Архив метки: Victor Ryabinin Artist Historian

A book about Victor Ryabinin

On the 75th anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s birth

Published: 17 December 2020 ~ A book about Victor Ryabinin

To coincide with what would have been Victor Ryabinin’s 75th birthday, a book has been published which celebrates and commemorates his life and work. Conceived, supervised and edited by Kaliningrad artist Marina Simkina, daughter of the famous Russian poet Sam Simkin, and Boris Nisnevich, author and journalist, this fascinating book contains personal memories of Victor Ryabinin and critical acclaim of his work and career from 28 of his friends and colleagues.

More information about the book can be found by following this link [Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg], which will take you to the permanent pages on this blog under the category Victor Ryabinin Königsberg.

The following articles relating to Victor, his life and his art, also appear in this category:

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

Victor Ryabinin the Spirit of Königsberg
Oдин из самых замечательных людей, которых я когда-либо встречал
I first met Victor Ryabinin in the spring of 2001. A friend of my wife’s, knowing how much my wife liked art and how fascinated I was with anything to do with the past, suggested that we meet this ‘very interesting’ man, who was an artist and a historian.

An artist who can hear angels speak
Художник, у которого ангелы говорят
Kaliningrad author and journalist, Boris Nisnevich’s essay on the haunting influence that Königsberg’s ruins had on Victor Ryabinin’s philosophy and art: “When I wrote the draft to this article, I wrote that I believe there is no equal to him in Kaliningrad — I still believe he has no equal.” ~ Boris Nisnevich

In Memory of Victor Ryabinin

In Memory of Victor Ryabinin
This article was published in memoriam on the first anniversary of Victor’s death. Victor died on 18 July 2019.

Personal Tour Guide Kaliningrad

Personal Tour Guide Kaliningrad
Stanislav Konovalov (Stas) was a student and close friend of Victor Ryabinin. In the months following Victor’s death Stas supervised and worked on the emotionally and physically difficult task of dismantling, packing, transporting and storing the many and various Königsberg artefacts, artworks and assorted relics that once adorned and constituted The Studio ~ Victor’s atmospheric art studio and celebrated reception room. Stas took detailed photographs and measurements of the room in the hope one day that it could be reconstructed as part of a permanent exhibition to Victor and his work. Sadly, Stas himself passed away in November 2020. We live in hope that someone will continue the work that his untimely demise left unfinished. This is Stas’ story.

Victor Ryabinin’s Headstone Königsberg  Kaliningrad

Victor Ryabinin’s Headstone Königsberg
After quite a hiatus Victor’s grave was finally bestowed with a headstone befitting the man and the artist. It shows Victor sitting on a stool in his art studio. He is leaning nonchalantly in his chair, relaxed, unassuming, in tune with himself, his life and the world around him. His right arm is resting on one of his art-historian creations, his left arm cradling the base. The artwork is an assemblage, a composition of assorted Königsberg relics assembled icon-like within a frame …

Copyright © 2018-2021 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg

Happy Birthday Victor!

Published: 17 December 2020 ~ Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg

To coincide with what would have been Victor Ryabinin’s 75th birthday, a book has been published which celebrates and commemorates his life and work. Conceived, supervised and edited by Kaliningrad artist Marina Simkina, daughter of the famous Russian poet Sam Simkin, and Boris Nisnevich, author and journalist, this fascinating book contains personal memories of Victor Ryabinin and critical acclaim of his work and career from 28 of his friends and colleagues.

Young artists! Victor Ryabinin & Marina Simkina
Young artists! Victor Ryabinin & Marina Simkina (From the book Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg (Marina Simkina)

This 198-page commemorative anthology, which has been produced to the highest standards in full colour and landscape format, provides a valuable and affectionate insight into who Victor Ryabinin was and his unique contribution to our understanding of Königsberg-Kaliningrad’s remarkable legacy as a place of dramatic change, an incomparable centre of culture and a magnetic hub for creative talent.

A Victor Ryabinin Assemblage
A Victor Ryabinin ‘Assemblage’ (From the book Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg)

The book contains numerous photographs capturing Victor both in creative mode and at leisure. It also incorporates examples of some of his most memorable works, presenting his sketches, drawings and paintings and includes his idiosyncratic and evocative Königsberg ‘assemblages’ ~ large frames in which random fragments of Königsberg are artistically assembled to form latter-day icons, a symbolic act which enabled Victor to explore his philosophy of universal interconnectivity, in this instance the destiny of two cultures symbiotically fused by time, place and fate.

The book also contains various extracts from Victor’s phenomenal pictorial diaries, which for me are the most fascinating and thought-provoking accomplishments of his career.

Victor Ryabinin's sketch books/diaries
Victor Ryabinin’s pictorial diary (From the book Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg)

Victor was hardly ever without his sketch book, his ubiquitous fold-over drawing pad, in which he would faithfully and meticulously record everything that interested him. Spanning a period of 50 years, the page-a-day inclusions range from simple sketches and notes, verse and philosophic comments, often entered in a beautifully flowing calligraphic hand, typically sharing space on the same page with a bottle label, sweet wrapper or any other souvenir arbitrarily collected  from a restaurant, bar or anywhere else he had frequented on a particular day, to highly intricate and detailed drawings, mostly symbolic in nature.

Victor Ryabinin  Königsberg diaries
Victor Ryabinin’s pictorial diary (From the book Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg)

Each page, with its distinctively different collage, told him where he had been and what he had seen that day. It also captures his mood and artistic frame of mind at the moment of representation. Whilst functioning as a journal and being works of art in themselves,  each sketch book contains pages, and within those pages numerous stimuli, of inspirational material that Victor could use at a later date for a broader and larger canvas.

Victor Ryabinin the Artist's pictorial diaries
Victor Ryabinin’s pictorial diary (From the book Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg)

The range and scope of artistic expression within these journals alone demonstrate Victor’s acute observation of the world in which he lived whilst revealing glimpses into his inner world, the one shaped by symbolism, in which he worked and flourished.

Book illustrations by Victor Ryabinin

Whenever I mention Victor Ryabinin, I am met with the same reply, “Ahh, you mean Victor Ryabinin the artist!” But I tend to think of him as Victor Ryabinin the social historian, the art-historian, not somebody who studied the history of art but who made the unique history of the ruined city in which he was born and lived his lifelong study, and who made sense of it and articulated his thoughts and feelings about it using art and the symbolist genre as his medium for expression.

Victor Ryabinin was truly a one-off, both in terms of his defined artistic-historical focus and in being one of the most agreeable, charmingly charismatic and humanistic of people that you could ever wish to meet.

Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg
(From the book Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg (Sergey Federov)

Within the covers of this superb publication, thanks to Boris Nisnevich and Marina Simkina, those who knew Victor, loved him, valued his work and everything that he stood for, pay tribute to the artist and the man, the likes of which in all probability we will never meet again.

Victor Ryabinin is a synonym for Königsberg. And this is the book by which he will be remembered.

