30 April 2024 ~ Kaliningrad Celebrates Kant on his 300th Year
Of the many things that Kant and I do not have in common, two stand out more than others. The first is that he was one of the world’s great philosophers, considered to be the third wheel behind Plato and Aristotle, the second he did not like beer. The first is an accomplishment worthy of applause; the second we will let quietly slip away, as it does not behove a gentleman of such intellectual stature whose name is synonymous with logic and reason.
Not widely read today, because his style of writing does not conform to the SEO prescription for sentences of 20 words or less, it is indeed a sobering thought that had Kant lived in the early 21st century, the systematic dumbing down of language and generational attention deficit attendant on this rule, would seriously have obstructed him in his quest to play linguistic games on paper. Instead of engaging the intellect with works of a ground-breaking nature, he would most likely be biding his time posting snippets to Twitter, taking selfies for social media, and pinning pictures of cakes on Pint-rest (incorrectly referred to as Pinterest). Deprived of these unspeakable pleasures, he had to be content with the lesser mental dynamics required to come to grips with epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics.
300 Years of Kant
Immanuel Kant was born on 22 April 1724 in Königsberg, East Prussia, where he lived until he died on 12 February 1804. Hardly venturing from his home city, Kant, nevertheless, through philosophical thought based on transcendental idealism, is largely credited for changing the way that people think around the world. So, if you have ever wondered why it is that you think the way you do, just think Kant and you have the answer.
Kaliningrad Celebrates Kant on his 300th Year
In life, Kant was a professor at Königsberg University, specialising in logic and metaphysics; in death, he lays entombed near Königsberg Cathedral on the appropriately named Kant Island ~ Kneiphof Island in Königsberg times.
Did you know? Kant was German. I bet you knew that. But did you know that for seven years he became a Russian subject? During the ‘Seven Years’ War’ in Europe, Austria’s allies, Russia, captured the East Prussian city of Königsberg , whereupon Kant, along with other Konigsberg citizens, pledged his allegiance to the Russian empress, Elizabeth. It was an allegiance he would not renounce even after Königsberg was returned to East Prussian rule.
As a philosopher of universal acclaim, a distinguished member of Königsberg ’s academia and one of the city’s most prominent citizens, Kant was fully qualified to be buried inside the cathedral itself. In 1880 that honour was extended when his remains were exhumed and rehoused in a chapel purpose built for him at the cathedral’s northeast corner, opposite the then prestigious Albertina University.
Was he boring, Kant? History has it that Kant was so regular in his routines that Königsbergians could set their watch by him. His habit of walking the same route at the same time each day earnt him the nickname of ‘The Konigsberg Clock’. However, contrary to his stereotype, that he was dull and prone to reclusiveness, Kant, by all accounts, possessed an uncommonly good sense of humour, loved to drink red wine and was a congenial host of dinner parties.
The university perished in the heavy Allied bombing of World War Two, but the mausoleum that would eventually replace Kant’s chapel, the one that we know today, whilst not escaping damage entirely at least escaped it sufficiently to allow for restoration.
Described by some as ‘minimalist’, the simple column and canopy structure has a certain aesthetic elegance and a dignity not detracting from the cathedral’s Gothic profile. The chapel, built in 1924, is the brainchild of Friedrich Lahrs, renowned East Prussian architect.
“The anniversary of the philosopher will be celebrated by the whole of Kaliningrad and guests of the city. The International Kantian Congress, various lectures, presentations, seminars, concerts, excursions, performances, as well as several exhibitions are planned here. Events dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Kant will take place in the city throughout 2024.”
Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro with a Heart of Gold
It’s a venue which immortalises the House of Soviets, serves good beer, hosts music evenings and likes you, the customer.
13 April 2024 ~ Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad Retro in the House of Soviets
Do you believe in coincidences? In my most recent post I wrote about the gradual disappearance of Kaliningrad’s most infamous and controversial landmark, the House of Soviets. Less than a week later, I find myself in a subterranean bar dedicated to that very building.
Bar Sovetov is located in what once was, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the residential quarter of choice for Königsberg’s affluent citizens.
On foot, it is something of a trek from the city centre to this still sought-after district, but it is one I made on numerous occasions in the days when a bar, long since gone, the enigmatically named Twelve Chairs, exercised a consistent influence and justified the effort.
Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad
Whilst in the character of its rooms, Bar Sovetov does not possess the intricacy or the old-world charm that gave Twelve Chairs its je ne sais quoi, it is no less thought-provoking in the nature of its decoration and appurtenances of thematic quirk.
The two-roomed bar, with its truncated corridor leading to the lavs, is very much a pop art haven. Victor Ryabinin, former artist and local historian, would have adored it! Symbolism abounds: ‘Look Out!’ the slogan reads. ‘Big Brother is Watching you!’ You see it above the full-sized wall mirror in which you are watching yourself.
A white face mask framed between two suspended lamps exudes from the wall. Wearing a baseball cap in such a way that it partly conceals its features, it holds to its lips an admonitory finger attached to a long white arm. As with the face above it, the arm emerges from solid brickwork as it would through the fold of a curtain. Both face and arm are whimsical, especially in the matter of their relative dislocation, but irony and surrealism are the uniting forces that bring them together.
These are just two of many examples of Bar Sovetov’s camp milieu. Wherever you look, be it high or low, another element of the quaint and fanciful leaps out to greet and surprise you.
With the obvious exception of Aleks Smirnov’s Badger Club, lovers of the out-of-the-ordinary will be hard pushed to find even among Kaliningrad’s most unconventional watering holes anything that surpasses Bar Sovetov’s quaint burlesque. But for all that it camps it up, the nostalgia has a genuine ring; it springs from a source of real affection. And the humour the props elicit, be it aimed at you and me or tailored to the refined perception of the discerning intellectual, leaves plenty of form intact for the inquisitive mind of the history buff.
