24 February 2026 – Winter in Kaliningrad can be both harsh and beautiful
No sooner had I posted Snow in Kaliningrad than the first signs of a thaw occurred. At 4.30am on the morning of the 22nd February 2026, my long-term insomnia allowed me to listen with immeasurable clarity to the roar of glaciers leaving our rooftop and the commensurable and sporadic sounds of smaller pieces of ice, mimicking handfuls of gravel, sliding and rattling stridently off terracotta and metal surfaces as they literally lost their grip.
Fate’s forceful intervention, either betraying the promise of a snowbound world or working with Nature to release water from frozen petrification, are interpretations only to be mediated by your personal understanding of the benign and malignant forces that constitute our natural/unnatural world. Are postulations of a beautiful Nature all that they are cracked up to be, or is Nature merely an aberration, a mistake, which, including us, is nothing more than a virus more invasive to planet Earth than a dinghy full of migrants powered by liberal-leftism on its way to England? In the stillness of 4:30, it all seems so peculiar.
Winter in Kaliningrad can be both harsh and beautiful
Snow may have brought the Old West quick draw to Kaliningradians armed with shovels and across its frozen tundra made otherwise manly men mince, but the flip side to the challenge is, or has been, many a pretty and picturesque scene, with white landscapes, crystalline trees, a wonderland playground for children, including for those that have never grown up, and, once you’ve contended with frozen toes and mastered the art of your balancing act, an all-pervading magical atmosphere.
Herewith is a handful of images from the cards that winter has so far dealt us. The cards for March are yet to be played; thus, all bets for a no-snow spring are off for a few days more.
It looks cold, and it is!
If you haven’t the foggiest where the following photos were taken, then you evidently haven’t read my post on Königsberg Cathedral. The down-to-earth views are photographed on a very cold, snowy evening from the side of Honey Moon Bridge, which is the bridge that connects Kneiphof (Königsberg) with Kant Island (Kaliningrad) to the Fishing Village. The other snapshots offer a grandstand view out and over the sublime expanse of the cathedral’s rooftop, with its distinctive decorative cupola-shaped knop and skyline-commanding mast.
The streets of Kaliningrad
Self-explanatory really: street scenes of snowbound Kaliningrad. If you’ve never clapped eyes before on a photo-posing historic fire hydrant, you have now. If it could operate a smartphone, I’m sure it would take a selfie – or perhaps it has too much pride.
Youth Park snowed under
Kaliningrad’s Youth Park is usually teeming with life, but a few days ago, when these photos were taken, it was a snow-inhabited ghost town. Apart from snow-shovelling men, nothing else was working. The indoor skating rink was open. A great place to be on a cold and icy day!
Sledging (or should that be doughnutting) in Central Park, Kaliningrad
Just before the big thaw set in, we set off to Kaliningrad’s Central Park, which at first sight may appear flat, but at the furthermost end, that’s the one where you don’t come in through the main gate, is characterised by a pronounced declivity – let’s say ‘slope’.
The Marilyn Monroe of curves, the landscape’s flattering figure makes it the perfect place to position yourself and slide off into the stream below – if, of course, you are not too careful. We were.
I stationed myself at the base of the sledge-run and arrested the first descent in such a way that it almost took my arm off. This taught me that the best method of halting the sledge was to stoop down with hands outstretched as if I were a wicket keeper, which I rarely was, because second to football, I hated cricket; yet, had I been more compliant, I might have been correctly informed that a decrease in speed could be best effected by the pilot of the speeding snowcraft using their heels as brakes. These modern doughnut-shaped things are mighty fast on snow, albeit a little less dignified than their more conventional counterparts.
Winter in Kaliningrad can be both harsh and beautiful
In winter, much of Central Park, like the trees that occupy it, lies dormant. But after a game of snowballs and lying in the snow, you really need something to pep you up. I have generally found that in winter at least one of Central Park’s refreshment kiosks debunks shutdown and that snacks, teas, coffees and even ice creams are still available for the cold and brave.
