The Dreadnought in Kaliningrad - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

Bar Drednout [Dreadnought], Kaliningrad

Published: 23 September 2021 ~ An Englishman at the Dreadnought Kaliningrad

Every Jazz lover knows that the best jazz is played in underground basements. Where else would you find a basement? And Kaliningrad’s Dreadnought is one such place.

Billing itself as a ‘legendary English pub’, you would be hard pushed to find a pub like it anywhere in England, but what it most certainly is, is an excellent atmospheric bar-come-music venue and a subterranean supper’s delight, boasting best beers from around the world, including eight permanent and six guest beers on draught.

No need to ask why I was there, then.

An Englishman at the Dreadnought, Kaliningrad

A short walk from Kaliningrad’s Victory Square, down some steps and you are in the Dreadnought. The roomy entrance hall tells you immediately what you can expect. The Union Jack mat, the large wall painting of a gauntlet-covered fist holding a key and a second painting of the eponymous dreadnought battleship, the concrete section walls roughly skimmed with paint: This is a no-frills place, mate; hip, modern, up to date; good music, good beer, young people and me.

Undaunted, I stood on the Union Jack and had my photograph taken and did the same again in front of the dreadnought painting.

Dreadnought’s basement is open plan, but it isn’t exactly. It feels that way because there are no doors, just entrances, so you get the unique ambivalence of airiness whilst sitting in a rabbit warren.

An anteroom immediately in front of the music room enables you to listen to the bands from a distance. The main room, where the bands play, is ‘L’ shaped and divided into three sections by narrowed widths minus doors.

Choice of seats range from high oval tables lined with tall, backed, bar stools on heavy cast-iron bases, low tables with bench seats on either side and, closest to the stage, comfortable-looking captain’s chairs, the sort that swivel nicely and are covered in brown leatherette.

I liked our reserved table. It was one of the tall ones, with high stools on heavy industrial bases. I always like a table where I can sit with my back to the wall. Why not? Look what happened to Wild Bill Hickok!

Mick & Olga Hart Dreadnought Kaliningrad

On the subject of reserved tables, Kaliningrad grows more popular each year, so, if you have a particular place in mind where you want to wine and dine or down a few beers, be advised that you’d best reserve a table or face the possible inconvenience of wandering around from bar to bar ad infinitum. This is particularly true on a Saturday night.

An Englishman at the Dreadnought Kaliningrad

As anybody who follows jazz can tell you, improvisation and spontaneity are highly valued, and I get the impression that Dreadnought knows this. Improvisation and spontaneity have been built into the décor. The basement is basic, real basic, for the walls and the ceiling follows that modern trend where all is exposed and on display: the electrical fittings, wires, heating and ventilation pipes, structural supports and so on. The lighting, even with the many traditional ceiling sockets, is subdued and the industrial-style suspended lamps that dangle over the tables halo the glow with limited dispersal.

Likewise, the interior décor is minimal; its artiness is controlled, aspiring towards the extemporised look, to give that laid-back, unobtrusive but thoroughly engaging appeal.

The British theme, which comes with the dreadnought name, is carried over from the hall into the music room by the further use of Union Jack curtains which, in keeping with the retro theme of the early 20^th century, have worn and distressed stage managed into them.

Principal to the decor in the entertainments room are two large wall paintings. Although in content these are naval associated, the style in which they are painted is distinctly 1940s’ United States Air Force. They are, in fact, nose-art replicas, featuring leggy, stocking-clad, frolicking females, partly dressed in uniform, with flirtatious come-hither looks.

The one nearest to our table had its coquette perched on top of a sharks’ teeth painted torpedo set against a billowing wave with ‘On the Wave’ written across the foam, which I imagine should rightly read ‘on the crest of a wave’. The other had its flirty part-uniformed female draped across the suggestive gun barrels of a dreadnought class destroyer. Both pictures are fun and colourful, although historically neither one, or anything vaguely like them, would have been tolerated by the Royal Navy’s upper echelons or likewise by, and especially by, the Royal Air Force, and as such this type of artwork strictly remains an American idiosyncrasy.

There is yet another room in the Dreadnought’s arsenal, which, if you are unaware of it, you are likely to come across on your way to the toilet. It put me in mind of a typical American bar, where the rooms are long and narrow and the clientele perch on tall bar stools at the front of the serving counter that runs the length of the room. The hubbub, which was busy but not rowdy, the clever lighting and silhouette wall-art of the dreadnought’s heavy guns, coalesced to create an ambience that took me back to those heady days of university campus bars.

Food is served at the Dreadnought, but as we had already eaten at the Greek restaurant El Greco’s, I will make no attempt to comment on either the variety or quality of the food. See the Essential Details section at the end of this post , where you will find the Dreadnought’s website address and the food it has on offer.

I had already drunk beer at El Greco’s but that did not stop me drinking beer at the Dreadnought. My choice of beer this evening was Maisel’s Weisse. It’s a German beer which, from experience, agrees with me, although as I sat there drinking it I could distinctly feel those heavy guns from the Royal Navy’s dreadnoughts bearing down on my fraternisation.

An Englishman at the Dreadnought, Kaliningrad

The Dreadnought hosts different kinds of music but tonight, as I have noted, the stage was set for jazz. My appreciation of jazz is reserved more or less to the emerging and principal swing years of the 1920s to the 1940s. Anything outside of this I tend to regard as background music, some of which I like and some which quite frankly jars. I am pleased to say, however, that Dreadful at the Dreadnought were not performing on the evening of our visit, and all of our party agreed that what we heard we liked.

Another plus in the Dreadnought’s favour is that the music is transmitted at an agreeable volume, meaning that you can hear it, appreciate it and still can hear yourself think and talk. How many times have you been to a music venue where you just can’t wait for each successive number to stop so that you can hold that conversation? I often wonder if some bands don’t pump up the volume to prevent the audience from discussing whether they like the music or not. Personally, I like to listen to music at a volume that allows me to converse with my friends without shouting, not to be deafened into submission to fulfill the band’s delusion that I love their music so much that it has rendered me, and everyone else, speechless for the evening.

Everything considered ~ the location, ambience, lighting, service, range of beers on offer, choice of places to perch and, as just appraised, the music ~ the Dreadnought gets the expatriate seal of approval.

Vodka Selection Dreadnought Bar Kaliningrad

But it wasn’t over yet. One of our party, out of the goodness of her heart, had ordered the house specialty for me ~ my very own ‘big gun’ dreadnought. As the photograph shows, the wooden dreadnought model holds a full battery of different flavoured vodkas; large glasses full of them, and all for me at the end of the evening when I’d been drinking beer. The rest of the crew abandoned ship, but, like the good captain that I am, I remained on the bridge ready to do my duty and was quite prepared, if need be, to go down with the ship as the band played on. Sink or float, the following morning I knew I would need a life belt!

An Englishman at the Dreadnought Kaliningrad. Mick Hart.

Note in the photograph, the thoughtful and conveniently placed fire extinguisher that your friends can put you out with after you’ve overdone it on lashings of chili vodka!