The genesis, erection, completion and the long-standing but idle years of the House of Soviets’ occupation are captured step by step in a series of timelined photographs. The images of the building in its promising phase of construction, with cranes on either side, are particularly poignant memories, given that in its obliteration almost identical cranes in almost identical places stand either side of the shrinking structure.
On the opposite side of actuality, a wall in the bar’s first room is a bold painted visual replica, close up and in your face, of the House of Soviet’s exterior. The effect is profoundly Gotham City, gaudy, haunting, claustrophobic but seminally cartoon, a perfect piece of ‘dark deco’ kitsch. Further urbanisation occurs not in the question itself, which is off the wall whilst on the wall, but in the way it is daubed across the wall, which reflects the mind of graffiti man stretched to its utmost limit: “Who,” it asks, “killed the House of Soviets?” If we didn’t laugh, we’d cry.
More real photos of the fated hulk that over its 53-year existence dominated Kaliningrad’s skyline, exciting in its awesome prospect, ambivalent and contentious in what it actually stood for and why it stood for so long, can be found in the bar’s back room.
It is here that the structure’s rightful place in the socio-political era into which it was given a sort of life or maybe a life of sorts is given historical context. Framed copies of Soviet art, amusing, powerful and all iconic, visually break up the hard brick-wall to which they are attached, whilst in one corner of the room a little shrine pays tribute to the final days of Sovietism.
There, upon a shelf, rubbing shoulders with the printed word and a quaint assortment of nick-nacks, sits a large portrait photograph of if not the architect of perestroika then the man who is widely considered to be its chief executive officer, former General Secretary Gorbachev, twinned in the opposite corner with a replica set of traffic lights, which, for some exotic reason or perhaps no reason at all beyond their anomalous presence and illuminative oddity, cast a lurid reddish glow across the whitewashed brickwork.
The seats in this comic-strip memory, when not authentic 70s’ vintage, are made from wooden pallets, painted to look distressed, put together as benches and kindly equipped with padded seats. However, recalling the slatted wood benches with which Kaliningrad’s trains were furnished twenty-three years ago, such convenient cushioned luxury may be but the useful product of indulgent historical revisionism. Whilst the past is unrelenting in its prescribed but often unforgiving and impractical perpetuity, concessions ought to be made, don’t you think, to our poor post-Soviet posteriors. Historical accuracy has its virtues, but is it worth corns and blisters?
Bar Sovetov Kaliningrad
The bar itself, that is the thing on which when you buy your beer it temporarily rests on top and the area to the rear of it, is a content-managed zone, where normal things normally sold behind bars share more than their fair share of shelving space with the weird, the wild and the whimsically whacky. Note the hollow concrete blocks shown in the photo below that have been used to comprise the wall of the bar. Is that or is it not a passing nod to the House of Soviets?
A conforming principle of all such bars, that is to say craft-beer bars, is that the beer selection is written in chalk on good old-fashioned blackboards. What is it, I ask myself, and I suppose you ask yourself too, about this rudimentary practice that makes it so applicable, so pleasingly, conventionally and fundamentally right and so well received in its prime objective, which is to call to our eager attention the dispensation of quality brews? When you’ve found the answer to that one, you might go on to answer the question ‘Who killed the House of Soviets?’ I have a hunch that in both cases we will discover the hand of Old Father Time.
From the six or so beers on offer, I ordered myself a ‘Milk of …?’ Er, a ‘Milk of …?’ What was the name of that beer? Ah yes, now I remember, I bought myself a ‘Milk of Amnesia’. How could you not drink a beer like that, with a name so unforgettable?
In summing up the Bar Sovetov experience, the beer is good. The atmosphere is atmospheric. The people who run the bar are real; in other words, they are genuinely friendly and they are also good at what they do. They effortlessly embody and earnestly convey the qualities prerequisite for fulfilling the role they have given themselves, that of convivial mine host, in an age when many are either not up to it or simply not fit for purpose.
Those who earn their living in the hospitality trade at customer-facing level, would do well to bookmark this truth, that the bar or pub in which they perform is as much a stage as any other and their customers are their audience. Once the curtain goes up, if you cannot manage authenticity, you must put yourself out there, put on a smile and remember that it’s show time! If the act is one the punters like or at least is one that they can believe in, and the beer is good and well kept, they’ll keep on coming back. Loyalty is everything, and that applies to the service industry as it does to everything else, and I cannot think of a better bar more deserving of it than Sovetov.
A socio-cultural perspective on Russia’s cake habit contrasted and compared with and illuminated by one or two supplementary notes about having your cake and eating it in Great Britain
26 March 2023 ~ Russia’s Love of Cakes Differs from the UK’s
Cakes. I don’t imagine for one moment that when somebody in the West mentions Russia, cakes are the first thing that spring to mind. Equally, I’m willing to wager that the UK media has written precious little lately, or written little at all, about the magnificent variety of cakes in Russia and the widespread availability of them in spite of those silly old sanctions.
They certainly would never divulge that the super-abundance of cakes in Russia is part of a western plot organised and funded by the Sorryarse Open Cake Society to swamp the Federation with cakes similar to the way in which it is suffocating the western world with boat loads of useless migrants. I am not so sure about cake, but the spotted dick that they are creating is filling up with currants.
Whoa now! Hang on a minute! Blin, yolkee polkee and blaha mooha! How dare you lump our delicious Russian cakes in the same inflatable dinghy with a gaggle of grinning third-world freeloaders destined for 5-star hotels at the expense of the British taxpayer!
Sorry, I stand corrected and in the same breath exposed. It is true that I am no Don Juan in the sense of loving cakes. However, as one of the last of the few true Englishmen, I concede to enjoying a nice slice of cake whenever the mood so takes me and when the opportunity avails itself, regarding it as the perfect accompaniment to the English custom of afternoon tea.
