Tag Archives: Daily life in Kaliningrad

Hedgehog in the Fog seen in Kaliningrad

A kind, charming, thought-provoking and sentimental animation

Published: 2 December 2022 ~ Hedgehog in the Fog seen in Kaliningrad

Before setting off to London/Bedford England last month, we were walking back from a coffee in the café gardens (Soul Garden) by the Upper Pond, Kaliningrad, when we were thrilled to discover that some artistic person or other had painted the perfect impression of the star (Yorshik) from the famous 1970s’ animation, Hedgehog in the Fog. Normally, or abnormally, depending upon your personal prejudice, I am unable to accept painted or spray-canned text or images plastered on public or private property as anything else but what it truly is ~ a brazen example of vandalism. But, as with most things in life, exceptions to the rule exist, and this, I have to admit, is as true of graffiti as it is of anything else, providing that you want it to be.

Hedgehog in the Fog is a highly acclaimed Soviet-Russian multiple award-winning animated film. It was written by Sergei Grigoryevich Kozlov [Серге́й Григо́рьевич Козло́в] and animated and directed by Yuri Norstein [Ю́рий Норште́йн]. It is both an animation and intellectual masterpiece, capable of myriad interpretations, but whose ultimate message is as simple as it is sublime as is it sentimental: that we all need someone in this world with whom we can count the stars.

Once seen never forgotten, the majority of Russians would recognise Yorshik’s likeness instantly, certainly as unmistakeably as they would the stars of such classic Soviet films as Irony of Fate and Office Romance.

The portrait was also discovered and recognised by Kaliningrad’s administration department, and before we left for England, I caught sight of a media report in which the administration was asking the public to cast their vote ~ with the proviso that the paint used was harmless to the tree ~ on whether the image should be removed or be allowed to remain.

Since I have not walked that part of Kaliningrad recently, I have no idea what the fate of Yorshik might be, although I for one would hope that when the votes were counted, they favoured Yorshik’s continued presence.

Not only does the composition capture Yorshik’s appearance perfectly, but the artist has also located him within a beautiful blue graduated background, where he shares space romantically with twinkling stars and fairies.

Whether Yorshik has survived or not, if the artist would like to contact me, I have a canvas, an interior wall, which is just crying out for this work of art to be replicated!

Hedgehog in the Fog

Hedgehog in the Fog is a Soviet-Russian animated film about a hedgehog (Yorshik) who sets off on foot to visit his friend, a bear cub (Meeshka), and finds himself lost in the fog. As in folklore, fairy tales and fantasy and in Gothic and psychological suspense genres, fog as a literary/cinematographic device is typically employed in the film to deviate objective reality, turning the world as we know it ~ or think we do! ~ into a claustrophobic and distorted realm where the heightened possibility of supernatural occurrences amplifies the vicissitudes encountered in everyday life.

In this state of altered consciousness, Yorshik’s imagination supersedes logic, creating a new and unnerving reality in which, for example, an owl and white horse ~ one commonplace the other rare but possible ~ take on puzzling and sinister shades of meaning.

When Yorshik stumbles into the river he assumes that he will drown, but carried along by the current he relaxes into his situation, resigning himself to the journey wherever it may take him.

His ordeal culminates when a mysterious submersible benefactor, a ‘Someone’ as the subtitles tells us, lifts him onto his back and conveys him safely to the water’s edge.

Once on dry land, Yorshik hears his friend, Meeshka, calling out to him through the fog and by following the direction of his friend’s cries the two are at last united.

Hedgehog in the Fog is a simple story, but one which arguably manages to achieve what no other comparable animation has in its simultaneous creation of an atmosphere of dread tempered by quiescence. The kinetic tempo has a lot to do with this, as does the steady, hushed and neutral tone of the omniscient narrator, but the fundamental appeal of the film and the extent to which it engages us lies in its ‘seen through the eyes of a child’s perspective’, its lilting dream-like quality and its effortless ability to invoke and mirror the childhood world which we all once inhabited, with its troublesome symbols and shadows, its half-open doors to what, where and who, its many unanswered questions and its never completely understood what may lie within and beyond.

