{"id":5036,"date":"2021-11-08T12:27:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T12:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/?p=5036"},"modified":"2022-06-12T15:41:55","modified_gmt":"2022-06-12T13:41:55","slug":"restoring-the-polessk-brewery-in-the-kaliningrad-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/restoring-the-polessk-brewery-in-the-kaliningrad-region\/","title":{"rendered":"Restoring the Polessk Brewery in the Kaliningrad Region"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Beer, history and architecture ~ Polessk Brewery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Published: 8 November 2021 ~ Restoring the Polessk Brewery in the Kaliningrad Region<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former East Prussian province of Kaliningrad, known today as Kaliningrad Oblast, is a territory rich in history. It is a cultural treasure trove of historically overlooked, essentially undiscovered and time-abandoned places and buildings. Even if its immense restoration and development potential is realised, it is as yet largely untapped, waiting patiently for the overdue arrival of the curatorial entrepreneurs who will restore, rebuild and conserve it for generations to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Labiau
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Above:<\/strong> Labiau coat of arms<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the many instances of this long-awaited rehabilitation is the small town of Polessk, known in German times as Labiau.  Located approximately 50 kilometres northeast of Kaliningrad on a long, recently resurfaced, tract of road, Polessk debuts as a tired, run-down and struggling municipality. There are sporadic instances of once regal buildings and the two small municipal parks form welcome green oases, but mirages in an urban desert waiting with weary buildings for the miracle to come merely serve to ask the question when?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not just for any old reason that Lenin, standing alone on his plinth, looks out across the deserted concrete plateau where homage once was paid to him, preferring these days to fix his eyes on the waterways beyond rather than look behind and be reminded of Boris the proletariat bodger, with his concrete blocks, two sheets of asbestos and bucket of cement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet you instinctively know, or feel, from the moment you cross the railway line, which is the threshold of the town, to the point at which you meet the canal and river, that this is a town that deserves much more, that it could be so much better!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Deyma River, an offshoot of the Pregolya, and the Polessk Canal, which links the Pregolya and Neman Rivers, form a natural boundary at one end of the town as the railway does the other. To the north lies the 625-square-mile Curonian Lagoon, a haven of biodiversity and a coastal habitat of unaffected beauty. In essence, Polessk is a gateway to a multi-faceted cultural region steeped in historic significance, blessed with natural beauty and profusely invested with ecological importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also home to Labiau Castle, described on the internet as an \u2018historical landmark\u2019, but which in its present-day condition looks more like a beggar waiting for the feast than deserving of the grandiloquent title which speaks of better days. Alas, both castle and Lenin\u2019s statue occupy the same proximity, somewhere in the space between the power and the dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The few who belong to the exclusive Polessk club, those who have actually visited the town and who may have even stepped inside of what remains of Labiau castle, are less likely to be aware of the presence of another historic building that is tucked away obscurely behind the backstreets of Polessk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This building, a former German brewery of mid-nineteenth century origin, is currently the recipient of an ambitious restoration project that is rescuing it from oblivion and progressing its renaissance to a working brewery and museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Restoring the Polessk Brewery in the Kaliningrad Region<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Invited to attend an open day and tour of the brewery, I felt particularly privileged. The excursion embodied three of my major interests and by default principal weaknesses: social history, historic architecture and ~ yes, you\u2019ve guessed it ~ beer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the risk of repeating myself, Polessk is by no means a large town. Nevertheless, its compact nature does not make it any easier to locate the brewery, which is hidden away behind a cluster of average Soviet flats on an expanse of ground at the end of a side street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These flats, or to be more precise, their blandness, do the brewery no disservice. By screening it from view they ensure that the first encounter with the building is considerably more dramatic than it otherwise would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admittedly, whilst zig zagging between the flats, the sight of a balcony strung with socks and pants is, to put it mildly, a disarming one, but take heart! ~ just when it seems that all is lost, the scene suddenly opens up to reveal a view that is guaranteed to set the pulse racing of anyone who is infatuated with social and economic history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There stands before you a wonderful Red Brick neo-Gothic edifice, astonishing in its turreted and towered simulation, atmospherically magnetic, beloved in recognition of the beer it must have produced and will, with a little bit more than a gentle nudge and a shove, soon be producing again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Star-struck, I recall the profound reaction and words of my Uncle Son, who was a builder, when he first clapped eyes on Norwich Castle: \u201cHow did they get that \u2018stun\u2019 up there!\u201d he said. And with the same degree of wonder, as I stared transfixed at the brewery\u2019s magnitude, made all the more awesome by the thankful absence of the Soviet predilection for pre-cast concrete, I whispered to myself, \u201cHow did they get those bricks up there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this moment, I was reflecting on the buildings pseudo-Gothic tower ~ one of the most awesome chimneys that I have ever encountered. Not that I am a stranger to tall chimneys, having lived in English counties where the skyline was dominated by rows of them belonging to the brickworks. But the brewery\u2019s chimney, being rectangular rather than cylindrical in form, and its solitary presence, gives its ground-to-skyline taper a singularly novel and striking effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Restoring<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The dynamic of the front of the building depends for its impact on the complexity in shape, size and angularity of the contrasting component parts: the tall tapering chimney, the rectangular tower with its curious knop, currently under scaffolding, and the lower sloped-roof structures. The accentuated Gothic arches within which the windows are set and, in some instances, embroidered with decorative brickwork, possess a dramatic personality of their own but seen together their inverse graduation makes this already tall building seem loftier still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Restoring<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The window configurations, concomitant decorative detail and structural elements project an industrial power that is best appreciated from the prospect of the end elevation (shame about that Soviet blockhouse knocked up at ground level in con blocks and cement) and from close and awe-struck scrutiny of the far side of the building.  