(From the book Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg)

Copyright [Text] © 2018-2021 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Photographs & inspiration from Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg, compiled, edited and published by Marina Simkina and Boris Nisnevich (2020)

Victor Ryabinin’s Headstone Königsberg

Victor’s grave is adorned with a headstone befitting the artist and the man

Published: 14 August 2020

Yesterday (Thursday 13 August 2020) a friend emailed a photograph to us of Victor Ryabinin’s recently completed and erected headstone. I was expecting the headstone to incorporate a photographic likeness of Victor’s face, as most gravestones in Russia seem to display a portrait of the deceased, but the image on Victor’s tombstone is more than that and all the more poignant for it.

It shows Victor sitting on a stool in his art studio. He is leaning nonchalantly in his chair, relaxed, unassuming, in tune with himself, his life and the world around him. His right arm is resting on one of his art-historian creations, his left arm cradling the base. The artwork is an assemblage, a composition of assorted Königsberg relics assembled icon-like within a frame, a symbolic reincarnation of parts that in their new unity pay homage to the unique bi-cultural character by which Victor defined the seamlessness of the Königsberg-Kaliningrad time continuum.

The image depicts a man forever and inextricably connected with the subject of his life’s work ~ Königsberg. It captures the eternal spiritual symbiosis that exists between each. It also captures the essence of the man himself: his unaffected attitude towards life and people, his open good-natured manner and his kind, calm and collected philosophical disposition.

Victor Ryabinin’s Headstone Königsberg

Victor was a larger than life person. He had a magnetic personality, first appreciated and then adored, and the fact that he is no longer part of life as we understand it is hard to accept, but the ethos and quality of this monument are a fitting tribute to him, both to the art-historian and the man.

When I look on this image it does not make missing him any easier. It captures who he was so well that it is difficult to gaze upon without wanting the yesterday we all once shared.

Consolation is all elusive, except for what we find in destiny and I cannot help believing in that respect that our loss is Königsberg’s gain.

Rest in Peace Dear Friend

Victor Ryabinin’s Headstone Königsberg  Kaliningrad

Articles relating to Victor Ryabinin

Victor Ryabinin the Spirit of Königsberg
An artist who can hear angels speak
In memory of Victor Ryabinin
Stanislav Konovalov (professional tour guide) ~ student and friend of Victor Ryabinin

Copyright © 2018-2021 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

In Memory of Victor Ryabinin

The Spirit of Königsberg

Published: 18 July 2020 on the first anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death

Victor Ryabinin died on 18 July 2019

For those who knew him well, it has been a difficult 12 months. The first 12 months after someone dear passes away always is. There are so many occasions that memory will not let go of, everything becomes a commemorative anniversary of the last time, and it is virtually impossible not to fall victim to the ‘this time last year’ syndrome.

As the anniversary of Victor’s death closed in, it has also been impossible not to fall under the insidious spell of that morbid countdown: viz, this time last year Victor had only four weeks left to live … It is a macabre thought is it not, that last 60 seconds of life ticking inexorably away and then nothing? Not just the physical man himself gone but, as Leonard Cohen so eloquently puts it, “that tangle of matter and ghost”. A lifetime lost in a second. A unique loss of personality, thoughts, talent, experience, good nature, kindness, humanity. It is, indeed, a morbid thought, but as a friend of mine pragmatically said about death, “Well, you can’t stop it, can you?”

There is nothing much longer than eternity, but notwithstanding in the past 12 months those of us who were fortunate enough to be counted among Victor’s friends and those whom he taught and mentored have been just as busy preserving his memory as we have been cherishing it and missing him.

Book celebrating Victor Ryabinin’s work

As well as my blog, which is dedicated to Victor Ryabinin, to his artistic talent, to the magic that he found in and brought to Königsberg-Kaliningrad and to the man himself, one of Victor’s closest friends, Marina Simkina, herself an artist, has been working with writer and journalist Boris Nisnevich to bring to fruition a book about the life and work of this remarkable man: a thematically related text with essays, personal recollections, interviews, letters and poems which taken together speak of the rich legacy that Victor has bequeathed in his paintings, assemblages, collages and diaries and, for those of us who knew him personally, in the light that his sincerity, goodwill, open nature and profound interest in everything he heard or saw brought into our lives.

On the first anniversary of Victor’s death, I have added another article to the pages of my blog contributed by our friend Stanislov, whom Victor introduced us to shortly before he passed away

Catalogue of Victor Ryabinin’s work

Stas, as we know him, is actively involved in a project which will hopefully see the canon of Victor Ryabinin’s artistic work and his collection of Königsberg ‘relics’ housed and displayed in a permanent exhibition here in Kaliningrad. He also hopes to catalogue Victor’s work and produce a definitive version in print of the extraordinary talent of this man whose self-genre as Königsberg’s art-historian captured, celebrated and ultimately cast him as the spirit of the ruined city he had spent his life divining ~ the very Spirit of Königsberg.

Victor Ryabinin’s love affair with the interconnectivity of Königsberg’s past and Kaliningrad’s present, the surface paradox of two cultures hammered together in war but mysteriously wed by time and destiny, was as devotional as it was unconditional. For him, both transition and movement were seamless; it was the place itself that ‘drew people in’ as it had drawn him in.

Victor’s childhood impressions and art-historian perspective surpassed that of mere academia ~ he lived and breathed Königsberg. It was not a lifestyle choice; it was made for him; it was predestined. The symbiotic relationship that he formed with this special, this unique place, as he called the Königsberg.-Kaliningrad continuum, continually reminded him that his soul existed in two cultures, both Russian and German, and as much as he enjoyed anywhere else he intuitively knew he belonged nowhere else. He could not precisely say why, ‘I cannot explain this magic’, but as a child of Königsberg’s ruins he instinctively knew “this is my city”.

His city, represented symbolically through the artistic fusion of his childhood memories, the interaction between Gothic ruins and Hoffman’s Gothic fantasy, transcended time and place, engendering philosophical interpretations on a universal scale. His enduring belief in the insolubility of the past’s effect on the present and of existence viewed as a fantastic web of interconnectivity may suggest that whilst he had a definite sense of place and his place in it, he was also a child of the universe, but if so he was a prodigy.

In memory of Victor Ryabinin

The oft-cited opinion of those who were close to him, that he exhibited an almost childlike fascination in everything new that he saw or heard, was not a slight on his character but a character trait to be envious of. For the majority of people, interest, as with every other human faculty, slips further and further away from us the older we become, but not so with Victor, who remained alert, fascinated, enthralled to the last. Even in the latter days of his life, when in hindsight, by recourse to photographs of that time, he appeared discernibly older and more frail, he never lost his curiosity, he never grew old as others grow old, giving up his zest for life only when life itself decided that the time had come for him to paint his last picture, make his last entry in his  pictorial diary and drink his last cognac with friends.

In the shadow of death and even more desperately in its gloomy, memory-filled aftermath, we rake among the embers not of the life that has passed, the life that has been extinguished, but in what remains of our left-behind lives, in hope of consolation.