In following the classic tradition of all that is best in fantasy motion pictures ~ The Haunting (original version), Night of the Hunter and, with one or two exceptions, the complete canon of Hitchcock’s works ~ the key to Hedgehog in the Fog’s allure is that just below the surface of fairy tale enchantment it taps profoundly and incisively into our childhood psyche.

It calls upon the fog and the river for their habitual literary symbolism: the first for its incarnation of a supernatural milieu where anything is possible, the second for its depiction of life as a predetermined current against whose superior will we are powerless to resist, and it besets the journey with downstream dangers, credible menace, innate fears and the almost tangible presence of death. All the things that we learn about living as we are hurried along by the current of life.

The still frames from Hedgehog in the Fog are every bit as resoundingly emotive as the narrative in flux. Single static images such as the looming face of the owl, the white horse, apparition-like and luminescent, the bewildered expression on Yorshik’s face and, most memorable of all, the concluding frames of the film where the re-united Yorshik and Meeshka sit on the log together, with their jam, tea and samovar and the scent from the burning juniper twigs, counting the stars in the heavens, are each and every one blissfully indelible.

Hedgehog in the Fog works, even for we adults, not only because the artwork, the cinematography, pace and timbre are as spot on as they can be, but because the overarching feel of the film is unashamedly affectionate and applaudably sentimental.

However unnerving the fog may be, the narrator takes us by the hand and, like the dreamy river of life upon which the hapless Yorshik floats, albeit with philosophical tranquility, he leads us reassuringly from opening credits to heartfelt conclusion.

If you have the samovar, the juniper twigs and the raspberry jam, all you need to count the stars ~ as the stars are always above you ~ is the log on which to sit and that special someone next to you for whom those stars shine as brightly and mean the same to them as they do for you.

Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions

Do I detect an air of Pofik!?

Published: 3 July 2022 ~ Life in Kaliningrad Russia under threats and sanctions

With Lithuania threatening to blockade Kaliningrad by restricting transit of goods from mainland Russia by train, the Latvian Interior Minister gleefully announcing that this proved that the West was poised to ‘take Kaliningrad away from Russia’¹ and the Prime Minister of Poland making so much noise that it is difficult to tell whether it is his sabre rattling, his teeth chattering or something else knocking together, it looked as though once again the storm clouds had begun to gather over the former region of the Teutonic Order.

I cannot say with any semblance of sincerity that, as the shadow slowly dispersed, the Kaliningrad populace breathed a sigh of relief for, quite frankly, and with no flippancy intended but wanting as always to tell it how it is, nobody ~ at least nobody that I am acquainted with ~ seemed to give a fig.

You can put it down to whatever you like: the Russian penchant for c’est la vie, faith in themselves and their country, a growing immunity to the West’s mouth and trousers or perhaps the absence of a corporate media that makes its fortune by pedalling fear. But whatever you ascribe it to, if the residents of Kaliningrad were supposed to feel afraid, it didn’t happen.

Perhaps it was because we were all too busy laughing at Boris Johnson’s jokes, the ones about the situation in Ukraine never occurring had Vladimir Putin been a woman, which, Boris woked, was “the perfect example of toxic masculinity’ (By the way, what is the definition of non-toxic masculinity? Is it where you rove around without your pants on having painted your gonads rainbow colours? Or when go into hiding like President Turdeau whenever you hear a trucker’s horn?) and his suggestion at the G7 Summit that the leaders of the ‘free’ world (free with every packet of neoliberal dictatorship) should take off their clothes to equal the manliness of Vladimir Putin, to which Mr Putin replied, and I think this is something we can all agree on, “I don’t know how they wanted to undress, waist-high or not, but I think it would be a disgusting sight either way.”² Er, I assume that Boris was joking ~ wasn’t he? ~ and joking on both accounts?

Alack-a-day if he wasn’t, they just might be some of the most stupid things he has ever said. That’s a close call, because occasionally, but very seldomly and most likely accidentally, Boris can say things that make some sense, not much and not often, but it does happen, which is more than can be said for anyone in the Labour party ~ or about any and all of their supporters. But you must admit, Boris, that the things you are blurting out of late do have a rather silly public schoolboy wheeze about them. Were you the President of the United States at least you could plead senility or, failing that, insanity. But beware! Keep on behaving like this and you’ll make yourself the perfect candidate for filling Biden’s boots when Biden’s booted out.

