Zelenogradsk Christmas - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

Zelenogradsk ~ streets ahead with imaginative decorations

Published: 10 January 2023 ~ Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations Win First Prize

In the UK, the festive season is well and truly over. Unless you had a better time than most, the last remnants of the New Year’s Eve hangover will have sailed way into the ether, along with the memories you cannot remember and those you wish to forget. But here, in Russia, the festive holidays do not peter out until the morn of the 15^th of January. This is because the Russian Orthodox Church follows the old Julian Calendar and not the Gregorian one, so, although some religious denominations still celebrate Christmas day on the 25^th December and the big festive night for Russians is the same as that for the Scotties, New Year’s Eve, Russians also celebrate Orthodox Christmas on the 7^th January and Orthodox New Year’s Eve on the 14^th January. That’s an awful lot of celebrations in one month, but it does mean that the municipal decorations remain intact until the middle of January.

Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations Win First Prize

Bearing this in mind, I took a trip to the Baltic seaside resort of Zelenogradsk on the 9^th of January to shiver in front of the sea and say hello to what are without question the most inspiring display of Christmas decorations this side of the Russian border.

I have no idea whether Kaliningrad holds a Best Decorated Christmas Street in the Region competition, but if it did, the main street of Zelenogradsk would win hands down. Words like magical and enchanting easily spring to mind, along with novel, imaginative and even bizarre!

This year I took my camera along with me and, although the snaps that I have taken do not do the panoply near enough justice, they do manage to give an idea of the thought and effort that each shop, café, bar, restaurant, etc put into producing the best expression of Christmas joy. They certainly make my Christmas baubles look pathetic in comparison, even when lit with flashing lights.

Which of the Christmas ensembles along Zelenogradsk High Street would I nominate for first prize? That’s a tough ‘un’. I’ll leave it to you to decide.

Christmas decorative arch in Zelenogradsk

Amber Empire Zelenogradsk decorated for festive season

Snowmen Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations

Christmas decorated shopfronts Zelenogradsk 2022/3

Vintage Carriage Zelenogradsk High Street

Zelenogradsk specialist marzipan shop decorated for Christmas

Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations, Meeskkee, teddy bears

Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations with Olga Hart

Unusual Christmas decoration on Zelenogradsk

Some relevant links

Zelenogradsk Lit Up Like a Christmas Tree!
Amazed at the Museum of Skulls and Skeletons Zelenogradsk
An Englishman Chilling in Zelenogradsk with a Bear and Beer

A festive day in Zelenogradsk

Published: 24 December 2020

Travelling for the first time from a small railway station tucked away in Kaliningrad, my wife, Olga, and I recently visited the coastal resort Zelenogradsk. It was a wet, cold, overcast day, and it was also Monday, so we had the pleasure of travelling on a very sparsely populated train. Even though we were the only ones sitting in a carriage that could hold 60 people effortlessly, we were still obliged to obey the mandatory mask-wearing rule, aka ‘muzzles’, as Olga calls them.

Zelenogradsk! Lit up like a Christmas tree

Cutting out the rail journey across town, the trip took about twenty minutes in total. First stop, Love café, for a bowl of piping hot mushroom soup, potato pancakes and a couple of carafes of vodka. Thus fortified against the inclement weather, we were better able to appreciate the delights of Zelenogradsk’s festive decorations. The upper end of the High Street was positively festooned with them, and there was no shortage for my paparazzi-minded wife to snap her mobile phone at, prior to uploading them onto Facebook.

Love café Zelinogradsk: Mick Hart & Olga Hart Xmas 2020 — **Mick & Olga Hart in Love café Zelinogradsk, Russia, Christmas 2020**

Although the lower end of the High Street was less profusely decorated, I was much taken with the latest socio-cultural symbol, which speaks volumes about our modern-day society. It takes the form of a bronze statue, modelled after a shapely young woman trouncing across the road. She is towing a case on wheels and, oblivious to everything around her but herself, is taking a selfie on her mobile phone. With her arm outstretched and her head tossed back, she is so completely self-entranced that when I put my arm around her she did not blink an eyelid. Thank you lady for that, but do watch out for the traffic now!

We took a stroll along the deserted beach, which only five months ago was a sardine tin of sun loungers, and then retraced our steps from the park, detouring in the direction of the Cranz water tower. My wife, knowing that I have a skeleton fetish, had steered me toward the Skeleton Museum, a truly novel establishment which I intend to write about later.

Then, it was back along the High Street, allowing Olga to indulge herself in her fetish ~ more photo-taking for Facebook. This made me grumble a bit. This never-ending compulsion to phone-photo everything for Führer Facebook has the irritating tendency to subjugate life to a series of fits and starts, placing real time in abeyance, putting it on hold in the most obtrusive and disjointing way. The inconvenience righted itself, however, when Olga, in order to placate me, suggested that we stop for a drink in the Telegraf restaurant, a capital suggestion with which it was inconceivable not to agree and which most mysteriously seemed to alter my point of view about photos. After all, I reasoned, over a nice refreshing ‘pint’, I would need the photographs for my blog.