Tag Archives: Aleksandr chimney sweep Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad Gothic in the Chimney Sweep’s House

It’s Gothic! But what kind?

1 November 2023 ~ Kaliningrad Gothic in the Chimney Sweep’s House

There’s no spires, towers or turrets silhouetted against a full-moon sky above an impossibly craggy, precipitous cliff top, no sinister Baron Frankenstein or bat-metamorphosising sharp-toothed count, no film-set outsized lightning rod rising from the roof poised for that life-giving thunderbolt to kick-start the borrowed heart and incite the cadaverous limbs of a grizzly patchwork embryo ~ at least, I don’t believe there is. But remembering where we are, within the eternal shadow of German Königsberg, there’s more than a whiff of the Hoffmannesque both in Aleks Smirnov’s chimney sweep image, as fabled in German history, and his Badger Club/studio complex.

The Gothicism that forms the basis of Mr Smirnov’s public image (some would say his soul) and suffuses his club and art is a meeting place of invocations, each containing the traceable elements of folklore, legend, superstition, witchcraft, dark-side sorcery, imaginative tall-tale flights and dream-like childhood fantasy.

His grotesque artistic compositions, sometimes risibly ironic, often tormented and twisted, always enigmatic, are an intercopulation of various Gothic sub-genres that attain apotheosis in the legend of the Green Man and the anything-goes enchanted forest.

Aleks Smirnov’s world, let us coyly qualify that and say Aleks Smirnov’s ‘artistic world’, is a meeting of the ways; a rum place wherein the fantastic, unsettling otherness as explored in TV programmes like the 1960s’ Twilight Zone, 1970s’ Thriller and in fictional tales that you may have heard of, featuring bespectacled Harry What’s-His-Face, come together with Freudian fantasies to hold each other as if they are one.

Kaliningrad Gothic

It is not by chance or accident that Alex’s art is skewed by snatches or glimpses of something half-seen, sometimes almost invisible. For example, wall plaques of barely discernible faces blurring into and partially erased by stylised foliate overlays; mythological creatures, devoid of detailed features, ill-defined in form, swooping bat-like from daubed textured ceilings; the cruelly twisted disfigured face masks that impel you to put them on but more quickly to take them off; the sack-cloth and ashes hessian gowns, lightly touched by tapestry and the heavier hand of superstition that dwells in ancient lore and in Little Red Riding Hood subterfuges, which help to conveniently explain away the dangers that lurk in dense, dark forests in terms of ghosties and goblins; the clumsily grandiose over-the-rainbow other-world helmets and repertory theatre gilded crowns ~ indeed, everything you’d expect to find in a parallel world of magic and sorcery, you’ll find in the House of Smirnov.

And yet, viewed from another angle (and there are plenty of those in Smirnov’s art) could they be distorting props taken from a surrealist film set, or things of which we never speak but which, both in our sleeping and waking hours, exists in each and all of our minds? Like the mirror of life itself, the shapes that we are permitted to see in Mr Smirnov’s visions are a cradle to the grave experience where “more of madness, more of sin and horrors the soul of the plot”.

But the madness, if it exists, is not opaque. The House of Smirnov has many mirrors. And the sin is hardly original: pleasure is what pleasure does and has been doing since time immemorial. Like everything in the Chimney Sweep’s lair, it may be in your face, but you can only ever really see it through the spectacles of your senses. It is a kind of delicious confinement and is all the more enticing for it!

As for horror, if it exists, then this is the vaguest face of all. Now you see it; now you don’t. It is easy to look in the mirror when you’ve prepared yourself to see someone else, but which side of the mirror is throwing the reflection? As with E.A. Poe’s mysterious Usher, the House of Alex Smirnov, could well be Smirnov himself.