I suppose we should all just take a step backwards and feel thankful that in the pre-bender-gender days of Winston Churchill, the great man himself was endowed with more than his fair share of so-called ‘toxic masculinity’, had he not been, we’d all be speaking German now. Mein Gott!

We don’t. And the storm over Kaliningrad and the storm in a teacup, the G7 Summit, both failed in their endeavours.

Actually, I have been rather parsimonious with the truth, I mean about the storm in Kaliningrad. It did break and when it did, it surprised everyone. After a glorious week of sun, sand and sea weather, Kaliningrad and its region were suddenly plunged into the most frightful and persistent series of electric storms that I have ever experienced.

For three days and nights, the firmament’s guts growled, sheets of livid light flashed across the sky, and lying there in bed listening to it, as we didn’t have much choice, it was easy to imagine that the entire world was forked ~ forked with lightning!

Olga was in a right old tizz. To her it was a celestial sign, a sign that her tarot-card readers and crystal-ball gazers, whose predictions she believes implicitly and to whom she refers collectively as the esoterics, and whom I call snake-oil salesmen, had got it right: change was in the air, tumultuous change. This was the start, the new beginning, the tip of the dawn of a different world. As strange as it may seem, Gin-Ginsky our cat did not appear to have any opinion on it at all, or, if he did, he was saying nothing. He is a very diplomatic cat. He might also be a very crafty cat.

Considering him to be a little less slim than he used to be, Olga recently changed his food to a product branded ‘Food for Fat Cats’. This and the use of the word ‘light’ on the packet obviously implying dietary benefit. Our cat Ginger loves it. He scoffs it twice as fast as his usual food and in ever-increasing quantities. Every now and again he will look up from his bowl between mouth fulls and fix you with his ginger eyes as if to say, “I’ll show you!” Perhaps, the ‘Food for Fat Cats’ tag line is meant to read ‘Food to make cats fatter’? I must remember to warn him, if he ever attends a G7 Summit, not to take his shirt off!

Those of you who in the West, especially those of you who changed your avatars and are now ashamed you did so (but will never admit to it!), are dying to hear, I know, how badly the sanctions are biting here in Kaliningrad. That’s why I mentioned the cat: he’s biting his grub. But I would be Boris Johnson should I say that the price of cat’s grub has not gone up. But what other things have gone up (ooerr Mrs!), or are we all eating cheaper brands of cat food?

I know that an interest in this exists because lately a lot of people have been tuning into my post Panic Buying Shelves Empty. I can only presume that this is down to Brits kerb-crawling the net in search of hopeful signs that western sanctions are starting to bite. In a couple of instances, we, like our cat, are biting into different brand-named foods than those we used to sink our gnashers into, the reason being, I suppose, because the brands that we used to buy belong to manufacturers who have been forced into playing Biden’s spite-your-nose game: Exodus & Lose Your Money. Also, in some food categories, price increases have been noted. Pheew, what a relief. If these concessions did not exist then the whole sanctions escapade would be more embarrassing than it already is for leaders of western countries who are ruining their own economies by having introduced them.

Were we talking about beer? Well, we are now. Some beer brands are absent, although the earlier gaps in shelves have since been filled with different brands from different companies and from different parts of the world. Those that are not the victims of sanctimonies, which is to say those that still remain, do reflect a hike in price, but as prices fluctuate wildly here at the best of times it is simply a matter of shopping around as usual.

So, there you have it. Not from the bought and paid for UK corporate media and their agenda-led moguls but from a sanctioned Englishman living in Kaliningrad, Russia, who is willing to swear on a stack of real-ale casks, honestly, one hand on heart and the other on his beer glass, that life in Kaliningrad under threat and sanctions has changed so little as to be negligibly different to life as it was in the days of pre-sanctioned Kaliningrad.

If I have disappointed your expectations, I’m sorry.

