Tag Archives: Coronavirus streets Kaliningrad

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

“Bucket!” he shouted. They hadn’t let him in!

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 608 [2 November 2021]

Published: 2 November 2021~Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

So I said to my wife, “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got better things to do this morning.”

But she looked so disappointed that I relented, saying, five minutes later, “OK, I will walk with you to the market.”

“You don’t have to, unless you want to,” she quickly said ~ a little too quickly for my liking.

I know when I’m not wanted.

I remember hearing my mother and father quarreling when I was about six months old, blaming each other, arguing about whose fault it was. I have no idea what they were arguing about, but when I got to the age of five I suspected something was wrong when I came home from school one day and found some sandwiches, a bottle of pop and a map to Katmandu in a travelling bag on the doorstep.

Never one to take a hint, I knew that my wife really wanted me to walk to the market with her today, so I swiftly replied, “Well, if you really want me to come with you, I will.”

Apart from knowing when I’m not wanted ~ it gets easier as you get older ~ I needed to buy myself a new atchkee. No, not ‘latch key’. Atchkee is the phonetic spelling for spectacles in Russian. Isn’t my Russian improving! I am a two-pairs spectacles man. I like to have one pair so that I can find the other.

This was a great excuse for being a nuisance, so I got ready, tried not to look at the cat, who always looks sour at us when he sees that we are leaving the house, and off we went, on foot, to the central market.

“Ee by gum,” I might say, if I was from Up North in England, “but it were a grand day.” Here we were at the end of October, underneath a bright blue sky and the sun right up there where it is supposed to be.

We stopped off for a coffee at the top of the Lower Pond, risked the public Portaloos and then made our way to the market from there.

Being Saturday, and good weather, the second-hand and collectables market was in full swing.

When it was our business to buy and sell, we always had an excuse to buy, now all we could say was, ‘we’ll just have a quick look’. And then leave an hour later barely able to carry what we had bought.

Today was no exception. That’s willpower for you!

During the course of not buying anything we got to talking to one of the market men, who was not wrapping something up for us because we hadn’t just bought it.

“Good thing about outside markets,” said I, no doubt saying something entirely different in Russian, such as “Would you like me to pay twice as much for that item that we really should not be buying?” It must have been something like this, because when I checked he had short-changed us.

That sorted, I continued: “Good thing about outside markets, you don’t need ‘Oo Er’ codes.”

“QR codes!” my wife corrected me impatiently, as she bought herself a pair of boots that she didn’t need.

“QR codes!” repeated the market man solemnly, with a sorry shake of his head. “It’s bad business and bad for business. You can’t go anywhere without them now.”

“Niet!” I agreed, looking all proud at myself for saying it in such a Russian-sounding way, which enabled him to sneak in with, “But if you do not have a QR code, there is another way of getting access to bars, shops and restaurants.”

My ears pricked up at this intelligence, or was it because someone walking by had laughed, as if they knew what I didn’t?

I was too intrigued to be diverted: “How is that?” I asked

“Tin buckets!” replied the market man, with stabilised conviction.

“Tin, er …?”

“Like this!” the market man infilled.

And there, in front of me, where it hadn’t been a moment ago, was this large tin bucket.

Mick Hart with tin bucket in Kaliningrad — **Old fort, old fart & a tin bucket (thanks to my brother for this caption)**

As tin buckets go, it was quite the bobby dazzler.

It was one of those vintage enamel jobs; a pale, in fact, with a cream exterior and a trim around the rim.

“If you don’t yet have your QR code,” the market man continued to solemnise, “all you need is a tin bucket and, as you say in England, Fanny’s your uncle.”

Well, there is nothing LGBTQITOTHER about that, I had to admit.

“OK,” I said curiously, “I’m listening.”

There was Olga in the background, sticking to her non-purchasing guns, busily buying something else.

“That’s it really. Just say at the door, ‘I haven’t received my QR codes yet, but I do have a tin bucket’.”

I am telling you this just in case you are wondering why I have photos in this post of me walking around Kaliningrad with an old tin bucket. (That’s not a nice thing to say about your wife!)

The next stop was the city’s central market, where I bought a pair of specs, better to see my tin bucket with.

I needed to confirm that I really had bought that old tin bucket and that it wasn’t, after all, a figment of my stupidity.

“Ahh, you are British!” the spectacle seller exclaimed.