But my consolation in Victor’s death lies in the certain knowledge that whilst we grieve for ourselves, we have no real need to grieve for him, for he has returned to the self-same spot where it all began. He is a child again in the ruins of Königsberg. His spirit has gone home. He is now a part of that history which so fascinated and clung to him from the moment of his birth. It is my belief that it never let go; he was just given to us on loan; and he drew us into Königsberg as he himself had been drawn in.

If you do not believe me just listen to and read the testimonials of those who knew him and what they have to say ~ his students, friends and colleagues. Through their words and their impressions, they seek to understand the mystical aura with which Victor was endowed. We may never comprehend it entirely, but we share one thing in common which is a sense of pride and privilege that in this ephemeral but interconnected world it was fortunately predetermined that our paths should cross with his.

We shall miss him always, forget him never.

In Memory of Victor Ryabinin

Victor Ryabinin died on 18 July 2020
Forever Königsberg

Articles relating to Victor Ryabinin
Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad
Victor Ryabinin Artist Historian
Stanislav Konovalov ~ student and friend of Victor Ryabinin (Königsberg tour guide)

Copyright © 2018-2021 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Personal Tour Guide Kaliningrad

Stanislav Konovalov ~ student and friend of Victor Ryabinin

Stanislav Konovalov ~ Stas ~ passed away in November 2020 from post-operative complications whilst undergoing hospital treatment. We salute him for the memories he has bequeathed us and grieve for those that would have been had death not suddenly deprived us of his company. The biographical article that follows was originally written and published on 18th July 2020. It stands in testament to Stas’ love of the history of this city and this land and as a tribute to Stas himself, a man that we are proud to have known and been able to call our friend.

About Stas Konovalov
Stas Konovalov is a professional tour guide who specialises in tours of Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region. His tours are given in Russian and English. His love for this land was nurtured and advanced by his friend and mentor, Victor Ryabinin, the legendary artist-historian, for whom life began in the ruins of Königsberg and for whom Königsberg became his life. Under Victor’s tuition, Stas honed his knowledge of the city and its region, from its ancient Prussian roots, through the years of the Weimar Republic, through its rise, fall and eventual destruction from the beginning to end of WWII, its fate under Soviet rule, onto the modern bustling city, attractive coastal resorts and UNESCO heritage status by which it is defined today. Stas’ tours, given in both Russian and English, can be either broad-based or thematically tailored to suit individual or group interests. He refers to them in the second half of this article, where you will also find links to his internet tour page and his introductory YouTube videos.

Originally published: 18 July 2020 on the first anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death

Updated: 2 December 2020

Internal links:
Victor Ryabinin
History-based tours of Kaliningrad
YouTube videos


Introduction

My wife and I were introduced to Stanislov (Stas) in the winter of 2018 by Victor Ryabinin. He prefaced the meeting with “I want you to meet a very good friend of mine. He has a love for Königsberg. He is an interesting man, with a very interesting flat!”

At that time my wife and I were in temporary accommodation, looking for property to buy in Kaliningrad. It was but a short walk from where we were living to ‘the interesting man and his flat’. It had been snowing and it was snowing, and I will always remember Victor jumping up and down outside the door to the block of flats where Stas lives and clicking his heels together to shake the snow from his heels, saying “This is possibly the only flat in Kaliningrad where you are not expected to take off your shoes and run around in your socks.” Apart from this phenomenon, the interesting man and his interesting flat did not disappoint.

Sadly, our mutual friend Victor died in the summer of 2019.

At the end of his funeral, we thanked Stas for his support and his company. He replied, simply but sincerely: “I think we consoled each other.”

Since then we have continued to console each other, and Stas and his girlfriend (another Olga) have become good friends. I said to my wife, Olga, it was very fortunate that Victor introduced us to Stas when he did. Typically, Olga replied, “It was no coincidence. It was meant to be.”

Stas is planning to produce a catalogue of Victor’s work and is directly involved in attempts to establish a permanent exhibition, where the legacy of Victor’s art and relics from Königsberg can be properly displayed for future generations.

This is Stas’ story, of his life leading up to his meeting with Victor Ryabinin and how under Victor’s tutelage his life going forward has been directed and shaped.

Stanislav  Konovalov ~ a brief biography

Upon leaving school, I entered the Kaliningrad Technical University Commercial Fisheries Department. In 1985, it was not difficult as that department was no longer popular. The course was not easy to follow in that it covered all aspects of engineering in depth, that is theoretical mechanics, strength of materials, physics, mathematics and so on.

My university study was interrupted for two years by national service in the Soviet Army. It was a period in the mid-1980s called ‘children of the children of WWII ’, when the army had to compensate for staff shortages by enlisting students, even from technical universities in spite of the fact that these had their own military departments.

My national service was undertaken mainly in the chemical defence forces. Once completed, I was so afraid that military service had kicked my brains out that when I returned to university I needed to prove otherwise and worked as hard as I could.

Personal Tour Guide Kaliningrad
Army life ~ Only 100 Days to Go!!

At university, I met old friends and made new ones who felt the same way about the possible adverse effects of army life, so we united as a group of six to seven guys and studied eagerly. Soon, we were enjoying our studies and were surprised to find that on completion of our first ‘after army’ exams we were not as stupid as we thought. Thereafter, having developed a taste for study our later successes did not surprise us so much.

As undergraduates we were eager to invent and implement something extraordinary which would push commercial fisheries forward. My diploma thesis supervisor was Professor A L Fridman, who had studied under Professor F I Baranov. A street in Kaliningrad is named after Professor Baranov, who was the founder of scientific application for commercial fisheries. His name is well known among colleagues worldwide, as his book Techniques of Commercial Fisheries, written in 1933, was translated into many languages.

The idea which I presented to Professor Fridman was to combine fish biology (fish behavior) with specific fishing equipment in order to develop efficient and selective fisheries.

Professor Fridman, who had professional contacts worldwide, arranged for lectures to be given at our university by two doctors of science from the Aberdeen Marine Laboratory, Scotland. Some of the topics encompassed by these lectures approximated to ideas covered in my course project, so I asked if I could meet with Clem Wardle, one of the visiting lecturers, to discuss these. I felt quite confident about my English, and besides Dr Wardle had extensive experience of communicating with non-English students.

These discussions led to me being invited for a training course at the Aberdeen Marine Laboratory, prior agreement having been made that two students from our university would participate in studies in Scotland.

I presented my Diploma Statement in both Russian and English, and the next day I became an engineer and assistant of the Commercial Fisheries Department of the university. But it did not last long. Perestroika was in full swing, and I had to channel my time and energy into earning money to feed my young family, which left little time for scientific research.

When did you first become interested in art?

I was seven years old when an art enthusiast, Alevtina Maksimova, created an experimental art group in the Kaliningrad Art School. At that time, entrance was restricted to children in the 10 to 12 age group. I cannot begin to imagine the effort she must have put into creating such a group under the Soviet system. Anyway, she succeeded.