References
1. Russia threatened NATO with a “meat grinder” when trying to take Kaliningrad Russian news EN (lenta-ru.translate.goog)
2. https://www.rt.com/russia/558107-putin-boris-johnson-response/

Image attributions
Thunderbolt: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Mr-Thunderbolt-cloud-vector-image/31288.html
Fat man: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/fat-man-clipart_4.htm

Beware of the Babooshka!

Advice for free

Published: 29 September 2021 ~ Beware of the Babooshka!

It was an extremely hot day when my wife decided that as I had made the mistake of buying a new lawnmower, perhaps now would be a good time to cut the lawn. “Why whinge?” you ask. “There is nothing so easy as cutting a lawn. Modern, electric-powered lawn mowers cut lawns as if they were made for the job.”

“Ah, yes,” I concede, “but there are lawns and lawns.”

The lawn in question was big and, as it had not been cut for a year, it was intolerably overgrown and full of long, brown straggly things.

Nevertheless, not one to walk away from a challenge when there is the promise of beer at the end of it, I set to with a vengeance.

About four hours later and three-quarters of the way through it, I was just looking back over what I had done and secretly congratulating myself, when a stout and redoubtable babooshka came marching down the road.

As she drew level with me, she stopped, peered over the fence and gazed intently first at the lawn, then at the mower and then at me.

“I’ll bowl her over with my scintillating grasp of Russian,” I thought. So, I call out, merrily.

“Strasveetee [Hello]!”

The babooshka looks but says nothing.

Perhaps she was spellbound by the conquistador job that I was doing.

When she finally did say something, it sounded short and to the point. I asked my good lady to translate.

“What did she say?” I asked. I suppose I was expecting to hear a compliment.

“She said, “‘You don’t do it like that!’”

“Don’t do what, like what?” I asked

“Don’t cut lawns like that!”

Well, really, had I been in England I would have put her right and no mistake: “Listen to me my good woman, I’ll have you know that I’ve been mowing lawns man and boy …”

But that was just it. I wasn’t in England and, if I had been, would an elderly lady address me like this?

Certainly, in days of yore, when I was a nipper, they would have done. But that was then and now is now. Grandmas in the UK no longer dispense worldly advice and criticism, they are too busy nightclubbing and looking for dates on Tinder.

Having said her piece the babooshka went on her way, and I continued to cut the lawn the way that I always shouldn’t have done.

This was the same babooshka, incidentally, who had sworn blind that our statue was black when, in fact, it is bronzed-brown (I repeat the incident from my former post, Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast).

We were standing on the pavement at the end of the garden admiring the newly painted statue when who should appear but the friendly village babooshka.

“Hello,” we regaled her, cheerily.

“Why have you spoilt him?” she snapped.

I knew she could not have been referring to me, so she must have meant the statue. Before we had chance to reply, she had exclaimed: “He’s black!”

I shot a glance at the statue. Heavens, should we be taking a knee?!

“No, in fact, he is bronze,” I curtly corrected her.

Olga bent down and picked up some litter from the side of the road and placed it inside the rubbish bag we were carrying.

“Huh!” the babooshka tutted, “Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time!”

A few days later, without me, I am sad to say, my wife ran into her again.

“Hello,” Olga greeted her.

“You haven’t done much, have you?” came the oblique reply.

Who remembers Albert Tatlock from Coronation Street?

Olga asked for clarification.

She got it: “The house. You haven’t done much to it. All you’ve done is painted the statue black!”

Who remembers Nora Batty from Last of the Summer Wine?

My wife attempted to turn the tables adroitly, innocently remarking on the nice sunflowers that she had observed in a neighbour’s garden.

“What’s the use of them?” the babooshka asked, and before Olga could think of nothing in response, went on to say, “Those sunflowers are in my relative’s garden. Look at it. It’s full of potatoes, but she hasn’t looked after them properly. They’re all overgrown. Spent too much time on those sunflowers, I suppose.”

Puzzled by Babooshka — See end of post for image attribution

The next time my wife bumped into this ray of golden sunlight, she was caught by the philosopher as she was running to catch the bus.

“What are you running for?” the merry babooshka asked.

“To catch the bus,” Olga explained. “The last time I almost missed it. The driver left earlier than he should.”