“No, English,” I corrected him. “Anyone and everyone can be ‘British’. All you need is to arrive illegally on a small boat, and a couple of months later they give you a piece of paper with ‘you’re British’ written on it.”

Now I had my new specs on, I could see that approximately 75 per cent of the market had been rendered inoperable. Many of the shutters were down, and I could read the ‘closed’ signs that were Sellotaped to them, stating that they would remain closed for the ‘non-working week’. If coronavirus turned up here in the next seven days, it would be sorely disappointed.

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes in Kaliningrad Market — **Spot the old bucket**

Nevertheless, by the time we had exited the market at the end where the spanking brand-new shopping centre has been built, my bucket was getting heavier.

I put it down for a rest, on the pavement, directly outside of the new shopping centre entrance, thus giving myself a commanding view of the row upon row of plate-glass doors, behind which sat shops that still had nothing inside of them. Obviously, no chances were being taken. Should the thousands of square metres of space remain empty, the risk of non-mask wearers and QR fiddlers entering the building would be considerably reduced. In addition, the spanking shopping-centre was surrounded by a large impenetrable fence, creating a 20 metre no-go zone between itself and the pavement. A red-brick fortress had also been built just across the road, so that any attempt to cross the minefield between the pavement and shopping centre, if not thwarted by the mines and patrolling Alsatian dogs, would be repelled by a volley of arrows, or something closely resembling them, fired from the slits in the fortress wall. In particularly demanding circumstances, for example when everything in the shops that had nothing in them was half price, thus attracting the crowds, I would have thought that backup, in the form of mobile dart vans stationed close to the entrance, would be advisable. But who am I to say? Confucius say, “Man with tin bucket talks out of his elbow!” Confusion says, “Man with elbow talks out of his tin buttock.” (The last sentence is sponsored by The Cryptogram and Sudoku Society.)

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes Shopping centre Kaliningrad

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes front of Kaliningrad shopping centre

A lesser person would have been intimidated by fantasies of this nature, but not I. I had a tin bucket and, in case I haven’t divulged this already, that same tin bucket contained a green leather jacket, which I did not buy from the second-hand market, and a jar of homemade horseradish sauce, which I had not bought from the city market.

Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes

The bucket was as heavy as my heart as we parked ourselves on one of the seats outside a once-often visited watering hole, Flame. We were waiting for a taxi.

We had not long been sitting there, when I began to develop a jealousy complex. Staring back at us from the large glass windows were our own reflections. What were they doing in the bar without QR codes? It was then that I noticed that my reflection had an old tin bucket with him. What a coincidence, it was not dissimilar to mine. I recalled the wisdom of the man on the market who had sold me the bucket; his tale about old tin buckets having parity with QR codes for gaining access to cafes and restaurants.

However, before I could put his advice to the test, our taxi arrived. We said farewell to our reflections and hopped inside the vehicle. Our taxi driver, who was a stickler for rules, did insist that our bucket wear a mask for the duration of the journey. Stout fellow!

Although the taxi driver never asked, I was unable to say whether or not we managed to gain access to anywhere using our tin bucket in case the authorities find out and proceed to confiscate every tin bucket in Christendom.

The taxi driver did want to know what we were going to use that old tin bucket for, but I was not about to divulge my secret to him.

Give me a week two and I will divulge it to you. Although there will be a small charge for the privilege.

You can ‘read all about it!’ ~ as they say ~ in Mick Hart’s Guide to Homemade Vaccines.

Some posts that have nothing about tin buckets in them:
Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer

Something for the World’s End, Sir!
UK Lockdown New Board Game
Exit Strategy Board Game
Clueless World Health Game

Spring Brings People Out in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 394 [12 April 2021]
And what has all this got to do with coronavirus and self-isolation?

Published: 12 April 2021 ~ Spring Brings People Out in Kaliningrad

With the temperature shooting up to a ‘very nice spring day’ 18 degrees, my wife, Olga, had no difficulty persuading me to walk to the central market with her, even though I had consumed four or five refreshing pints of vaccine the previous evening.

As we left the house for the cobbled streets of Königsberg, the birds were singing and, if the neighbours two houses away would only fit their dog with a silencer, we would possibly have heard them.

After a long, hard winter it was delicious to be able to walk down the quiet backstreets, stopping now and again to have a good old gawp, which you do as you get older, at the splendid German houses that line this particular route.