Bureaucratic barriers having been overcome, she visited schools in Kaliningrad, examined children’s drawings and selected potential students on the basis of their work. I was one of them. Initially, the art lesson lasted 15 minutes, three times a week, but gradually class time was extended to normal hours.

For the next four years, I studied sculpture, painting, drawing, history of art and so on, and it soon became routine.

When did you first meet Victor Ryabinin and what part did he play in your artistic interest?

We were drawing and painting still life and in warm seasons went outside to practise. The last academic year included the subject Applicable Composition (Design). Viktor Ryabinin was our teacher.

As for the arts, Ryabinin directed me more towards feeling the harmony and philosophy of art. It was a sort of magic. He did it so gently that I thought that I had discovered it myself.

Stanislav Konovalov

At first sight, from a teenager’s point of view, he was this small and funny man, but very soon our attention was attracted to his methods of teaching.  He was a breath of fresh air in my understanding of art. He was so alive in comparison with many of the other teachers. He ignited our imagination. He was not backward in pointing out our mistakes, but he inspired! And he took a sincere interest in our artistic development, which extended beyond the classroom.

Stas Konovalov Painting Kaliningrad

When he invited us to his art studio, I was impressed on two accounts: first, that he had invited us at all; and second, by the studio itself. It was not as cluttered as it became in later years, but it had a special atmosphere that charmed me forever.

As for the arts, Ryabinin directed me more towards feeling the harmony and philosophy of art. It was a sort of magic. He did it so gently that I thought that I had discovered it myself.

With Victor’s help, I became interested in many artistic genres: Symbolism, Surrealism and others, and creating in graphics or in colour. Ryabinin attracted my attention to Impressionism as a means of playing with colours. Still life and landscape pictures are definitely important to me as are learning basic techniques from which drawing skills accumulate that can be implemented in any genre.

Stas Konovalov artwork. A student of Victor Ryabinin Kaliningrad

As a mentor, Victor was kind but did not hold back when pointing out mistakes. Drawing my attention to the Impressionists, he repeated the words of his mentor Valentine Grigoriev, “dark – darker, light – lighter”. What this means, for example, is that the shadow of a green apple must never be painted in a dark, green colour. He said (about any object drawn): “It must be tasty and alive!”

I continued to draw and paint after finishing art school. I showed Victor each new picture, listened to his remarks and very often corrected mistakes to which he alluded and even re-drew some of my pictures. When a new picture was ready, I would telephone Victor, and we would agree on a time to meet at his studio. Later, when I stopped drawing, we remained in contact.

What made you become more interested in the history of Königsberg than to proceed with your art studies?

I have been charmed by Königsberg for as long as I can remember. Of course, in my youth there were a lot of myths circulating among children and teenagers about underground objects relevant to old Königsberg that impressed my sense of fantasy. But it was Victor who inspired a new surge of interest in the history of the city and the surrounding land. Victor was an authority on Königsberg urban life. He knew very well the history of certain districts and even certain houses. He was an excellent storyteller, often attracting your attention to particular details that had passed you by in daily life.

Through Victor, I learnt many things that I had seen throughout my life in Königsberg but had never really thought about.

Stanislav Konovalov

I learnt a lot of things from Victor of this nature, for example about the hatches on the streets and pavements, in which factories they had been made and how they were brought to Königsberg; that the granite curb stones and cobbles used in the construction of the pavements and roads had been shipped from Scandinavia. Through Victor, I learnt many things that I had seen throughout my life in Königsberg but had never really thought about.

Have you any particular memories of your association with Victor both as mentor and friend?

Victor was always pleased when I arranged to meet him at his Kaliningrad studio with visitors from other Russian cities and from abroad. By the way, the first signature in his Guest Book was that of Noel Mizen, an engineer from the ELGA Pure Water Company, England. I was an interpreter for him when he installed the purification system at Kaliningrad’s vodka plant.

Being an artist, Victor had a sharp eye. I remember once walking with him among the ruins of Balga Castle and around the lagoon coast. We had a flask of cognac, from which we sipped from time to time. The weather was good and the leisurely walk enjoyable.

Next to the water’s edge Victor picked up a small piece of something and showed it to me. He explained that it was a metal button from the trousers of a Wehrmacht soldier. I was impressed that such a tiny detail had not escaped his notice. This was part of his magic: his ability to give a lesson invisibly.

I am happy I knew Victor and that I met with him a lot. For the last years of his life we lived almost in the same street, so we would bump into each other quite often. Victor appreciated my cooking. I used to invite him for a meal, and we would sit in my kitchen, talk, and often look at and discuss the latest entries in his pictorial diaries.

I am very lucky to have met Victor and to have been his student. I learnt a lot from him. He was a great artist and a good man.

By the way, I also feel lucky that I took lessons in in martial arts from Guy Aerts, 6-dan master, the student of Tanemura Sensei, the patriarch of the Traditional Jujutsu school and that I took guitar lessons from one of the best musicians and guitar players, Sergey Teplyakov.

Personal Tour Guide Kaliningrad
Stas learnt to play the guitar, but he did not mention anything about horses!

Although, I can count some achievements, I have no pretensions of being a star student. I remember the words of one of the martial arts masters: “All your achievements are the achievements of your teachers. All your defeats are the result of your remissness.”

However, I keep in contact with all my teachers, and it seems to me they enjoy it too ~ I hope!

History-based tours of Kaliningrad

(a) Can you remember the first tour that you organised?
To be honest, I can’t remember my first tour. It sometimes seems as if I have been doing them all of my life. As a child I shared the knowledge that I had gained about Königsberg-Kaliningrad from adults that I had met and from my parents’ friends with my mates. When I was older, I would use that knowledge to entertain visitors in the companies where I worked. I knew more about Königsberg than my colleagues, and this enabled me to arrange sightseeing trips. Of course, looking back I see how funny and unprofessional those tours were,  but the main purpose was achieved – people came on my tours, received a first impression of the place they were interested in and, wanting to know more, returned again and again.

There are two occasions that I remember in particular. The second half of my national service was undertaken in Kaliningrad, but through my national service I had made friends with guys from all over the USSR. One of them came from Samara (at that time Kuibyshev) before he was sent to Kaliningrad. This friend would walk a lot through the city. He even created a chart of the routes he had taken.

He once opined that there was nothing to see in Kaliningrad. Although we were friends, his comment irritated me. Nevertheless, I patiently asked where exactly had he walked and what had he seen? He replied, and I explained to him exactly what he had seen and what had escaped his eye. After my ellucidation his route chart extended dramatically.

Later ~ 20 years later ~ thanks to the internet, we contacted each other again. He decided to visit me in Kaliningrad and stay for five days. When I met him at the airport, he introduced me to his wife: “Meet Stas, who I told you about,” he said. “It was he who made me fall in love with Kaliningrad.”

The second occasion that I recall concerns the regional manager in Germany of the company for which I worked. She had visited the company where I would eventually work six years before I joined it and had been avoiding Kaliningrad ever since! We got to know each other and met several times at events in Moscow and in Germany. Finally, she came to Kaliningrad again.