Kaliningrad Gothic in the Chimney Sweep’s House

Personality is everywhere, and it runs through almost everything. Like a phantasmagorical current it links the disparate parts. Every shadowy, half-complete (or so we are led to believe), vague, ambiguous, ambivalent emblem, be it cast in the form of a bronze planished wall plaque, painting of a symbolic nature, surrealistic sculpture or just a gnarled, tormented, piece of driftwood rescued, sanctuarised and, once resuscitated, displayed in the most unaccountable place: never before has juxtaposition been so content and connected.

Olga Hart with Singer Songwriter Andrey Berenev

At first such apparitions appear disjointed but thematically and psychologically a river runs through it all. It is as naturally unnatural as nature itself is truly unnatural, but it carries you into the Green Man vortex as effortlessly as a nursery rhyme: ‘If you go down in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise’.

Obfuscating, sometimes suffocating, nature, whether human intrinsic or external organic, plays out its co-existence to interdependent extremes. It is the bogey man of sin, of guilt, stalking hapless generations trapped in the conscience forests of Nathaniel Hawthorn’s mind. It is the temptress lying in wait inside her soft, inviting, secret garden.

Kaliningrad Gothic

As in every game of chance, there is only one winner and that is the House, and this is no more certain than in the House that Aleks built. Whoever we may be and wherever we may be, victims are not spared, not even in Aleks’ toilet, especially not in Aleks’ toilet.

Draw back the crude and heavy, the clumsy wooden rustic bolt, pull back the fairy-tale door and off you go down Alice’s rabbit hole. It is not a WC, unless WC means Wonder Closet; it cannot be called a lavatory, more laboratory of thought; and it is anything but a rest room, a testing room, perhaps. In the strange, dramatic, dynamic department, an awful lot goes on in there, where functionally it shouldn’t.

Gothic in Kaliningrad Aleks Smirnov's toilet

Quiet in place but oppressively loud in colour, spacious but confining, placid but somehow caught in motion, the only way of escaping is to obey the laws of natural contractions. Relax. Take a deep breath and let them push you headlong into the magic of the sweet little garden that lives beneath the wash basin. This illuminated scene, seen through moulded windows, begs for someone to come inside. Could England’s Alnwick Garden ever be more beautiful, more graphically serene, more wantonly irresistible? Could it take you gently by the hand and lead you up the garden path as Aleks’ garden does?

Secret Garden Aleks Smirnov Toilet Kaliningrad Kaliningrad Gothic

Mr Smirnov is no mad scientist, and neither is he a bewinged count from an exotic fictious realm. He is a fabled German chimney sweep returned to Earth as artist. His residence and his club are not so much a turreted chateau or multi-faceted castle overlooking a bat-infested tarn but a playful topsy-turvy take on Germany’s Gingerbread House.

Seen from outside, preferably at night, when cold and invaded with rain, the arched and crooked windows filtering light through panes of contrasting hue call softly to your childhood memories the ghouls and goblins of the Brothers Grimm, whilst below in the cobbled courtyard, headless female mannequins dressed like predator tarts prowl the streets of your later life reminding you of all the places where you said you’ve never been.

Gothic in Kaliningrad Aleks Smirnov Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad Gothic Mannequin Aleks Smirnov Kaliningrad

The sinister woodland theme, wherein do dwell all kinds of elves and ghouls, replaces the streets beneath it. First, Aleks will put you in the club and then, if your luck is in, take you to places you’ve never been.

A tour of the chimney sweep’s backrooms, replete as they are with myriad props and costumes, all in form and nature an epitome of the bizarre and grotesque, is a Masque of the Red Death moment. Within these bewitching antechambers, space ought not be compromised but the walls have a habit of closing in and the light, which filters, falls and falters in the taints and tints of the backlit panes, formulates the kind of seduction that Mother Nature would never condone, least not without a spiritual condom.

In the company of sweeps and badgers, you are given the chance to be anyone, everyone if you so desire, even those in your wildest dreams who you never thought you would be, which includes yourself if you want it that badly. Remember that classic scene in Patrick McGoohan’s Prisoner: “We thought you would be happier as yourself …” It’s all part of the grand plan, the eternal trick, the fairy tale; the who is deluding who; the question where have I put myself? The self.