The last time I did something like this in the UK, an elderly lady appeared on the doorstep of her house and asked if we were ‘casing the joint’. My brother replied that we were admiring the architecture, that we only robbed places at night and was she at home this evening?

No such awkward questions were fired at us today, and all we had to contend with was blue snowdrops, lots of them, inside and outside of gardens looking extremely pretty.

Spring brings people out in Kaliningrad

Our route to the city market took us along the lakeside (pond side, if you are a Königsbergian purist). The sun, warmth and dry weather had brought the good citizens of Kaliningrad out in droves, and Olga, who is a staunch anti-mask wearer, was happy to observe that the majority of the populace had exchanged their ‘muzzles’ for happy smiles and the priceless humanity of unfettered facial expression.

Youth Park ~ the city’s amusement park ~ was in full swing, and the children’s play area on the bank of the lake was packed to the gills with happy cavorting children, the skateboarding and roller-blading enclosure was by no means idle and in the nearby exercise arena a man was obviously so grateful not to be in lockdown that it was all he could do not to stand on his head.

Just as I had hoped, the good weather had also brought out the traders and selling public at the city’s flea market, a junk addicts paradise, which should it exist in boot fair-obsessed Britain, that is before the Covid curfews and restrictions, it would be absolutely mobbed.

Serviced by a parking lane that backs onto a stretch of pavement located just before the pedestrianised avenue that leads to the market proper, the pitches, stalls and blankets of this collectors’ cornucopia fan out across the hills and hollows beneath the trees of a long, broad bank, an erstwhile rampart that follows the line of the moat opposite one of Königsberg’s distinctive red-brick forts. This bank can be a muddy Somme when it rains but was thankfully dry today.

I stopped for a while to lust over the dug-up medals and badges that had once ennobled the members of Hitler’s Third Reich, but before I could commit myself to spending more cash than I should, Olga had steered me off, away from the trader community into the general public bargain zone, and before long was trying on a jacket suspended from a tree, urged on by a stout babushka keen to make a sale, whose many other clothing wares were spread across the ground on top of several covers.

The coat was either too small or too big, so this turned out to be a no-sale, but by the time we had traversed the length of the bank, running the gauntlet of the numerous sellers, where once we had no bags we now were carrying four.

Within these bags nestled two interesting bottles, both harking back to the days when this city was Königsberg: one bearing the city’s original name and the other purchased because of its unusual triangular shape and Bakelite top. As with many bottles produced at the turn of the twentieth century and, indeed, throughout the years leading to World War II, both of these bottles were attractively embossed with script, typically identifying either the contents, manufacturer and location of the business and very often all three.

Spring Brings People Out in Kaliningrad — **Mick Hart with bottle ~ unusual in that it does not contain beer**

As a former dealer in items of antiquity, my interest in these humble retail and household products had diminished over the years, simply because in the course of my work I handled so many of them, but my passion for these relics of social history had recently been rekindled when, emerging from a tour of Königsberg Cathedral, our host and friend Vladimir Chilikin introduced us to a purveyor of vintage bottles who was selling his wares on the bridge nearby. Life without junk is at least three things: impossible, unlivable and uncluttered. So, my wife, sympathetic to and an accomplice in my addiction, decided that she would treat me to a Königsberg souvenir, and now you can no longer say that I haven’t got the bottle.

On the subject of old and interesting, we had left home this morning not purely to stretch our legs but to collect a piece of vintage embroidery that someone was framing for us. Unfortunately, the framing shop was closed, but no matter, this simply meant that we would not have so much to carry as we made our way to Flame, our pre-Covid watering hole, situated in front of the lake.

Although the thought of a lunchtime aperitif, a liquid one, did cross my mind ~ junk and beer go so well together ~ I exercised restraint. One should be wise at my age (cough), and besides, when we returned home, I had the final pages of a dissertation to edit.

Spring brings people out in Kaliningrad

We had gone to Flame expecting to find that the outside seating had been reinstated, but it was obviously deemed too early in the year for this, so if we wanted to eat outside we would have to find a bench. We could have eaten inside, but distancing and the heartbreaking avoidance of restaurants and bars continues to be our enduring concession to coronavirus caution.

We found some unoccupied seating on the circular paved area that fronts the newly opened swimming pool and sauna, which is anchored off the side of the lake. It is a curious affair: a T-shaped, lightweight structure fitted with a central dome consisting of stretched fabric or vinyl over triangulated sections of tubular steel.

