{"id":3250,"date":"2022-04-18T14:55:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T12:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/?p=3250"},"modified":"2022-08-07T11:41:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-07T09:41:26","slug":"kaliningrad-beyond-the-headlines-of-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/kaliningrad-beyond-the-headlines-of-the-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What I like about Kaliningrad<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Updated 18 April 2022 | First published: 2 March 2021 ~ Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[INTRO}<\/strong> I wrote this piece over a year ago, at a time when western media had nothing better to do than push a hysteria-fomenting narrative about the coronavirus pandemic; now, apparently, it has nothing better to do than to push a hysteria-fomenting narrative about the situation in Ukraine. Bearing this in mind, I dutifully revisited my post to see if anything had changed regarding my opinion of life in Russia and to what extent if any western media had succeeded in convincing me that I would be happier in the UK than if I remained a sanctioned Englishman living in Kaliningrad. I am pleased, but not surprised, to say that other than one or two grammatical improvements, there was nothing to revise! Here\u2019s that post again \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We left the UK for Kaliningrad in winter 2018, but things were far from settled. Over the next twelve months I would have to return to the UK three or four times to renew my visa and to obtain official documents and then return again to pay an extortionate sum of money for a notarised apostille, a little rosette-looking thing verified by a notary that once clipped to the official documents could be used to complete my Leave to Remain in Russia. It was expensive; it was a rigmarole; but obtaining Leave to Remain meant that opening visas would be a thing of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time that I was in the UK was December 2019. I returned to Kaliningrad just in time for the New Year celebrations and a month or so afterwards was granted Leave to Remain. We had intended to return to the UK in April for a month, as we had some business to attend to, but before we could do that coronavirus came along and the rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a previous article<\/a> I revealed the circumstances which persuaded us to leave the UK and move to Kaliningrad. Now, with December 2019 to the present date being the longest uninterrupted period that I have been in Kaliningrad, it would seem appropriate that I pause to reflect on what it is about Kaliningrad that drew me to it and continues to endear and fascinate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our friend, the late Victor Ryabinin<\/a>, used to refer to Kaliningrad and its surrounding territory as \u2018this special place\u2019, and I am with him on that. Whether it is because I see Kaliningrad through his eyes and feel it through his heart, I cannot rightly say. Certainly, his outlook and philosophy on life influenced me and my intuition bears his signature, but I rather imagine that he perceived in me from the earliest time of our friendship something of a kindred spirit, someone who shared his sensibility for the fascination of this \u2018special place\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, my feelings for Kaliningrad are in no way blinkered by a Romanticist streak, which, yes, I do have. If Victor could describe himself as a cheerful pessimist, then I have no qualms in describing myself as a pragmatic Romanticist. But I am no more or less a stranger to Kaliningrad\u2019s flaws and imperfections than I am to my own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we arrived in Kaliningrad on a very cold day in winter 2018 to make arrangements for moving here, we were thrown in at the deep end. Early in the morning, still tired from our flight the night before, we had official business that would not wait, which meant trekking off to one of the city\u2019s less salubrious districts. We had given ourselves sufficient time, allowances having been made for the usual protracted queuing, but on reaching our destination discovered that the office we were bound for was working to a different timetable than the one advertised, and consequently we had a two-hour wait before we would be seen! Asking some kind people if they would reserve our place in the queue, we ventured out to a small eatery, a cubicle on the side of the road, for a coffee and a bite to eat. I wrote in my diary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOutside, we were confronted yet again by downtown Kaliningrad at its \u2018finest\u2019: those ubiquitous concrete tower blocks, stained, crumbling and patched; pavements cracked, ruptured and sunken; kerbstones akimbo; grass verges churned by the wheels of numerous vehicles so that they resembled farmyard gateways; small soviet-era fences rusting and broken; and roads so full of potholes that I began to wonder if it was 1945 again and looked anxiously above me to check for the presence of Lancasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When I returned to Kaliningrad from England in December 2019, I wrote:
“I am not sure whether I love Kaliningrad in spite of its imperfections or because of them”.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

They say that it is people that make places what they are, and it is a difficult-to-disprove logic. In the UK, for example, left-leaning commentators, liberal media editors, state-blamers and apologists are continually referring to \u2018disadvantaged\u2019 people from \u2018deprived areas\u2019, whereas in my experience it is people who deprive areas not areas that deprive people and the only disadvantage is yours, if you should wander into these areas by mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case in point: Back in the 1990s I had a female acquaintance who lived in a notorious concrete citadel in south London\u2019s Peckham; her reputation I was assured of, but when I visited her one late afternoon in autumn, my knowledge of the Badlands where she lived was incipiently less important to me than my amorous intent. Ahh, the follies of youth!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it came time to leave, I was ready to phone for a taxi. It was then that she informed me that after dark taxis refused to enter the estate, in fact the entire area! I suggested hailing a black cab in the street and was told that black cabs were as \u201crare \u2018round here as rocking horse s!*t!