I didn’t try to show her something extraordinary in Kaliningrad or ‘the best of the best’, after all she had lived in Bremen and Schweinfurt for decades ~ two interesting cities. I simply showed her Kaliningrad, and we went for a walk around the coastal resort Svetlogorsk. I told her about Kaliningrad after the war and included some true stories about families that I knew. At the close of her visit, I gave her a lift to Gdansk Airport. As we embraced and said our farewells, she paid me the highest compliment: “I disliked Kaliningrad,” she said, “but, thanks to you, I have almost fallen in love with it!” For me, who loves the city and introduces visitors to it, what could be better to hear?

(b) How have your tours progressed since then?
Having been told by many people for whom I have organised tours that I am in the wrong job, ie that I would be better as a tour guide, I asked if I was such a bad logistics manager. My friends and colleagues then tried to assure me that I was an excellent logistics manager, but my tour-guide abilities are superb. So, whilst accepting the compliment, I still doubt my logistics professionalism.

As I became more involved in giving tours, I set about reading up on the history of Königsberg-Kaliningrad and researched particular topics. It is one thing to give sightseeing tours to friends but quite another to visitors who might be well-read on the history of Königsberg and interested in specific details. My biggest problem is memorising exact dates, and this worried me. After a while, however, I consoled myself with the thought that bachelors and masters graduates of university history departments are not typical of the type of people who want to enlist my tour service, and that ‘normal’ people don’t usually want  to be overloaded with precise dates (except, perhaps, with regard to a very few extremely interesting places or situations).

Exactly a year ago, as I am writing this, I received a tourist from Moscow. The young lady, a manager in a big international company in Moscow, had a background in history. She knew the history of Königsberg quite well. I must admit that I was rather nervous about the prospect of showing her around, especially as I was recommended to her by a mutual friend. I felt that it was more like an exam for me than an excursion for her. The excursion took about 10 hours instead of the expected three-and-a-half to four hours. She was open-minded, analytical but happy to see what it was that she had read about. We understood each other well, and I think I calculated quite accurately what she wanted to see on the tour and what would impress her. Several times I hit the bullseye!


(c) Which tours specifically do you offer now?
Normally, I offer a general sightseeing tour, with some particular interest deviation, for example the history of beer brewing in Königsberg-Kaliningrad, Königsberg as a fortress city, the exploration of certain districts comparing its history with its modern life, the Curonian Spit, Baltic seaside towns and so on. What is most interesting for me about guiding is trying to identify the ‘general trend’ that a particular tourist or group are interested in ~ what they expect to see and hear.

The more detailed I am able to make a narrative, the more excited they get. But I never invent my own myths; I extract the expected theme from the history I have researched and then animate it.  I focus on their interest with a view towards inspiring further interest in a specific topic, place and the history that surrounds it.

YouTube videos

(a) How many YouTube videos have you completed to date?  
There are six at the moment. The first video I did was undertaken for a tour guides’ competition. When it was completed, I watched my video and compared it with the videos made by other participants. I was pleased to discover that the theme of my video went beyond the format required by the contest. I immediately prepared two more videos. I did not get any reward for these, except for a phone call from a federal radio channel and the pleasure of having a couple of minutes conversation on-air with radio presenters whom I particularly like.

I posted my videos on my Facebook page and also on the YouTube channel and got a few positive responses, so I thought it would be a good idea to make some more videos, the idea being that they would act as a video business-card. In my opinion, very few people are prepared to read about you, but people respond to videos in the same way as they interact with television, using the remote-control mentality. You press a button listing the TV channels. If something attracts you, grabs your attention, you might stay on one channel for a few seconds. If not, you list forward. So, my videos are brief. On one hand, to demonstrate who I am and my ability to communicate, and on the other to provide a glimpse of what my tours are about and what can be learnt at a deeper level.

(b) Elaborate on the work involved, the difficulties and the positive aspects
I’m not sure if I followed it to the letter, but I keep in mind Chekhov’s idea, “be short with words, but wide with thoughts”. It took quite a while to write texts based on that precept. The initial texts were excluded. When I checked the time that it took me to read them, I was able to work out what needed to be excluded. It was a good experience. After the fourth video, my camera man, a professional, said to me “You can now work on TV”, as we made fewer single-takes than we had before.


(c) Which of your current videos do you like the best and why?
I both like and hate all of them. I hate my appearance in all of them. I like what we did and how we did it. I became friends with the camera man, Mikhail. My son handled the video editing. It was, besides the purpose behind producing them, fun to make these videos. Once my son, Ed, presented me with a ‘gift’ video; it contained all my pratfalls. I laughed watching it. That was great!

👌A permanent exhibition in Kaliningrad of Victor Ryabinin’s work

Good news. I talked to Galina Zabolotskaya, the Director of the Art Museum, and she told me that they could mount a permanent exhibition of Victor’s work within a hall on the museum’s ground floor in which they commemorate artists of Königsberg and Kaliningrad. She proposed that Victor’s masterpieces be displayed in a room reserved for his work exclusively. In my estimation, this could take some time. Sergey, Victor’s nephew, wants, on one hand, to bring Victor’s pictures and his collection to as wide an audience as possible but, on the other, he is extremely cautious about who he entrusts Victor’s work to.

I can see no benefit in trying to persuade him to act until he himself is ready; in fact, I am of the opinion that too push too hard will simply provoke resistance. I keep in contact with him, and we have taken some important steps in the right direction. I feel that he is pleased with what we have done.

Apart from, and in addition to, setting up a permanent exhibition, I would like to see Victor, the man and art-historian, and the unique contribution that he has made to the memory of Königsberg, commemorated by publishing an album, or catalogue, of his work and collection. I am on the case and will keep you informed about how things are progressing.

🟢Link to Stas’ Tour Guide Page

🟩Link to Stas’ YouTube Videos

Above: Victor Ryabinin walking and sketching around the lagoon coast, Kaliningrad region. (All photographs in this article appear here by kind permission of Stanislav Konovalov. Photographs Copyright © 2018-2020 Stanislav Konovalov)

Copyright [text/layout] © 2018-2021 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.




Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

Victor Ryabinin Artist Historian


Victor Ryabinin the Spirit of Königsberg

by Mick Hart

Published: 18 April 2020

I first met Victor Ryabinin in the spring of 2001. A friend of my wife’s, knowing how much my wife liked art and how fascinated I was with anything to do with the past, suggested that we meet this ‘very interesting’ man, who was an artist and a historian.

When somebody prefaces an introduction with ‘you’ll like him/her’, the Imp of the Perverse often ensures that you won’t, but there is no doubt in my mind, or memory, that I warmed to him immediately. This surprised me, because I am naturally, or unnaturally depending on your definition, cautious when meeting someone new, and I am somewhat selective when it comes to making friends. But Victor won me over in an instant.

