Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 700 [2 February 2022]
Published: 2 February 2022 ~ Heard the one about Herd Immunity?
If I am not mistaken, and I often am, from what I can make out it seems as if it was announced on 31 January 2022 that the rule of restrictive access to bars, restaurants, museums etc, implemented under the auspices of the controversial QR Codes (Vaccination Passports to you in the UK) have been repealed in Kaliningrad1. If this is the case, what a relief.
Before coronavirus and QR codes, it was not unknown for me to frequent the city’s bars, enjoy a beer or several and appreciate the presence of fellow drinkers and pretty women, all of which if it did not make me feel at least 40 years younger would make me wish that I was. In latter days, however, as a mature self-isolator, I have forsaken the city’s bars and taken instead to sitting in the attic with a couple of bottles of beer and the cat.
Yesterday, my wife informed me that she heard me singing in the attic to the cat, substituting the words of Elton John, who was warbling away on YouTube, for more meaningful wowling ‘meows’. As my old friend Leonard would say, “Yes, it’s come to this, and wasn’t it a long way down?” Ahh well, the one consolation has been that at least the cat appreciates it. If he didn’t, I’m sure that he’d have told me.
The cat was also pleased to learn that in the UK the brown man with a bald head revealed today (1 February 2022), in more words than it takes to say U-turn, that the British government had changed its mind about sacking half the NHS for not wanting to be vaccinated. Is this a sign that common sense is prevailing, or should we keep glancing sideways for the suspected imminence of a ‘more deadly Covid variant’?
Now out of the attic, nursing a hangover and with a ginger cat wearing two earplugs, I am also rather pleased that I am in Kaliningrad today (1 Feb 2022) and not attempting to cross the border between Canada and the United States, where Canada’s plucky truckers have had to convene a freedom convoy to ram the message home that they, and many other freedom-loving Canadians, have no intention of caving in to conscripted vaccination.
Well done, Canada! And just when I was beginning to think that the national idiom, ‘The Mountie always gets his man’, had begun to mean something else!
Inspired by these reports, I wondered what the situation was in the new totalitarian state of Austria. Was it still threatening to tax people for not having the jab and was the resistance holding fast? I sat back with my self-isolator’s cup of coffee and flicked idly through today’s news, brought to me by the internet as we ousted the telly 21 years ago.
Well, now, what do we make of that? I asked myself, as I discover via the liberal-dominated media that all of a sudden Covid-19 has been ‘downgraded’ from a ‘socially critical disease’ and that Europe, like a feminist scorned, was ‘gradually opening up again’.
These admissions have not, however, prevented totalitarian Austria from following through with its threat to enshrine compulsory vaccination in law, an unworkable and quite frankly embarrassing gambit which the feudal state hopes to enforce by subjecting the country’s Great Unvaccinated to such stupendous fines that the only way to go presumably will be to resort to desperate acts. Time to get that dosh out of the Austrian banking system folks and into those socks under the bed!
However, bets are on that the Austrian government, which like Mr Trudeau in beleaguered Canada has underestimated the single mindedness of those who value freedom, already has in the pipeline a face-saving contingency plan, which, before the end of March ~ before the introductory phase for riot-igniting fines ~ will see a positive U-turn attempt to restore the country’s tarnished image as a democratic state. Of course, should another Covid variant pop conveniently out of the political woodwork, WHO knows what will happen?
Recent experience tells us that it would be sheer folly to allow ourselves to be lulled into a sense of false security! Indeed, those ‘gud ole boys’ at the WHO are already warning us that the situation remains unpredictable. Thus, WHO can rightly say if all this relaxation and semblance of normality is not just another example of the psychological warfare strategy of ‘soften them up to knock them back down’!
Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist. If I was, I would be naming that quarry somewhere in the Home Counties where some of my peers in England assert the United States staged the first moon landing. But I don’t mind telling you, and nobody else, that I am one of the few people who know exactly where it was filmed, because I have in my possession a photograph of the lunar landing which has a burger bar in the background which they forgot to airbrush out!
So, please send £10 via debit and/or credit card to Mick Hart at I am no conspiracy theorist {Iamnoconpiracytheorist.com} for your copy of the aforesaid photo.
In the meantime, Ginger cat, which song by Elton John would you like to hear next?
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 645 [9 December 2021]
Published: 8 December 2021 ~ Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants
Diary of a self-isolator is one of a series of posts and thoughts on self-isolating in Kaliningrad. Links to previous posts appear at the end of this post.
It’s amazing isn’t it! Just when you were gullible enough to think that zippety zoo zah, zippity ay, I have had my two vaccines everything’s going my way. You read articles and see videos that claim* that:
a. Vaccinated people can catch coronavirus just as easily as unvaccinated
b. Vaccinated people can spread coronavirus just as easily as unvaccinated
c. Vaccinated people can catch coronavirus, become seriously ill and die just as easily as unvaccinated
d. Your two jabs are not enough, and you need to have another … and another … and another …
{*Don’t believe everything you read, see on the telly and is printed on underpants’ labels}
And then, just when you’ve consoled yourself with the barely consoling thought, well, hey ho, it’s almost Christmas, along comes the WHO with a deadly new strain of coronavirus, and its off the ladder, down the snake and back to square one again.
I am not too dismayed by these revelations as I never left square one.
Sitting here in Kaliningrad, the only strain that I am feeling is the strain on my underpants. Perhaps, I should elaborate. Sorry madam, what was that? Yes, I spelt it right, strain.
The one downside of self-isolating that is rarely touched upon is the toll it takes on your underpants, by which I mean from all that sitting. The wear and tear on a self-isolator’s underpants are possibly something that the office of statistics has not yet got to grips with. The upside of self-isolating ~ and by default one of the positives of not having a QR code ~ is that with nowhere to go you will definitely save on shoe leather, but the downside, in your pants, is where does that leave them? “Ahh soles!” you might think to yourself, if you are prone to too much rambling (Don’t bother saying it! I’ll get to the point soon enough!), but pants are pretty low, without elastic, and in one’s clothing-monitoring kecking order they are bottom of the pile.
Thus, it never occurred to me, as most likely it has never occurred to you, that two years of social distancing had taken it out of my pants. My word, I thought, peering into my underpants, they are looking tired and shabby.
Nevertheless, I didn’t give it a second thought. Why should I? The logical thing to do was to go out and buy a new pair. But sometime later, whilst reading about the anti-vaccine passport riots in Canada and Australia, something alarm-like went off. It couldn’t have been the elastic twanging in my pants, as there was not enough spring left in them. No, it was something far more dire than that. It was the impromptu possibility that pants were now off-limits! That the introduction of QR codes had rendered them non-essential!
My mind began to race. I felt like I was on the start line of Santa Pod Raceway, the drag racing strip in England, where I used to drink and work (and in that order). You could almost see the skidmarks (Richard Skidmark, damn good actor, almost as good as Burt Shirtlifter.). The chilling possibility that QR codes had effectively rationed underpants was a blow below the belt; it was the thought process equivalent of a ‘bleach burnout‘. Ahh, and what about bleach!? Could you still get it? Surely, bleach, like bog rolls, is fairly essential stuff. And what about bog rolls? How essential are they?
How I laughed two years back at the maddening crowd of Brits who at the start of the so-called Pandemic rushed out mob handed to buy up the country’s bog roll reserves. The boot was on the other foot now. It was a silly place to put it, but I was in such a rush to find and recycle my old, used face masks that I had hung seven next to the toilet suspended by their straps before the thought occurred to me that since grub was deemed essential and toilet rolls and bleach were sold in every supermarket, access to this commodity could not be denied. All well and good, I thought, but where did that leave my underpants?
Taking underpants off (the essential list that is) just does not seem right. It’s unethical, not to mention unhygienic, but in these straitened days where essentials are defined by the right to bear a QR code, ease of access to underpants is no longer the civilised liberty that once was taken for granted.
Let us hypothesise that you are one of the QR codeless, and therefore unable to enter non-essential shops from which to buy your underpants. Would the answer to your dilemma be to entreat somebody else, someone in possession of a vaccination passport, to buy your pants on your behind, behalf? Appointing a pant-buying proxy would certainly get them off the hook, but, as with everything to do with this pandemic, and equating it to the state of my pants, there has to be and is an inevitable snag.