As Flame was as busy as it had been in the pre-coro era, our takeaway lunch would take 20 to 30 minutes to arrive, which was no hardship. Whilst waiting, we had two cups of excellent coffee and just chilled out, or should that be in today’s favourable temperatures warmed up?

Mick Hart & Olga Hart, Kaliningrad 2021 — **Mick Hart & Olga Hart, Kaliningrad April 2021**

The easy-listening jazz wafting from Flame’s external hi-fi speakers, complemented the meditative mood. Whenever I hear it, I am filled with wonder. Who is it who plugs Flame into the 1970s? I half expect Jim Rockford of 1970s’ Rockford Files fame to come strolling round the corner. Hi Jim!

It was a beautiful atmosphere on the lake front today. The droves had almost turned into a crowd, and everyone walked, talked and behaved as people do when spring first arrives. You can sense it ~ that one long collective sigh of relief: winter is rolling over at last.

We stayed put on our hospitable bench for a good forty minutes. Opposite, three girls were sketching and painting. Whenever I see people painting or drawing in Königsberg, I cannot help but see and feel the presence of Victor Ryabinin.

On walking back homeward we stopped in an area where the lakeside path expands to look and listen for a while to a couple of young musicians playing saxophones. The music they were playing captured and inspired the harmonics of the occasion in this favourite location of ours, on this soft, tranquil, kind and contemplative day.

Coronavirus Language & the Mask Argument

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 209 [9 October 2020]

Published: 11 October 2020

Coronavirus chaos has strengthened its grip on the UK, the focus having now switched away from London to the north of the country. There are so many different ideas, protocols and strategies proposed for or operating in so many different regions and towns that the British public have been propelled into a second wave of terminal confusion. ‘Traffic lights’, three-tier systems, pub curfews, the Rule of Six, social distancing, lockdown ~ this lexical explosion, perpetrated by political pundits and lobbed like grenades into the public arena by hack journalists, has not, as linguists would have us believe, helped a beleaguered public to communicate better the altered shape of their lives and collective state of mind as much as it has routed common sense.

Coronavirus language & the mask argument

The new speak is bandied around as something positive given to us by the New Normal in return for stealing our lives. It is a poor substitute, thrilling perhaps for linguists and for those who devote their lives to the pursuit of adding slang to dictionaries, but for the humble man on the street (now locked down in his home), it is just so much unnecessary verbiage.

As I sit here in Kaliningrad ~ sometimes Königsberg ~ I have, by slow and calculated degrees, weened myself off my daily habit of consulting UK Google News, because (a) it is depressing and (b) after five minutes of reading, I feel as if I am drowning in alphabetti spaghetti.

Alphabetti spaghetti

There are no such buzzwords in Kaliningrad as there are in the UK, not even, or very rarely, a mention of ‘second wave’, but the protection that this offers us from the contagion of new speak and from the ill-thought-through strategies, U-turns and excuses around which in the UK these catch-all words revolve, does not, as with the rest of the infected world, extend immunity to the real problem, coronavirus, or provide us with a way back to the life we have lost and for which we grieve.

I suppose that in the last analysis as long as you remember to step carefully through the media spaghetti, the semantics are irrelevant; they ‘don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world’; it is simply a case of whether or not you like your beans spiced or served as they come without relish.

Coronavirus language & the mask argument

Today, for example (9 October 2020), without a lot of fuss, I learn from consulting Kaliningrad news that 67 new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed, bringing the total number of infected to 4,970 in this region. A total of 3,521 people have recovered, and the total number of deaths since the onset of the pandemic stands at 89¹.

Whilst this should come as no surprise to anybody, as governments around the world, the WHO, scientists and health practitioners have been telling us all along to regard summer as little more than a seasonal respite, because this virus, like most respiratory viruses, favours a romp in the autumn and winter months, some critics here have inferred that a contributory factor to the increased number of Covid-19 cases has been “a decrease in the vigilance of the population”².

This mainly, but non-specifically, I assume refers to the controversial subject of mask-wearing in confined public spaces. It is quite astonishing that 12 months into the pandemic, the world’s health gurus, scientists, governments and the public are still at serious odds about how efficacious face masks are as a preventative measure against Covid-19, and that this one issue alone illustrates not only how polarised opinion has become on how best to protect oneself against the virus but also serves to remind us of how fallible our knowledge is and how vulnerable we are when the science community on which we rely are unable to reach consensus on something so fundamental.