How much of his good nature, depth of intellect, openness and sincerity were perceived at that moment is open to question, and I am sure that the surroundings in which I found myself contributed not a little to my relaxed frame of mind, but I still recall that overriding impression of being in the company of someone very special.

The Studio: Victor Ryabinin Artist Historian

We met in Victor’s studio ~ a small, wedge-shaped room at the top of a non-descript concrete Soviet block of flats. Little did I know then as I climbed the tier upon tier of crumbling steps leading to his studio, how many more times over the next 18 years I would climb them or how enthusiastically.

As an inveterate collector of vintage, antiques, junk, and having been obsessed with the past for as long as I can remember, at least from the age of four, Victor’s studio was an absolute paradise. It was a cornucopia of relics, a living memorial to the past splendour of Königsberg, a stimulating reminder of its World War II legacy and its subsequent reincarnation as the Soviet city Kaliningrad.

The back wall of the studio alone was worth travelling one thousand, one hundred and seventy-five miles for! It had been clad from floor to ceiling with a carefully orchestrated mosaic of old enamel advertising, information and military signs, some from pre-war Königsberg, others of wartime origin, identified as such by the presence of the Nazi swastika.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad ~ Artist & Historian
Victor Ryabinin & Mick Hart in The Studio, Summer 2015

The back wall of the studio alone was worth travelling one thousand, one hundred and seventy-five miles for!

Everywhere else there was stuff: bottles dug out of the Königsberg ruins, the corroded remains of wartime weapons, vintage Soviet uniforms, metal wall plaques ~ including profiles of Hitler and Stalin ~ German and Soviet military helmets, plates, cutlery, bits and bobs of jewellry, fragments of porcelain, bottle tops. Everywhere ~ on tables, shelving, walls and floor was stuff ~ relics from a dissolved city, sublimely intermingled with Victor’s works of art-history: symbolic paintings, surreal sculptures and unique subliminally haunting ‘assemblages’.

Living history: Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

In one corner, by the wall, there was a set of old wooden steps that led to a small gantry, which had a slatted rail to the front. When we first visited the studio, this rail was adorned with one or two vintage flags and three or four military visor caps. In those days, the ‘upper storey’ had been sufficiently empty for Victor to bed down there if the mood so took him. When we last visited in 2019, however, the entire front rail of the gantry was obscured with all manner of flags, hats and other items and the gantry itself was full. This, as they say, was a man after my own heart! The studio was a nostalgists heaven! And a work of living history to a city that had ceased to be.

Flags inside Victor Ryabinin's art studio
Victor Ryabinin’s Art Studio 2019: Victor Ryabinin Artist Historian, Königsberg-Kaliningrad

On our first visit to the studio, we had taken with us a ‘picnic’: some meats, cheeses, salad items, crisps, olives and pickled gherkins. We had also taken some vodka and sat around the small rectangular table shared by all sorts of interesting bygones, including the busts of Karl Marx and Lenin, who were watching us intently. This set in motion a social ritual which would be practiced many times over the next 18 years.

Artist Historian Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

On my office wall, in the antique emporium that we used to run in England, I had a framed photograph of myself and Victor taken during a rainy day on Svetlogorsk (Rauschen) beach in winter 2004, together with a framed printed plaque of Lenin, which Victor had presented to me in the form of a spoof award. On this plaque he had written the presentation in beautifully scrolled and flowing calligraphic script, and because he did not know my last name and as at the time when he produced the plaque I was living in Bedford, he wrote the dedication to me in the name of ‘Mick Bedford’.

Victor Ryabinin on Svetlogorsk beach with Mick Hart 2005

Victor Ryabinin in true form discards his umbrella on this cold, wet day: ‘Ne problem!’

{January 2005, Svetlogorsk (Rauschen) }

These two items were guaranteed to raise questions from friends and customers alike, and I was only too happy and extremely proud to introduce them to my friend Victor, a Russian from Kaliningrad who was an accomplished artist, philosopher, historian and a wonderful human being.

I would show them the many photographs of my trips to Kaliningrad, when we were in Victor’s presence, especially photographs that had been taken in the studio, and I would say to them, “It is worth going to Kaliningrad, just to meet this man.”

Sometimes I liked to add a touch of mystery. Just before I left for Kaliningrad, I would drop a hint that I was off on holiday. Where too? they would ask. My answer: “To the Shrine to Königsberg.” ~ Victor’s studio.

Art Studio Königsberg
Fragments of Königsberg in the company of one of Victor Ryabinin’s symbolic artworks: Victor Ryabinin Art Studio

Victor Ryabinin Artist Historian: Königsberg

Whenever I holidayed in Kaliningrad I would make the most of it, staying there for four or five weeks at a time. Victor and the studio were constantly top of my itinerary list, and I have lost count of the number of social evenings we spent in that hallowed place, the studio, and, later, the excursions we went on, both around Kaliningrad itself and further into the region. Suffice it to say, they were wonderful times.

We had begun talking about moving to Kaliningrad as far back as 2015, although I do not think that I had any intention of committing myself at that time. However, Victor’s enthusiasm, positivity, indefatigable interest in novelty and his sincere affirmation, ‘of course you could live here!’, must have worked its magic behind the scenes of consciousness, for, one day, when my wife and I were discussing the prospect more earnestly, it suddenly dawned on me that if I did move to Kaliningrad I would be living in Victor’s city, the city that was his life and his life’s work.

That I believe was the defining moment; that was when I made the decision to move. I looked upon the possibility of living in Victor’s Königsberg to be an honour and a privilege. I could hardly believe that by doing so I would be able to associate with him more often and looked forward to more historical excursions around the city and region and, under his tutelage, developing my historical knowledge of the city’s past. I was also looking forward, of course, to those evenings of camaraderie, sitting in the atmospheric studio, the Shrine to Königsberg, relaxing in the company of mutual friends, chatting whilst drinking vodka or cognac.

From that moment, it was no longer a question of should I move, but how quickly could I move?

Unfortunately, the practical aspects of relocation took too long and by the time we arrived in Kaliningrad in December 2018, unbeknown to us and to Victor himself, Victor’s life was ebbing way and in seven months’ time he would be dead.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

Victor Ryabinin was, without question, one of the finest people I have ever known. He was an exceptional human being. In the words of a mutual friend, “I am proud that I was close to this great man”.

I admired him for his artistic talent; I respected him for his phiIosophy; I adored him for his love of history; I loved him as a person.

When he died, last July (July 2019), of cancer, it was a great personal tragedy for me. Apart from my wife, Olga, he was the single most influential person to tip the scales in favour of me coming to live in Kaliningrad. If he was here today, he would correct me at this juncture ~ “Königsberg, Mike!” In fact, this became something of an in-joke. I would purposefully refer to the city as Kaliningrad just to have him correct me. He continues to do so. I think he always will.

Victor Ryabinin was not just an artist-historian. He was far, far and away beyond that. He was a time traveller: a man who could talk to the past, empathise with the past and commune with it.

