Mick Hart in Polessk - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

And you can’t argue with that, can you!

18 June 2026 – Polessk in Winter is Rather More Than a Frosty Atmosphere

Do you know there’s a rather rude English expression that goes, ‘I don’t want to piss on your fireworks’, wryly meaning ‘I don’t want to spoil it for you’, which, being a gentleman, I would never use, particularly as the opening line for a blog post, in the same way that I would never say, in the first month of summer, that in ‘less than six months’ time it will be Christmas’; for who, after a long, drawn-out, bitterly cold and exhausting winter, such as the one Nature treated us to in Kaliningrad this year, would want to be reminded at this escapist juncture of the unravelling seasons of the cold, ice and snow, from which it seems we have only just emerged, when we are yearning, body, mind and soul, for sun, warmth and pretty women wearing summer dresses?

You might well consider it perverse, therefore, that in the midst of my understanding almost all I profess to understand, I go ahead willy-nilly in the contradictory manner of a British politician doing exactly the opposite of what he promised before he was elected, but, as it is with politicians, memory rarely recognises the virtue of fidelity, so that being unfaithful to one season whilst embracing quite another suggests an equal portion of love for those devoutly courted in the past and for those with whom contentment brightens life at present, permitting you to pick and choose as and when and how you choose with self-proclaimed impunity.

Thus it is, without further, if any, considered apology, unless to make allowances for the damp condition in which you find your fireworks, that a perverse pleasure falls to me to introduce to you an unseasonal series of photographs that recollect a winter’s day in and around Polessk, a Kaliningrad regional town, which, long ago in German times, was known by the name of Labiau, with one or two appended photos taken somewhere else but on that same petrified day and not so dreadfully far away as to make my inclusion of them beyond the remit of my title.

Polessk and thereabouts

On the Polessk Canal Road to Matrosovo
WWI/WWII German Gun Emplacement Polessk Kaliningrad
Restoring the Polessk Brewery in the Kaliningrad Region
The Natural Beauty of the Baltic Coast Kaliningrad
Support the Restoration of Zalivinio Lighthouse Kaliningrad

Polessk in Winter

Polessk, ice-bound river and canal (4 March 2026)

Polessk is situated at the confluence of the Deyma River, which branches off from the Pregolya River, and the Polessk Canal (pre-Soviet, the Grosser Friedrichsgraben). When winter temperatures plummet, sections of both waterways can morph into super-thick ice plateaux, allowing the intrepid, the experienced, and those who are determined whatever the climatic conditions to dangle their rods in the water, to stroll across it nonchalantly as if the doing of the action were the natural consequence of a rash desire. Our camera spies a local chap sauntering back to terrafirma over the ice-bound waters, where his comrades have been perched for hours in pursuit of a fisherman’s tale.

Russian gent in a brown coat walking on the frozen surface of the Deyma River carrying two bags.

Russian chap ice-fishing seated on the intersection between the Deyma River and Polessk Canal witha row of colourful boat houses along the shore in the background.

Frozen Deyma River in Polessk, Russia, with tire tracks on the ice, reeds along the banks, clear blue sky, distant people sitting on the ice far ahead.

Eagle Bridge

The following view is a glimpse of the historic Eagle Bridge, which spans the Deyma River on the edge of Polessk. Built in German times, between 1919 and 1922, when Polessk was Labiau, its landmark construction, immediately recognisable from its twin operating towers, accommodates a restored ancient mechanism which hoists the bridge in two to permit the transit of river traffic. Down-to-earth blog readers will from my brief description most likely, and correctly, visualise a drawbridge, whilst bods with technical minds are liable to protest, ‘The term that he is searching for is a double-leaf bascule bridge. Don’t you just love an engineer!

Here’s me, standing on Eagle Bridge. I’m glad I invested in that thermal-lined coat – and pants!

Curonian Lagoon, Frozen

This ice-bound scene is not in and of itself Polessk but, recorded on the same day when the other views were photographed, it captures the fate of the Curonian Lagoon in its transformation to a frozen expanse, as seen from the coastline of the former German fishing village Labagienen, renamed Haffwinkel in 1938 and renamed again Zalivino by the Soviets after World War Two. Look carefully at the photograph: those little human specks lurking in the distance are by virtue of their courage akin to something like ice warriors, or you might presume just nuts. Observed in the twilight hours, with a low of minus 30 degrees nipping at your nose and with your eyes misting over, an eerily atmospheric sense replaces objectivity, inducing me to half expect a figure ominous in proportion skimming past on a dog-pulled sled followed in frenzied pursuit by Baron Frankenstein. Does it affect you this way, too? No, I didn’t think it would.

Olga Hart in a red hat stands on large rocks along a snow-covered and frozen Curonian Lagoon at sunset.

Is it Batman? No, It’s Olga Hart standing on a bolder in the frozen Curonian Lagoon silhouetted against a huge surreal twilight sun.

On your bike! It’s the Phantom Cyclist!

