Updated: 11 February 2022 | First published: 5 October 2019 ~ Christmas in Gdansk
Christmas in Gdansk is the fourth article in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.
The idea to celebrate Christmas in Gdansk, Poland, and not Kaliningrad, Russia, was taken because Christmas according to the Russian Orthodox Church takes place on the 7 January. This meant that the 25 of December would be just another day. In Russia, New Year’s Eve is the main event of the festive season and Olga had forewarned us that for Russians this was the big one!
Unwrapping the presents that we had bought for one another in the Gdansk hotel was a first, but after that, followed by a cold meats and cheeses breakfast, the novelty of Christmas quickly wore off. It turned out that being in Poland was no different from being in England: there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. At least in England you can stuff yourself on the much-vaunted Christmas dinner and then collapse in a heap in front of the good old goggle box, but our dinner was another round of exciting meats and cheeses ~ left under towels by the hotel staff who had all gone home ~ and the good old goggle box with its three different channels was broadcasting only in Polish. I couldn’t understand why?
Bored stiff, we did venture out into the city in between
meats and cheeses, but the closest bar was closed and the next and the next and
the next …
Fortunately, we were old enough to have experienced a good many English Christmases, so we hunkered down for the evening with hooch we had stockpiled earlier and nibbled our boredom away on the meats and cheeses left over from lunch.
I was sitting in the office of our antique shop. It was a bright, sunny afternoon one Saturday in June. A couple whom we knew as being members of the 1940s’ crowd had just parked their 1935 vehicle on the small forecourt out front. I greeted them as they entered the shop, and they said to me, in a disappointed tone, “We have just heard that the shop is closing; that you are selling up and moving.”
I replied in the affirmative.
After saying how much they would miss the shop and us (which was nice of them), they enquired where I was moving to. Over the past six months I had become an expert at answering this question. Turning away to place an advertisement on the shop’s ad board, I casually replied, “Russia.”
Nine times out of ten, on hearing this, the astounded party would cry: “Russia!”. And some even fell back a few paces, as if thrown from the bombshell I had just dropped.
On this occasion I was deprived of my fun, as the people concerned turned out to be the one in ten: they expressed no astonishment on learning that I was planning to leave ‘our wonderful democracy’, in fact they empathised with me, sounding envious that I was ‘getting out whilst I can’, and saying “we don’t blame you” and “we would like to do the same.”
Mick Hart & Olga Hart in the Vintage & Antiques Emporium
But I did not decide to leave the UK and give up the country where I was born and everything I had ever known simply because it would furnish me with a first-class opportunity to laugh at the way the UK media brainwashes people.
It is true that my wife is Russian, and some people when apprised of this fact took it for granted that this is why I wanted to move to Russia, the logic being that had my wife been Martian I would want to move to Mars or, even more irrational, had my wife come from Wisbech I would want to move to the Fens. She hadn’t, and I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. Would you?
There was, of course, a bit more to it than that.
Moving to Russia from the UK
My wife, Olga, moved to England in 2001. In Russia she had been a qualified teacher of English with 10 years’ teaching experience, but as we know, or are led to believe, educational standards in the UK are far superior than those in any other country, so her qualifications and teaching experience was immediately rendered null and void.
Being a worker not a shirker, within two days of arriving in England, Olga set out to find gainful employment, no matter what it was, and after a couple of weeks managed to obtain the envious position of waitress at d’Parys Hotel in Bedford. Not bad, we thought: from qualified teacher with 10 years’ experience to table servant in two weeks: Welcome to the UK!
Nevertheless, it was a job — a thankless job. No sooner had she started than she fell foul of a bossy young lady with a rank inferiority complex and seriously challenged people skills, whom I would eventually christen ‘Fat Arse’ ~ for reasons that would be quite apparent to you had you been acquainted with her ~ and by extension (heaven forbid!) d’Parys then became known to us and our close circle of friends as DeFatties.
Incidentally, this rebranding of the hotel almost caught us out when my seven-year-old stepson, who liked to be taken to d’Parys for chicken nuggets and chips, blurted out one Sunday afternoon, “I like it here in DeFatties!!”