He was a man of small stature but great presence. He had an aura about him, a magnetic personality and was thoroughly and utterly engaged and engaging. The magic ethos with which Victor was infused stemmed from many sources. His personality was one of calm and calming repose. He was good natured, good humoured, his sense of humour was playful but never acerbic. His philosophy of life seemed to be based on two short words: ‘ne problem’ ~ things could be an ‘issue’ but never ‘a problem’, and issues could always be resolved, or would resolve themselves in the fullness of time. This reassuring attitude, this positive philosophy made Victor’s company always good. No matter how you felt before meeting with him, you came away from his company with an overwhelming sense of wellbeing. Victor’s company had the feelgood factor.

The Spirit of Königsberg

As an artist and historian, there was profundity and depth, but they were free from the heaviness and pretentiousness by which these qualities are so often confounded. Victor practised humility and was never confrontational. He would express himself and then move on. He never forced his point of view upon you.

The magnetism of his innate character came from a spiritual energy, which I believe was made more potent as it was drawn from the same source, the same well from that which Königsberg drew its spiritual energy. Victor was not just one among a number of talented people who originated from or who worked in Königsberg, he was the Spirit of Königsberg.

Last but by no means least, there was Victor’s inquisitiveness. It was one of his most endearing character traits.

At the gathering of friends and family after his funeral, Victor’s nephew said of Victor that he had a childlike inquisitiveness, a curiosity to know, to learn, to explore and that this quality remained with him throughout his life. It is true that Victor exhibited profound and sincere astonishment at every new revelation. He was a keen observer of life for whom everything had an intrinsic interest; nothing passed him by. As Boris Nisnevich records in his article An Artist Who Can Hear Angels Speak, Victor himself said, “I can only guess what boredom is”.

“I can only guess what boredom is”.

Victor Ryabinin

Another of his friends claimed that ‘Victor created his own reality’. I suppose that each and every one of us does this. Victor’s reality is possibly best summed up in the name he gave to one of his final compositions (‘assemblages’, as he liked to call them). He called it The Relics that will Save my Soul.

In the last analysis, it is impossible to extricate, separate or divorce Victor Ryabinin from Königsberg. Whenever I see the word Königsberg and whenever I hear it, it is impossible not to think of Victor. The two were, are and always will be synonymous.

In the work that follows, a biographical essay of Victor’s life and the experiences and influences that informed his art and love of Königsberg,  Boris Nisnevich celebrates the life of a unique artist-historian and an exceptional human being.

Victor Ryabinin could talk to angels, there is no doubt about that, and through his work and in his memory those angels speak to us.

I miss him.

Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Historian, Philosopher ~ The Spirit of Königsberg

Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Historian, Philosopher ~ The Spirit of Königsberg
{17 December 1946 ~ 18 July 2019}

Copyright © 2018-2020 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad


Victor Ryabinin the Spirit of Königsberg

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad by Mick Hart

Revised 18 July 2024 | First published: 17 April 2020

I first met Victor Ryabinin in the spring of 2001. A friend of my wife’s, knowing how much my wife liked art and how fascinated I was with anything to do with the past, suggested that we meet this ‘very interesting’ man, who was an artist and a historian.

Related article: An artist who can hear angels speak by Boris Nisnevich

When somebody prefaces an introduction with ‘you’ll like him/her’, the Imp of the Perverse often ensures that you won’t, but there is no doubt in my mind, or memory, that I warmed to Victor immediately. This surprised me, because I am naturally, or unnaturally, depending on your definition, cautious when meeting strangers, selective with whom I associate and when I do make friends I do so on my terms. But Victor was a prodigy; he won me over in an instant.

How much of his good nature, depth of intellect, openness and sincerity were perceived at that moment is open to question, and I am sure that the surroundings in which I found myself contributed not a little to my relaxed frame of mind, but I still recall that overriding impression, the one of being in the company of someone very special.

The Studio: Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

We met in Victor’s studio ~ a small, wedge-shaped room at the top of a non-descript concrete Soviet block of flats. Little did I know then as I climbed the tier upon tier of crumbling steps, how many more times in the next 18 years I would retrace my steps and how enthusiastically.

As an inveterate collector of vintage, antiques, junk, and having been obsessed with the past for as long as I can remember, at least from the age of four, Victor’s studio was an absolute paradise. It was a cornucopia of relics, a living memorial to the lost splendour of Königsberg, a stimulating reminder of its World War II legacy and a personalised reflection on its curious reincarnation as the Soviet city Kaliningrad.

The back wall of the studio alone was worth travelling one thousand, one hundred and seventy-five miles for! It had been clad from floor to ceiling with a carefully orchestrated mosaic of old enamel advertising, informational and military signs, some from pre-war Königsberg, others of wartime origin, validated as such by the presence of the swastika.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad ~ Artist & Historian
Victor Ryabinin & Mick Hart in The Studio, Summer 2015

The back wall of the studio alone was worth travelling one thousand, one hundred and seventy-five miles for!

Stuff was everywhere: bottles dug out of the Königsberg ruins, the corroded remains of wartime weapons, vintage Soviet uniforms, metal wall plaques ~ including profiles of Hitler and Stalin ~ German and Soviet military helmets, plates, cutlery, jewellery, fragments of porcelain, bottles and bottle tops, religious icons of every shape and size, bits, bobs and all sorts of a thought-provoking nature. Everywhere ~ on tables, shelves, walls and floor was stuff ~ relics from a vapourised city sublimely sharing space with Victor’s works of art-history: his symbolic paintings, surreal sculptures and subliminally haunting ‘assemblages’.

Living history: Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

In one corner, by the wall, there was a set of old wooden steps that led to a small gantry, which had a slatted rail to the front. On our first visit to the studio in 2001, this rail was adorned with one or two vintage flags and three or four military visor caps. In those days, the ‘upper storey’ had been sufficiently empty for Victor to bed down there if the mood so took him. When we last visited in 2019, however, the entire front rail of the gantry was obscured with all manner of flags, hats and other items and the gantry itself was full. It was easy to see that Victor was, as they say, a man after my own heart! The studio was a nostalgists heaven! A work of living history to a city that had ceased to be.

Flags inside Victor Ryabinin's art studio
Victor Ryabinin’s Art Studio 2019: Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

On our first visit to the studio, we had taken with us a ‘picnic’: some meats, cheeses, salad items, crisps, olives and pickled gherkins. We had also taken some vodka. The small room was crowded, but we happily sat around the small rectangular table shared by all sorts of interesting bygones, including the busts of Marx and Lenin, who were watching us intently. This snack and vodka gathering in Victor’s room set in motion a social ritual which would be practised many times over the next 18 years.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

On my office wall, in the antique emporium that we used to run in England, hung a framed photograph of myself and Victor taken during a rainy day on Svetlogorsk (Rauschen) beach in winter 2004, together with a framed plaque of Lenin, which Victor had presented to me in the form of a spoof award. He had written the presentation in beautifully scrolling calligraphic script, but because at the time of the plaques creation he did not know my last name, only that I lived in Bedford, the dedication had been duly made out not to Mick Hart but ‘Mick Bedford’.