Catering for those whose resuscitation requirements are rather more sophisticated, I was pleased to learn that on the day in question – the question being, whatever was I doing standing around in the snow? – The winter-friendly kiosk was adult enough to provide mulled wine.
At four quid a pop, you don’t get pop, but you do get a very tasty, very warming and satisfactorily large helping of a put-colour-back-in-your-cheeks beverage. Just the job for a man with frozen feet and his doughnut-stopping, beer-raising arm having narrowly escaped dislocation.
Essential survival garments for cold weather in Kaliningrad
A blog post for those who delight in quests for meaning with some compensatory tilts towards coincidence and the intervention of luck
12 February 2026 – Königsberg Cathedral, Kaliningrad: a story of survival
It did not dawn upon me until recently, although it had been percolating around and around in my subconscious for yonks, that here am I dwelling in old Königsberg and to date have failed to write a post devoted to its wonderful cathedral, which only happens to be Kaliningrad’s most visited and popular tourist attraction and the last remaining marker of what is often described historically as Königsberg’s spiritual and cultural centre. I suppose that you will tut that I have been too busy taking potshots at the antics of the liberal left and writing curated highbrow on such topics as tin buckets and badgers dressed in underpants, but I confess that my penance is overdue, and so it is with humbled contriteness that I take you by the hand and lead you to the one and only Königsberg Cathedral.
Königsberg Cathedral, Kaliningrad: a story of survival
The most profound, iconic and spectacular testimony to Kaliningrad once being Königsberg is the continued presence of Königsberg Cathedral. Contrary to appearances, the cathedral’s spiritual connections did not throw a shield around it during WWII. It was not singled out by divine intervention for survivalist dispensation. Although, the fact that it was gutted and that its outer walls remained intact, thus preserving a shell of its former self, could be offered up as evidence of how wrong I am in this assumption. For had the walls not remained, it is doubtful, if not impossible, that later, much later in fact, the remainder of this poignant tribute to the glory that was Königsberg would have become its advocate for conservation and regeneration.
I haven’t the vaguest idea whether you are asking how and why the cathedral escaped demolition from the postwar Soviet dictate to eradicate all things German. But just in case you are, the answer to such a hypothetical question is that Königsberg Cathedral owes a debt for its salvation to a coalition of culturally minded people and indulgent local history groups, felicitously supported by Moscow’s Ministry of Culture.
It is said that in the drive to expunge all things German, Kaliningrad’s local authorities actively sought to demolish the cathedral, as indeed became the fate of Königsberg Castle, but that a handful of heritage-conscious historians, emphasising the building’s historical value, countered with the argument that the building was worthy of reprieve. There can be no doubt at all that the Ministry of Culture’s backing must have applied crucial leverage for the preservationist’s cause. But help was also forthcoming from the most unlikely of sources, that of the city’s most famous inhabitant the German philosopher Kant, whose tomb, like the cathedral to which it is attached, had survived the aerial bombing and Soviet siege of Königsberg.
Ironically Kant, who was a lifelong resident of Königsberg, who hardly ever left the city that he loved, but who, in later life, it is said, tended to visit the cathedral less and less, played an indispensable part in saving the stricken building from the swoop of the demolition ball and alteration by dynamite.
Kant to the rescue
During the Soviet era, particularly in the immediate aftermath of WWII, all distinguished and distinguishing German buildings which in Königsberg had survived destruction were looked upon as offending symbols of a militaristic nature and objectionable reminders of Fascistic ideology.
However, to have laid waste to Königsberg Cathedral would have entailed the simultaneous destruction of Kant’s tomb, which was and still is located at the cathedral’s northeast corner. Fortunately for both, Soviet ideology regarded Kant a progressive thinker whose work had greatly influenced the philosophical tenets of Soviet-approved Hegel and Marx.