The crutch of the matter is that here, in Kaliningrad, the size ratio of men’s underwear is a trifle obscure. If you were given to conspiracy theories, you might easily infer that underpants have fallen foul of the misinformation/disinformation industry and that the mere mention of them would be enough for Facebook to redirect you to a place which purports to sell you the truth about the size of pants in Kaliningrad. This may not be such a bad thing, as the last time I bought a large pair they fitted me like Houdini’s straitjacket! I returned to the market where I had bought them, and no, I did not ask to exchange them ~ I now use them as a pocket handkerchief ~ but I did say, with unabashed pride to the lady from whom I had purchased them, “Nice pants, but they don’t fit. I need an extra-large pair”.
Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants
Between you and me and nobody else, I must confess that I was rather chuffed. I’d never bought a pair of XXL’s before, but somewhere between tearing back on the bus to try them on and getting home to do so, it occurred to me, quite sadly, that the reason why XXL pants are the only option in Kaliningrad is that all pants come from China ~ the one place in the world where smalls are what they say they are, small.
As the mystery of the extra-large underpants unravelled before my eyes, much to my chagrin, the ‘Made in China’ connection still did not explain how big burly Russian men manage to fit into such tiny pants. Had I just discovered the answer to the West’s rhetorical question: Why do Russians look so serious? If so, then my understandable disappointment at having debunked the myth that mine were a large pair was more than compensated for by my having stumbled upon the answer to a riddle as far reaching and out of sight as the Soch Less Monster question, “Do Scotsmen wear pants under their kilts?”
Alas, getting to the bottom of this one may forever elude us, as may the answer to the question how come more stockings and suspenders are sold in Scotland than there are females in the population? A statistical anomaly that may all change now that vaccination passports have been inflicted on the Scots (Well, you would vote old hatchet face in!)
The good news, proving the maxim that every pair of underpants has a silver lining, is that according to popular rumour, QR codes will not be extended to restrict access to public transport. Thank heavens for that. Imagine dusting off the old Soviet bike and rattling across the Königsberg cobbles on two flat tyres with the suspension gone in your underpants.
I imagine that bikes are not classed as essential items, and if they are not classed as essential items then without proud possession of a QR code you won’t be able to buy new tyres or buy yourself a bike to go with that saddle you bought last month.
But as my philosophising Indian friend is wont to say ~and say too often: “Every problem has a solution.”
Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants
I had already worked out that if socks had been declassified as essential items, I would still be able to buy them, if not on the black market, then from the roadside market. Babushkas make lovely thick, warm, colourful, woollen socks. I am not altogether sure that babushka-made woollen underpants would be quite that lovely, rather like wearing a British 1940s’ teapot cover, but needs must when the Devil drives. “Hello, could you put through me to the Scottish Import Department, please.”
What else might be deemed non-essential in the new QR code age? I looked out of the window and noticed that our neighbour had been thinking along the same lines. He had a spare bog standing in the garden, just in case. He had also leant a long plank outside his house to enable his cat to climb up to the first floor flat where he lived. He had cut down the silver birch tree that the cat used to climb up, presumably because he knew something that we didn’t, possibly some obscure Covid-restriction connection between QR codes, cats, trees, planks and toilets in gardens.
Not 100% convinced that QR codes would not appear on transport, I put on my mask and went to the home of a used-car dealer who wanted to talk sales. On the way there I saw my neighbour sitting on a box in his front garden. He had not been able to get into his house for a week as he had lost his key, and, as you know, keys are non-essential items.
It was raining hard, and my neighbour’s arm was sticking up into the air. Normally, it would have had an umbrella on the end of it, but as my neighbour had no QR code, and as umbrellas are non-essential, he could not get into the shop to buy one, which serves him jolly well right! The last thing that you would want a conspiracy theorist to have is an umbrella!
At the used-car salesman’s place, after a glass or two of home-made vodka ~ Ha, who needs shops! ~ I became the proud owner of my first Russian car. It was a snip at twice the price I paid for what it is really worth. It has an irrefutable pedigree: One getaway driver, 2000km on the clock (which the seller told me he would let me have after he had finished working on it), a full tank of whatever it is, six months MOT valid until April 1967 and a tin opener.
I cannot wait to drink with him again. He is also selling a helicopter.
On my way back home, wondering why I had waited so long to pay twice as much for a car that any sane person would not have bought in the first place, at least not for that price, a thought crept into my head from the gaps around my face mask. It was that the coronavirus age had probably spawned a lot of bored people with nothing better to do than sit at home and count their bog rolls, as well as homespun philosophers like me, modern-day Kants, who sit around in attics writing at large and in-depth on underpants.
One thing I know for certain is that my wife’s belief that prickless people will be made to wear a yellow star to enforce their segregation is not worth the material that my underpants are lacking.
On the contrary, the unrepentant vaccine eluder will be instantly conspicuous from the serve-him-right effects of his inadmissibility. With his long hair, worn out jeans, brightly coloured babushka socks, his bikeless saddle thrust sadly between his legs and more holes in his underpants than Jodrell Banking arsetrologers could hope to see in a lifetime of peeping up their telescopes, should the unvaccinated leper still fail to catch your eye, then you really should consider taking that trip to Specsavers. A word to the wise, however, don’t forget to show them your vaccination passport or they might pretend that they cannot see you through the spectacles you are wearing.
“I wouldn’t be seen dead in a pair of underpants like those!” ~ shouted a man who had just been vaccinated. Tut, if only he’d bought the XXLs.
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 579 [14 October 2021]
Published: 14 October 2021 ~ A new QR code era in Kaliningrad
ON THE 9th OF OCTOBER, the day after the QR code restrictions hit Kaliningrad, Olga and I walked through the atmospheric autumnal streets of Königsberg and then whizzed off by bus across the other side of town on an errand.
Having alighted from public transport, we decided to stop for a coffee. If we had attempted to enter a café, restaurant or bar today, we would have had to produce a QR code, but because we were buying refreshments from a pavement kiosk, we were, at least for the moment, QR exempt.
Subliminally, the advertising gimmick had worked. I saw a giant cup and a cup of coffee I wanted.
As I waited for my brew, I could not resist contemplating what it must be like to go to work each day not in an office, school, fire station, police station, on a building site or in a city bar but inside a giant coffee cup ~ and an orange one at that!
Through the little glass windowed serving hatch it did not look as if there was an awful lot of room inside the cup, and I began to imagine some of the more expansive people whom I knew in the UK working there. I concluded that they would not be so much inside the cup as wearing it.
Joss, my brother, could live in it. I could see the place slowly converting before my eyes. It had a television arial on top, a satellite dish on the side and protruding from the roof a long metal chimney that was smoking like a volcano. Outside, there was a crate of empty beer bottles and a pair of old pants and socks, both with holes in them, hanging on a homemade line strung across the front of the cup, looking like last month’s tea towels.
If this coffee cup was for sale in London, it would be described by London estate agents as ‘a most desirable property’, well-appointed and almost offering commanding views over the road to the bus stop. You certainly would not get much change out of a million quid for it. Five miles outside of Dover, with a 5-star sign above it, the cup would be housing a boat load of migrants. Why Nigel Farage is gazing at it from a hilltop through his binoculars the British government will never know ~ and don’t want to! But this is hardly surprising, as Nigel has a reputation for waking up first and smelling the coffee!
With no one any the wiser as to whether we had a QR code, a bar code, a one-time code, a code that needed verifying or a code that was Top Secret, we took full advantage of our incognitoism by finding a spot in the autumnal sun in which to savour our brew.
Giant pavement-side coffee cups, even bright orange ones, do not as a rule run to tables outside, but just at the back of this one there happened to be an old, long, green Soviet bench, where one could drink one’s coffee whilst ruminating upon the good old days when the proletariat sitting here would have been comfortably unaware that the USSR when it folded would eventually be replaced with coronavirus QR codes. This long and sturdy bench also facilitated my admiration of the pretty and well-stocked flower bed and enabled me to keep an eye on the plums.