In the UK, here and elsewhere in the Covid-19 world, the division and opposition between maskers and anti-maskers defines the ambiguities of the ‘New Normal’ as well as its extremes, and allegiance and loyalty to one or the other is breeding the kind of resentment and partisan hostility usually reserved for, as Leonard Cohen describes it, “the war between the black and white and … left and right”, not to mention the rancour between the leave and remain camps of Brexit. Indeed, the line drawn in the sand between pro- and anti-maskers is as deep as any encountered and has a universal reach.

Coronavirus language & the mask argument

In Kaliningrad to mask or not to mask has led to altercations on public transport and recently, it was reported, that a fight broke out on a bus between a pro-masker and an anti-masker³. There is no doubt that throughout the infected world feelings are running high, but is this the result of fear or bigotry, frustration, ignorance or ambiguity, or a little bit of everything and a little more besides? Whatever is stoking it, as with all last stands on the moral high ground, since both opposing parties are convinced that the cause which they espouse has right upon its side, unless someone steps up to the plate and passes final judgement on the mask vs no mask case, the heat can only go up and the situation can only deteriorate.

As with all arguments of this nature ~ inconclusive ones ~ there is no flexibility, no ground to give. The pro-maskers believe unquestionably that face masks can prevent or at least protect against the spread of the disease, whilst the anti-maskers argue that not only are masks ineffective but that wearing them incorrectly can actually increase one’s chances of catching coronavirus, particularly if masks are carried, handled and worn in ways that contradict and confound the science by which their usefulness, and by default their limitations, are defined.

Consider the following, which was emailed to the comments section of the article cited above³ [Note that this has been reproduced verbatim using an automated translation service]:

‘Who among those who like to wear masks observes these rules? How to Wear a Medical Mask: Important Recommendations A disposable medical mask is only used once. The mask is placed on the face so that it covers the nose, mouth and chin. If the mask has strings, they must be tied tightly. If a plastic fastener is sewn into the mask in the area of the nose, it is tightly fitted with your fingers to the bridge of the nose. Many masks have special folds. They are unfolded to give the garment a more functional shape for a snug fit to the face. While wearing the mask, it is not recommended to touch its protective field with your hands. After touching the mask, hands are washed with soap and then treated with a special antiseptic. It is better not to take breaks in the process of wearing the mask: after removing the product from the face, a person, as a rule, touches it with his hands, shifts to the chin and neck, or even puts it in his pocket, and this is strictly prohibited. Dispose of the wet mask immediately and put on another, dry and clean. On average, the medical mask is changed every 2 hours. Removing the used mask, you must not touch the protective layer of the product, where pathogens have already accumulated. The mask is gently pulled off the face by grasping the ear loops or strings. Knowing how to properly wear a medical face mask is very important. Otherwise, the protective effect of the product will be minimized, and the risk of “catching” the virus, on the contrary, increases significantly.’

In the early days of coronavirus a friend of ours, who, incidentally, is a confirmed anti-masker who wears a mask begrudgingly, reminded someone on public transport that they were not wearing a mask. She was promptly informed by the non-mask wearer that there was no need for her to wear a mask because she was not infected. Our friend replied, that she was not thinking of her infecting others but being infected herself. When the bus conductress came along, who also was not wearing a mask, our friend asked if she challenged passengers who were not wearing masks and asked them to put them on. She replied: “Of course not!”

Two week ago I travelled by tram across the city, whereupon I observed some people wearing masks and some not. My maths have always left a lot to be desired, but in my humble opinion I would estimate that the split was equal at 50:50. In the article quoted above³, interviews with public transport staff conclude that since the onset of coronavirus and the early days of the mask-wearing rule the uptake has improved and is improving, even if the grumbling has not.

Coronavirus language & the mask argument

And what about me? For my own part, I am a reformed anti-masker/reluctant masker, but my gut feeling echoes the sentiments of the commentator whose words I quoted earlier in this post, namely that knowledge of and adherence to the art and science of mask wearing is, firstly, not well understood, and secondly, even if it was, is difficult if not impossible to transact under normal societal conditions. And under New Normal conditions? Well, I will try to answer that when somebody tells me in plain English or in simple Russian what the New Normal is.

In the meantime, no more spaghetti for me, thanks, I have signed myself up for a detox diet.