The preservation-destruction debate continued unabated, but before a decision could be taken, Sovietism collapsed, ushering in a bold new era. Perestroika had arrived: It wasa time of possibilities for what before may have seemed impossible. And it was during this transitionary period, in the early 1990s, that the green light was finally given and restorative work commenced on raising the wounded cathedral out from under its wartime ruins.
Konigsberg Cathedral, Kaliningrad: a story of survival
Harking from England, whenever I think ‘cathedrals’, I visualise, from experience, massive, conspicuous structures predominantly constructed of carved grey stone. The red-brick Gothic style, the category in which Königsberg Cathedral fits, is incongruous with this vision. Such buildings are predominantly Germanic and also Baltic in origin, erected in red brick rather than in stone due to a regional lack of the latter for use as a source of building material.
Historic buildings of note, particularly those initiated to fulfil religious purposes, are virtually never not preceded by an earlier version, and Königsberg Cathedral is no exception to this rule.
The forerunner to the red-brick building with which today we are familiar was smaller than its successor. It was made of wood and served the Catholic Church. This comparatively modest place of worship took shape at the end of the thirteenth century and beginning of the fourteenth. In 1322, Johann Clare, the Bishop of Samland, obtained the eastern quarter of Kneiphof Island from the Teutonic Knights. Here, development of the new cathedral is thought to have begun in 1330, with the first cathedral demolished in unison and parts of it removed for incorporation within the newbuild.
The bombing of the cathedral in August 1944 can be viewed as the apotheosis of a long line of setbacks and serious structural mishaps that plagued the building’s construction and threatened its existence from the moment of its debut on Kneiphof Island.
From the very outset, the island’s silt and mud ground presented a contradiction to the successful erection of a structure of the cathedral’s considerable size and weight. Soil had to be brought in from elsewhere and hundreds of poles driven into the earth to stabilise the foundation bed.
Mindful of past Prussian and Lithuanian conflicts, the cathedral, with Johann Clare’s blessing, began to take a formidable shape, with walls constructed in some places up to 3 metres thick. When the Master of the Teutonic Order, Luther von Braunschweig, got wind of this, it quite unsurprisingly fair put the wind up him. Instantly, he halted all construction whilst he attempted to ascertain what it was that Clare was erecting, a cathedral or a fortress, bearing in mind, of course, that the whereabouts of the structure placed it slap bang in the middle of the Teutonic Order’s domain.
For work on the cathedral to recommence, Clare had to sign a document confirming that all defensive elements pertaining to the cathedral’s spec would be dropped forthwith and also guarantee that certain walls of the building would be assembled within parameters that made their defensive role less credible.
It is doubtful that the cathedral would have gone ahead had these concessions not been made, but the making of them introduced serious inherent weakness into some parts of the cathedral’s structure, requiring buttresses and other remedial mechanisms to compensate for the heavy loads imposed by the arches and vaulted ceilings. Although these engineering features eventually lent the cathedral a distinctive look all of its own, they would later prove insufficient in preventing some of the walls from sinking and listing to the south by as much as 50cm.
Due to the unstable nature of the substrate on which the cathedral rested and the inadequate foundation base, by the turn of the seventeenth century cracks had begun to appear in various walls, particularly in relation to the placing of the towers. It was initially believed that the fault lay in the walls themselves, which explains why at the front of the building almost every window has been bricked up.
It took the complete collapse of the arch within the northern nave for the extent of the problem to be realised.
A worse fate awaited the cathedral in 1544. Up until this time, the cathedral’s front elevation possessed a symmetrical grandeur, with towers of equal style and proportion positioned on either side. In the conflagration of 1544, both towers were destroyed. Only one tower was replaced, where its facsimile stands today, on the southern flank of the entrance. Instead of replacing the northern tower, a gable roof was added, with one of a smaller but similar nature in the intervening space where the twin towers once had stood.