From this perspective the viewer receives a first-class rendition of the intrinsic importance of arches in Brick Gothic formations, here creating a dynamic uniformity in which contrast plays its subtle part across the horizontal plane and within the vertical sections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Restoring<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you look carefully at the photographs of what is effectively the back of the building you will see that approximately 50 per cent of its interior is already a beneficiary of restorative work. New double-glazed windows have taken the place of the old and through them a glimpse of smart walls and retro lighting emerges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Olga<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Gothic
Arched configuration of windows , Polessk Brewery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The original entrance to the brewery appears to have been through one of two doors that open, front and back, into the same traversing corridor, but the restoration has seen fit to provide a grander approach, using a two-tiered wrought iron staircase that leads to large glass doors cunningly inserted into one of the first-floor window arches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Entrance
Entrance to Polessk Brewery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First impressions count, and the two that spring to mind on the other side of the front door is overwhelmingly spacious and infinitely solid. Next comes the detail, which feeds into the first two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ceiling and upper storeys of this vast reception room rest on a series of three double H-beams that span the room’s width. They are raised on prodigious, iron, load-bearing columns fastened where they meet with bold connection plates bolted one into the other. These, and the visible undersides of the H-beams that travel the length of the ceiling are finished in a suitably industrial-looking matt red-oxide paint. Between the sunken ceiling beams the intervening space is arched, each arch resembling the convex half of a separated tube, so that taken as a whole the ceiling adopts an undulating character, each lengthwise arch the equidistance of the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Grain<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In one corner of the room, suspended from the ceiling, hangs a large triangular-shaped grain funnel, studded with rivets and finished in the same red-brown paint as the beams. Diametrically opposite, on the other side of the room, a giant wood-burning furnace is at work, roaring fiercely away. It is more than capable of keeping the vast room, already operating as a tourist information centre and ear-marked for expansion in this role, at a pleasurable ambient temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connoisseurs of nineteenth-century Brick Gothic architecture will enjoy the contrast in the construction principles and materials used on the first and second floors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second floor, which is accessed via a short, curved, boxed-in staircase, trades its metal industrial credentials for a more medieval wood construction, substituting the iron vertical supports of the preceding floor for great rectangular posts with offshoot branches to the beams that cross above them. No wonder then that the burly brewer who occupies the second floor is a larger than life-sized wooden carving!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Second<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On this floor, as with the previous one, there are a series of history boards, all of which are designed and presented to professional museum standards. Not that my elementary grasp of the written Russian language enabled me to educate myself as much as I would have liked, but I did glean some information both from the boards and from the various relics and artefacts scattered around the rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The second storey also contains a large circular grain tank that would have fed into the hopper on the other side of the ceiling. This great metal tub studded with rivets is as impressive as it is solid as it is tactile!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Grain<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A part-completed staircase and a large hole in the floor above provides an excellent viewing platform and vista from and through which to gaze up into the rafters. The beam construction is truly magnificent here and in remarkably good condition considering the age of the wood and the long period for which the building was unused, untended and deteriorating. I believe I am right in saying that when completed this section of the building is where the brewery museum will be housed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Restoring the Polessk Brewery in the Kaliningrad Region<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Although an attic-man myself, basements and cellars do possess a certain Jene sais quoi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From an architectural and atmospheric standpoint, the cellars of 19th<\/sup> century breweries are fascinating places. It is in these underground chambers that the rather tedious task of throwing grain across the cellar floor with wooden shovels and then spreading it about with rakes was undertaken in the pursuit of procuring germination prior to drying and milling. The cellars of the Polessk brewery may not have been the most salubrious environment in which to work for long periods when the plant was up and running, but architecturally their vaulted ceilings are superb examples of mid-19th<\/sup> century Gothic style, a specific feature of which was the use of iron columns as opposed to stone or brick supports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Olga<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To access the cellar it is necessary to descend the lower half of the curved stairs that runs from the first to second floor. It brings you out into the corridor that I referred to earlier, which runs the width of the building. The corridor marks the point where one half of the building’s interior restoration nears completion and the other is work in progress. The \u2018in progress\u2019 50 per cent gives an accurate idea of how much work has been accomplished so far and how much devotion, planning, blood, sweat, tears and sheer hard graft is yet to be undertaken before the standard of finish in this half of the building will equal that displayed in the other.  Not so much as a round of applause, please, as a medal, I think, is needed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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