{"id":130,"count":69,"description":"<h2>Daily Life in Kaliningrad<\/h2>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/daily-life-in-kaliningrad\/\">Daily Life in Kaliningrad<\/a> is a category of my blog expatkaliningrad.com. It is, as the title suggests, devoted to observations, thoughts and opinions of what it is like to live in Kaliningrad, and it is written from the point of view of an expat Englishman. Unlike my diary category, <a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/kaliningrad-mick-harts-diary\/\">Kaliningrad: Mick Hart\u2019s Diary<\/a>, the posts featured in this category are not necessarily linked to any specific timeline or date but are topic or theme oriented. For example, at the time of writing this brief description the category <a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/daily-life-in-kaliningrad\/\">DAILY LIFE IN KALININGRAD<\/a> contains the following posts:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/kaliningrad-dentist-russia\/\">A Day at the Dentist<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/international-womens-day-kaliningrad\/\">International Women\u2019s Day Kaliningrad<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/self-isolating-in-kaliningrad\/\">Self-isolating in Kaliningrad<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">A Day at the Dentists<\/span>\u00a0 <img class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-548\" src=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Dentists-Outside-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Centrodent dentist clinic Kaliningrad Russia\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/strong>\r\nOne of the first reactions I received when I divulged to friends and colleagues my intention to move to Russia, apart from perhaps the obvious one, was what is the health service like? A not unusual preoccupation, especially with older people, because, let\u2019s face it, as we grow older we fall to bits. I wrote this article about a trip to a Russian dentist\u2019s partly in response to this question and partly because the experience surprised me. Well, we all have our prejudices; take real-ale drinkers and Watney\u2019s.\r\n\r\n<strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">International Women\u2019s Day Kaliningrad\u00a0<\/span> <img class=\"alignnone wp-image-767 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/OLga-trowel-2-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"International Women's Day Kaliningrad Russia\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/strong>\r\nNow you would not think that an old and proud chauvinist like me would want to go on record as saying that I enjoy something as seemingly PC and ism-oriented as International Women\u2019s Day, but\u00a0in these days of tats, butch, Its, Others and Old Uncle Tom Cobbley, Russia\u2019s nationwide display of affection and sentimentality traditionally symbolised by the giving of flowers to the fairer sex pulls wonderfully at one\u2019s conservative heartstrings. Whether flower power and a kind heart were influential enough to pull at my wallet strings with regards to treating my better half to flowers is revealed in this article.\r\n\r\n<strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">Self-isolating in Kaliningrad<\/span>\u00a0 <img class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1359\" src=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Cravta-resized-139x300.jpg\" alt=\"Self-isolating in Kaliningrad\" width=\"139\" height=\"300\" \/><\/strong>\r\nRather self-explanatory don\u2019t you think? This, I believe, was my first article as the world entered the coronavirus maelstrom, since when expressions like \u2018self-isolating\u2019, \u2018social distancing\u2019, \u2018lockdown\u2019, \u2018masks\u2019, \u2018vaccines\u2019, \u2018New Normal\u2019 and so on have become the defining lexicon of the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century. I want my money back! When I was young, and I was once, I subscribed to a Sci-Fi magazine called <em>TV 21<\/em>. It was, as the title suggests, a preview of what it would be like to live in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century. It was all about cities on stilts, suspended monorails, hover cars, people with metallic-looking hair and all-in-one shimmering silver jumpsuits. I, as with my entire generation, have been had! There was nothing in this magazine\u2019s Brave New World prediction of open borders, social engineered societies, political correctness, sect appeasement, streets too violent to walk down, globalisation and global warming, anti-patriotism, revisionist history, stage-managed free speech or coronavirus. We were had! And, as we continue to self-isolate, there are those out there who believe that we are still being had. But I prefer to self-isolate \u2026\r\n\r\n************************************\r\n<h3>Daily Life in Kaliningrad<\/h3>\r\nI am aware that <a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/daily-life-in-kaliningrad\/\">Daily Life in Kaliningrad<\/a> is not exactly overpopulated with articles. You can blame this on coronavirus ~ I do. Since making its debut, I, like almost everyone else who writes things, has had their focus ~ nay their lives ~ shanghaied by the why\u2019s, what\u2019s and therefores of this life- and lifestyle-changing phenomenon. This, let us hope it is only a, detour, is reflected in the disproportional number of posts that appear in my <a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/kaliningrad-mick-harts-diary\/\">Kaliningrad: Mick Hart\u2019s Diary<\/a> category (sub-categories <a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/kaliningrad-mick-harts-diary\/diary-2000\/\">Diary 2000<\/a> &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/kaliningrad-mick-harts-diary\/diary-2019-2020\/\">Diary 2019\/2020<\/a>) and my exposition category, <a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/meanwhile-in-the-uk\/\">Meanwhile in the UK<\/a>, \u00a0which is devoted to events in my home country, England, oh and sometimes the other bits: analysis, comment and expos\u00e9s on UK media content together with cultural, historical and nostalgic subjects which appeal to my idiosyncrasies or are taken from the barely legible pages of my old and initially handwritten diaries.\r\n\r\nWe live in peculiar and interesting times, and as I consider myself to be first and foremost a diarist, it is as impossible not to be waylaid by events as they unfold as it is not to time travel. When you take the two together and place it within the context of somebody\u2019s life, in this case mine, the impetus to write <a href=\"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/\">expatkaliningrad.com<\/a> is not difficult to understand.","link":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/category\/daily-life-in-kaliningrad\/","name":"DAILY LIFE in KALININGRAD","slug":"daily-life-in-kaliningrad","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taxonomies\/category"}],"wp:post_type":[{"href":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts?categories=130"},{"href":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages?categories=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}