Fast forward now to January 1817, the year of a ferocious hurricane, which promptly, impudently, and with blatant disregard for acts amounting to sacrilege, whipped away the cathedral’s roof.
The cathedral’s checkered structural history pursued it through the nineteenth century, during the second half of which substantial soil erosion caused parts of its walls to collapse and associated damage to wreak havoc with other build elements. Enter Richard Dethlefsen, a German architect and monument conservator, who, during the first decade of the 20th century, directed a major engineering project, which included shoring up the cathedral with foundation beams of concrete, stabilised and reinforced with metal tension cables.
Königsberg Cathedral: the destruction of WWII
After all this sterling remedial work, come 1944, along came the RAF, which, on August 26th and 27th of that year, very nearly succeeded in adding the ancient monument to the greater part of Königsberg, which it systemmatically bombed into almost total oblivion. As it was, however, the incendiary devices the RAF dropped, burned the cathedral out, leaving in their wake a gutted, hollow shell.
It is only by comparing photographs of what remained of the great cathedral after that fateful raid and how long it endured as a burnt-out husk with photographs of its present self, or better still by visiting the monument in person, that one can fully appreciate the dedication, time, effort, professional skill and money that have underpinned its restoration.
Within six years, the initial, visible transformation of the cathedral’s shattered exterior was complete. In 1994, a new spire was lifted into place by helicopter; in 1995, a new clock, replicating the earlier one, was added, and between 1996 and 1998, the entire cathedral roof was reconstructed. Six years from the start of the project, Königsberg Cathedral had been reborn!
With major reconstruction work to the outside now completed, the focus then was turned to detailed conservation and restoration. The cathedral’s interior is widely accredited with having undergone restoration to a high standard, the veracity of which can be validated by once again comparing photographs of the wreckage of the building wrought by World War Two with the Cathedral as it appears today.
Among the many fine examples of restoration detail is the cathedrals’ baptismal font. Housed in a small room separated from the main hall by a carved wooden screen, this replica of the destroyed original is deceptively authentic. The atmospheric baptistry, the original of which dated to 1595, also contains two ancient plaques. Other plaques of interest displayed on the interior include two on the southern wall: one devoted to Luther von Braunschweig, the Master of the Teutonic Order; the other to Johann Clare, the Bishop of Samland.
The pièce de résistance of the interior restoration, discounting for the moment the omnipotent presence of what is famed to be one of Europe’s largest and most impressive organs, are faithful copies of Königsberg Cathedral’s tablature and mural monuments – wall-mounted memorials to the passed-on ‘great and good’.
The best examples of reconstructed wall tablets are to be found behind the main hall’s stage in what once was the choir. This chamber is also the burial place of the Prussian nobility as well as masters of the Teutonic Order and figures of royal descent. Not surprisingly, therefore, these devotional monuments contain the full ornate regalia befitting the status of those whom they serve to consecrate, complete with intricate scrollwork, chubby cherubs, a portrait bust or two, the family’s coats of arms and the traditional symbols of death, skulls with bone accompaniments – embodiments of both the material-spiritual worlds readily associated in style and execution with the late Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The most ornate and intricate of these epitaphs are devoted to the last master of the Teutonic Order and Albrecht Hohenzollern Ansbach, the first secular duke of Prussia. His first and second wives are buried in the same chamber, causing cynics among you to say, ‘No escape there then!’
The former choir benefits from the illumination of eight stained-glass windows, bearing the coats of arms of the most influential East Prussian families: Oulenburg, Greben, Don and Lendorf.
Twelve stained glass windows, recreated by Kaliningrad master artists, permit and modulate the ingress of light within the cathedral’s basilica.