“DeFatties?” asked Olga’s bemused manager.
“Er yes,”I quickly replied, “Daniel calls it that because I always say that we are off to d’Parys for chicken nuggets and fatty fries, instead of saying chips, and although he’s doing well with his English, he does tend to confuse his words a little.”
But I digress.
During this period of her induction into the side of British life which immigrants rarely anticipate, Olga did manage to find temporary work with an agency that needed tutors with foreign language skills to act as a guide and mentor for overseas students. She juggled both jobs and eventually migrated her waitress skills to what was then d’Parys’ sister enterprise, The Embankment Hotel in Bedford.
The Embankment Hotel, Bedford, UK (December 2019)
Whilst labouring here, in addition to working towards her UK Citizenship ‘exams’, she was also studying for a postgraduate degree at Luton University, and in the meantime landed her first education post in the UK as an advisory teacher for EMASS (Ethnic Minority Achievement Support Service).
This meant that she would have to give up her job in the hotel trade, an outcome which my stepson Daniel heartily disapproved of. His mother becoming a ‘teacher’ was a definite step down from hotel waitressing, with its chicken nuggets, fatty fries and often free ice cream.
Although the EMASS job was a demanding one, Olga enjoyed it. As she said later, she felt as if she was actually doing some good and although it was not that well paid, most importantly, she liked the staff and got on well with her boss.
It was about this time, as Olga passed her QTS (Qualified Teaching Status) exams, that I asked her, whilst she still had chance to change her mind, was being a full-time teacher really what she wanted? I had visited a couple of schools in Kaliningrad, Russia: once to collect Daniel from primary school and, on another occasion, to pick up some documents from the Russian equivalent of a UK comprehensive. On both visits I had been struck by how well behaved and polite the children and students were and how attentive and orderly they were in class compared to their British counterparts.
I was not without experience of what British schools were like. I had a near brush with school culture when I left university. Not having the faintest idea of what I wanted to do in life, I fell prey to what in those days was standard career’s advice, which was to dragoon you into teaching. Reluctantly, I went through the motions, which included three-days’ ‘teaching observation’ at a school of one’s choice ~ I chose The Ferrers School, in Higham Ferrers, Northants*.
This brief introduction was enough to convince me that by not pursuing it further I would escape a career worse than death, and that, remember, was back in the 80s, when although British schools and life in Britain generally was all going terribly wrong at least it had not gone so utterly wrong as to be irredeemable.
But, in spite of all my remonstrations to the opposite, Olga ignored my pleas, held her course and set sail into the Poe-like maelstrom of UK education, reasoning that this was her job, this is what she had been trained for and this is what she wanted to do. Besides, she enjoyed teaching and enjoyed being a teacher.
Illustration for Edgar Allan Poes’ A Descent into the Maelstrom by Harry Clarke (Attribution: Harry Clarke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Soon after qualifying she landed a job at the now no-longer-in-existence Harrowden Middle School, Bedford, and soon after that she stopped enjoying teaching and stopped enjoying being a teacher. This was the UK: being a teacher in the UK was nothing like being a teacher back home in her native country, Russia.
There are so many accounts that I could narrate to you about my wife’s experiences as a teacher in the UK, but I will leave that for a later post. Suffice it to say, it was every bit as bad as I had described it and worse, and it was no coincidence that the first school at which she worked, Harrowden, soon earnt itself the sobriquet of ‘Harrowing’.
If you are familiar to any degree with the UK education system you will not consider it to radical of me to say that UK schools and universities are little more than political indoctrination factories. The educational equivalent of ‘from the cradle to the grave’, but in this instance from primary school to university, the principal function of the education system is to inculcate, without fear of question or second thought, the dubious doctrines of so-called liberal progressiveness, particularly with regard to socially engineered and politically correct enforced multiculturalism and, in more recent years, gender engineering.
This, let us refer to it as political paedophilia, filters down from the top, through the career school heads and the ultra-left liberal staff to be consolidated by the biased nature of the texts and writers studied and reinforced by a daily helping of liberal-leftism from the BBC.