\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was nothing for it: I would have to walk. I cannot say that I was unduly perturbed by this prospect. I was young, well relatively young, and these were the days of my London-wide pub crawls, which would take me to every corner of London no matter which corner it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this particular evening, I had not walked far before I espied my first pub. I was still some distance from it, and though the light from the one or two working streetlamps was dim, the building was easily distinguished as the front was bathed in a low, lurid glow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I drew closer, I discovered to my surprise that someone had propped a large mattress on the side of the pub wall and had set light to it. It must have been very damp, the proverbial piss-stained mattress I suppose, because the conflagration was limited to a slow, puthering, smoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being the Good Samaritan that I am, I popped my head around the pub door and called to the chap behind the bar, \u201cHey, did you know that there is a burning mattress strapped to the side of your pub?\u201d I need not have felt so daft for saying this, as, barely looking up from his newspaper, the barman grunted in reply, \u201cIt\u2019s not unusual around here, mate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had not walked far from The Burning Mattress pub before I found another: The Demolition Inn. All of the windows on the pavement side were smashed, and one pathetic light shone miserably through the broken glass in what otherwise would be a superb and original 1920s\u2019 doorway. I couldn\u2019t just walk past!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The place was empty and quiet, but it had not always been. Evidence had it that not too long ago it had been extremely lively. In one corner there was a pile of broken furniture and that which was still standing had bandaged legs and strung-up backs. The mirror behind the bar was bust, western-film style, and all of the more expensive bottles, the shorts, had been removed from the shelves and the optics, presumably for their own safety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never did ask what had happened. It just did not seem the polite thing to do. I just ordered a pint from the man behind the bar, who had a lovely shining black eye and his arm in the nicest of slings, and spent the next thirty minutes on my own in this disadvantaged pub, philosophically ruminating on the nasty way in which bricks and mortar and the wider urban environment deprived people to such an extent that there was nothing they could do but set light to piss-stained mattresses, smash up backstreet pubs, terrify London cabbies and (a popular sport in London\u2019s predominantly ethnic areas) mug the hapless white man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what can we conclude from this? Most large towns and cities have rundown areas, but the difference between the rundown areas in Kaliningrad and those that we know and avoid in London and other UK cities ~ the \u2018deprived areas\u2019, as they are called ~ is that you are less likely to be deprived of your possessions, your faculties even your life, whilst walking through the Kaliningrad equivalents of the UK\u2019s infamous sink estates. Although, to be precise, such equivalents do not exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, without sounding too fanciful, let us agree that it is people ~ the way they act, talk, behave, dress and generally conduct themselves in public ~ that makes a place what it is. An observation that applies to anywhere ~ be it a 1920s\u2019 terraced street, a 1970s\u2019 concrete estate, a pedestrianised city centre, anywhere ~ from region to region, country to country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not about to make any silly sweeping statements about what Russian people are really like. I could not accomplish this with any degree of validity if someone was to ask me to \u2018sum up\u2019 British people (not the least because true British are lumped together with people from foreign lands, who in appearance and behaviour are anything but British, and yet have a stamp in their passport that contradicts good sense) simply because every individual is different no matter where he or she hails from. What I can say hand on heart is that in the 22 years that I have been coming to Kaliningrad, I have had the good fortune to meet, and in some instances become friends with, people of the highest calibre in this small corner of Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is true that in June 2019 we lost Victor Ryabinin, which was and still is an inconsolable loss, and tragedy would overtake us again in November 2020, when our friend and Victor\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Stas Konovalov<\/a>, who helped us through the emotional period of Victor\u2019s death and with whom we shared so many good times, died also. For the second time in less than two years, irreplaceable people had been taken from us. We continue to miss them both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it had been for Stas and Victor, history plays an important part in my relationship with Kaliningrad. There is, of course, my own personal history of Kaliningrad, an interaction that stretches back over two decades, and then the energy of the greater past that flows from antiquity into the present. In Kaliningrad, and its region, the past and present parallel each other. There are times and places where the past seems so close that you feel all you need to do is reach out, pull back the curtain and take its hand in yours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is something magnetic in this city; it pulled some of the world\u2019s most significant people into it as it has pulled me. I cannot explain this magic, but I know that this is my city.\u201d<\/p>Victor Ryabinin<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For some, this confluence of the past has more disturbing connotations. My wife\u2019s mother, who is attuned to the \u2018otherness\u2019 of our existence, complains that although she likes Kaliningrad, there is something inescapably \u2018heavy\u2019 about it, defined by her as emanating from its dark Teutonic and German past. And I am inclined to agree with her. But I do not share her more gloomy interpretation of the dark side or its negative affect. For me, the cloud has a silver lining: it is profundity and, at its core, cultural sensitivity, interlaced with creative energy. Indeed, creativity and creative people thrived and flourished in K\u00f6nigsberg and that legacy, I am pleased to say, lives on to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Victor