Stone the crows! I’m not sure about them, but you’ve got to handlebars it to him, he certainly frightens me. As scarecrows go, he is a lot more original and effective than a plastic bag hanging on a stick. The only time you have to worry is when, on your own and in the dark, you hear the sound of the cycle wheel whirring close behind you. Er, let’s walk back via the other route; it’s been such a long while since we went that way…

Life-size scarecrow figure with a pale mask and red helmet, holding a bicycle wheel, standing in a yard by a metal fence in Zalivino, Russia.

The Ponart Brewery Beer Shop

Now, this is a very interesting place. It stands on the corner of a narrow, weaving road, hemmed in by old German apartment blocks, overlooking the combined waterways of the Deyma River and Polessk Canal (historical name, the Grosser Friedrichsgraben). A local distribution outlet for the historic Ponart beer brand, brewed again to traditional recipes at the restored Königsberg brewery complex, which was built in 1839 and converted in recent years into a multipurpose cultural centre of which Kaliningrad is rightly proud, this worthy Polessk trading post is a convenient stopping-off point for stocking up on vital goods before and after excursions.

Entrance to Polessk Ponart Beer shop. A black sign in white lettering above a glass display window and white door; tiled steps and metal railings.

Shop sign with large white stylised lettering on a black background above a glass door. The sign includes the word 'Ponarth' and a year '2015' on the left. It is the Polessk Ponart beer shop.

Corner store on a grey, three-storey building with a blue awning, along a brick sidewalk and quiet street. Two satellite dishes are mounted on the side of the building.

👉👉👉👉👉👉👉Ponart Brewery in the Strange Case of Creation

I imagine that this photograph is self-explanatory. Here am I inside the Ponart beer shop, situated at Zavodskaya Ulitsa, 1, Polessk, Kaliningrad Oblast, ordering one of their fine draft ales. Better than soup with a hot water bottle, it’s just the job after a two-hour stint of walking around in conditions that mimic those of the Arctic. Can you see my nuts?

Mick Hart in a black jacket and knit hat stands at a bar, holding a bottle of drink, his nuts in front of him; chalkboard menus glow in the background.

In the grounds of the Polessk Brewery, Kaliningrad, Russia

Published: 15 November 2021 ~ WWI/WWII German Gun Emplacement Polessk

In a post published on 8 November 2021, I wrote about the restoration of an old German brewery in the former German town of Labiau, now known as Polessk, located in the Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia.

Moreover >>>>>> Polessk in Winter is Rather More Than a Frosty Atmosphere

The grounds of the Polessk brewery back onto the Deyma River (German: ‘Deime’). Contained within those grounds, facing the river, sits the dramatic remains of a wartime German gun emplacement.

WWI/WWII German Gun Emplacement Polessk Russia — **Polessk WWI/WWII German Gun Emplacement Kaliningrad** **region**

This chunky, reinforced concrete, above-ground bunker or blockhouse, which ever description you prefer, is one of the few survivors of a battery of such emplacements, more than sixty in total, which formed an awesome line of defence along the Deyma River.

The emplacements date to the First World War but were recommissioned during the Second World War as part of the formidable East Prussian defence system constructed by the Germans in preparation for the Soviet invasion.

WWI/WWII German Gun Emplacement, Polessk, Kaliningrad

According to what I have been told, after Königsberg fell to the Soviets in April 1945, the concrete fortifications along the Deyma were systematically obliterated in order to ensure that should the tide of military fortune ever be reversed they could not be employed again.

Relatively speaking, the surviving emplacement is in sound condition. Although the back has been taken out, the living quarters and the gunnery room are virtually unscathed, and the inside still retains the reassuring feeling of immense solidity. Cramped, some might think horribly, the bunkers were not completely devoid of some semblance, albeit slight, of ‘home comfort’. The existence of a metal flue shows that at least provision had been made for a source of warmth and possibly the means by which to make a brew and heat up food. The reinforced metal door to the combat room has gone, but the giant iron hinges on which it used to pivot remain intact as do other metal fixtures.

The gunners’ view from the front of the emplacement, which now faces the reed bed on the edge of the Deyma River, is, in every sense of the word, a commanding one. In theory it should have offered the bunker’s occupants a strategic advantage against any attack launched from across the water but as history has proved on many occasions the notion of an impregnable defence system is purely that ~ a notion.

View from German Gun Emplacement Polessk — **View from the WWI/WWII German gun emplacement in the grounds of the restored German brewery in Polessk, Russia**

History board German Gun Emplacement Polessk Russia — **Plan of the wartime gun emplacement in Polessk, Kaliningrad region, Russia, including medals awarded for Soviet bravery during the East Prussian campaign**

History boards on and inside the emplacement detail its method of construction, describe its operational system and place its fortification principle in the wider military context of the WWII East Prussian campaign.

Mick Hart in Polessk, Kaliningrad — **Mick Hart next to the history board in the WWI/WWII gun emplacement in Polessk, Kaliningrad region, Russia**

So, when you visit Polessk Brewery stave off your irrepressible need to imbibe knowledge on beer production, and when brewing recommences your overpowering need to imbibe beer too, and take a few minutes or more to lap up the historic information and martial atmosphere redolent in and around this monumental defence post. It is an intriguing and poignant window upon German/Soviet military history.