Aleks Chimney Sweep Smirnov’s self is who he would have you believe he is and who you want him to be. It really is nobody’s call but your own. However, accepting limitations, it is futile to look for Horace Walpole, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker or any one of those Gothic guys and gals. He could never be that archetypal. And the place where he works, where he drinks, where he dreams is It. Here, there is no Baron Frankenstein, no graveyard afterlife embryo waiting perchance on that shard from the heavens to turn the crank on the sleeping heart, no long-toothed fiend in a bat-like cloak, no orgasmic sigh from the pit and the pendulum, but for all that Mr Smirnov isn’t and for all his art and habitat is, even with gaps, it’s Gothic.

Let’s call last orders, blow out the candles and say Amen to that.

Where it’s at

Badger Club Kaliningrad a Bohemian Night on the Tiles
Made in Kaliningrad Exclusive Badger Underpants
True Bar Kaliningrad the City’s Latest Music Venue

True Bar Kaliningrad the City’s Latest Music Venue

True Bar makes its debut on the Kaliningrad music scene

16 October 2023 ~ True Bar Kaliningrad the City’s Latest Music Venue

Invited to the opening of a new music venue by singer-songwriter Andrey Berenev, the 14^th of October 2023 saw us, my wife and I, rendezvousing with our friend and drinking collaborator, Inara, at a café close to the venue.

I wondered what type of music the bar would be playing; would it be underground? The music venue is. It is located on Krasnaya street. You can’t miss it, not because you can’t miss it, but because it has three notable landmarks: a café on either side of it, one of which we assembled in, and opposite an arts and crafts shop selling imaginative artwares inspired by the city’s alter ego Königsberg.

True Bar Kaliningrad the City’s Latest Music Venue

The entrance to the bar lies in the forecourt that it shares with this shop and one of the two coffee shops. As it is below decks, you won’t see a building, just an elevated entrance, with the club’s name and logo attached to the wall. The place you are looking for is True Bar.

For the past two weeks, after a warm and sunny autumn debut, the wind has been howling, the rain has been pelting and the temperature has taken a turn for the worse. We were spared the rain on the evening of our visit to the new club, but the wind had not relented, and each gust was bitterly cold.

As we had arrived early, we hid in the arts and crafts shop for a while, and when we emerged discovered three or four young people waiting at the entrance to the bar. My wife, Olga, and our friend, Inara, were chuckling at the possibility that tonight’s venue would be exclusively for them ~ ‘youngsters’ ~ and that we would be the oldest patrons there. I made a mental note of this, whilst the track from Fred Wedlock played in the background: Would there be concessions at the bar for OAPs, sometimes know as OFs (Old Farts)? I was glad that I was wearing reasonably young person’s clothes. Do you think there’s a chance he missed them?

The bar was a bit behind schedule in opening, which meant that our small group of prospective clientele was growing by the minute. It was reassuring to note that among our fellow shiverers, one or two people of a more mature age had joined the throng, including singer-songwriter Andrey Berenev, who had invited us this evening. This was the first time I had met him in person. You may recall in my former post, The Badger Club, Olga had gone to the venue alone, and I had written about the club having been inspired to do so by her account of that evening and from the photographs she had taken. In a manner of speaking, however, Andrey had met me; he remembered me from Victor Ryabinin’s funeral.

When at last access to the bar was no longer denied to us, we shot downstairs like ferrets down a drainpipe.

True Bar Kaliningrad

The main staircase, which is a bit dim, so don’t go there in your carpet slippers, descends to what for me was a most welcoming sight indeed, the bar itself.

Behind the bar in a Kaliningrad club — I suppose that does mean we are pleased to see you?