Konigsberg Cathedral, Kaliningrad: a story of survival
The cathedral in its modern format plays a multifunctional role. It still serves a liturgical purpose, having two chapels in its west towers, one Lutheran, the other Orthodox, but the main hall of the cathedral is dedicated to organ concerts. Königsberg Cathedral houses one of the largest organs in Europe. The cathedral also contains a museum dedicated to the life and times of one of Königsberg’s most famous residents, the renowned philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose mausoleum, annexed to the cathedral, is an international place of pilgrimage for Kantian academics and for those who wish to savour and collect the historical experience of Kant’s last resting place. The mausoleum was designed by German architect Friedrich Lahrs and completed in 1924 to coincide with the bicentennial year of the philosopher’s birth. Upon his death, Kant was first interred inside the cathedral, within the ‘Professor’s Vault’. In 1880, his remains were exhumed and re-interred in a neo-Gothic chapel, which was later replaced by the present edifice.
At the time of its destruction towards the end of the Second World War, Kneiphof Island was the perfect example of high-density living, a compact network consisting of densely crowded urban buildings and seemingly narrow streets. The cathedral, which today can be clearly and dramatically seen from several approaches and prospects, was, in its pre-war days, resplendent yet partially enclosed, particularly on the east and north sides, where the Albertina University, into whose possession the cathedral came in 1544, formed an L-shaped ‘wall’ along the edge of the Pregolya River, with the roof, the spire and masts of the partly concealed cathedral rising above the quadrangle of which its presence helped contrive.
Today, the monument stands alone, the vast sweep of its fantailed roof and unmistakeable spired turret quietly reposed in open and sculpted parkland – a reminder of the ghost of Königsberg, a symbol of deliverance from uncompromising total warfare, an icon of endurance and longevity and the city’s most significant landmark, linking, by its pre-war history and postwar reconstruction, the ancient city of Königsberg with modern-day Kaliningrad. It is the poignant story of two different eras, the unlikely bridge between two different cultures, occupying a destined space reserved by Fate and Fortune.
There isn’t in this respect anything else quite like it. Königsberg Cathedral is unique; and, at the risk of sounding vaguely offensive, perhaps it is just as well.
Königsberg Cathedral Organ
The first purpose-built organ was installed in the cathedral shortly after construction was completed in the 1380s. Henceforth, the organ would grow in size, complexity and power. It would also be elaborately embellished, ornately carved, painted and gold plated, a suitable livery for what was destined to become the largest organ in Prussia. In the first half of the eighteenth century, a new organ was constructed. It was huge and being dressed in the grandeur of the Baroque style, with angel figures, fine carving and sumptuous gilding, commanded a prepossessing and inspiring spectacle. Both the decorative exterior and the instrument itself would undergo maintenance, repair and restoration well into the 20th century.
Obliterated in World War II, the organ, like the cathedral in which it had resided, was brought back to life as part of the 1990s’ reconstruction programme. Like its magnificent predecessors, it, too, is Baroque in style and follows the applauded tradition of its 18th-century forebear, which had the reputation of being the largest organ in Europe; the current organ is recognised as one of Europe’s largest organs and the largest organ in Russia.
A second, smaller, choral organ upholds the cathedral’s legacy as a two-organ music venue. Completed in 2006, the smaller organ conveys in its overall shape and appearance elements Art Nouveau in nature as well as conventional Gothic.
Königsberg Cathedral Museum
The southern and northern towers of the cathedral are given over to a museum dedicated to the life and times of the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who lived most of his entire life in Königsberg and whose remains are interred in a mausoleum adjacent to the cathedral. The displays include a life-size model dressed in Kantian clothes, personal memorabilia and interactive digital technology, allowing the user to fraternise with Kant and learn about his life and lifestyle.
The museum extends across several floors situated at different levels. The staircases are precipitous, so take it easy on your way up! The museum also contains historical documentation, artefacts and exhibits relevant to the Teutonic Order, Kneiphof Island (since renamed Kant Island), the Albertina University and the city of Königsberg. It’s well worth visiting for all the reasons mentioned and specifically to see the large and detailed scale model of Königsberg.