All well and good, but neither affrontery apologised for nor my confessed willingness to embrace the iced cake rather than the swarthy migrant amounts to diddly-squat when it comes to explaining the cultural differences that set cake worship apart in Russia from the same proclivities in the UK.
Cakes are cancel proof
Cancel-proof, like most things pertaining to Russian culture, as the West is finding out and finding out the hard way, Russia’s love of cakes is in a sacrosanct league of its own. For example, it is not often, if indeed at all, that you will see men in the UK roaming around the streets with a big sticky cake in their hands. There is every possibility that you will see them holding another man’s hand, or, if you are really unlucky ~ or lucky if you are a touring photographer assigned to defining British culture ~ some other part of their brethren’s anatomy, but never a cake in hand. In the UK there seems to be an hypocritical subtext at work, an unspoken reservation which, ironically, can be taken to imply that even in these enlightened times cakes and men in public together is tantamount to poofterism. Alack a day, but there you have it.
Russia’s love of cakes differs from the UK’s
Having established that men publicly carrying cakes is just not British (but then what is and, more to the point, who is?), we arrive at a striking contrast. I’ve lost count of the number of times when entertaining at home (dispel all images of magic tricks, juggling and karaoke), that on opening the gate to greet our Russian guests, at least one man will be standing there with a large stodgy cake in his grasp. As for dining out, I have yet to go to a restaurant with my Russian friends where rounding off a meal without a sumptuous sweet, most of which resemble cakes drenched in cream and syrup, would turn an everyday event into something of a precedent. Perchance it ever occurs it would breach the unexpected like a hypersonic missile bursting through a dam. Cakes just don’t come in on a wing and a prayer in Russia; they are part of the national psyche, in which whim and caprice can play no part.
Cakes R Rus is a company yet to be incorporated. Why it has not been incorporated when cakes in Russia are so evidently popular remains an enigma and neither does it explain, incorporated or not, the never-to-be-answered question why in Russia are cakes so popular? It is a matter for conjecture that often what presents itself to us as at best half-baked turns out in the long run to be quite overdone. Not so with cakes. Cakes are interwoven into every Fair Isled fabric of daily, popular and expressive life. Judge this on the merit that there are almost as many sayings, comments and literary allusions to cakes as there are cakes themselves. We will come to that shortly.
Speaking from experience, all shops in Kaliningrad, that is to say all food shops ~ except the butchers, the fishmongers, the caviar emporium ~ well, you know what I mean, however small are guaranteed to stock one or two and even sometimes three fairly large round cakes, whilst supermarkets offer flotilla to armada capacity of rich, lavish, opulent and seductively sumptuous cake varieties, sufficient in type, taste, size and price to float everyone’s cake-craving boat.
For the love of cakes
In addition to these general outlets, Kaliningrad is no stranger to the specialist boaterie, sorry I meant to say bakery. There are any number of small independent bakeries (I won’t tell you how many as that would be telling.), but the most noticeable because prolific chain is undoubtedly Königsbäcker. Why not Kalininbacker? What a silly question.
Königsbäcker sells pastries, bakes and cakes, and many of its cakeries ~ sorry I meant to say bakeries ~ also have not-for-sale super-large black and white prints on their walls blown up from original photos of Königsberg as it used to be before the British and Soviets blew it up ~ cake shops and everything else. These images are so poignant that they are enough to make you want to buy double the amount of cakes that you would have bought had you not seen these pictures, just to get the placebo effect.
Now we have both stopped crying, I will try to explain how the perception of cakes in Russia differs to the perceived role that cakes play in modern British society and why; and in the course of doing so you may suspect that you have stumbled on a hint that enables you to answer the question, why in Russia are cakes so popular?
Exactly how the Russian cake mentality diverges from the English equivalent is not as subtle as you might first think. So, for all you cake afficionados out there, let me explain. Here goes!
First and foremost, bugger off The Great British Bakeoff, which was opium for the masses. Like coronavirus, which also kept people at home glued to the television, The Great British B!*off is simply the forerunner of something more dreadful to come, such as The Great British Bakeoff in the Nude and its sequel I’m A Cake Get me Out of Here now previewing on the Ashamed Channel.
The Great British Bakeoff lost all credibility for me when one of the female contestants was allegedly discovered substituting self-raising flour with Viagra. When the cake flopped, she was most disappointed; aren’t we all when cakes don’t rise. But her story had a happy ending, three to be precise, for when the show was over, after tea and cake with three of her male competitors, she left the studio a satisfied woman. So satisfied, in fact, that she continues to pay her BBC licence fee, even to this day!
Anyway, Great Bakeoffs or preferably no Great Bakeoffs, in my experience, the celebritising of cakes has very little impact on consumer purchasing habits. UKers may gasp in unison when confronted on the goggle box by Big Cake El Supremo, but it’s a different story altogether when you see them buying down Asda or Iceland. Small synthetic packet cakes are the type that Brits are likely to plump for, something cheap and abundant, over-stuffed with sugar and convenient enough to fit in one’s pocket. (Hey you, watch out! There’s a store detective about!).
Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker’s man bake me a cake as fast as you can (The cherished belief that all bakers are highly motivated individuals lends itself to scrutiny)
It occurs to me (which is the get out clause to ‘it occurs to nobody else and why would it?’), that cakes in Russia are rather more special-occasion items than tear open a packet of Kipling’s as quickly as you like and let that be an end to it!
