Masurian Canal - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

An incomplete German masterpiece

17 May 2024 ~ Ozerki Lock Masurian Canal the brave and beautiful

Pursuant to our trip to Znamensk, we motored on that same afternoon to a lock on the Mazurski Canal (aka Masurian Canal), a German project implemented in 1911. The plan was for the canal to connect Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) with Lake Mauersee (aka Lake Mamry), but the project faltered and eventually failed due to Germany’s hyperinflation.

Travelling from Znamensk, we were to pick up the trail of the Mazurski Canal at the Ozerki Lock. There are no major roads servicing this region, thus the trip by car from Znamensk is seemingly protracted but on the way you get to appreciate views of woodland, open countryside and original East Prussian dwellings, some of which are delusively quaint for the sightseer, or, where standing empty and derelict, curious objects on which to dream and speculate. These are the homes of those who enjoyed, or did not, the day-to-day realities of an agrarian lifestyle and do, or do not, enjoy it today.

Ozerki Lock Masurian Canal

Popular theory has it that first impressions are often wrong and in the case of Ozerki Lock, they are often wrong and right. Yes, Ozerki Lock is a great slab of concrete, this is the first impression, but as with most first impressions, there is more to the subject than meets the eye.

Like a lot of things German, especially leading up to and during the Second World War, Ozerki takes you unawares, sitting there, as it does, on a 90-degree sharp bend, camouflaged to a certain degree (Them Germans were good and are good camouflagers.) by the outer reaches of a ragged coppice. But the real drama is concealed inside, waiting patiently to ambush your senses blitzkrieg style. It’s all so very German, isn’t it!

Pulling off the road, we came to a halt on a dirt track widened on the nearest side to the lock by constant use as a makeshift carpark. Although the number of vehicles in our retinue had diminished since we left Znamensk, some drivers having decided that it was time to head back home, the improvised carpark was yet insufficient to take all of the remaining retro club cars, thus those that could not be accommodated dutifully regrouped on the outside curve of the bend.

A metal staircase with an open rail, similar to those in England that climb the sides of control towers on disused WWII bomber bases, was the means by which we would ascend to the upper level of the lock’s superstructure

I am not very good when it comes to guessing heights, but I would say that we were about twenty-five feet above ground level when the old metal staircase on which we were climbing turned at an angle of 90 degrees. No great height, admittedly, but the unexpected discovery that age and rust had done for the handrail had quite an unnerving effect. It actually signalled what was to come, but nothing of a preparatory nature was in and of itself sufficient to subtract from first-hand experience.

The initial encounter is, to coin a phrase, breathtaking. There are no handrails, no safety rails of any type; nothing to stabilise or assist yourself with. You are standing upon a ledge little more than six feet in width, staring across the cut to its opposite half, a sheer and brutal-walled descent into a dark abyss of semi-stagnation. You follow this man-made ravine, drawn to what appears to be a solid wall of water at the farthermost end of the lock. It is nothing of the sort, of course, simply an illusion, created and perpetuated by a constant flow of water escaping at a uniform rate over the top of the lock gate. Nevertheless, the spectacle makes you pause, and then you are falling, visually down, carried by the sheet of water into the yawning gulf below ~ a precipitous man-made canyon entombed in reinforced concrete.

Ozerki Lock Masurian Canal Kaliningrad region

Hailing from Northamptonshire in England, to be a stranger to waterway locks would be more difficult than impossible. Along the river Nene and Grand Union Canal, many fine examples are to be found, some in fact quite deep, but nothing that comes nearly as close to the overpowering awesomeness of this giant concrete sandwich.

Ozerki Lock Masurian Canal

Far be it for me to confess that I shrunk from my response and instinctively made my way towards one of two small rooms that flank the structure at its roadside end. But had I gone in search of solace, I would not find it there, for not only was the chamber skeletised ~ it had no doors, no roof, its windows had no frames nor glass ~ it was in short as open to the world as any object could be ~ but also and often at floor level deep declivitous shafts, waterlogged some several metres below so that they borrowed in appearance from a staggered series of man-made wells, presented themselves as cunning traps intended to compromise life and limb. The feeling, or rather the inclination, that this combination of heights and pits engender, is an interesting voyage of self-discovery that is not to be fostered or encouraged.

A second doorway, second to the one through which I suspect I had passed in haste, also had no wood to close. It looked out high above the road, giving access to a narrow walkway, some of which was shattered, connecting either side of the lock to the other. It formed a bridge, a precarious one, between the two opposite chambers.