Wallenrodt Library at Königsberg Cathedral
In 1650, Count Martin von Wallenrodt, the Chancellor of Prussia, created the first secular library in Königsberg Cathedral, a unique collection of ancient books and manuscripts. Much of the library’s exclusive contents were lost during the Second World War, and the library itself gutted along with the rest of the building. It was restored to its former glory, and restocked with antiquarian books, coins, banknotes, seals and plaques as part of the cathedral’s reconstruction in the last quarter of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, and now is a key element of the cathedral museum’s experience. The Baroque interior, enriched by the highly ornate carved columns and intricate moldings spanning and surmounting the floor-to-ceiling shelving units, creates a scholarly space which is at once intimate, private and studious; in fact, an interior so well replicated that reconciling the subdued grandeur of the 20th century iteration with its 17th-century antecedent is rendered quite unnecessary.
The Tomb of Immanuel Kant
Kant’s tomb, which is situated at the northeast corner of Königsberg Cathedral, is a replacement memorial, originally neo-Gothic in style, restyled in 1924 by the respected architect Friedrich Lahrs to mark the 200th anniversary of Kant’s birth.
The mausoleum is designed in a minimalist, neoclassical, open-colonnade form, which, to all intents and purposes, should be quite at odds with the cathedral’s Gothic character, and yet, oddly enough, it is not.
The columned and canopied hall contains a granite sarcophagus, beneath which Kant’s remains are buried.
A bronze wall plaque denotes the duration of Kant’s life from birth to death, and the monument is inscribed with an oft-quoted quote from his work, Critique of Practical Reason: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and perseveringly my thinking engages itself with them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Sculpture Park on Kant Island (formerly Kneiphof Island)
Kongsberg Cathedral is located on what today is known as Kant Island, which was Kneiphof Island, and which some people refer to as Sculpture Park.
Occupying almost the entire space of Kneiphof, 12 hectares, the park functions as an open-air art gallery. It contains numerous sculptures dotted about among its landscape garden, with the accent on both historical and contemporary figures, showcased under the title of The Man and the World.
At the front of the cathedral can be seen a bronze model called the Center of Königsberg 1930, a detailed reconstruction in miniature of the centre of Königsberg as it would have looked before WWII.
At the rear of the cathedral sits a monument in bronze to the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose tomb is also located there. The pedestal which supports the monument is said to be the original.
Other monuments include:
A statue of Duke Albrecht of Prussia, the founder of the University of Königsberg (Albertina), and a memorial plaque to Julius Rupp, a German noted for his progressive views (1809-1884), inset into a granite stone.
The latest addition to the park is a large electronic screen on which Kant welcomes visitors and invites them to take selfies of them and him together. He is a clever Kant, for he then transmits the selfies to visitors’ smartphones or sends them by email. He is also a very friendly Kant, who parts company with his visitors by wishing them well and regaling them before they leave with some of his famous quotes.
There are a plethora of travel guides out there on the internet that like to make sweeping statements about Russian people, as if the people of the largest country in the world can be whittled down to fit ~ like a misconceived square peg into the round hole of consolation. After much negative stereotyping, these articles tend to intimate that in spite of what you have heard, when you meet them Russian people are not so bad after all. It is suggested that they come across as brusque, even rude, but, guess what! ~ when you get to know them they are just as superb and wonderful as any English, German or American person. And what is more, despite having been brought up cooking behind an Iron Curtain, their food is no less delicious.
Armed then
with this image of a bear with sandwiches, we had not the slightest misgiving
or uncharitable apprehension that later today we would have the extraordinary
experience of meeting and dining with Olga’s mum.
First, we
had to get to Kaliningrad, because remember, Dear Reader, Olga had been so
concerned that her English visitors would baulk at the imperfections there that
she had taken the precaution of squirreling them away in the coastal resort of
Svetlogorsk, had installed them in the Hotel Russ, where everything was obvious
and the fitness centre was minus its wheel.