How do you spell ‘NOT SURE’? Coronavirus Language & the Mask Argument
(*Photo credit)

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are exactly that, opinions. The current rules, as I understand them, are that the wearing of masks is mandatory on public transport and in other enclosed public places, ie shops, chemists, etc …

References
1. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/91655-za-sutki-v-kaliningradskoj-oblasti-podtverdili-67-sluchaev-koronavirusa
2. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/91641-kravchenko-lichno-ya-ne-predpolagal-takogo-stremitelnogo-rosta-chisla-zabolevshih-koronavirusom
3. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/91610-potasovki-rugan-i-smirenie-kak-v-transporte-kaliningrada-boryutsya-s-narushitelyami-masochnogo-rezhima

*(Photo credit: bernswaelz (pixabay.com) https://www.needpix.com/photo/download/531227/letters-noodles-food-pasta-free-pictures-free-photos-free-images-royalty-free-free-illustrations)

Second Wave Coronavirus a New East West Divide

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 138 [30 July 2020]

It will all be over by Christmas …

As the world’s media focuses upon the race to see which country can get the first Covid-19 vaccine off the starting blocks, amidst wild accusations of vaccine poaching and dramatic speculation that the game has gone nationalist, I discovered myself suffering from statistic-watch withdrawal symptoms. “It will all be over by Christmas,” so the generals said at the outbreak of World War I.

Anyway, as I could hear a lot of noise but could not see the cavalry, I ignored my wife who was chuntering on about a plot to crash the world economy, of which I am not at all guilty, and found the following stats for Russia in general and Kaliningrad in particular.

These are the coronavirus figures as provided by the sources credited as at 21:31 on 29 July 2020.

Coronavirus situation in Russia, from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
[Access date: 29 July 2020]

Total Cases: 828,990

New Cases: +5,475

Total Deaths: 13,673

New Deaths: +169

Total Recovered: 620,333

Active Cases: 194,984

Coronavirus situation in Kaliningrad, from https://visalist.io/emergency/coronavirus/russia-country/kaliningrad
[Access date: 29 July 2020]

Contained: 84%

Total Confirmed Cases: 2835

Confirmed in last 24 hours: 14

Ill: 456

Total Recovered: 2334 (82%)

Recovered in last 24 hours: 11

Total Dead: 45 (2%)

Died in last 24 hours: 2

Both sites from which I have extrapolated these figures cover every country known to man (and Others), so if you want to consult and compare, you know where you can go.

Meanwhile, self-isolating has never seemed so reasonable. It appears that almost everybody in this neck of the woods is taking the opportunity to socialise and get out and about whilst they can.

Reports filtering in to me from the UK suggest that the lockdown mentality has taken root and that whilst restrictions have been eased officially, many people remain cagey, with most of these believing that a second wave is not only imminent but has already begun. Indeed, the UK government and media seem to be actively preparing the populace for the second-coming.

Here, in Kaliningrad, and rumour has it in Russia per se, the attitude is markedly different. Being British, I have already been accused of hiding under the bedsheets, but on those brief occasions when I have upped periscope, although the masks go marching on, the general impression I have is that the attitude-ohmmeter swings widely across a spectrum which starts with hardened disbelief, travels across a broad swathe of resignation and ends with stoical resolve. Paraphrased it goes something like this: it is not as bad as we are being led to believe; whatever will be will be; we will do our best to avoid it but somehow life must go on.

Second Wave Coronavirus

As an experiment, I popped over to Goggle News UK and in the search engine keyed in ‘second wave in Russia’. Herewith is a sample of the headlines my search returned:

No second wave of coronavirus infection expected in Russia — former chief sanitary doctor

Russia can avoid a second wave of coronavirus if everyone follows the rules and observes distance, says WHO

No preconditions for second COVID-19 wave in Russia yet, PM says

I then did the same with regard to western Europe, ie I keyed in ‘second wave in western Europe’. The search returned:

The second corona wave emerges in Europe

LIVE UPDATES: PM warns signs of second wave of virus in Europe

Spain’s second coronavirus wave swells, fuels concern across Europe

And finally, I made the same search, but substituted Europe for UK, ie ‘second wave in UK’. The search returned:

Cambridge scientists fear coronavirus second wave as ‘R’ rate rises across UK

Six towns where coronavirus is causing fears of UK second wave as Army brought in

Government not doing enough to stop coronavirus second wave, says British Medical Association chief

Even allowing for the fact that the last headline is merely concerned with party politics, ie vote Labour and they will instigate a street demo which will outlaw coronavirus for inciting populism, the attitudinal difference inherent in the way in which Covid-19 is reported and discussed is an interesting one.