Plums! What plums? Whose plums were they? And how had these plums got there? They weren’t aloft growing on a tree these plums but scattered upon the ground. Someone, I conjectured, must have sworn bitterly, perhaps a bit stronger than blaher moohar, when the bottom of the bag that they had been carrying split, plummeting plums all over the paving slabs.
The who and the why of the plums, whilst inspiring at first, soon gave way to the far more exciting realisation that by observing people’s reactions to the plums, I could play the psychoanalyst and categorise them according to plum personalities. Of course, the way they approached and dealt with the plums would not help me to determine whether or not they were in full possession of their QR codes, were evading pricks or considering vaccination at any moment, possibly when they least expected it, but when all was said and done the experiment would be an interesting one, and, besides, I had a cup of coffee to drink.
Twenty sips or so into my coffee and a substantial cohort of pedestrians later, and I had been able to determine that there are basically four types of plum approachers.
1. Those that spotted the plums and walked around them, giving them a particularly wide berth. Any wider and they would have needed a visa, not to mention a coronavirus test or six, as they inadvertently crossed the Polish border.
2. Those who spotted the plums but carried on walking anyway, chatting casually to their companions as though they were no strangers to plums in public places, yet who picked their way through them gingerly as they would a minefield on their way to buying a Sunday newspaper.
3. Next came the sort of people that you would not want to walk across a minefield with, since, seemingly oblivious to their feet and where they were putting them, they inevitably stepped on one or two plums, immediately looking down in alarm at the squish beneath their shoes, no doubt fearing that the lack of fines for Fido’s indifferent owners had landed them in it yet again.
4. Finally, it was the turn of “I’ll give them plums on pavements!” This category was mostly comprised of manly men; you know the sort, either their arms don’t fit or they have gone and grown a beard, not knowing why they have done it and because, quite obviously, it certainly does not suit them, it was the last thing on Earth, next to deliberately stepping on plums, that they should have gone and done to themselves, unless it really was their intention to make themselves look like a bit of a dick.
This category saw the plums but chose to pay no heed to them. They juggernauted along as if plums grew on trees and these boots were made for walking. Unbeknown to them, however, plums can be slippery customers and more than once were the over-confident nearly sent arse overhead. They would step, squash, slip a little, look around really embarrassed, hoping no one had seen them, and then hurry on their way, leaving behind the priceless memory of a bright red face burning like a forest fire in a beard to which they were both ill suited, as well as a boot-imprinted trail of squishy-squashy plum juice.
So, what I had learnt from all this plum gazing? Not a lot. It had been a different way of occupying one’s mind whilst drinking a cup of coffee, although it had made me wish that I was 14 years’ old again, so that I could shout, “Watch out for the plums!” or simply “Plums!” But you can’t go around doing silly things like that when you are (ha! ha!) a ‘mature person’, especially not when you are in somebody else’s country. I bet Adolf Hitler never shouted “Plums!” when he was cruising about the streets of Paris. Boat migrants to England certainly don’t. They just shout, “Take me to your 5-star hotel and give me benefits!” And liberals, who always find something to shout about, would, on seeing the black shiny plums in their path, have been unable to resist the wokeness of going down on one knee whilst crying, “My white knees are in trousers, please forgive me, I am too privileged”.
Young boy: They ain’t plums! Me: I know. But I just wanted to show that in Kaliningrad at this time of year there are also a lot of horse-chestnut tree … Young boy: You put those there because you ain’t got any pictures of plums … Me: Why you cheeky little f …
I finished my coffee, wished the entertaining plums good day, and off we went to complete our errand.
On the way, on this second day of QR codes, giant cups and plums (plums, no less, my friends, which had fallen by the wayside), we overheard a lady at a bus stop complaining loudly to anyone who had a mind (or not) to listen.
It was quite evident by her excited, ruffled and animated manner that she had recently undergone a most traumatic experience. Apparently, she had ventured into a small café to buy some jam and was horrified to discover that not only were most of the people inside the shop not wearing masks but, as far as she could ascertain, none had been asked for their QR codes. “I shall report them! I shall report them!” she wailed, shouting so loud that had her mask been properly in place, which it wasn’t, it would have fallen from her nose, like plums from a wet paper bag, to end up uselessly wrapped around her chin. It was fortunate, therefore, that such a calamity could not occur, as that is where her mask was anyway ~ swaddled around her chin protecting it from coronavirus.
On completion of our errand (there has to be some mystery in this post somewhere!), whilst sitting on the bus with my mask strapped to my elbow, I drifted into contemplation of the feasibility of QR codes extended to encumber access to the city’s supermarkets.
I wondered: “Does it mean that if you do not want to get vaccinated you will have to buy your own shop?” And: “What is the going rate for one of those giant coffee cups?”
If it does happen, if they do impose QR code restrictions on shops, I can see some astute entrepreneur, some Russian equivalent to Del Boy, quickly cashing in on the act. It is not difficult to imagine a fleet of shops on wheels whipping about the city from one estate to another, selling everything from buckwheat to outsize, wooly, babushka-made socks.
Alternatively, we could convert our garage into a Cash & Cart-it Off. Our garage stands at the end of the garden, some distance from the road, but in these coronavirus-challenged times what once might have been regarded as a commercial disadvantage could potentially be transposed into a positive marketing ploy.
All that was needed would be to install large glass windows in the sides of the garage, stack shelves behind them full of sundry goods, position two telescopes on the side of the pavement, preferably coin operated so as to make a few extra kopeks and, Boris your uncle, Svetlana your aunt, you’re in business!
Potential buyers viewing our wares through the telescopes provided could place their orders by Arsebook messenger. On receipt of their orders we would select the goods, load them on the conveyor belt and ship them from store to roadside before you could say, who’s making millions out of the sales of coronavirus masks? What could be better than that? Accessible shops, you say?
Come to think of it, there are probably not a lot more inconvenient places than shops where QR codes could be implemented, except, of course, for public lavs.
Imagine getting jammed in the bog turnstile unable to get your mobile phone from your pocket to display your QR code whilst the call of Nature grows ever more shrill!
This situation, difficult though not insurmountable, would stretch both the imagination and the resources of even the brightest entrepreneur, who would be faced with the daunting prospect of rigging up some curious contraption or other, consisting of a series of pipes, funnels and retractable poes on sticks.
On a less grand but no less adventurous scale, my wife has suggested that we plough up the lawn at our dacha and use it for growing potatoes, which is not such a bad idea, as it would mean no longer having to mow the lawn. But would it mean that we would have to get a statutory dog that never stops barking as a deterrent to potato thieves and to ensure that our neighbours are completely deprived of peace? “What is the use of having a dog that don’t bark? An intelligent lady once said to us. Answer: about as much use as one that never stops barking! Or about as much use as a dog owner who allows its dog to incessantly bark.
Whilst a constant supply of beer and vodka would not be a problem as we could always convert our Soviet garage back to what it was obviously used for when it was first constructed, alas ploughed up lawns will not grow washing sponges or cultivate tins of baked beans. And the last thing that I would want, even if my potato patch was the best thing since Hungary stood up to bullying EU bureaucrats, was to own something so useless that all it does is shite on pavements and bark as if a potato thief has thrust a firework up its arse before leaving the garden with a sack on his back.
Of course, all things considered, it would be far easier and, perhaps, far wiser, certainly less embarrassing, just to go and get vaccinated. But if you do that, will you be tempted to go out every night to the city’s bars and restaurants, just to say that you can? And if so, can you or any of us for that matter, be 100% sure that, even after vaccination and thirty years of boosters, whichever vaccine it is and from wherever the vaccine comes from, will we, the little ordinary people, be guaranteed at some point, preferably sooner than later, a return to the life that we had before? Er, or any life, for that matter. >>‘This statement is false!!!! (See G Soros’ Fact Checker). You will now be redirected to the neoliberal globalist version, which is as honest as philanthropy and almost twice as honest as the EU parliament ~ which is not exactly difficult (Source: An Open Borders Publication}’<<
Plough a straight furrow or walk a taut tightrope, whichever path you choose to take, do ‘Watch out for those plums!’