Kipling’s individual apple pies are not at all bad, although when the sell by date is infringed by disreputable store owners, and this happens more often than it should in the UK, especially in shops run by immigrants, the pastry tends to go dry and then falls in embarrassing flaky bits down the front of your jumper. In winter, when it may or may not be snowing, such things may pass unnoticed but once the Christmas jumper has been discarded and the dark nights have been replaced by the bright relentless spotlight of spring, the shards of pastry in which you are covered can begin to look like dandruff. Mr Kipling may very well make exceedingly crumbly cakes, but to stop yourself from being conned and from looking like a bit of a prick in a jumper covered in pastry, choose your cake stores with care and always check the sell-by-date if you have no other option ~ and options are getting fewer ~ than to buy from P. Akis Convenience Shores, many of which are concentrated in and around the Port of Dover.
Inspired by my last comment, I am tempted to ask, do you remember the 1970s’ individual fruit pie phenomenon, first square with a piece of grease-proof paper wrapped around them and then circular in their own tin-foil base? Tasty! But, alas, like most things in life, they tended to shrink as time went by. Any road, can apple pies truly be classed as cakes? I suppose they can if you drop the word ‘pie’ and substitute it for ‘cake’, and am I stalling because I have bitten off more than I can chew in my self-appointed role as Anglo-Russian cakeologist?
Russia’s love of cakes is holistic
As I said (I hope you’ve been paying attention!), cakes in Russia are rather more special occasion cakes than tear open a packet of Kipling’s as quickly as you like and let that be an end to it. Kipling’s individual apple … (ah, we’ve done that).
Moving on: I am not suggesting that they, Russian cakes, are strictly reserved for births, weddings and funerals, but they do come bearing people, noticeably to home get-togethers, private parties, social gatherings and such like. They also occupy pride of place among boxes of chocolates and flowers as a way of saying thank you to someone who has rendered a kindness to another mortal soul or who has performed some official function above and beyond the call of duty.
In these contexts, presentation shares equal importance with noshability, which possibly explains why the appearance of Russian cakes, with their white-iced coverings, frothy cream crowns and candy sequined and fruit-festooned adornments, make our traditional English jam and cream sponges look like poor relations; same bourgeoise boat perhaps but not at all on the upper-deck level as their ostentatious Russian counterparts. Sigh, how ironically times can change and with them cakes as well!
But let’s not leave it here! Whilst we, the English cannot compete with glitz, there is still something to be said for our good old-fashioned sponge cake, something that wants to make you sing not ‘There will always be an England’, because it’s much too late for that, but ‘There will always be a sponge cake’. There is something solid, enduring, traditional and no-nonsense about plain, old English sponge cakes; something wonderfully neo-imperial, boldly neo-colonial, something so 1940s’ stiff-upper lip that frankly I am astonished that these thoroughly English cakes have not been singled out by ‘take a knee’ cancel-culturists and cast like so many heritage statuesover walls and into ponds with the blessing of the judiciary. Is it too soon to feel mildly complacent?
A socio-cultural perspective on cakes
The socio-cultural and historic significance of cakes may strike you as more than a mouthful, but history is replete with examples where the icing on the cake is the role of the cake itself. Spectacles such as birds flying out of giant cakes has been going on since the time of ancient Rome (not now, of course, because of animal rights laws) and scantily clad frosted women have been leaping out of artificial cakes since the 19th century (not so much these days because of the feminist movement). I am perfectly aware of the existence of the Cambridge Stool Chart, but tell me is there a Cambridge Movement Chart as well?
And you thought they were just coming in by dinghies!!
Literary cake tropes have fared much better than their visual counterparts. Boris Johnson (who had a cake named after him in Kyiv no less ~ where else?), borrowed and modified the well-known phrase ‘Have our cake and eat it’ in his bid to convince democracy of the benefits of Brexit. What he forgot to tell us was that behind the scenes the British and French governments had arranged for a migrant shuttle service ~ full coming, empty returning ~ thus ensuring that after Brexit the cake would be ‘had’ alright, had and eaten by others, nibbled away like vermin at cheese, leaving only the crumbs for the British.
Slightly more famous than Boris Johnson but not, as far as I am aware, cake enriched by name is Mary Antionette. She is credited with saying ‘Let them eat cake!’, and although she probably said nothing of the sort, her disregard or misperception of the plight of her country’s poor is nowhere near as offensive as the Conservative party’s debasing betrayal of Britain’s Brexit electorate.
Boris ‘Cake’ Johnson, sometimes referred to as ‘that Big Cream Puff’, is not alone among the star-spangled luminaries of showbusiness who have had honorary cakes named after them. Cake-named celebrities include Elvis Presley and also a number of Russian personalities such as the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova and the first human space traveller Yuri Gagarin, both of whom the West tried to cancel just because their cakes were better than the one that was baked for Boris in Kyiv according to Biden’s recipe (that’s Biden as in empty chef’s hat not as in Master Baker). My question is, isn’t it about time that someone in Russia named a cake after my favourite crooner Kobzon?
Whist I wait for this honour to be bestowed, we will hold our collective breath in anticipation of Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter and also Adolf Hitler, oh and don’t forget our Tony ~ Tony ‘Iraq’ Blair ~ duly having cakes named after their very illustrious personages.
And what is so wrong about that? A good many famous people and not so famous places have had cakes named after them. The most obvious in the person category being Mrs Sponge, who lent her name to the sponge cake. It’s fact! Her first name was Victoria. She lived at 65 Coronation Crescent, Corby. (Source: Alfred ‘Dicky’ Bird)
Another famous namesake cake is the Battenberg, named after Prince Cake, and in the towns and locale category, that is to say places that have given their names to cakes, we have the English Eccles cake, named after Scunthorpe, obviously, and the Sad cake named after Wellingborough. It’s a ‘going there thing’: so don’t!