Forget the argument that the Russian version of events is to play the significance of the virus down whilst the UK and western Europe motive is to peddle sensationalism and stoke hysteria, the questions are: does the first reassure and the second sow panic, does the divergent tone of each influence opinion or reflect a herd immunity to it and, lastly, but most significantly, does the public really care? How does it go? You can fool some of the people all of the time but not all of the people all of the time.

My take on the dominant attitude towards coronavirus in Kaliningrad is that for the majority of its citizens opinion is formed not by the media but in the character-making crucible of history. To understand that statement you will need to have at least an elementary knowledge of Russian history, of the hardships endured and surmounted. After all, if it puzzled such a great thinker and statesman as Churchill ~ on Russia Churchill’s famous definition was “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” ~ what chance do you have? (alright, alright, there’s no need to take it out on Churchill’s statue ~ innit). However, you can shortcut the history lesson and understand the prevailing attitude towards the threat of coronavirus in Kaliningrad by remembering that Kaliningrad is in Russia, and Russia is the country that saw off Adolf Hitler!

As for me, well, I carry my British credentials everywhere, not only in my passport, and, although I have emerged and have become more flexible in my day to day regime of self-isolation, I remain as cautious as the proverbial butcher’s dog. Wait a moment, I think I may have botched the expression. Butcher’s dogs are called many things, but are they cautious? Mine is ~ it’s vegetarian.

Will there be a Second Wave — **Will there be a second wave?**
(Photo credit: Vlad Kiselov on Unsplash {https://unsplash.com/photos/6dTQbgj1hWs})

Diary of a Self-isolator in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 35 [23 April 2020]

Published: 21 April 2020

I am sitting here on day 35 of self-isolation feeling all retrospective. Since I cannot comment on what is going on outside at present, as I am not getting out as much as I used to, my mind decided to do a Henry David Thoreau and wander off at will. It led me by the hand to the last days of December last year and from this point in time pushed me forward to a day in the past, two weeks ago, to be precise 7 April. More on that in a moment.

Diary of a self-isolator in Kaliningrad

It has been a bad winter; by bad I mean nondescript; lots of rain, no snow; it has been dank, murky, wet, unpleasant.

At the risk of being accused of typical British understatement, I think most people would agree with me that Kaliningrad is not at its best during periods of near perpetual rain. When the snow comes it cloaks, muffles and hides the flaws and imperfections. It is to Kaliningrad what a dose of Botox is to a weathered and wrinkling face. It disguises the wrongs of time, at least for a while.

On 30 December 2019 I had travelled back to Kaliningrad from Gdansk Airport, crossing the Russian border from Poland by taxi. Peering through the taxi window as we approached the city outskirts, I ruefully observed the pitted roads, distorted sidewalks, rusting and buckling metal fences, dilapidated buildings and winter-abandoned building plots, all thick mud and heavy-plant-machinery tracks pocked with bomb-crater pools of water. I do not know whether I love Kaliningrad in spite of its imperfections or because of them. “Ahh, it’s good to be home,” I sighed.

Diary of a Self-isolator in Kaliningrad

In the past few days, whilst we, other realists and most people with a social conscience have been hiding indoors, spring has arrived in Kaliningrad. With flagrant disregard for self-isolation rules, buds and blossom are out and social distancing is out the window, as sprigs of small green leaves gather on the trees and small groups of bright blue flowers, wild and gay (in the non-PC sense) congregate at the edge of gardens and the roadside verges.

Kaliningrad is a green city, and very soon the trees that line the streets, the public spaces and parks will soothe and soften the urban landscape.

As this happens and the weather hopefully improves, the grim phantom of coronavirus will seem even more unreal to us at the other end of the nature spectrum ~ the unpredictable human end ~ and will surely test our resolve.

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 35 [23 April 2020]

On 7 April (doesn’t time fly ~ all over the place ~ whilst in self-isolation), we had to answer a call ~ not of nature ~ but of a bureaucratic kind, which would winkle us out of the house and make us trek, on foot, of course, across the other side of the city to fill in yet another official document and receive yet another official stamp.

Although serenaded by a beautiful spring day, gloriously sunlit and dry, and whilst I welcomed the chance to walk, two weeks of isolation harnessed to ever-more disturbing media content on the seemingly invincible march of coronavirus had increased my perception of risk and hardened caution against anything other than excursions into the outside world deemed vital or essential, such as trips to the local shop for beer and vodka. But ‘needs must when the Devil drives’, so out and off we went.