Victor Ryabinin on Svetlogorsk beach with Mick Hart 2005

Victor Ryabinin in true form discards his umbrella on this cold, wet day: ‘Ne problem!’

{January 2005, Svetlogorsk (Rauschen) }

These two items were guaranteed to raise questions from friends and customers alike, and I was only too happy and extremely proud to introduce them to my friend Victor, a Russian from Kaliningrad who was an accomplished artist, philosopher and social historian and, simply but emphatically, a wonderful person to know.

I would show them the many photographs of my trips to Kaliningrad where Victor was present, especially photographs that had been taken in the studio, and then would assert that “It is worth going to Kaliningrad, just to meet this man.”

Sometimes I liked to add a touch of mystery. Just before I would leave for Kaliningrad, I would drop a hint that I was off on holiday. Where too? They would ask. “The Shrine to Königsberg,” I would reply, meaning Victor’s studio.

Art Studio Königsberg
Fragments of Königsberg in the company of one of Victor Ryabinin’s symbolic artworks: Victor Ryabinin Art Studio

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

Whenever I holidayed in Kaliningrad I would make the most of it, staying there for four or five weeks at a time. Victor and the studio were constantly top of my itinerary list, and I have lost count of the number of social evenings we spent in that hallowed place, the studio, and, later, the excursions Victor took us on, both around Kaliningrad itself and further into the region. Suffice it to say, they were wonderful times.

We had begun talking about moving to Kaliningrad as far back as 2015, although I do not think that I had any intention of committing myself at that time. However, Victor’s enthusiasm, positivity, indefatigable interest in novelty and sincere affirmation, ‘of course you could live here, ne problem!’, must have worked its magic behind the scenes of consciousness, for, one day, when my wife and I were discussing the prospect more earnestly, it suddenly dawned upon me that if I did move to Kaliningrad I would be living in Victor’s city, the city that was his life and his life’s work.

That I believe was the defining moment; that was when the decision to move was made. Living just up the road from him, I could hop on a bus or tram, take a taxi or even walk and be there at the studio. The advantages now were clear to me. I looked forward, under his tutelage, to developing my knowledge of the city’s past, to the excursions he would organize both in and around the city and, of course, to memorable evenings  ~ evenings of camaraderie ~ sitting together with mutual friends in the studio, discussing art, culture and history, chatting and snacking away whilst drinking vodka or cognac. To live in Victor’s Königsberg would be an honour and a privilege, not forgetting a joy.

From that revelatory moment, it was no longer a question of should I move, but how quickly could I move?

Unfortunately, the practical aspects of relocation took too long and by the time we arrived in Kaliningrad in December 2018, unbeknown to us and to Victor himself, Victor’s life was ebbing away. Seven months later, he would be dead.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

Victor Ryabinin was an artist-historian, but he was far and away beyond that. I thought of him  as a time traveller or at least as a man who could talk to Konigsberg’s past, empathise with the cruelty of its fate and commune with the ghosts of its people, whom, he told us, were constant visitors ~ they invaded his dreams at night.

Victor was a man of small stature but great presence. He had an aura about him, a magnetic personality and was thoroughly and utterly engaged and engaging. The magic ethos with which Victor was infused stemmed from many sources. His personality was one of calm and calming repose. He was good natured, good humoured, his sense of humour was playful but never acerbic. His philosophy of life seemed to be based on two short words: ‘ne problem’ ~ things could be an ‘issue’ but never ‘a problem’, and issues could be resolved, or would resolve themselves in the fullness of time. This reassuring attitude, this positive philosophy made Victor’s company always good. No matter how you might be feeling before you met with Victor, you came away from his company with an overwhelming sense that all was well in your world. Victor’s company had the feelgood factor.

The Spirit of Königsberg

As an artist and historian, there was profundity and depth, but they were free from the heaviness and pretentiousness by which these qualities are so often confounded. Victor practised humility and was never confrontational. He would express himself and then move on. He never forced his point of view upon you.

The magnetism of his innate character came from an energy that seemed almost preternatural, which I believe was made more potent as it was drawn from the same cosmos source, the same mysterious well, from that which Königsberg drew its spiritual energy. Victor was not just one among a number of talented people who originated from or who worked in the city of Königsberg, he was the Spirit of Königsberg ~ the personification of the spirit of the past.

Last but by no means least, there was Victor’s dynamic thirst for knowledge, which was one of his most endearing traits.

At the funeral gathering of friends and family, the term ‘a childlike inquisitiveness’ used by Victor’s nephew captured the essence of what it was: Victor had a curiosity to know, to learn, to explore, nothing was not without wonder, and it remained that way throughout his life.

As Boris Nisnevich records in his biographical essay An Artist Who Can Hear Angels Speak, it was Victor himself who said, “I can only guess what boredom is”.

“I can only guess what boredom is”.

Victor Ryabinin

Another of his friends claimed that ‘Victor created his own reality’. I suppose that each and every one of us does just that to some extent.

Victor’s reality is possibly best summed up in the name that he attributed to one of his final compositions (‘assemblages’, as he liked to call them). A framed composite of bits and pieces from the wreckage that remained of Königsberg, he christened it with the title The Relics that will Save my Soul.

It is impossible, in the last analysis, to extricate, separate or divorce Victor Ryabinin from Königsberg. Whenever I see the word Königsberg and whenever I hear it spoken, I see and hear Victor Ryabinin. The two were, are and always will be synonymous.

When Victor died of cancer in 2019, I was devastated. Apart from my wife, Olga, he was the single most influential person to tip the scales in favour of my coming to live in Kaliningrad. It makes me smile to think that if he was here today, he would correct me at this juncture: “Königsberg, Mike!” he would typically say. I liked him to pull me up on this and would often say ‘Kaliningrad’ just to have him correct me. He continues to do so to this day. I think he always will.

Victor Ryabinin was, without question, one of the finest people I have ever known. Apart from and in addition to his accomplishments as a much-loved art teacher and artist of the symbolist genre, he had the gift just by his company of making you feel that perhaps, after all, life was worth the struggle. “I am proud,” said another great man,” Stanislav Konovalov, Victor’s student and friend, “that I was close to this great man.”

I admired Victor for his artistic talent; I respected him for his philosophy; I adored him for his love of history; I loved him as a person. My only criticism of him is that he went and died when he did, making me miss him for the rest of my life.

In the work that follows, a biographical essay of Victor’s life and the experiences and influences that informed his art and love of Königsberg,  Boris Nisnevich celebrates the life of a unique artist-historian and an exceptional human being.

Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Historian, Philosopher ~ The Spirit of Königsberg

Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Historian, Philosopher ~ The Spirit of Königsberg
{17 December 1946 ~ 18 July 2019}

Victor Ryabinin could talk to angels, of that there is no doubt, and through his work and in his memory those angels speak to us.

Copyright © 2018-2024 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.