The metropolis has its own cake, historically known as the White Iced Empire but renamed in more recent years, if not entirely rewritten, as Black Forest Ghetto. Chocolate Woke, as it is colloquially known, is also sometimes referred to as the Liberal Upside Down cake. It is often confused with the Fruit-Bottom cake which, though not all that it is cracked up to be, sells like proverbial hot cracks during Londonistan’s Gay Pride month. If you have the extreme good fortune to be in the UK capital during that festive month, do make sure to skip lickety-split down to London’s Soho, the capital’s LGBTQ geographical and moral-less centre, and treat yourself whilst there to a slice of the famous Navy Cake from Hello Sailor’s bun shop or a ‘once tried never forgotten’ Golden Rivet Muffin from the café El Bandido’s.
All of this is a very long way from Kaliningrad, I am pleased to say, and everybody else who lives there is also pleased to say. May it long remain that way.
Meanwhile, whilst you are waiting to have a cake named after you, if there is anything in this treatise on Russian and British cake ethics which you believe I haven’t covered, if you really feel that you must, jot down the one or two points that you think I might have missed and then consign your trunk of comments care of the cake in MacArthur Park . After all, ‘It took so long to bake it …’
A piece of trivia for you: Did you know that Kaliningrad does not have a Soho? That’s right, no Soho, but it does have a Bow-Wow, that is ‘dugs that bark like buggery’ (copyright expression, currently on loan from my Uncle Son).
Vintage sponge cake: I found this image at <a href="/ru/”https://freevintageillustrations.com/vintage-sponge-cake-illustration/?utm_source=freevintageillustrations&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=downloadbox”">Free Vintage Illustrations</a> / https://freevintageillustrations.com/vintage-sponge-cake-illustration/
Nursery Rhyme Baker’s Man: I found this image at <a href="/ru/”https://freevintageillustrations.com/pat-a-cake-nursery-rhyme-illustration/?utm_source=freevintageillustrations&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=downloadbox”">Free Vintage Illustrations</a> / https://freevintageillustrations.com/pat-a-cake-nursery-rhyme-illustration/
Obviously attuned to my star quality and having absolutely nothing to do with the 1940s’ period pieces that make perfect props for a film of this era, which we brought with us when we moved from England, Yury offered me an interesting part within his historical drama. I outlined the role in my previous posts along with the film itself.
A film set in Königsberg during World War Two
On Thursday 24 February 2022, the film crew assembled at our home to assess the potential sets where three scenes would be filmed and to undertake various technical tests with regard to the lighting and laying of cables.
I must say that the arrival of the production team was exciting, rolling up as they did in three or four vehicles and a large TV van …“
As today was the precursor to actual filming, our involvement was minimal. We arranged furniture, fetched props and assisted when required, but our main contribution was keeping out of the way.
Filming was due to take place on the 27 February, which gave me three days to polish up my lines.
I would like to gild the lily by saying that come the day not only was I word perfect but also as cool as an agorochek, but let’s not be BBC about this. The truth is that I had been rehearsing my two scenes, five minutes of script, for weeks but was still tripping myself up and was nowhere near not as nervous as I pretended to be.
Before my debut on the silver screen, consisting of two scenes both of which would be filmed in the attic, another scene had first to be filmed downstairs.
They say that film and TV work involves lots of waiting and hanging around. Doesn’t it just! It also requires the ability to keep quiet whilst filming is in progress (or during ‘takes’, as we creative types like to say). Hyped up and killing time, this was no mean feat, especially when Arthur Eagle, the show’s enabler, came barging into the dining room looking all hot and flustered. Apparently, moments before, the female star of the show had changed her costume in front of him. Said Arthur, bashfully: “I didn’t know where to look!” Which was a pity, because if I had been there, I could have advised him.
A film set in Königsberg during World War Two
Numerous cups of tea and mental line-rehearsing later and at last we were ready to do it. But it didn’t just happen. Five minutes of filming required so many different ‘takes’ ~ camera angles, close ups, minor scene alterations and object cutaways ~ that by the time we had finished any illusions of glamour that I may have entertained about work in the film and TV industry had vanished, leaving in their place an honest sense of relief that I had not embarked on an acting career.
Whilst relatively pleased with my performance, I think my most convincing role came later when the completed scenes were ‘in the can’, whereupon I played the part of a person who opens a bottle of vodka to toast a job well done!
Musing later on the day’s events and my role in the forthcoming film, it struck me that Yury Grozmani was not only to be congratulated on his multiple creativities but also admired for his plain-speaking honesty. Asked in Baltic Plus radio’s studio last week why he had chosen me for a part in his film, Yury replied that he wanted someone who was distinguished-looking, noble, intelligent, resourceful and who bore more than a passing resemblance to Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas.
The obvious answer to this is, apart from the old Specsavers’ joke, that when he couldn’t find that person, he turned to me instead. But I remain undaunted. As I said on Baltic Plus radio, I consider this film to be the first step on the ladder to stardom. No sooner will Moscow film producers get a load of my performance than my phone will never stop ringing: “Our advice to you is don’t give up your day job, unless you’d like to audition for sweeping the studio floors …”
Ahh, fame, it’s difficult to live with, but I suppose that I’ll get used to it.
I don’t want to boast, but we came second and were a whisker away from first!
Published: 31 May 2021
We had just left a bumpy, pot-holed back road and re-joined the main highway. Our driver throttled back. “In a modern car such bends are OK,” he said, “but in this car, which is tall, it could be dangerous, yes, dangerous. It is a tall car, you see, and could easily …”
He paused as we took the sharp bend.
“… easily turn over.”
The car in question was a 1956 GAZ-M20 Pobeda. It had column gears, a front bench seat, split (two-part) windscreen, wood-effect trims, a large working clock, indicator button at the top centre of the dash, small side vent windows on the front passenger doors, and sun-filtering fold-down eye-shields. It had an owner-driver called Yury Grozmani and also inside of it myself and my wife, Olga.