“Well,” retorted the babooshka, “sometimes he gets here early, so he leaves early.”

“But he shouldn’t!”

“Why not, he can do what he likes. If he’s here early there’s no point in him sitting about. He wants to get on.”

“Yes,” my wife argued, “but there is such a thing as a timetable.”

“Timetable,” the babooshka snorted contemptuously, “what’s the point of that when he’s here early and doesn’t want to wait?”

“But people will miss the bus,” exclaimed my wife.

“That’s their problem, not the bus drivers,” concluded the babooshka.

Beware of the Babooshka!

Sometimes the most important and valuable things in life can pass you by, and when we are reminded of them we should be eternally grateful. For example, if it was not for this babooshka, it would never have occurred to me that I had spent the greater proportion of my life cutting the lawn like I shouldn’t have done; that our bronzed statue was black; that there is no possible excuse for growing sunflowers; and that impatient bus drivers had better things to do than to adhere to timetables and pick up passengers.

It is surely food for thought that I have reached the age that I have but still have much, so very much to learn.😉

Image attributions:
Elderly lady cartoon: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/kT8oprbnc.htm
Question mark figure cartoon: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/BcarELBKi.htm

Секретное оружие в Калининграде

Мы взлетели!

Опубликовано: 26 August 2021 ~ Секретное оружие в Калининграде

Вы знаете что британские СМИ постоянно твердят о том что Калининградская область является самой милитаризованной зоной на планете? Похоже, моя жена обнаружила то самое секретное оружие, когда однажды вечером пошла в магазин.

Его кодовое название- “Взлети”, но мы будем называть его непрофессиональным именем: Ботинком по Заднице “Земля-воздух”!

Моя хорошая жена выскочила как то из дома, чтобы совершить обычный поход в местный продовольственный магазин. Это небольшой магазин, с хорошо укомплектованными товарами и продуктами.

В тот особенный вечер в магазине находились – она сама, дама, обслуживающая ее, и ни души больше

Внезапно дверь распахнулась, и в магащин, пошатываясь, вошел чрезвычайно пьяный мужчина. Он был “в зюзю пьяный”, как говорят в этих краях.

Раскачиваясь из стороны в сторону и воняя перегаром, он повернулся к двум дамам в магазине и восстребовал денег: “Я голоден!” – гаркнул он.

Наступила тишина.

Все более раздражаясь, он повторил свое требование.

Моя жена, будучи учительницей и привыкшая отчитывать меня по поводу алкоголя, твердо посмотрела на него и сказала: “Если у вас достаточно денег на выпивку, то у вас, вероятно должно быть достаточно денег для того чтобы прокормить себя!”

Хорошо проспиртованный человек очень рассердился.

“Ты б…..!!” заорал он. – Ты меня обязана накормить ! Я буду сидеть в этом углу и не сдвинусь с места, пока ты не меня не накормишь!”

В этот момент в магазин вошел крупногаборитный мужчина. Он купил несколько товаров, и когда он собрался уходить, владелец магазина прошептала ему: “Этот человек в углу очень пьян и требует денег и еды! Я боюсь его.”

“Что? Этот паразит!!” – недоверчиво провозгласил рослый парень, после чего напрвавился к вышеупомянутому джентльмену, поднял его за шиворот, развернул лицом к дверному проему и, тщательно прицелившись, дал ему пинка под зад.

Хотя секретному оружию удалось продвинуть цель примерно на два метра или больше, цель, как будто все еще не убежденная в возможностях секретного оружья, приползла назад за добавкой. Вероятно он был каскадером?

И вновь человек, отвечающий за оборонительную силу башмаков, посчитал нужным обеспечить дальнейшую демонстрацию возможностей его оружия. Поэтому он развернул мишень, тщательно прицелился во второй раз, прицелился ботинком с земли на задницу и вновь запустив смертоносный ботинок, отправил цель в полет.

“О, спасибо, – сказала продавщица, – но я думаю, что, когда вы уйдете, он [пьяница] вернется опять”.