It was early days for self-isolation, but we had not been out for a week or more so it was interesting to see what, if anything, had transpired from an increased knowledge of the virus’s escalating incidence and its possible deadly consequences and also whether the advice from central and local government for self-isolation and social distancing had been received loud and clear or whether some people still had a sock stuffed in it.

Around the lakeside there was no diminution of people, but there were less people on the streets and less traffic. Nevertheless, the city was far from deserted. Traffic lights were still needed and at main bus stops groups assembled. Public transport had taken a hit, but still had enough passengers to make it profitable and questionable. Mask wearers existed in a ratio of about 1:7. We were not among them yet, as I could never get on with masks, which I have had to wear on occasions whilst working in dusty environments. I was forever adjusting them, which means running your fingers around your face; they make your face hot and sweaty, thus acting as a particulate attraction, and, in my experience, as they still permit the ingress of a small amount of dust, visible on the mask inside after 30 minutes of wear, I remain unconvinced of their virus-halting efficacy and cautious about the possibility that they may, in fact, heighten the risk of inhaling the great Big C.

Diary of a self-isolator: should I wear a mask or not? — (Photo credit: National Archives. Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/3182090361)

Masks and gloves

Arriving at our destination, like them or not masks had to be donned. We had been given strict instructions that we would not be allowed on the premises without masks and gloves. My wife had both, but the surgical gloves that a friend had acquired for us were too small for my manly hands, so I just stuffed my hands in my pockets. We did have a mask apiece, but that is what we had ~ one each and no more.

In ordinary circumstances, we would have been considerably more nervous about today’s toxic environment, an enclosed space where there was no possibility of distancing ~ we had already had the dubious pleasure of this experience at another official establishment, thank you ~ but we had been led to believe that there would less people present today.

Olga was well and truly flustered. She had donned her green-blue facemask and I, complaining bitterly, put mine on as well, as we waited outside the office building for someone to open the door.

A rather large, somewhat buxom lady had been assigned to our case, and we followed her into one of the small offices where she checked the sheath of documents Olga handed to her, and after holding my breath for the inevitable conclusion that we did not have all of the paperwork we should have, I was pleased to be proven wrong. The lady with the largest handed Olga two documents plastered with questions and answer boxes, saying, at the same time, “Roochka?” I’ve been swotting up on my Russian language, and I immediately recognised this as ‘pen’, or rather by intonation, ‘have you got a pen?’ (It is a funny thing this Russian language, as she could just as well have been asking ‘Have you got a door handle?’.)

We vacated the small office and went into the service area beyond, where, sitting at a small oblong ‘stol’, Olga proceeded to huff, puff and grimace her way through the form-filling process, predicting that she would get it wrong and have to do it again, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then she started to get all nervous, stressed and sweaty, removing the face mask as she could not breath in it. I kept mine on, but I had noticed that the lady who was catering for us had her facemask slung over her large double chin. This woman did not inspire confidence. She too looked hot under the gills, and I noticed that she was continually sniffing!

On the streets

Not wanting to take a taxi ~ or rather wanting to but not doing so ~ we trudged back the way we had come on foot.

In the new Coronavirus Era everybody you meet takes on a sinister dimension, and they are to you as you are to them ~ you can see it in their eyes, especially in the crab-like eyes that peep warily and frightened above the line of their masks. Fear stalks the streets as if the Grim Reaper is on his heels. The irony is that the least affected, and therefore the most relaxed and complacent, are drunks, who continue to assemble and congregate, share their bottles of hooch and pass their cigarettes as if the world is as it was ~ before along came a minuscular round thing with trumpets stuck all over it.

A little bit of fear can go a long way; like Mary Poppin’s spoon full of sugar, it can assist quite considerably in helping ‘the medicine go down’, so that when we are told not to touch our faces, as the Big C can be transferred from surfaces to our vitals by this route, we remember the consequences. The Grim Reaper is waving his scythe at you.

When out and about, I try to keep my hands thrust inside my jacket pockets, but you can always be sure that the more conscious you are that you should not touch your face the more certain you can be of that itch developing around the edge of your nostril or your eyes and the growing insistence in your brain to scratch or rub it. I suppose that there is a little bit of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Imp of the Perverse’ in all of us.