Yury Grozmani, Olga Hart & Mick Hart at the start of the Auto Retro Club Kaliningrad vintage car rally, 29 May 2021
The reason we were in it, sailing along, watching the clock studiously and glued to a sheath of navigation charts was that we were taking part in the Auto Retro Club Kaliningrad’s first regional vintage car rally.
Kaliningrad Vintage Car Rally 2021
We had rolled off the start line, an elevated vehicle platform, at precisely 13.21. The carefully estimated time of our journey from start to finish was one hour ten minutes, no more, no less, from the front of Königsberg Cathedral to Gvardeysk. The rally was timed, literally, to the very second. There were two checkpoints on the way and arrival at these checkpoints must coincide exactly with the designated ETA. If you were running behind time, you had to put your foot down; if you were ahead of yourself, you needed to take your foot off the gas and dawdle.
Yury was driving, I was the navigator and Olga became the impromptu time co-pilot, confirming joint readings of the time we were making each step of the way from her mobile phone.
For anyone who has even an elementary understanding and command of map reading, navigating would have been a doddle, and even I, who had neither of these propensities, had no difficulty in making the connection between the bold, line-drawn symbols in boxes and the landmarks and directions that they represented.
The navigation charts had been planned with simplicity in mind so that any fool could use them. Each page contained a three-column grid dissected horizontally at regular intervals. The first column provided an estimate of the time it should take from the start line to reach a certain navigation point, the second column a simple but clear illustration of the turning or lane to take and the third column any additional information that may be useful, ie name on signpost.
I soon got the hang of this as any fool would; shame it was not the same when it came to timing. Neither Olga nor I have any maths’ trophies, not even booby prizes, and from first shout we were all out of kilter with the timing requirement. The ETA at the first checkpoint was 31 minutes, and we were having difficulty calculating where that put us on the clock. After showing ourselves up, Yury stepped in, and we both agreed that he was right, even if we did not really know if he was or not.
Olga Hart, Mick Hart & Yury Grozmani in Yury’s 1956 Soviet Pobeda ~ Kaliningrad Vintage Car Rally 2021
Traffic was not particularly heavy in Kaliningrad today. We had a few anxious moments as we turned off one main road onto another, particularly in the vicinity of Kaliningrad’s World Cup football stadium, but once out onto the open road, the Pobeda sailed along like the class car that it was meant to be.
We checked our time and found that despite a relatively hunky-dory take-off, we were several minutes behind schedule. Yury put his foot down. We checked our time a few minutes later and found that whilst we were going faster, time was overtaking us. And then came the back road leading to the first checkpoint.
The Pobeda rolled off the production line in 1946 and underwent a series of improvements over the next three years. Among the improved, 1949 Pobeda’s selling points was its ‘suspension for all terrains’, and on this stretch of road Yury put it to the test. The 64-year-old car took it in its stride, the suspension and spongey bench seats proving more than a match for the bounce algorithm, allowing us to enjoy a particularly attractive recluse of land, steeped in hills, hollows, lakes and old German rustic buildings
Suddenly, the first checkpoint loomed into sight. Guess what? We were 60 seconds ahead of schedule! Yury remained unphased; with the tempo of a seasoned Foxtrotter he eased the throttle back and landed us right on the button.
Checked in at the checkpoint, off we went again.
Another argument ensued as to how long we had before we were scheduled to arrive at the next checkpoint. Something was wrong somewhere. But I refuse to say who it was who was more wrong than anybody else! It transpired that there was a meagre seven minutes between the first and second checkpoints, which was a little mean as it gave us no time to relax.
We thought we were behind time, when in fact we were in front.
Just ahead of us were the two Volgas that had left Königsberg before us. They had both turned off the road, presumably because they, too, were ahead of schedule but, on seeing us, pulled out in front.
The second checkpoint required driving into a yard, marking one’s card and then driving out again. The car in front took a wide turn and Yury swooped in, cutting it up at the checkpoint. I am sure it was taken in good part, even though a lot of hooter-blaring ensued.
We roared off again, with about 25 minutes to go to reach the finishing line in Gvardeysk.
Kaliningrad Vintage Car Rally 2021
Gvardeysk is a small town with a large public square, making it perfect for events of the kind taking place today. We were last here with my younger brother in summer 2019, again with the Auto Retro Club, but on this occasion for the international Golden Shadow of Königsberg festival.
Olga and I like this town. It is well laid out, has a balanced proportion of German and Soviet ancestry, some fine old Gothic buildings, museums, a specialist cheese shop par excellence and an interesting walk along the side of the river.
Today, we had literally lost no time in getting here and had to fall back to lose a few minutes before rolling up on the town square to the razzmatazz of cheering crowds, music and more cameras than Kodak.
As soon as we arrived, a young lady presented Olga and I with a present. It was a large, and I mean large, disc-shaped apricot jam cake, freshly baked and still warm from the oven. Such kind gestures do not go unnoticed.
Yury Grozmani & Mick Hart with a large cake in Gvardeysk ~ Kaliningrad Vintage Car Rally 2021
This is the age of the smartphone, Facebook and the image blitzkrieg, and needless to say there was no limit to the rounds of photographs taken, first on one person’s camera and then on another’s, then with these people and next with those. Olga and I had made the effort to dust off some vintage clothes, so this was another reason for having it large with the paparazzi.
We did find time to slip away, however.
Soviet vintage cars line up in Gvardeysk ~ Kaliningrad Vintage Car Rally 2021
The first stop was the public conveniences. I am strange, so I love using the loos here. It is a real Soviet experience: down the narrow flight of stairs, pay the babushka sitting at the counter at the bottom and then turn right into the homemade throne room. I cannot imagine any trip to Gvardeysk without using, or at the very least, visiting the lavs.
It was now time for a relaxing stroll around town, see the sites, visit the cheese shop and sit in the old courtyard of the cat sanctuary to have a bite to eat, whilst admiring the cat illustrations and old German feel of this sequestered place.