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 576 [11 October 2021]
8 October 2021, QR codes are officially introduced in Kaliningrad and across the Kaliningrad region. What are they? Think Vaccination Passports in the UK and you are on the right track.
Published: 11 October 2021 ~ QR Codes Enforced in Kaliningrad
Since the 8th October 2021, it has no longer been possible in Kaliningrad to access restaurants, cafes, bars, canteens, buffets, snack bars and similar establishments, without flashing your QR code. From 1st November the QR code restriction will be extended to cover swimming pools and fitness centres, cinemas and cultural institutions such as theatres, philharmonic societies and concert halls1.
How all this works exactly, with regard to official documentation delivery and locating your personal QR code is explained in this article1.
How do you get a QR code? You’ve guessed it, vaccination! Once you have completed a full vaccination course you will then have access to your QR code
Mandatory vaccinations for certain categories of workers have also been extended2.
Here are some statistics about coronavirus in the Kaliningrad region2:
“Since the beginning of October, the Kaliningrad region has broken several records for the daily increase in coronavirus cases. Every day, more than 250 people fall ill in the region. In September, mortality from infection increased by 20%.”
And here are some more:
“As of early October, more than 330,000 people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus in the region. About 311 thousand people underwent a full course of vaccination. According to Rospotrebnadzor, these indicators are insufficient to combat the spread of infection.”
QR Codes Enforced in Kaliningrad
Rumour also has it3 that somewhere along the line QR codes might be needed for visiting shopping centres. Just in case, I have stocked up the larder with seven tins of baked beans and 356 bottles of beer. Will it be bog rolls next?
Growing old is an occupational hazard of being born, but by staying young forever you can avoid untested vaccines and serious complications from catching Covid-19.
Just when I was absolutely certain that I would soon be certain about changing the name of this series of diary posts from ‘self-isolating’ to something more applicable to the lifestyle I am leading, like what?, along came the Delta variant, the call for bars and restaurants that do not have outside seating areas to close, renewed attention to maskee wearing and a rallying cry for mass vaccination, which has as its masthead the controversial word ‘mandatory’. Thank heavens for that, I thought: self-isolating it is and thus it will remain.
An inveterate worrier, and a professional at that, who is more worried about not having something to worry about than worrying about something, lately I have done a lot of introspective soul-searching as to why coronavirus has not bothered me as much as it should, and in the process have asked myself the questions: Is it because I have adopted a reckless and cavalier attitude? Have I been turned by the myriad conspiracy theories? Or have I just dropped out of the panic circle by living one day at a time and by allowing the news that I can be bothered to read to simply wash over me?
Not much news is good news and no news even better, but if you have ever tried avoiding mainstream media, along with the gabbling gibberish of social media, you will inevitably have discovered that it is not that easy. There always seems to be some well-meaning soul on hand to replace the valve in the radio that self-preservation removed.
Dropping out is a great feeling, truly emancipating, and what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve about, but bad news like coronavirus itself has an aerosol effect (at least, I think that is the right word for it), and when I turned on and tuned in I discovered that in the UK Matt Hancock had left his post, disgraced but lustfully happy, that the man who had replaced him, Mr Sajid Javid, the brown man with a bald head, was calling for ‘F’ Day and that western media was adopting an ‘I told you so’ attitude to Russia’s latest Covid predicament, eagerly using words like ‘forced to play catchup’ and ‘caught on the back foot’ to describe Russia’s clamour to get as many people on the vaccination bandwagon and in the shortest time possible as the Delta variant stalks the land.
Our World in Data 1 states that 18.5 million people have been fully vaccinated in Russia, representing 12.8% of the population, compared to 48.2% fully vaccinated in the United States and 51.3% in the UK. So, perhaps the phrase catchup is not as undeserved as it first might appear.
From The Moscow Times2 I learn that the Delta variant is surging ~ now, where did I put that maskee? ~ that someone in Moscow has been detained on suspicion of selling fake coronavirus vaccine certificates and that Moscow’s first criminal case against someone has been opened for allegedly purchasing a counterfeit QR code, which could be used to grant the perpetrator access for indoor dining in Moscow’s restaurants. It is times like these that make me feel glad that I am a beans-on-toast man.
So, does this all mean, taking into account the ‘success story’ of the UK’s vaccination programme, that jumping onto a small boat and heading to the Sceptered Isle would be strategically fortuitous. After all, if I was to set off now I might arrive just in time to celebrate Britain’s big ‘F Day’.
And yet, there is no confusion like coronavirus. Google News UK throws up any number of articles claiming that the virus can be spread and caught even by those who have been fully vaccinated; that thousands of Brits are destined to catch coronavirus once restrictions are eased; that ‘breakthroughs’ are happening all the time (that’s not victims breaking out of lockdown but coronavirus infecting people who have had the vaccine); that Brits are being told to carry on social distancing and wearing masks even when they have had two jabs; that booster jabs will be needed … etc
The Mirror3 reports, for example, that the UK can expect 100,000 cases per day as restrictions are eased. Another Mirror4 article tells us to watch out for Long Covid, and identifies 14 symptoms that could be signs of Covid, from insomnia to earache. Looking down the Mirror’s list I thought, “Well, I’ll be buggered, it looks as though I may have had Long Covid since I was 14, or even before”.
Then there was this report from the BBC5 which informed me that due to escalating cases of Covid that the NHS Covid contact tracing app used in England and Wales must be made less sensitive to take account of the hundreds of thousands of new cases that will emerge after ‘F Day’, which, in case you are in any doubt, means Freedom day. I had to back-track through the news and read up on what exactly this app is and what it does. Apparently, it detects the distance between users and the length of time spent in close proximity, which is currently 2m or less and for more than 15 minutes. In doing so it seemed as if I had stumbled upon the latest chapter in How to make your life technologically unbearable and become neurotic in the process. But then, what would I know? I do not have a mobile phone.
On reflection, I do not think that I will travel to the UK after all, although given the inconvenience, costs of tests and what have you, if I was to go I would most likely go by small boat across the Channel, as thousands of illegal migrants can’t be wrong.
Stay young & avoid the vaccine
So, back to taking the vaccine, or not as the case may be.
It occurred to me that instead of taking any vaccine and exposing myself to any number of unknown, possibly critical and censored, adverse side-effects, I could try getting younger, as the incidence of coronavirus cases in the young is relatively low as is the risk of developing serious illness and dying from it.
But whilst the young may feel good about this now, unless they do as I am doing, which is getting younger, they too will eventually grow old, which is not advisable, given the depressing prediction that coronavirus may never go away. All of which points to the unsettling conclusion that growing old is becoming a far more risky business than it was and always has been.
After serious consideration, I think we could do worse than to take a leaf out of Charles Aznavour’s philosophical song book. Asked about ageing, the acclaimed singer/songwriter reputedly said, “There are some people who grow old and others [like me] who just add years.”
Published: 17 June 2021 ~ Vaccination Rollout is not Russian but World Roulette
My sister wrote to me today from England and at the close of her letter asked, and I quote, “Just to touch on the most current topic … How is the [vaccination] ‘roll-out’ going in Russia?”
The answer that immediately sprang to mind was, I don’t know.
Vaccination Rollout is not Russian but World Roulette
The reaction to and media coverage of coronavirus in the UK is world’s apart from its counterparts in Russia. Even making allowances for the fact that we do not have broadcast TV and that I rarely read the news on the internet, my wife is an inveterate Facebook twiddler so news filters through to me, whether I want it or not.
One thing is certain: There is less hysteria here in Russia, both in respect of media coverage and the reaction of the populace to coronavirus. True, my wife reads news clips on Facebook, but she is more concerned with the ambiguities, ambivalence, seeming double-talk, twists, U-turns and general, what might be scientifically referred to as, arse-about-face of it all than she is in who has had their first or their 55th jab, the proclamations of new strains and dire warnings of further mutations. She is diehard ‘anti-maskee’ and is always quoting, whenever I mention the vaccine, that never in the history of the world have governments embarked upon a global vaccination programme such as the one they have launched in the name of addressing Covid-19, which she finds suspicious, and she is more concerned with the impact that never-ending social distancing, lockdowns, isolation and general fearmongering is having on the psychological health and wellbeing of millions of people robbed of their need of personal and social interconnection, which in her philosophy is both the essence and hub of human existence.