A second staircase takes one down to the club floor. There is no stage, as such. The performers perform with their backs to the upper deck, the small bar area, which is big enough to serve as a viewing gantry. Every inch of the club area is utilised. Including the lower staircase.

Mick Hart with the menu in True Bar Kaliningrad — Perhaps not the usual vegetarian response to pigs ears on the menu

The club seating is a simple ‘homemade’ series of backrest slat benches arranged in pairs either side of a solid table. It’s what it is; and it works. People come here for the music and the atmosphere, and, of course, to drink; everything else is secondary.

I have used the word intimate already, and it gets more so when you want to go to the toilet. I’m not suggesting that you have to share the loo, but to get there you have to single-file between two lines of people: those spread out against the bar and those leaning over the balcony. As I said, one of the leading features of the club is its unconditional intimacy.

Aleksandr Smirnov with Mick Hart and Inara Eagle at a club in Kaliningrad — It’s amazing the fun you can have with cheese straws and vodka

I wondered what the sound quality would be in the club and was pleasantly surprised. The ceiling slopes down high at the ‘stage’ end and low at the other, which is not peculiar as the club sits below a vehicle ramp. My mind kept playing tricks with words ~ it often does. Here, was the word ‘garage’, and there the word ‘music’. I got the impression that the bands were none too pleased with the Vox amplifying system, but the general acoustics seemed fine to me.

Olga Hart at Kaliningrad music club — Olga Hart: an esoteric experience

As I mentioned earlier, I had not met Andrey Berenev before and neither had I met Aleksandr Smirnov. The latter made what can only be called ‘an entrance’, when he suddenly appeared dressed in his all- leather, self-made, signature ‘chimney sweep’ outfit.

From that moment onwards, all female tats, short skirts and shimmering stockings, as questionable and nice to view in that order, were instantly upstaged by Mr Smirnov’s imaginative rig, which, I am appalled to admit, made my red cravat and waistcoat look inexcusably tame. The only other gentleman in the room whose appearance attracted attention was he who was wearing a fawn-toned trench coat, carefully amalgamated with a sharp side-parting hairstyle, sixties tie and tie-clip. It’s not every day you meet JFK’s double.

True Bar scores high on the atmosphere chart but would benefit from a dimmer switch to bring the sheen from the lighting down to a level more in keeping with its underground ethos. In every other respect, as they were fond of saying in the roaring 20s’, ‘the joint was jumping’.

From the appearance of the first band to Andrey Berenev’s song, which he had written with Aleksandr Smirnov in mind and to which the flamboyant and charismatic chimney sweep took to the floor with relish, the atmosphere was beyond electric. If you like it lively, you got it!

Andrey Berenev takes to the 'stage' at True Bar, Kaliningrad

True Bar is a true bar. Maladits! I say in my very best Russian.

Made in Kaliningrad Exclusive Badger Underpants

I’m badgered if I know!

Published: 24 February 2023 ~ Made in Kaliningrad Exclusive Badger Underpants

I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I have never had the urge to focus on a gentleman’s underpants, for whatever the reason and whatever that reason may be. Even my interest in vintage clothes has not yet impelled me to research or wear undergarments that could be described as anything more than wholesomely traditional.

Now, what have I done with my badger?

For this reason and this reason alone, it is with curiosity regarding your reaction that I place before you photographic evidence of a truly remarkable pair of pants, the beastly likes of which I have never beheld before.

No, your eyes do not deceive. You are actually witnessing what in all likelihood may well be the world’s one and only pair of pants with a badger’s head for its codpiece. You have to admit, ladies, unless you have lived a far more adventurous life than your neighbour’s suspect, that it’s not every day that you come across a man with a badger concealed in his underpants!

Modelling the animal-lover’s pants that he designed himself is the inimitable Aleksandr ‘Chimney Sweep’ Smirnov of Badger’s Club fame (see earlier post). Not that he feels the need to defend his creation, in fact he’s rather proud of it, but if he did, he could argue that if the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (RAOB) can adopt a buffalo’s head as their fraternal motif then why not a badger’s head for Kaliningrad’s Badger Club?