We had more free time at our disposable than we first imagined, so I also treated myself to an ice cream, a CCCP no less! (which is USSR to you).
More photos were waiting for us when we arrived back at the square. It was here that a young woman asked if she could have a picture taken with us. It turned out that she had a good command of English, and in the process of chatting she revealed that her ambition was to go to America. When my wife asked why, she thought, and then said: “The American Dream”. We said nothing. I could hear Leonard Cohen saying, “But you don’t want to lie, not to the young”. Anyway, this young woman must have been either extremely discerning or should have gone to Specsavers, as she said that I looked ‘handsome’. Was my wife jealous? Amused, I thought!
Before we left Königsberg Cathedral, Yury had raised a red flag by telling us that his car was having problems with the cooling system, but so far, so good: no need to top up with water. Just before we left the finishing line, he did, however, top up the tank with fuel, and I was intrigued to see that he could check how much was in the tank using a small dipstick located in the boot. Please refrain from the obvious joke; I was standing three feet away.
We left Gvardeysk as a cavalcade, with a police escort from the square to the town limit and to a fanfare even more enthusiastic than the one that had greeted us. Vintage cars seem to have that effect upon people, evoking respect, affection and enjoyment. Many people stand on the side of the road taking photos on their phones and making videos; people in cars toot their horns and wave as you pass by. It is all good stuff!
Today, on the return journey to Kaliningrad, we were pulling into Valdau Castle, the drive to which runs parallel with the main highway, and as we folded back upon ourselves, facing the way from which we had travelled, we were treated to a most magnificent sight, that of the club’s cars forming a long uninterrupted procession, the polished chrome and paintwork glistening in the afternoon sunlight and the car flags bearing the club’s name and logo fluttering resplendently in the breeze.
Regrettably, Valdau Castle would only be a pit stop today, but no sooner had we crossed the threshold into the grounds than I felt that ‘portal into the past’ sensation. So profound, exhilarating and organic it was that this familiar call from bygone days could not go unanswered for long. Olga was of the same mind, for she expressed dismay when she discovered that there was no time today to investigate the grounds and property further. “We will be back!” she asserted to whomever it was who was listening to her, going on to grumble about me to Yury for ‘never wanting to go anywhere … just sit in the churdak and write”. As a man to whom writing was not unfamiliar, I knew he would only empathise.
Cars of the Auto Retro Car Club Kaliningrad at Valdau Castle ~ Kaliningrad Vintage Car Rally 2021
The grounds to the front of Valdau Castle are not as one might expect, vast, in fact they are copse-like, forming a central island of trees and grass, with one road in and out and a path on the opposite side. The approach widens at the front of the building, and as the cars filed into this wider area one by one and very slowly, a group of five ladies who were lined up in the castle’s doorway were cheering, waving and laughing as each car made its debut. This jolly group were dressed one and all dirndl style and played their part so convincingly and with such perspicacity to the scene in which they were cast that no one, but no one, was able to assume a contradictory attitude. As each car turned the corner, the occupants were smitten with the sincerity of this greeting. It lit faces up as though someone had turned them into human lanterns. Nobody, nobody that is except the president of the club, Arthur, who was dashing up and down trying to fit too many cars into not enough space and only just succeeding, went uninitiated; the conviviality was infectious and spread like emotional wildfire. Even the imposing Gothic building could not feign disapproval. There was so much of everything bright and cheerful, including more than a touch, and in all the right places, of Moll Flanders’ better attributes.
Greetings from Valdau Castle ~ Kaliningrad Vintage Car Rally 2021Mick Hart & Olga Hart with staff of Valdau Castle 29 May 2021
From the castle the line of cars broke up as each took its preferred route back to Königsberg Cathedral, but met again at the Cathedral entrance to an applause and welcome fit for conquering heroes.
On landing, there was time enough to buy a snack from one of the food outlets and a coffee and relax on one of the wooden benches in the best patch of sun you could find, after which it was time for the moment of truth. Who had matched the rally clock, completed the course as specified and attained one of the first three positions.
There were three main trophies for the first three contestants, together with smaller cups and certificates for those who did not do as well as they would have liked but were gratefully acknowledged for their participation. We came second place, being only one second out from coming first.
Once our status had been announced, we hopped back into the Pobeda and Yury, deftly and at speed, whipped the motor up onto the elevated car ramp after a fashion that I could only dream of aspiring to.
It was trophy winners’ acceptance time and speeches.
This was not an easy task for me to accomplish. Apart from being the only Anglichanin in the race, I was not about to inflict, either upon the crowd facing me or upon myself, my incomparable Russian. This meant that I would have to address the crowds in English. I am sure that there must have been one or two people in the facing throng who knew what I was talking about. There was my wife, for example, who never knows what I am talking about, so why should she start now? And anyway, after I had concluded my few words, Yury rendered a brief translation.
It had been a long day, a rewarding day, a different day. There is, as they say, a first time for everything, and we had enjoyed this first time immensely!
Mick Hart & Yury Grozmani receiving a trophy at the Kaliningrad Retro Car Rally 29 May 2021
Published: 8 February 2021 ~ Awesome Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts
We recently received a kind invitation to attend an organ concert at Königsberg Cathedral. This was the first time that I had been to a concert there, and I was keen to discover if the sound of the cathedral’s pipe organ was as impressive as it looked.
With temperatures outside falling to as low as -17 degrees, we were surprised, happily surprised, to discover that in spite of the capacious size of the cathedral it was warm and comfortable. For a cathedral that had been reduced to a shell in the Second World War by RAF bombing and subsequently and painstakingly restored, the atmosphere and ambience is superb. Lighting is important in any environment, but particularly so in exhibition and concert halls, and here it cannot be faulted.