It was she who sent me the following video link (after twenty-one years of marriage communicating by email is more popular than you might think!), telling me to listen to “what your favourite person [Katie Hopkins] has to say”: https://youtu.be/qQV1Ww9QGmU
It is not that my good lady wife disbelieves the existence of coronavirus or the potential of it pernicious effects, simply that she like many others questions the efficacy of the measures imposed upon us by ‘those in the know’ and like a lot of us is none too comfortable with the gold-rush mentality to be injected with something that has not been tested according to the usual standard protocols. In discussions on the subject, she likes to remind me that I was one of those who casually opined that come the vaccine come the silver bullet, whereas we now know ~ or rather are now told ~ that nothing much has changed and possibly will not change until 2023/24 and perhaps not even ever.
An article published by Elsevier1 supports my wife’s criticism of me, the commentary clearly stating that ‘Vaccines are not yet a silver bullet’. And yet, I quote from the same article [my emphasis], “In other words, to help societies avoid transmission vectors and start imagining the “new normal”, continued communication about the need for face masks, personal hygiene, and social distancing is of instrumental importance.”
As I understand it, however, in the UK the new normal is resulting in a great deal of new suffering ~ psychological, physical and emotional ~ by those whose livelihoods are threatened, whose businesses are going under and many more who, because of coronavirus prioritisation, are finding that they are unable to gain access to the vital healthcare that they need if they are to survive existing illnesses, regardless of whether they get coronavirus or not.
Whilst controversy over the fallout from coronavirus restriction rules is buzzing around on social media as if someone has kicked the hive, a large vacuous hole continues to exist both in media spaces and authoritative places. Without answers, there are only rules; and rules without answers are there to be questioned, challenged and even ignored.
Nevertheless, my sister’s comment about the ‘most current topic’ had left me feeling out of the loop, so I turned for the answer in the pages of The Moscow Times2. Well, why not, for a change!
Accessed on the 17 June 2021, under the headline Coronavirus in Russia: The Latest News | June 17, here is my update:
~ Russia has confirmed 5,264,047 cases of coronavirus and 127,992 deaths, according to the national coronavirus information center. Russia’s total excess fatality count since the start of the coronavirus pandemic is around 475,000.
~ Russia on Thursday confirmed 14,057 new coronavirus cases and 416 deaths. Of today’s cases, 6,195 are in Moscow.
~ Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Wednesday announced mandatory vaccination for service sector workers, saying the measure is necessary as the city grapples with 12,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients and levels of illness equal to last year’s peaks.
And there is more about closing bars and restaurants early and working from home.
But that is Moscow. What of Kaliningrad, where we live (I last checked about 12 weeks ago!). Here is today’s update3:
~ In the Kaliningrad region, 80 new cases of coronavirus were detected. The total number of infected reached 34 694.
~ 56 patients were diagnosed with ARVI, 15 with pneumonia. Nine more had no symptoms.
~ During the day in the region, 73 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 33,525 people have recovered, 538 have died.
So there you have it!
I think that the ‘most current topic’, as my sister refers to coronavirus and the issue of vaccination, is, like a lot of other things, evaluated in a markedly different way by the Russian population compared to the mindset in the West.
As usual, would-be pundits in the West are seemingly confused about why the take-up of the Covid-19 vaccine is not steaming along at full tilt as it is in countries like the USA and UK. I say, ‘as usual, because the inability of western Europeans to understand anything Russian, or to assume that they do not, is not a new phenomenon (understatement intended). Take a look at the screenprint (you may have to magnify the image) that I have included in this post, which returns from the Google search ‘vaccination in Russia’ [accessed 16 June 2021]:
In the circles in which we move in Kaliningrad, there is a lot to be said for my wife’s theory that people tend to judge the coronavirus situation, and personally react to it, depending on what is happening closest to them. In other words, each individual weighs up the pros and cons of the restrictions and vaccine-taking depending on how many people they know who have had a mild attack of the virus, a serious attack, how many people they know who have died as a direct result of contracting coronavirus and how many people they know who have not been infected at all, and then they act accordingly. In the UK, mass opinion is mobilised, and large swathes of people motivated, by what politicians tell them to do and by the national media’s complicity to bring about a desired result by whatever means it has and whatever it takes ~ and it does not take much.
On the wearing of masks, for example, here I have heard it said that most people who wear them, wear them to avoid a fine rather than give credence to the unproven science of their latent life-saving properties, which is possibly why most people wear them with their nose poking out or as under-chin accessories. In the UK, however, whilst some people wear masks for the same reason and in the same way, the majority of mask wearers wear them purely because they are told to do so. In the UK, compliance is king.
On the slow take-up of vaccination in Russia, as you can see from the following screen grab (you may need to magnify), which returns from the Google search ‘vaccination in Russia’ [accessed 16 June 2021], western media is more than happy to tie Russian vaccination reluctance to their efforts to discredit the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, which resulted from a fit of pique when Russia won the ‘vaccine race’.
My take on the low uptake from people I have asked is that no such specificity exists. It is not that the Russian people are crying out for western vaccines, just that they are more individualistic and selective in their approach to the whole question of vaccination safety and efficacy. I mean after the latest revelations about the AtsraZeneca vaccine4 …
Let’s face it folks, life is a roulette wheel. Whether the vaccine is running around inside you or not, until they finish those vaccine trials, which will not happen before 2023 or 2024 earliest, it is still a game of chance. So, fingers crossed.
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 394 [12 April 2021] And what has all this got to do with coronavirus and self-isolation?
Published: 12 April 2021 ~ Spring Brings People Out in Kaliningrad
With the temperature shooting up to a ‘very nice spring day’ 18 degrees, my wife, Olga, had no difficulty persuading me to walk to the central market with her, even though I had consumed four or five refreshing pints of vaccine the previous evening.
As we left the house for the cobbled streets of Königsberg, the birds were singing and, if the neighbours two houses away would only fit their dog with a silencer, we would possibly have heard them.
After a long, hard winter it was delicious to be able to walk down the quiet backstreets, stopping now and again to have a good old gawp, which you do as you get older, at the splendid German houses that line this particular route.
The last time I did something like this in the UK, an elderly lady appeared on the doorstep of her house and asked if we were ‘casing the joint’. My brother replied that we were admiring the architecture, that we only robbed places at night and was she at home this evening?
No such awkward questions were fired at us today, and all we had to contend with was blue snowdrops, lots of them, inside and outside of gardens looking extremely pretty.
Spring brings people out in Kaliningrad
Our route to the city market took us along the lakeside (pond side, if you are a Königsbergian purist). The sun, warmth and dry weather had brought the good citizens of Kaliningrad out in droves, and Olga, who is a staunch anti-mask wearer, was happy to observe that the majority of the populace had exchanged their ‘muzzles’ for happy smiles and the priceless humanity of unfettered facial expression.
Youth Park ~ the city’s amusement park ~ was in full swing, and the children’s play area on the bank of the lake was packed to the gills with happy cavorting children, the skateboarding and roller-blading enclosure was by no means idle and in the nearby exercise arena a man was obviously so grateful not to be in lockdown that it was all he could do not to stand on his head.
It’s good to be outside!!
Just as I had hoped, the good weather had also brought out the traders and selling public at the city’s flea market, a junk addicts paradise, which should it exist in boot fair-obsessed Britain, that is before the Covid curfews and restrictions, it would be absolutely mobbed.
Serviced by a parking lane that backs onto a stretch of pavement located just before the pedestrianised avenue that leads to the market proper, the pitches, stalls and blankets of this collectors’ cornucopia fan out across the hills and hollows beneath the trees of a long, broad bank, an erstwhile rampart that follows the line of the moat opposite one of Königsberg’s distinctive red-brick forts. This bank can be a muddy Somme when it rains but was thankfully dry today.