Она неоодоценила рослого галлантного сэра, потому что он был не только очень хорошим бойцом, оснащенным большой парой башмаков, которые, казались мргли принадлежать кому угодно, но он, по всей вероятности, имел опыт управления компании по перевозке грузов, потому что, как только испуганный владелец магазина выразил ему свои опасения, он буквально схватил пьяного мужчину за шиворот и, приподняв его на четвереньки, переправил его через оживленную дорогу, где, как он заверил дрожащего владельца магазина позже, учитывая его пьяное состояние, если нарушитель попытается снова перейти дорогу, он будет сбит проезжающей машиной и прилипнув к капоту, окажется где-нибудь в Польше.

Мораль этой истории очевидна. Если только вы не носите толстый кусок губки в трусах и не возражаете отправиться в Польшу внезапно, агрессивное попрошайничество в городе Калининграде не совсем рекомендуется.

английская версия

Image attributions:

Rocket launcher: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Army-truck-with-weapon/46990.html

Boot: <a href=”https://www.freepik.com/vectors/travel”>Travel vector created by rawpixel.com {Link inactive as of 12/04/2022}

Secret Weapon in Kaliningrad

We have lift off!

Published: 3 June 2021~ Secret Weapon in Kaliningrad

You know how the UK media is always going on about the Kaliningrad region being the most militarised zone in the universe, well here’s a secret weapon that my wife discovered when she was out shopping one evening.

Its code name is Lift Off, but we shall refer to it by its layman’s name: the Ground-to-Air Arse-Seeking Boot!

My good lady wife had popped out of the house to make a routine trip to a local food store. It is a small shop but well stocked with a variety of different products.

On this particular evening, there was herself and the lady serving her in the shop and nobody else.

Suddenly, the door opened and in staggered an extremely drunken man. He was mnoga peearni, as they say in these parts.

Swaying this way and that and reeking of booze, he faced the two women in the shop and ordered them to give him some money: “I’m hungry!” he exclaimed.

Silence ensued.

Becoming more agitated, he repeated his demand.

My wife, being a teacher and used to addressing me on the subject of alcohol, looked at him firmly and said, “If you’ve got enough money to booze, then you ought to have enough money to feed yourself with!”

The well-oiled man became extremely angry.

“You b…..s!!” he shouted. “You must feed me! I’m going to sit in this corner and won’t move until you do!”

At that moment, a man of no small proportions entered the shop. He purchased three or four items, and just as he was about to leave the shopkeeper whispered to him, “That man in the corner is extremely drunk and demanding money and food! I am frightened of him.”

“What, this vermin!!” the strapping fellow proclaimed in a tone of disbelief, whereupon he marched over to the gentlemen concerned, hoisted him up by the scruff of the neck, turned him around to face the doorway and taking careful aim gave him a ground-to-arse boot send off.

Although the secret weapon had succeeded in propelling the target some two metres or more, the recipient, as though still unconvinced of its capabilities, crawled back for more. Was he a stunt man?

Once again, the man in charge of the defensive booteries found himself obliged to provide a further demonstration of the weapon’s capability. So, he turned the target around, took careful aim for the second time, launched the lethal ground-to-arse-seeking boot and sent the target flying.

“Oh thank you,” said the shopkeeper, “but I am of the opinion that when you leave he [the drunken man] will simply return.”

She could not have underestimated the strapping Sir Galahad more, for not only was he a very good shot equipped with a big pair of boots that anyone would be envious of, but he also seemed to operate his own road haulage company, for, no sooner had the fearful shopkeeper expressed her concerns to him than he had literally collared the drunken man and, hoisting him on all fours, proceeded to ferry him across the busy road where, he assured the tremulous shopkeeper, given his drunken state should the offending object attempt to re-cross the road he would be swept away on the front of a passing car bonnet and end up somewhere in Poland.

The moral of this story is plain to see. Unless you are wearing a thick piece of sponge in your underpants and don’t mind going to Poland, and going there very suddenly, aggressive begging in the city of Kaliningrad is not entirely recommended.