The colonnades, sturdy walls and Gothic vaulted ceiling served the acoustics well, the hard surfaces reflecting the quieter notes distinctly and the deeper tones with generous resonance. The organ rolled, rumbled and reverberated, the multiple dense sounds thundering spectacularly from numerous points within the buildings chambers.
I will admit that I am not much of an opera aficionado, but on this occasion I felt that the dulcet tones of the singer complimented and contrasted perfectly with the rich and varied tones of the pipe organ.
At the close of the concert, we chose to walk around the back of the cathedral, past Kant’s tomb. My wife, Olga, rightly commented that here, outside and within the cathedral, you can still feel the spirit of the city of Königsberg.
This was so true, and I felt rather guilty that I had not visited the cathedral more frequently since moving to Kaliningrad.
I confess that since the death of our friend Victor Ryabinin in the summer of 2019, I have been purposefully avoiding the cathedral and the surrounding area. The cathedral and Kneiphof island are only a stone’s throw away from Victor Ryabinin’s former art studio and as such constituted the epicentre of his cultural and historical world. There were so many memories that I did not want to face, and so many more, like this evening’s, which he may once have been a part of but now never will ~ at least in person.
But you cannot hide forever, and I was glad that I had agreed to go to the concert.
Even in the falling temperatures and with noses like beetroots, Olga managed to snap off some photos of the cathedral on a cold winter’s night, which capture the magical quality of the external lighting and how it is used to imaginative effect.
Brrrr: It was time to rattle back home on the number 5 tram and, once indoors, make with the cognac!
Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts: Königsberg Cathedral website: http://sobor39.ru/
Concert details for 6th February 2021
Titular organist of the Cathedral, laureate of international competitions, Mansur Yusupov
Soloist of the Kaliningrad Regional Philharmonic, laureate of international competitions, Anahit Mkrtchyan (soprano)
Music and song featured works from the following composers:
A. Vivaldi A. Scarlatti G. F. Handel J. Pergolesi J. S. Bach V. Gomez M. Lawrence, A. Babajanyan
When I was a nipper, I would like nothing more when we visited the seaside than spending my parents’ money on the funfair rides. Sea and sand are OK to look at, but I like water in tea, and I am no beach lizard.
If you live in or are visiting Kaliningrad, you can get your funfair fix at the Youth amusement park, which is a spacious and well-equipped amusement park across the road from the Upper Lake.
Recently, on my birthday, I was smitten by the regressive desire to go oscillating on the park’s big wheel. This is quite unlike me, as I gave up heights in preference for the sure-footedness of good old terra firma many moons ago. But it was my birthday, I had eaten an ice cream by the lake, and the wheel, which I had often regarded with curiosity whilst partaking of beer at the front of the Mercor Hotel, must have said something to me today like, “you’d better do it now, before you get too old!”
Kaliningrad Ferris wheel at Youth Park
I have never argued with a Ferris wheel before, have you? And today was no exception. But had I have been inclined to do so nothing would have come of it, because Kaliningrad’s big wheel is not one of those fast-moving fairground attractions where you sit with your friends suspended in chairs and when the wheel stops at the top your friend begins to rock it and is no longer your friend anymore, it is, in its construction and spirit of revolution, more akin to the London Eye ~ big, solid, friendly and sedate.
Nevertheless, at 50 metres it is high enough for me, and as we stood on the departure platform waiting for one of the empty cars to descend and allow us to board, I caught myself thinking yet again how unlike me this is, even on my birthday.
Kaliningrad Ferris Wheel at Youth Park
The cars roll around at a gentle pace but even so you clamber quickly aboard goaded to do so by the Imp of the Perverse who is whispering in your ear, “Quick, imagine your trouser leg getting caught on the edge of the car; how embarrassing that would be, to go hopping off towards the end of the platform!”
Mick Hart about to board Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel
This thought, or thoughts similar, have you jumping aboard in no time. The car lurches and swings in response to your opposing momentum, but it is alright: the thing seems sturdy enough, and before you can say ‘motion sickness’ you have plonked yourself down on the bench seat.
Olga Hart not at all frightened on Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel
The wheel’s cars are in fact quite spacious and would, I imagine, hold six people quite comfortably. The cars have glass doors, so you are fully enclosed, and the wide windows offer an awesome and spectacular view not just of Kaliningrad from an aerial perspective but of the steel lattice-work fabric, nuts, bolts and bearings from which the revolving contraption is made.
View of Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel and Kaliningrad itself from one of the wheel’s cars
As we levelled out at a 45-degree angle to the ground, the angle of the dangle incidentally causing you to feel more vulnerable than when the car reaches the summit, this is when both the wheel’s superstructure and park layout below are at their most dramatic; and then, slowly, very slowly, as the car begins to rise, Kaliningrad in all its (as I have said before) green glory and contrasting urban extensiveness folds quietly out beneath you inciting a landmark-spotters epiphany.
Looking out across the once Königsberg district of Maraunenhof from Kaliningrad Ferris wheel
Away with apprehension and out with the camera, I get some fairly good shots of the wheel itself and some admiral ones of the city. Yes, the photographs would have been better had I come prepared with a proper camera instead of relying on the mobile phone’s, but spur of the moment decisions respect nothing but opportunism so, as I did not plan ahead, I have to be contented.
Kaliningrad Upper Lake
Kaliningrad boating lake
The view from the wheel’s highest point is nothing short of breathtaking, and for 200 rubles a ride (£1.99), presuming you do not own a microlight, this is the next best way to reach the dizzy heights, in other words to see the city of Kaliningrad as you have never seen it before.
Next on the bucket list is a spin on the wheel as dusk settles, when the wheel and the cityscape are bedecked with illumination.
Whereabouts
The Youth Park of Culture and Recreation is located in the Leningrad district of Kaliningrad at 3 Telman Street, opposite the Upper Lake.