Yesterday,
we had travelled by taxi from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk, but today, whether to
save money or merely to be brave, Olga suggested that we go by train.
We had
returned to the Russ from our afternoon drink in the bar, which had no toilet,
got changed ~ rugged ourselves up ~ trudged our way back through the new fall
of snow, it was snowing as we did so, to arrive at Svetlogorsk’s railway
station just as dusk was gathering. We were right on time: a big, old solid
lump of a train was making its way ponderously along the track to where we
stood at the end of the line.
Trains waiting at Svetlogorsk Station, December 2000
Quickly ~
as quick as it was possible with conditions as they were ~ we hurried along the
length of the platform, passing this beast of a train’s bull-nose front until
we reached the first carriage door. Unlike British trains where, in getting on
and off, you are constantly advised to ‘mind the gap’, here it was a case of
mind the small, narrow, rusty iron steps up which you have to teeter if you
want to get inside. As the doors were shut when we arrived, there was no small
amount of dexterity involved in ascending, balancing and opening them, but
teamwork won the day, and before you could say ‘arse over head’ we were on
board and, a few seconds later, on boards. Through no fault of a
well-illuminated carriage we could have been forgiven for believing that
British vandalism had arrived in Russia at last, but it soon dawned on me, with
the cold comfort of a Cold War documentary, that Western decadence would simply not be
countenanced, that there really were not any cushions or padding upon the
seats, just two long rows of slat-back wooden benches.
I ignored
what I thought was my brother saying something like “who’s going to pick the
splinters out” and made my way to the seat at the other end of the carriage.
There may not have been neon lights above our heads saying ‘Look at us, we’re
foreigners’, but the inhabitants of the carriage were gawping at us all the
same.
They
continued to gawp, as if all were one, even though it necessitated some
backward craning on their part, whilst we found that we could not hear each
other speak below the sound of our peculiar whispering. Fortunately, unlike Max
Bygraves, the train never lingered longer, for, with a sickening, unannounced
jolt, which took the audience as much by surprise as it had us, wrenching their
heads in the other direction, we and the hulking train lurched clumsily out of
the station.
Within a
few moments of rolling along we had to admit to each other that although the
seats had looked hard, cold, hostile and uninviting they were all that and more
besides. There was no heat in the carriage; a couple of young scruffy looking
blokes were taking it in turns to drain a bottle of vodka; two old babushkas,
who simply could not refrain from turning their heads every now and then, gave us a withering stare; a gnarled
old man, his coat pulled up over his
ears, rocked back and forth with the rhythm of the train, one minute asleep,
one minute not; and almost everyone without exception was dragging on a fag, ~
not that this bothered us, tobacco smoking had not quite yet become the
wretched victim of self-proclaimed health zealots. I cannot remember whether we
lit up or not, but we most likely did. Brother Joss always had a packet of
roll-ups with him in those days, and besides, the complete and utter absence of
any detectable heating system made striking the match appealing.
Svetlogorsk to Kaliningrad by Train: Tickets Pashalsta!
I was just
wondering when and how we would pay for this magic carpet ride, when a
fierce-looking babushka armed with a large leather handbag waved that secret
weapon menacingly in our direction and snarled something at us, which might
have meant anything, such as ‘Hand over your roll-ups’. Such was her fierce
demeanour that we would have quite willingly handed over anything had not Olga,
taking money out of her purse and passing it to the handbag waver, received in
exchange three slips of paper. Ahhh, so these were our tickets to ride.
In spite of
the excitement, Kaliningrad seemed an age away. The old engine and its ‘ready
for retirement long ago’ rolling stock, rocked, swayed, groaned and complained
every snowbound inch of the way. The undernourished light cast a yellow shroud
over the carriage windows through which nothing could be seen except darkness
and small rivers of snow, which stretched out across the opaque expanse and
collected in miniature drifts along the lower edge of the sills. It was a long
journey; a hard-on-your bum journey; and a very cold journey; but we got there
in the end ~ we actually made it.