Quite so, but whilst the Buffs, as the RAOB are colloquially known, display their animal namesake on blazer pocket patches, lapel badges and so on, there cannot be many among their number who have, or who are willing to admit they have, buffalo horns in their underpants.

The question is, will this example open the floodgates for variant animal codpieces, such as goats, pussies, kippers, beavers, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, absolute impossibilities, moles, rabbits and unicorns?

The eel or elephant’s trunk might be overstretching it a bit, and really gilding the willy (Gates’ spellchecker is too ‘inclusive’ for its own good) would be the python or green anaconda, and should your reputation not extend to the American Eagle, and naturally Biden’s doesn’t, you could always hedge your bets ~ remember, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush ~ and settle instead for a Jenny Wren. The possibilities are endless (no pun intended).

On the subject of all things compromising, imagine an irate country gentleman of the shooting, hunting and fishing fraternity, catching his wife in flagrante and promptly shooting her lover who happened at the time to be wearing a pair of badger-head pants. Could such a man resist having the pants he had bagged stuffed and mounted on his living-room wall? Probably not. But in the same way that one swallow doesn’t make an Ann Summers, a one-night stand is nothing to boast of. In order to add more trophies, the wife would need to horn her skills and train herself to become a much more prolific hunter. What animal rights activists will make of all this, your guess is as good as mine, but as most of them are meat-eaters, which makes them also hypocrites, whatever they think is irrelevant anyway.

Made in Kaliningrad Badger's Head UNderpants

It is a sobering thought, however, that should such bestial practices be performed on British soil, you could in theory run foul of the law and be brought before the beak for violating legislation under the 1992 Protection of Badgers Act. (How this came about was that back in 1992 a lot of English country gentlemen apparently began to exhibit the embarrassing evening-dress tendency of loading their pants with badgers, and urban liberals did not like it, since they had failed to think of it first. Their reaction was similar to the way they reacted to the first female UK prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and the first prime minister ‘of colour’, Rishi Soonout, since in both of these woke respects the Tories beat them to it. The last vestige of hope for liberals now is that they install in Number 10 something veiled from head to toe and of dubious gender extraction that claims itself to be both feminist and lesbian. I think I’d rather vote for a pair of badger underpants.

At the risk of sounding too liberal for my own good and becoming as a result a source of inflammation for my conscience, I hear myself philosophising what goes on in one’s underpants is entirely one’s own affair, subject to the qualification that it does not offend to any degree a reasonable sense of personal dignity. It should be noted that in the UK it is an offence at common law to outrage public decency, although to succeed in this worthy cause the act must be committed at such a time and in such a place that at least two members of the public ~ two or more ~ must have gathered there to witness it. English law is most precise on this point* {*The Ethnic Minorities Guide to Flashing, Vol 45,756, 2022; Dover Publishing Unlimited}

For example, The Royal Antediluvian Order of Flashers’ Charter and Code of Conduct calls upon its members to expose themselves only in those locations where the audience is guaranteed to be no less than 2 and no more than 10, coupled with an exit strategy of an unapprehendable nature. The problems that this poses for the mathematically challenged, especially those who can’t read the language, possibly explains why newly arrived ethnic flashers, defined as those who docked in the UK 25 years ago and who are longing to be deported because they are tired of living in free hotels, choose to go it alone. Whilst none of these have been spotted actually wearing a badger, there have, however, been rumours of acts involving goats.

We would like to assure the public that where such incidents do occur they are rare and we also keep them secret and that the wearing of pants of an animal orientation can lay no claim to mainstream practice, although who can say without convictions when fads and fashion may take a turn for the worse and lead us up the woodland path?