I stopped for a while to lust over the dug-up medals and badges that had once ennobled the members of Hitler’s Third Reich, but before I could commit myself to spending more cash than I should, Olga had steered me off, away from the trader community into the general public bargain zone, and before long was trying on a jacket suspended from a tree, urged on by a stout babushka keen to make a sale, whose many other clothing wares were spread across the ground on top of several covers.
The coat was either too small or too big, so this turned out to be a no-sale, but by the time we had traversed the length of the bank, running the gauntlet of the numerous sellers, where once we had no bags we now were carrying four.
Within these bags nestled two interesting bottles, both harking back to the days when this city was Königsberg: one bearing the city’s original name and the other purchased because of its unusual triangular shape and Bakelite top. As with many bottles produced at the turn of the twentieth century and, indeed, throughout the years leading to World War II, both of these bottles were attractively embossed with script, typically identifying either the contents, manufacturer and location of the business and very often all three.
Mick Hart with bottle ~ unusual in that it does not contain beer
As a former dealer in items of antiquity, my interest in these humble retail and household products had diminished over the years, simply because in the course of my work I handled so many of them, but my passion for these relics of social history had recently been rekindled when, emerging from a tour of Königsberg Cathedral, our host and friend Vladimir Chilikin introduced us to a purveyor of vintage bottles who was selling his wares on the bridge nearby. Life without junk is at least three things: impossible, unlivable and uncluttered. So, my wife, sympathetic to and an accomplice in my addiction, decided that she would treat me to a Königsberg souvenir, and now you can no longer say that I haven’t got the bottle.
On the subject of old and interesting, we had left home this morning not purely to stretch our legs but to collect a piece of vintage embroidery that someone was framing for us. Unfortunately, the framing shop was closed, but no matter, this simply meant that we would not have so much to carry as we made our way to Flame, our pre-Covid watering hole, situated in front of the lake.
Although the thought of a lunchtime aperitif, a liquid one, did cross my mind ~ junk and beer go so well together ~ I exercised restraint. One should be wise at my age (cough), and besides, when we returned home, I had the final pages of a dissertation to edit.
Spring brings people out in Kaliningrad
We had gone to Flame expecting to find that the outside seating had been reinstated, but it was obviously deemed too early in the year for this, so if we wanted to eat outside we would have to find a bench. We could have eaten inside, but distancing and the heartbreaking avoidance of restaurants and bars continues to be our enduring concession to coronavirus caution.
We found some unoccupied seating on the circular paved area that fronts the newly opened swimming pool and sauna, which is anchored off the side of the lake. It is a curious affair: a T-shaped, lightweight structure fitted with a central dome consisting of stretched fabric or vinyl over triangulated sections of tubular steel.
As Flame was as busy as it had been in the pre-coro era, our takeaway lunch would take 20 to 30 minutes to arrive, which was no hardship. Whilst waiting, we had two cups of excellent coffee and just chilled out, or should that be in today’s favourable temperatures warmed up?
Mick Hart & Olga Hart, Kaliningrad April 2021
The easy-listening jazz wafting from Flame’s external hi-fi speakers, complemented the meditative mood. Whenever I hear it, I am filled with wonder. Who is it who plugs Flame into the 1970s? I half expect Jim Rockford of 1970s’ Rockford Files fame to come strolling round the corner. Hi Jim!
It was a beautiful atmosphere on the lake front today. The droves had almost turned into a crowd, and everyone walked, talked and behaved as people do when spring first arrives. You can sense it ~ that one long collective sigh of relief: winter is rolling over at last.
We stayed put on our hospitable bench for a good forty minutes. Opposite, three girls were sketching and painting. Whenever I see people painting or drawing in Königsberg, I cannot help but see and feel the presence of Victor Ryabinin.
On walking back homeward we stopped in an area where the lakeside path expands to look and listen for a while to a couple of young musicians playing saxophones. The music they were playing captured and inspired the harmonics of the occasion in this favourite location of ours, on this soft, tranquil, kind and contemplative day.
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 365 [14 March 2021] Anniversary of self-isolating in Kaliningrad
Congratulations to who, exactly? To WHO? Today marks my first anniversary of self-imposed self-isolation ~ of sorts. Three hundred and sixty-five days of watching where I go and who is standing three hundred and sixty degrees front, sides and back of me. Have I passed the test? And, if so, for whom and for what? And what should my reward be? A diploma in philanthropic consideration for my fellow man (no sexism intended) or a degree with honours in credulous compliance. Let History be my judge! And, of course, be yours as well!
Quite frankly, apart from this milestone, there is not a great deal to report about coronavirus here in Kaliningrad, Russia, certainly not about lockdown as there isn’t one. Everything in Kaliningrad appears to be functioning as normal and the only concession that I can see to coronavirus is the mask-wearing thing. And even then, I have noticed that the percentage of people wearing muzzles, as my wife refers to them, has diminished in the past few weeks.
A mask-wearing enforcement policy continues to operate on public transport, as I witnessed a couple of days ago, when a thoroughly inebriated fellow, who had been celebrating International Women’s Day (no gender discrimination here in Russia!), refused to put on his mask whilst travelling by bus. The young bus conductor did his level best to prosecute the law thanklessly handed down to him, but vodka is a wily opponent and the recalcitrant drunk would eventually fall off at the stop of his choice, still maskless but no less gracious, for even in his triumph of the common man over authority he chose not to stick up an offensive finger but holding up two thumbs saluted International Women’s Day as the bus full of masks roared off.
Running out of kitchen cabinets in the UK
Whilst almost everybody that I have spoken to here in Russia are of one mind: they consider lockdown to be a step too far, I cannot help but feel that Western governments do not approve. Not that anybody here cares a fig about them, but it is a point of interest that whatever the West prescribes the presumption is that the world should follow, even if its example runs counter to the common good. But that is the way that global liberalism works: in their language it is ‘intervention’ but you naughty cynics might want to refer to it as globalist interference. In the UK, it is not enough to say, “We don’t do lockdown!” because you have no choice. And even were you to add, “because there is no real proof that lockdown really works, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it does more harm than good”, you still do lockdown because this, presumably, is the democratic way?
It is the epitome of irony that given the official mortality figures for coronavirus in the UK, lockdown has become, at least for liberals, not just a law but a religion ~ Woe betide anybody who questions its logic or the controversial efficacy of sticking a piece of cloth on your face.
Western authorities are sensitive to the fact that many of the methods chosen to combat coronavirus have no empirical evidence with which to back them up, which accounts for their pique when other countries try different approaches that are no less effective than their draconian measures and arguably equal or better.
Thus, we find in the world’s press recently an unsavoury little piece in which it is claimed that the coronavirus situation here in Kaliningrad is far in excess of what it is claimed to be.
The article to which I refer was published by a media enterprise which checks out on mediabiasfactcheck as ‘Left’:
“These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.”
This is the same media source which suppressed information about the coronavirus situation becoming so appalling in the UK that the Co-op was running short of coffins.
I can report that I have been in touch with one of my brothers, who is a carpenter and cabinet maker by trade, and he has verified this shortage. Apparently, a UK government department asked him to convert the fitted kitchens, which he has been making in his living room, into caskets. Lockdown prohibits him from using his workshop so he has to work from home, and anyway because of lockdown no one has jobs and cannot afford to buy kitchens. As he has not sold anything for 12 months, he is only too keen to comply, but I am yet to be convinced that a send-off in a converted kitchen cupboard made from MDF complete with plastic handles will ever catch on. No doubt we shall hear more in due course from the reliable leftist media source that I mention in this article. (I have withheld the name of the media outlet so as to protect the gullible.)
These are the coronavirus case figures for Kaliningrad, 14 March 2021, since the beginning of the pandemic*: 29,294 cases of coronavirus identified in the region 26,863 people have recovered 328 deaths.
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 272 [11 December 2020]
Published: 11 December 2020 ~ Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad is Nothing to Sneeze at
Psychological problems resulting not from contracting Covid-19 but from the social prohibitions orchestrated and, in some instances, enforced in the name of spread containment and personal safety appear to have affected some people more than it has others. Indeed, scientists and health professionals alike, not to mention conspiracy theorists, postulate that ‘extreme measures’ such as lockdown and diminished social interaction have had and are having serious adverse effects on the mental-emotional well-being of a large cohort of people who feel that they have better things to do than imprison themselves in their respective homes playing John Wankerson’s Clueless for the rest of their unnatural lives.