The No
Frills Travel Company operated from a station which was not in the least
different from what you would expect: it seemed that no expense had been spared
in reinforced concrete and metal struts.
We
alighted, a little undignified, from the steep, narrow and rickety steps, onto
a slab. A bitter wind was channeling through the yawning end of the station
canopy and what signs there were to tell us how to escape from it were all, of
course, in Russian. As this was Olga’s home town, she did know the way, and
although nothing softening or unremitting greeted us in the station’s concrete underside,
simply evading the wind’s cutting edge was consolation enough.
We were now
passing along the same subterranean passages that we had traversed yesterday
when we arrived in Kaliningrad, from which we would cross the vast rectangular
concourse, and out through one of a number of wonderfully arched Gothic doors.
We had done this, and were now standing, ankle deep in snow, on the perimeter
of that vast concrete plain where yesterday my senses had been so seductively
stimulated by a scene so typically Soviet.
This
evening, however, there were no shoveling soldiers and all but one lonely taxi
driver. All was quiet on the Eastern Front.
Fortunately,
we had done our bit with public transport for the time being and were now all
together looking out for Olga’s friend, the man who was going to meet us. We
did not have long to wait.
Antiques & collectables
Andrew was
a big man; you could not make out his features as he had a muffler over the
lower half of his face and a woolly hat pulled firmly down on his head. He
shook our hands warmly, exchanged a few short words with Olga, laughed and
embraced us and then beckoned for us to follow. Olga had confided my love of history
and antiques to him and he was now leading us to an antique and collectables
shop some few yards away on the edge of the station carpark.
The antique shop was located in a large room in one of the relatively few remaining original Königsberg buildings. Access was gained by passing through a large, heavy, metal studded door, on the other side of which was a veritable cornucopia of Soviet and pre-Soviet Königsberg relics ~ I’ve stopped short of claiming that it was Aladdin’s Cave, as Aladdin would most likely have found it difficult to get a visa here and is most likely on his way to England as we speak in the back of a Co-op lorry.
I shall not
dwell on all the goodies I was interested in here, or what I would have liked
to have bought. In a couple of days’, we would return to this shop and make
three or four purchases. Suffice it to say, that for someone who had spent a
lifetime involved with antiques and curios this was a place far beyond Aladdin
and his half-brother Ali Barber (since arrested in Rochdale).
We were
actually on our way to Olga’s mums, but our driver, Andrew, had been asked by
Olga to wheel us around via Königsberg Cathedral, at this time one of the few
historic buildings to have been given the green light for restoration.
Königsberg Cathedral
Königsberg Cathedral (this photo taken in winter 2004)
As we
drove, I remember passing by a great concrete monolith, softened by and
shrouded in snow, and thinking to myself, what on earth is that? (I was later
to learn it was the ‘House of the Soviets’). But the soon-to-hove-into view
Gothic turret, high perpendicular gables and broad sweeping roof of Königsberg
Cathedral erased all other sentiments, save for that inspired by the sublime
scene in front of me. Now when I look back on my first impression of Königsberg
Cathedral, its haunting profile sketched against a whiteboard of snow, I gain
some insight into the extent to which already the dark and troubled past of
this place had begun to draw me in. But whilst the vast silhouette stamped its
indelible mark, my recollections of the interior of Königsberg Cathedral in the
year 2000 are vague to say the least. I was entranced by my first view of the
external edifice but wrote very little in my diary about what lay behind the
great oak doors. I mention renovation work to various wall monuments and note
that it was not possible at that time to venture further than the ground floor,
but much more than this I did not register, although the impression I have is that unlike today
the doors opened into one very large rectangular room in which seating and
other appurtenances seemed to be at a minimum.
And that, strangely enough, is all that I can recall of Königsberg Cathedral on the inside; whilst the memory of its outside has never let go of me … and never let me go.