Репетитор английского языка в Калининграде:
Развивайте cвои навыки английского языка с преподавателем Oльгой Коростелевой–Харт, имеющей 20-летний опыт преподавания в Великобритании (квалификация выдана Палатой Учителей Великобритании, сертификат за номером 0614508)

Image credits:
Weapon: Andreas_G / pixabay.com (https://freeimg.net/photo/1558247/human-man-military-weapon)
Boot: The Clown A laugh every day (https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=168343&picture=boot-with-teeth)

An Autumn Walk in Kaliningrad

A walk to Max Aschmann Park

Published: 31 October 2020

We never did keep that appointment we promised ourselves and go for a picnic this summer in Königsberg’s Max Aschmann Park, but prompted by the delightful autumnal weather, all sun and blue skies, we did walk to the park today and, because it covers a large area, managed at least to stroll through one section of it.

Autumn in Kaliningrad

Our route to the park would take us through some of the most quiet and atmospheric streets of the old city. These are cobbled streets lined with great trees on either side. In spring and summer these trees are a silent explosion of green leaves, and although they have begun to shed them profusely in anticipation of winter’s dawn, sufficient remain to act as a filter to the last rays of the summer sun, which scattering through them illuminate their various hues and shades like a giant back bulb behind an origami screen.

Below the sunburst, across the humpty dumpty road surface, the grass verges ~ neat or overgrown ~ and on the pavements, where there are some, the leaves lay strewn like so much wedding confetti ~ yellow, brown, auburn and gold. They would form carpets were it not for the hardworking road sweepers, who are out and about at the crack of dawn piling the leaves into heaps ready for the administrations of the follow-up leaf-sucking lorries.

The street we are walking along is, like many in this neighbourhood and in other parts of remnant Königsberg, a cavalcade of architectural opposites. We pass by the Konigsberg signature flats, a series of long but detached blocks, three or four storeys in height, each one re-equipped with its Soviet steel door and, in this particular instance, curiously clad in wood.

If you know Kaliningrad you are ready for contrasts, but ready does not mean less surprised. In two steps we go from the scene I have just described to another quite improbable, yet not quite so improbable in the light of the status quo.

A large bushy tree rolls back at the side of us and there, of course, they are ~ the new-builds. We were half-expecting them, but not at any moment. They are three or four in number, big brand-spankers; demure-brick faced in parts but striking in their adaptation of Neoclassical principles. They shine and they sparkle with pride in the sun; the sun polishes them and casts an autumnal eye along the neat, trimmed verge evenly planted with shrubs, the upright expensive fence and the ever-imposing gate. The sun seems to wink at me, but perhaps in my admiration I failed to notice the slightest breeze and the way it secretly shifted the branches across my line of vision.

Some of the houses along this street conform to the more conventional and some, which must be flats, are hefty great slabs, albeit with nice arched windows. And then, just when you have stopped thinking ‘phhheww they must have cost a bit’, you reach the end of the road, and there in the corner, at the junction, you immediately fall in love with what once would have been an almost-villa ~ a lovely, lovely property, with its original pan-tiled roof virtually conical in form and with one of those small arched windows typical in Königsberg peering out of its rooftop like the hooded eye of an octopus.

For a few moments I stand in the road looking from my present, as its past looks back at me.

Original Königsberg house with pan-tiled roof and octopuseye window — Königsberg house on the corner, autumn 2020

We have no choice but to leave Königsberg at this junction, making our way along a busy thoroughfare where the concrete battery of flats left us in little doubt that we were back in Kaliningrad ~ they in the 1970s and we, by the sight of a facemask or two, again in 2020.

We instinctively knew that we were on the right track for Max Aschmann. We did have to stop and ask someone, but immediately afterwards landmarks from our previous excursion remembered themselves to us, and it was not long before we recognised the lemon church and one of the entrances to the park, the one we had used before.

On our previous visit, we only had time to venture as far as the first group of lakes, but today we wanted to broaden our horizons, so we pressed on. We had not gone far when Olga, always on my left side, relinked her arm through mine.

The broad swathed track curved and as it did another expanse of water opened up to us on our right, set against a verdant backdrop of trees, some still green, others in autumnal garb. The leaves were thick on the ground, but not all of them had fallen, and those that were still aloft painted autumn across the skyline in nature’s soft and mellow brush strokes. It was as if we were walking into the heart of a picture.