Speaking for myself, the restrictions, self-imposed by ‘informed guidelines’ and/or edict, have left me bamboozled (What’s that? You’ve never experience it? You don’t know what you are missing? Vote Labour and find out!), the puzzle being, am I really responding as I perceive I should be to the exigencies of the pandemic or, as time goes by (good song that!), have I allowed my guard to slip?
Yes, I know, here I go again, getting myself into a mucking fuddle about whether my coronavirus precaution corollary justifies me calling myself a bona fide self-isolator. I would like to think that the ambiguity is simply a matter of semantics ~ self-isolator, social-distancer, reluctant mask-wearer, anti-social misanthropist using coronavirus as an excuse to hermiticise myself, whatever ~ but the crux of the question is, are divergencies allowed? Does one have to be an either/or? Either self-isolating or not self-isolating? Or can one be self-isolating some of the time but not others? A sort of part-time self-isolator or one on day release?
However, as I have confessed in previous posts, my self-inflicted isolation falls somewhat short of perfect and, insofar as restricted social contact is concerned, I know of a number of people who are far holier than thy in their fastidious observation of the social distancing rule.
There are occasions when it is not impossible but is still difficult to swerve in the opposite direction to the norms and mores that bind us, where, just as it was in the pre-coronavirus age, we find ourselves obliged to proceed in a manner not entirely in keeping with our own convictions, and, at such times, are compelled, I am afraid to say, to throw caution to the wind.
Thus, it came to pass, a few weeks ago, that a strong gust in the form of a birthday celebration and the traditional expectations that such engenders, whipped my caution away like an unstuck toupée, and I found myself faced for the first time in umpteen Covid months with the arguably risky prospect of dining and drinking out.
Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad
The occasion was my wife’s mother’s 80th birthday. We had discussed with her how she wanted to celebrate this milestone in her life, and she had shown great favour in the suggestion of going to a restaurant. The idea was that three other friends of hers, roughly of the same age group, would join us, all of whom at the outset expressed an interest in doing so. However, come closer to the day, as news began to percolate of escalating Covid cases, one by one these friends dropped out.
Admittedly, their example made me think that perhaps it would be best if we followed suit and instead of the restaurant settle upon a quiet celebration at home, but my wife’s mother remained unphased. She still wanted us all ~ what there was left of us ~ to go to the restaurant, and so the restaurant it was.
My wife, Olga, had chosen the Hotel Tchaikovsky as the venue. Hotel dining rooms tend normally to be less populated than restaurants per se, so I could see the logic in this. Of course, going anywhere without first strapping on our muzzles would have been so 2019 don’t you think? And as I had not dined in a restaurant for quite some considerable time, I found myself wondering how exactly one would be able to eat one’s food with a mask slapped about one’s kisser?
As my wife’s mother is in her 80th year, walking, cycling or running to the restaurant were less obvious options than taking a taxi. I remember the time when travelling by taxi was looked upon as an innocent luxury as well as the best expedient, but in the coronavirus age taxis, as with every other mode of transport requiring third-party involvement, is where the risk-taking starts.
Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad
The Hotel Tchaikovsky is situated on a Königsberg street, which backs onto the city’s Zoo. It was a cold, wet and inhospitable evening, so my observations of the hotel’s exterior were minimalised by the need to get inside. There, it was light, charming and warm. Not only that, but there was something, whilst not exactly ‘decidedly’, vintage going on. In the hallway leading to the main reception, an impressive array of old suitcases had been stacked, two rows and several high, the uppermost cases garnished with clocks, and there was an upright parlour piano standing in the corridor. Vintage was going on at the same time as something almost antique, and also almost classical, as reflected in the reproduction 19th century furniture, impressive walnut servery and glass chandelier-style ceiling pendants.
Something vintage this way comes: the reception room at the Hotel Tchaikovsky in Kaliningrad, Russia
Even with the threat of coronavirus hanging over us like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, I was still able to take this in, whilst applying disinfectant to my mitts from one of those pump-action dispensers, which had been strategically placed on a small console table prior to the dining-room entrance.
The hotel dining room consisted of two rooms, which was handy Andy, as between each there was a pair of glazed French Window-style doors, which kept things bright and airy whilst enabling the hotel management to comply quite handsomely with coronavirus distancing rules.
The first room had one engaged table, a family gathering, the adult occupants of which glanced apprehensively at us as we strolled in, passing within millimetres of their social distancing space. But they need not have stressed themselves. Two waitresses in regulation mask attire were ushering us courteously but firmly and swiftly into the adjoining room, where there was nobody else but us.
Since every table was unoccupied, it made the task of choosing where to sit virtually impossible. Each and every location was appraised and, by the time we had settled for the seats in the window, I felt as if we had sat everywhere else simultaneously.
The window seats turned out to be the perfect coronavirus cubby hole. They were literally seats, together with a table, placed inside the special dimensions rendered possible by a rectangular bay window, and being given to private corners of this type, I would have chosen to have sat here even if coronavirus was not half the threat that we have been led to believe.
So, we sat down, Olga’s mother done up to the nines, sporting her best jewellery and looking far more relaxed than we could ever be, even though every other table was only almost occupied by us and nobody else. We had no beef and Yorkshire pudding with that; only Olga’s mum seemed disappointed that the rest of Kaliningrad was not in the same room. I do wish that she had not said as we entered the restaurant, “There’s not many people here. It can’t be that popular”. But if you cannot insult the hotel management on your 80th birthday, when can you?
It was about this time, as we were sat there, in the bay window, with only us and our reflections as company, that I heard the ghostly voice of my long dead auntie Ivy saying, “Hold hard, Michael!” (How I wished she could have used a different expression!), “What about the cutlery and glasses?” And she was right, we had not brought those antiseptic wipes with us for nothing! So, out they jolly well came, and yours truly set to with a vengeance wiping the wipes around the ends of the eating implements and around the rims of the glasses. That should do the trick! ~ none of us believed.
We were alone long enough for me to talk myself into the fallacy that I was still, technically, self-isolating, when a young waiter-me-lad appeared, wearing his mask in a Constructivist fashion. He took our order and scooted off to the kitchen. This was the real test, I thought: kitchen and kitchen staff coronavirus cleanliness.
It is quite frankly amazing how a couple of swift glasses of vino can transform melodrama into maladits (perfection!). By the time the waiter reappeared, bringing with him my vegetarian dish and Olga and Olga’s mum’s meaty options, apprehension had almost completely given way to restaurant rhapsody. The wine was excellent, if not a tad expensive, and we would soon discover that the food at the Hotel Tchaikovsky was crisp, fresh, first class and delicious.
With such culinary conviviality going down, and Olga having ordered three glasses of apricot brandy, which was sympatico, Covid, or rather the morbid dread of Covid, had been well and truly kicked up the arse.
Somewhere, at some time, during the indulgences, auntie Ivy had spoken again, and, in compliance, I had whipped out the wipes and shot them around the brandy glass rims, but no repeat performance was forthcoming as regards dessert spoons and later the shot glasses brimming with vodka.
Hotel Tchaikovsky Kaliningrad is Nothing to Sneeze at
Amidst all of this post-normal abandon and frivolity, a couple had come into the room and were occupying a table to the outside right of ours. They were over a metre away, so niet problem there then, but suddenly, with no warning, quite out of the blue, Olga’s mum developed a sneezing fit!
The first rendition had my head shoot round at a nervous pace. There was a pause, and there it was again, a second sneeze! I shot a glance at our neighbours. It was alright, they had not noticed it or, if they had, they had not reacted. I think they were secretly restraining themselves, preferring a diplomatic reaction to demonstrative rebuff. Then came another sneeze, then another and another, during which the potential recipients of this respiratory outrage had begun to look rather less comfortable.