Made in Kaliningrad Exclusive Badger Underpants

Take Y-fronts, for example, once the must-have accessory for people from all walks of life, perhaps including Jimmy Saville, but which to the entitled youth of today are as passé as flared trousers and as offensive in their non-mediocrity as the shimmering outsized shoulder boards worn by Gary Glitter.

Whilst such exclusive examples possess an underlying value of no small proportion, we must be careful not to suggest or infer that the wearing of strange underpants is the sole province of much-loved celebrities. For whom amongst us can claim without fear of contradiction and more of rank hypocrisy that we have not, at one time worn, myself of course excluded, pants which, though not deserving of the epithet shameful, have filled our introspective moments with disquieting thoughts of daring-do verging on impropriety?

Speak for yourself is your first reaction, but for the same reason that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, neither should people who wear glass underpants throw them, nor, I might add, should the latter attempt to go horse riding.

At times like these, befuddled and confused, I often defer to my brother’s opinion. “What do you think of the badger’s head pants?” I asked.

Studying the photo provided, I heard him mutter something, which may or may not have been, ‘where does he find those horny women?’ And then I thought I heard him say something about it could be worse, that at least it was only a badger’s head and not a full-sized badger standing proud and erect on its hind legs.

The motto of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes is ‘No Man is at all Times Wise’ (Latin: Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit). I wonder what the Latin is for ‘No Man is at all Times Wise when it comes to the Choice of his Underpants’?

Please note: No badgers were harmed in the making of these underpants, but one or two were extremely embarrassed.

Where is the Kaliningrad Badger Club?

Badger ( Barsuchek) Барсучёк club
Sverdlova, 33, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, 236006
Tel: +7 909 777‑97-75

I have it on good authority that entrance to the Badger Club will not be dependent on flashing your badger ….

Image attributions
Moose’s Head: <a href=”https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/vector-vintage-moose-hand-drawn-clipart_34100758.htm#query=moose%20head%20drawing&position=4&from_view=keyword&track=ais”>Image by rawpixel.com</a> on Freepik; : https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/vector-vintage-moose-hand-drawn-clipart_34100758.htm#query=moose%20head%20drawing&position=4&from_view=keyword&track=ais

Wooden sign board: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Wooden-sign-post-vector-image/26059.html

Badger Club Kaliningrad a Bohemian Night on the Tiles

I wasn’t Badgered into going enough!

Published: 8 December 2022 ~ Badger Club Kaliningrad a Bohemian Night on the Tiles

My wife, Olga, went to a concert recently (see the photos below). I know exactly how my eloquent and highbrow musician friend in the UK will respond when he attempts to equate ‘concert’ with the images from that evening: “WTF?! Let’s go there!”

Now I am not the world’s most mainstream guy, but I have to admit when I saw the photos and heard an account of the evening, which did not happen until the following day because my wife rolled back at some ungodly hour in the morning, they made me feel positively ~ as the American author Henry James might say ~ ‘Ground into the mill of the conventional’.

It is not clear from the photographs whether the establishment is cavernous, but it certainly looks covenous ~ all that dim lighting, candles, hanging masks, dolls, natural-wood sculptures, enchanting (and possibly enchanted, Gothicised cabinets), and, moreover, wild and whacky costumery! Right up my surrealist street!

The top hat and tailed gentleman, the owner of the club, Aleksandr Smirnov, is obviously a ‘quick-change’ expert ~ one minute impresario, the next an updated rock-star figure from the minds of the Brothers Grimm. He, I am told, is a chimney sweep, only he isn’t, he is an accomplished and original artist who produces highly detailed bronzed relief plaques (apologies if I am slightly less than accurate, but I am having to base my opinion on mobile phone snaps) and, as you will see from the photographs, is also a bit of a wizard in the costume creation department. That’s him in the photo with his chopper in his hand. I’ve never seen one as big as that before; and me having been active in the antiques and militaria trade!