At the front of a lake stood a fir tree, anchored to the ground by three or four ropes. It was a Christmas tree, bracing itself for the world’s first coronavirus Christmas. Close by, there was a great pile of tree trunk sections. We wanted one of these for our garden. We had the samovar, the juniper twigs and each other, all we needed now was the log, so that we could sit on it and count the stars like Meeshka and Yorshik in Hedgehog in the Fog (Russian: Ёжик в тумане, Yozhik v tumane)

A Christmas tree, Max Aschmann Park, Kaliningrad 2020 — Christmas comes early to Max Aschmann Park ~ Kaliningrad, October 2020

We walked on. Whatever Max Aschmann Park had been, and it was really something in its day, for all intents and purposes, its modern incarnation is more Max Aschmann forest.

On the hard-surface paths, long and straight that criss-cross the woodland, lots of people were walking. They were people of all ages, babushkas and derdushkas, family groups and teenagers, but no matter who they were or how old they were, a peaceful unification prevailed. There was nothing fast, nothing loud, nothing out of place or obtrusive, certainly no coronavirus madness or any other menace to interfere with the calm repose. And yet here we were in the midst of dense woodland, itself in the midst of a bustling city. The experience was simple but memorable. There was something wonderfully alien about it, not only by what there was but thankfully by what there was not.

An Autumn Walk in Kaliningrad

It does not matter where I roam; wherever I am, something old, something from the past comes forward and makes itself known to me, and that something this afternoon was the remains of a building, here, in the centre of the park. I had read somewhere that in its day the Max Aschmann Park had been a haven for the German well-to-do and a holiday destination for those who by virtue of wealth and status qualified for its privileges, so the sight of this leftover dwelling did not entirely surprise me.

What remains is little more than a great slab of concrete, but closer inspection reveals metal reinforcing rods and the remnants of one or two steps that lead down into a small recess beneath the concrete floor, now silted up with earth and woodland debris but which would presumably once have been a cellar or, perhaps, a subterranean garage, as these are standard features of houses in this region.

Mick Hart in Max Aschmann Park ~ An Autumn Walk in Kaliningrad — Mick Hart sitting on and surrounded by history in Max Aschmann Park, Kaliningrad, October 2020

Before I sat down on the concrete remains to have my photograph taken, as thousands had done before me and would continue to do so afterwards, I discovered one of the house gate piers lying prostrate among the leaves. There would have been a time when it was doing something practical, but it was doing nothing practical now, having relinquished its incipient function for matters of mind and heart.

Next on the voyage of discovery was another lake, this one more expansive than those we had passed already. The ground tapering gently to the water’s edge made an approach quite possible, and three or four people were gathered there feeding a bevy of swans. There were also two or three trees, not many, but just enough to satisfy the idyl along this picturesque border.

A walk to Max Aschmann Park — Olga Hart at the side of the lake in Max Aschmann Park, October 2020

Waterside trees always possess an anachronistic architecture, and these were no exception. Complementing the natural contours of the lake, and with the trees and bushes in their variegated shades rolling and billowing around it and into the distance, they and the scene they belonged to put me in mind of a 19^th century lithograph, which, if it was mine to own, I would hang on a wall, preferably in my personal bar, in Mick’s Place, where I could sit and savour the view whilst sipping a glass of beer.

A beautiful autumn-leaf hat in Max Aschmann Park, Kaliningrad

But time was ticking on, as it has the habit of doing, and it was time to be making tracks. For this purpose, we chose instead to return through the woodland itself, at least for a short distance before we re-joined the path.

Under the trees, the ground was a little bit squelchy, but this natural hazard of woodland walking was only objectionable as far as our boots were concerned, and it had certainly made no difference to a small group of woodland wanderers who had removed themselves into the fringe of the wood for a spot of al a carte lunch. I wondered, had they carried that old metal barbecue on stilts with them, or had it been donated by an unknown benefactor who had staked out that spot on a previous occasion?

Even deeper into the wood and perched on wooden roundels cut from sizeable trees were people enjoying a picnic. Now that’s an idea, I thought, we really must do that and do that one day soon: go for a picnic, here, in Max Aschmann Park.