Ozerki Lock Masurian Canal open to the elements

As myself and my male associate hesitated, contemplating the daunting prospect of crossing the narrow divide, the ladies in our company took the initiative for us and verily showed us up, as altogether in one mind and without a second thought, even pausing at the midway point to pose for several selfies, they traversed what we had not and eventually decided would not.

“Huh, anyone can do that!” I thought.

Back on terra firma (about two seconds after “Anyone can do that!”), I decided to walk in line with the lock and approach it again at the opposite end via an earthen bank. This I succeeded in doing with no incredible effort, arriving at the end of my circumventing labours once again at the top of the lock but overlooking the gate.

The vertical view at this point is altogether astonishing, invoking a sense of sublimity in the purest sense of the term.

A momentary distraction

A beautiful young lady with her midriff all on show, whom and at which I was looking purely because she and it offered some respite from the effect of staring giddily down into the swirling depths, had a large boyfriend with her, so I quickly looked away. But then, quite unexpectedly, it was he who became the object of my fascination, and for reasons understandable; for caring not a fig, even if he should have done (does anybody care a fig?) he strutted across to the other side of the ramparts and, without a care in the world, or care to remain within the world, judging by his temerity, proceeded to descend inside the bowels of the concrete monster via a series of cylindrical rungs embedded in its wall. Meanwhile, the voluptuous Miss Midriff, teetering on the edge of the platform arm in arm with her own excitement, leant out at a remarkable angle and snapped some photos of her man, who had decided to take his fate in one hand and also on one leg.

This ‘cast all caution to the wind and laugh in the face of danger’ stunt is one that I can readily associate with my English friends, the Wilcox family, who, in all the long years that I have known them, have never been backwards in coming forwards when Challenge throws down its gauntlet, no matter how dangerous that challenge may be or simply because it is dangerous.

I returned to the car and drank tea.

When we were all safely back inside the car, not talking about who had been brave and who hadn’t, it was time to motor off to a nearby glade opposite a dwelling place. Unbeknown to me, arrangements had been made to stop here for refreshments.

The occupants of the aforementioned house showed us to a picnic table at the side of the canal, whose footpath they had cleared. Here we were able to park our arses and partake of the picnics we had brought with us. Some people, those who had not signed a secret treaty many years ago with the Vegetarian Society, were occasioned with meat soup from a sizeable cauldron, so expertly slotted into a motor-vehicle hub mounted on a metal pole that customisation could not be ruled out.

The spot was perfect, but for the absence of a public lav? It was a long way to the bushes and without a rope and a course in abseiling, it would have been indecent, but rejoicing came in two flavours: one, that the owners of the nearby abode possessed a privy we were welcome to use, and two, it was outside.

What a thrill! Talk about reliving my childhood! Our family had, and had a reputation for having, the last outside loo in our village. It became so phenomenally unusual by virtue of its archaism and also so utterly embarrassing for reasons of the same that I cannot imagine what life would have been like without it: more difficult certainly, yet not so amusing. It furnished us with many a joke and anecdote and became so embedded in family folk lore and legend that it and it alone was enough to turn us one and all into after-dinner raconteurs.

It is difficult to explain such an honest affection honestly to someone with an outside loo without sounding condescending and raising the hackles of suspicion, but as in Monopoly I took a chance, and the people to whom the loo belonged took it in good part. It was far less controversial than the passionate urge to sing, on seeing Olga’s photograph, “Oh dear what can the matter be, xxx lady stuck in the lavatory.” Best not, ay! Discretion, as they say, is the better part of valour! I was heavily into discretion today.

From Ozerki lock to outside privies in one fell swoop, there’s an epic digression for you!

Ah hem: Getting back on subject, the Ozerki Lock. If I had been expecting somewhere National Trust protected, the lock renovated, enclosed within its own neat grounds, with a ticket office up front, a carpark in the near beyond and the whole outlay serviced by cafes and souvenir shops then, like they say of the teddy bears’ picnic, I would have been in for a big surprise. Seeing it as it is and exploring it in the raw, so to speak, and doing it all for free, has obvious advantages, but I would not be at all surprised if my fertile imagination does not one day give birth to fact and the vision that I have outlined is not a reflection of Ozerki’s future.

“Ozerki Lock! Tickets, please! And mind the steps as you go!”