Choppers aside, this particular evening was dedicated to accomplished musicians and good music: There was a soulful and original indie art-folk band, Sfeno, first-rate singer guitarist and a young lady violinist, a virtuoso of her craft, who was on the fiddle a lot that evening. Vodka was not rationed, people got up and jived and my wife, much to her great surprise, if not unalloyed delight, was both chatted up and propositioned, which is always good for the ego (I’ve lost count of the number of times that the same has happened to me (you wish!)). The location, in fact the whole evening, was so spellbinding that it reduced Harry Potter to as much comparative magic as a meeting of the Women’s Institute at the local village-hall on a wet afternoon in the 1930s.

***Indie Art-Folk Band, Sfeno, on YouTube***

Never one to moralise, even when occasion justifies, whilst all this frivolity was going on in Kaliningrad’s answer to Alice’s Wonderland, I was at home with the cat, genning up on Königsberg and the history of East Prussia by reading (both the cat and I) that excellent publication Legends of the Amber Land, by Andrey Kropotkin.

Although I must say, with my wife rolling in at some unseemly hour of the morning ~ we won’t say when! ~ I would have been quite within my conjugal rights had I demanded of her, “And what time do you call this then!?” or have cast myself in the role of the heavy-handed Victorian husband, with “Why, you dirty stop-out.” But I contented myself with the elevating thought that if I have learnt one thing and one thing only in my brief visit to this muddled world, it is reflected in my born-again status as a stay-at-home Captain Sensible. Stout fellow that I assuredly am: resisting the lure of the bright lights nightlife in order to set the perfect example of how people of a certain age are expected to, and should, behave.

Thus, by the time my wife had sneaked in from her evening of ‘reasonable refreshments’ ~ making it difficult to imagine that she had been brought up in the social climate of anti-decadent Soviet-Russia! ~ I had read my book, patted the cat, drunk my cup of cocoa and with teddy tucked snugly under my arm had taken myself to bed: zzzzzzzzz.

Have you ever had the feeling that you are missing out on something?🤔

**Made in Kaliningrad: Exclusive Badger Underpants**

Badger Club Kaliningrad — **Aleksandr Smirnov introduces singer guitarist Andrey Berenev**

Olga Hart with Impresario Aleksandr Smirnov Badger Club Kaliningrad — **Olga Hart with** **Aleksandr Smirnov**

Olga Hart Bader Club Kaliningrad — **Olga Hart in the Badger club**

Band Sfeno performing at Badger Club Kaliningrad — **Band Sfeno performing**

Andrey Berenev Badger Club Kaliningrad — **Andrey Berenev**

Olga Hart in esoteric surroundings — **Olga Hart surrounded by the esoteric**

Olga Hart Fairy Tale Furniture made by Chimney Sweep — **Olga Hart with vintage oil lamp and fantasy fairy tale furniture made by ‘Chimney Sweep’ Aleksandr Smirnov**

Inara horny in Kaliningrad — **Inara looking horny**

Man with big chopper in Kaliningrad — **Confronted with a large chopper**

Additional Information

Badger ( Barsuchek) Барсучёк club
Sverdlova, 33, Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, 236006
Tel: +7 909 777‑97-75

Aleksandr Smirnov
By all accounts*, Aleksandr (Chimney Sweep) Smirnov is an artist, costume designer and consummate wizard at conjuring up interior design of a distinctly unusual and exotic nature.

Able to work with all kinds of material, including wood and metal, much of what you see in the photographs in terms of fixtures and fittings are said to have been made by his hand, the same hand that has orchestrated the natural, historical and decorative elements that set apart the club’s interior from any other you may have encountered. The syncopated fairy tale feel that you get from all of this is no coincidence. A little fairy tells me that he writes fairy tales as well.
*Дом трубочиста или выходные в сказке (turbopages.org)

The Badger club, Kaliningrad
The Badger club has a dedicated clientele who value not only the décor and entertainment but speak with great warmth and affection about the club’s welcoming ethos and its friendly, inviting atmosphere. Why not go and see for yourself? You may just become a regular in the process?!