At first, I had tried to placate their unease in that embarrassed way that we English do, by giving them an insouciant smile, which, by the second eruption, however, had tightened itself into a gritty-toothed grin. Meanwhile, Olga’s mum was holding a tissue to her nose, as if it was a white flag, but the performance was not yet over. There came a sneeze, and another, and within seconds ~ it must have been the wine ~ I was doubling up with a fit of the giggles. I did not know what to do. I would have put on my mask, but it was not big enough to hide behind, and yet I felt certain that in the current climate of fear and dread we would be frog marched out at any moment by several men in protective suits armed with pump-action spray guns and there, in the carpark, disinfected.
The crisis past, however, as crises often do, without further ado or incident, and the young waiter, who had obviously taken cover behind the bulky servery or piano in the corridor, now emerged not with the carafe of vodka that we had ordered earlier but with three of those nice tall glasses which hold a lot of vodka. It had been I who had suggested the carafe since the vodka was all for me, and I thought it would look better, would make me look less of a lush, presented in this fashion. But I ended up with three large glasses in front of me and the most surprised, amused and delighted look on the face of the youthful waiter ~ well, let us rephrase that and say in his eyes, as I could not see his face for one of those blasted muzzles!
I was just getting into my drinking stride when out came one of the senior staff to inform us that the witching hour was nigh. Apparently, coronavirus has got a thing about infecting you after 9pm, so they had to close the restaurant.
With about five minutes left at my disposal, I had to down three big glasses of vodka as if I was a real Russian vodka drinker, instead of a sipperoonee anglichanin.
Apart from the hurried exit, which was no fault of the management as they were just following orders, we all agreed that the service, fare and atmosphere had been top notch. It was a shame about the sneezing and Olga’s mum’s last words as we ambled off the premises, “There wasn’t a lot of people. It can’t be that popular.” Well, if you can’t say that on your 80th birthday, when can you say it?
The toilets in the Hotel Tchaikovsky, Kaliningrad, are atmospherically located in the basement of the building. The arched red-brick ceiling and walls are exposed in all their original glory, and the loo interior has been sympathetically constructed to preserve and highlight its historic ethos. Note the copper-bowl washbasin, matching distressed-framed mirror and the reflection in it of the no-longer distressed Englishman, who had just downed his first glass of vodka.
For a self-isolating experience with a difference, including good food, good wine, good apricot brandy, good vodka (in tall glasses) in an elegant ambience and with good service, dine out at the Tchaikovsky Hotel, Kaliningrad.
Essential details:❤❤
Hotel Tchaikovsky 43 Tchaikovskogo Street Kaliningrad, Russia
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 189 [19 September 2020] The thin dividing line between caution and common sense
Published: 19 September 2020
Reckless, lax, less cautious, or a simple case of resumed normalcy? How should I describe the shift in my attitude to coronavirus, having, at the time of writing, completed my 189th day of ‘self-isolation’?
When self-isolation first started it was as it sounds, exactly that. My wife and I stayed put, only venturing out into the great beyond when necessity dictated, ie to go shopping. One hundred and eighty nine days into the isolating regimen, and we are not so punctilious. We still proceed with caution but have ceased to follow the caution-code to the letter.
For example, in our early self-isolating days before going to the shops, we underwent a countdown checklist as rigorous as any practised by Lancaster bomber crews prior to take off on their way to Berlin.
Facemasks x two ~ check. Hand wipes ~ check. Large shopping bags ~ check. Rubber gloves ~ check. Irvin flying jacket ~ check. OK, perhaps not the latter, but you get the picture.
This has all been steadily shelved. We do still take our masks with us but only because some shops, government offices and other such places demand that they are worn. We do not wear them in the street, and we no longer don them when we travel by taxi.
Taking a taxi in itself is another example of altered traffic-light syndrome, as we scale down from red for danger to amber for caution. Time was once when I would no more get into a taxi than climb into a hearse, but that time has long since passed. My initial return to this convenient mode of transport would not be countenanced unless my facemask was sternly in place, and we would ride out the duration of the journey with our faces poised before the open windows and wipe our hands thoroughly with disinfectant wipes as soon as we alighted. Now, we are happy to taxi-it sans masks. We still leave a window or two open and shoot each other a tight-lipped smile whenever our driver coughs or sneezes, but we are nowhere near as paranoid.
In days of yore when the coronavirus menace first hit, masked-up and ridiculous-looking, we would enter the local supermarket as if invited to a radiation-leak party. Once inside, we tore around the shop grabbing what we wanted as if our arses were on fire and religiously observed the one-metre distancing tapes at checkout.
Prior to Mission Shopping, and as part of our checklist ritual, we would first decide which of the two supermarkets we were going to shop in. We are lucky to have two supermarkets close to our abode, neither large but one smaller than the other, and as the smaller supermarket, which is also the more expensive, is always more empty than the other, for the sake of presumed safety and expediency, ie quickly in and more rapidly out, we always chose this shop. Now, however, as self-isolating veterans, we observe this rule no more, shopping in each supermarket as mood or necessity suggests.
Another precaution that has been downgraded from a stage 10 emergency situation to about a four and a half is the strict rule that we originally applied to quarantining our shop purchases.
On arriving home, flak damaged but yet intact, we would extract only those items from our shopping bags that we immediately required, for example food items for lunch, or which needed, because of their perishable nature, to be stowed away in the fridge. All food packages would be washed or wiped prior to opening and those destined for the fridge would be placed in the fridge isolation room ~ the chilling compartment (aptly named). The rest of the commodities remained in the bags and were placed in the hallway to the attic, where they would remain until safe the following day.
Now, Olga seems to ignore this ritual almost completely (she is more ~ considerably more ~ of a coronavirus skeptic than I), whilst I sometimes remember to ‘handle with care’ and sometimes do not.
In earlier times, on our return from wherever, one or other of us would take care to thoroughly disinfect the door handles, keys and anything else we had touched. We would wash our hands as soon as we returned, disinfect and then wash our hands again. We continue to wash our hands as though a liberal has shook them (cannot imagine that ever happening), but the attendant ritual has been more or less dispensed with.
On the social distancing front, the ironclad code of no fraternising with the suspect-contaminated has also been downplayed, and we have gone from no guests and social gatherings to selected guests and small social gatherings. Admittedly, these occasions have mainly taken place in the garden and not indoors but, as I believe I mentioned in a previous post in this series, maintaining prescribed social distancing measures quickly proved impractical if not impossible, and whilst we do not go around hugging and embracing as if we belong to France ~ when France was France ~ we are considerably less conscious of the risks of social interaction than we were six months ago.
Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad
Possibly ~ no, not possibly, definitely ~ the greatest alteration in our Covid-19 bunker mentality is that slowly, but surely, we have permitted ourselves the luxury of dining and drinking out. We are not entirely comfortable with this arrangement, and, indeed, it just happened rather than was planned.
The momentous first post-coronavirus café/bar occasion took place during a day trip to the small seaside resort Otradnoye. Olga wanted to swim and the most comfortable and convenient place to wait for her was in the outside area of the pop-up summer café, a party tent that services the food and beverage needs of the sand and sea clientele. We had a pack of antiseptic wipes on board and used these like a clumsy juggling circus act to decontaminate the beer bottle. We had also taken the precaution of bringing with us our own plastic cups.
The second bar/restaurant experience was when we travelled to Svetlogorsk to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. This was an indoor job, because the hotel staff would not allow us to dine and drink outside. At the time I thought it quite high risk, even allowing for the fact that Olga and I were the only patrons, but neither of these two events was as adventurous as our most recent outing when we ate and drank in the company of about 100 people or more at a beach-side restaurant in Zelenogradsk.
Once again, we refrained from sitting inside, choosing instead a table on the upper tier of the two-tier decking system facing the beach and sea. I believe, if my memory serves me right, that a pack of antiseptic wipes came into play but more by force of habit than with respect to coronavirus hygiene protocol.
Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad
In a few days’ time we have a relative from the UK coming to visit. As a matter of course, she will have to undergo a test for coronavirus at one of Kaliningrad’s clinics the day after she arrives. If she gets the all clear, we will no doubt push the boundaries back still further by going to a restaurant and, as the autumn chill sets in, we will be dining inside ~ That’s one small step for mankind, one giant leap for a Covid-19 self-isolator.
Mick Hart, the Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad, unleashes himself in Zelenogradsk