K\u00f6nigsberg ~ the retrospective world of artist Victor Ryabinin<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Whilst the bricks and mortar of K\u00f6nigsberg\u2019s ruins ~ the haunting landscape in which Victor Ryabinin spent his susceptible childhood ~ may have largely been replaced, the spirit of the old city and the spirits of all those who passed through it, whether peacefully or violently during times of war, are ever present. And I earnestly believe that the energy of our two departed friends, Victor and Stas, walk among the living here as countless others do who were brought to this place by fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"K\u00f6nigsberg
K\u00f6nigsberg after allied bombing ~ the childhood landscape of Victor Ryabinin<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Modern
Kaliningrad 2019<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Victor wrote that “there is something magnetic in this city; it pulled some of the world\u2019s most significant people into it as it has pulled me. I cannot explain this magic, but I know that this is my city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I experienced a similar revelation on that cold, snow-bound night, back in the year 2000, when I was standing on the forecourt of Kaliningrad station<\/a> . It was strong then and is strong now, and knowing it as I do, it no longer surprises me that I am living here today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kaliningrad<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I was told by someone, not by Victor himself, that Victor believed that no matter how we felt about the past, we have to live in the present. I never did get chance to ask him whether by that he meant that we had no choice but to live in the present or that we each had a moral imperative to do so, but whichever version you choose, I would qualify both by adding that to a certain extent we can pick and mix, take what we need from the past and present and leave the rest behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my case, the past and present converge, and I am attracted to modern-day Kaliningrad as much as I am fascinated by its East Prussian, German and Soviet history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When English people call me out, asking pointedly what it is I like about Kaliningrad. I reply, glibly: \u201cWhat\u2019s not to like?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, I start with the historical perspective ~ it would not be me if I didn\u2019t ~ referring to the Teutonic Order, ancient K\u00f6nigsberg, K\u00f6nigsberg\u2019s fate during the Second World War and its Soviet reincarnation. I emphasise what a fascinating destination it is for those who are interested in military history and woo antique and vintage dealers with seductive tales of dug-up relics, the incomparable fleamarket and colourful descriptions of alluring pieces hidden away in the city’s antique shops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kaliningrad
Relics of K\u00f6nigsberg & Soviet Kaliningrad’s past<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then I go on to say that Kaliningrad is a vibrant and dynamic city, a city of contrasts, of surprises; I talk up its superb bars and restaurants, the variety and price of the beer, the museums and art galleries, the excellent public transport facilities, the attractive coastal resorts that are a mere forty minutes away and cost you two quid by train or a tenner by taxi,  the UNESCO World Heritage Curonian Spit, the small historic villages, how friendly the natives are to visitors and, when the wife is not about, the presence of many beautiful women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Above: Kaliningrad region’s main coastal resorts: Svetlogorsk & Zelenogradsk<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*********Editorial note [18 April 2022]********<\/strong>
In the paragraphs to follow, I refer to the onerous restrictions which at the time of writing were impacting international travel in the name of coronavirus. Since then, you will have probably noticed that we have entered a new, dramatically more restricting chapter in the history of international travel, thanks to the West\u2019s anti-Russian hysteria and its sanction-futile attempts to isolate the largest country on Earth. This ill-advised and not very well thought through economic warfare programme has added multiple layers of estranging complexity for global travellers everywhere, not just for potential visitors who want to leave the West to travel to Kaliningrad. From a purely selfish standpoint, these self-defeating impositions have merely made the \u2018special place\u2019 that Kaliningrad is to me that little bit more special, its taboo status, difficult-to-get-to location and mythicised risk to westerners making my \u2018secret holiday destination\u2019 even more enticing, albeit, ironically, somewhat less secret since in the latest round of Russophobia it has been singled out as a strategic military obstacle to the New World Order aspirations of neoliberal globalism.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will also find in my later comments evidence supporting Russia\u2019s assertion that the West\u2019s attempts to stigmatise and degrade its international standing and denigrate its culture did not start with Ukraine. The events that we see unfolding today have been a long time in the making and by comparing my honest depiction of life in Kaliningrad with life as you know it in the UK, you should begin to understand why Russia\u2019s traditional cultural ethos inflames the rancour of the West and why it fuels a burning desire in its governments to corrupt, transform and replace that culture with something sub-standard resembling their own. All I can say is Heaven forbid!<\/span>
*********End of Editorial note [18 April 2022]********<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admittedly, as with everywhere else in the world, access to Kaliningrad and accessibility with regard to its facilities have suffered restrictions through the outbreak of coronavirus<\/a>, but hopefully it will not be long before the borders are open again. Before coronavirus struck, I was looking forward to excursions into Poland and to Vilnius, Lithuania ~ one of my favourite cities ~ and I want to make that<\/em> train trip across Russia to Siberia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I say, what\u2019s not to like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n