I was once obliged to buy an old tin bucket, and I would not dream of wearing it.  It’s far too nice a bucket to use as a bucket should be used; so, it sits at home in our dacha full of things that one day I may go looking for but will never think of looking for them there. It’s the sort of bucket that dealers like I typically find in house clearances ~ a bucket of flotsam and jetsam left behind by the owner when he up and decided to die; a bucket of odds and ends destined to take up valuable space; the accidental contents of which having no value at all, I would never be able to give away let alone turn a penny on. I sometimes wonder if this is not the only reason why people fill their houses and barns with junk, viz to make more work for those poor sods whose job it is to clear them after they, the owners, kick the bucket. And what a lovely bucket, my bucket is!

Mick Hart with vitage Tin bucket near  Kaliningrad fort

Now, where was I? Ahh, yes wandering around on the bank mesmerised by matter.

As I said at the outset of this post, Kaliningrad’s ‘collectors’ market’ is on the move again. Don’t quote me on this! As Elvis Costello said, it could be ‘just a rumour that was spread around town’, but its veracity is tied to the echo that the strip of wooded embankment roaming along by the side of the Königsberg fort may soon be hosting its last tin bucket. There is a whisper of reincarnation and the rustle of leaves in a public park.

Likewise, I am not 100% certain where this cornucopia of memories, the junk market, is bound, although the wind in my tin bucket tells me that it may be somewhere not too far removed from the city’s botanical gardens.

To be perfectly honest with you (another confession may soon be required), I really harbour no desire to know the next location of Kaliningrad’s junk market ~ what the eye doesn’t see the heart won’t pine after. Thus, the next time that I wake up there handing over my roubles, I won’t be able to blame myself for going there deliberately and for buying things on purpose. Take a leaf out of my well-thumbed book: never leave chance to anything else but intention ~ you can always confess in the fulness of time.

Copyright © 2018-2022 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Location of Kaliningrad Flea Market at time of writing:

Ulitsa Professora Baranova, 2А, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, 236029

Opens: Saturdays & Sundays 9am to 3pm