At the time that Olga was teaching, the BBC was head-over-orgasm in a tawdry sycophantic fantasy with Barack Obama, pulling out all the stops to cast him in the unlikely role of the Patron Saint of Democracy. When he was ousted in 2017, Trump was immediately framed as Bogeyman Number Two, just behind Vladimir Putin. Although Olga was unwilling to take an active part in this political grooming of youth ~ and refused to point blank ~ she had to endure considerable bullying before her case was heard, viz that she was there to teach English not enforce political views and corrupt the minds of the young.
Be careful whose sweeties they are and who you accept them from!
There are many other problems associated with working as a teacher in the UK, such as inflated bureaucracy, unnecessary paperwork, unpaid overtime etc, but these ills are universal to a good many other jobs and professions. However, one that is exclusive to teaching, and which stems from the same invasive fungus root of ‘liberal progressiveness’, is the continual round of daily abuse that teachers have to contend with both from feral pupils and their belligerent parents.
Every single day in my building, there are egregious acts of student misconduct going unchecked. Teachers are losing hope that things will ever get better, and we are tired. We are expected to be therapists, social workers, substitute parents, punching bags, and outlets for student rage and verbal abuse. Teaching is only a small percentage of what we do anymore.
Once again, I do not intend to expatiate on this here but will leave that subject for a later and more detailed post on the parlous state of the UK’s education system, in which I shall provide specific examples of incidents that my wife experienced whilst teaching.
After 20 years on the frontline of Britain’s schools, my wife had had enough. It was time to call it a day ~ get out. In many ways, this was a great pity, as teaching had been her life. In the UK, in addition to her teaching qualification, she attended and successfully completed many professional development courses and received numerous compliments and accolades from the heads of the institutions in which she had taught, from members of the teaching staff and also from pupils.
The rewarding element of teaching ~ so sad that UK’s schools are the victim of a pernicious ideology
Throughout her career, she had seen many teachers come and go, both long serving and new: some who had been ‘dreaming of escape’ for years and just could not take it anymore; others, fresh from college, who lasted less than a week before making the brave but timely decision to embark on a different career.
As if an Orwellian education system, lunatic skewed political correctness and state-sponsored delinquency was not enough, another baptism of western malfeasance awaited my wife.
In the time that she had been resident in England there had been several anti-Russian campaigns prosecuted in the extreme by the UK’s media, but in her last three years of living there the establishment and its media’s attempts to trash all things Russian and stir up rampant Russophobia had gone into overdrive, having obviously been prioritised by those who control our governments.
It was no coincidence then, and it is no coincidence now, that the anti-Russian Blitzkrieg had been launched at a time when both the British and American public’s trust in the neoliberal way had resoundingly hit the skids. The last thing that an imploding democracy needs is its 5-year cross-tickers looking elsewhere for the national, traditional values that no longer exist in their own back yard. And UK politicians would do well to remember that making history is a considerably less stable proposition than valuing and celebrating history, not to mention rewriting it or simply giving it away.
At last, incensed by the liberal propaganda machine and suffocating political correctness, Olga broached the subject to me of getting out ~ of leaving the country.
So, did I agree to go just because I am a fine husband and devoted to my wife? It would be so easy at this point to say yes, and by doing so pedestal myself as a martyr to feelings other than my own, but the truth is that it took almost three years before I, too, decided that I had had enough of the liberal canker that was so malevolently blighting the land that I loved. English born and bred, a legacy Briton with roots ~ my grandmother’s brother fought and died for his country in the First World War; my two uncles also fought in the Second World War, and my father’s brother, who was a Major in the Second World War, was awarded the Military Cross (M.C.) posthumously) ~ it should not have been an easy decision to make, and it wasn’t.
In the interim, whilst I was weighing my decision, I used to joke that the next time I went on holiday to Kaliningrad I would ask for political asylum on the grounds that I could no longer live under the oppressive liberal yoke: open borders, anti-social behaviour, ethnic-linked but never officially admitted-to crimes, increased internet censorship, and all the other politically correct baggage ~ the petty, ridiculous, meaningless stuff that is blown out of all proportion and which saturates our daily life, such as should we have a female Dr Who? how many women are there in the UK’s board rooms? not enough black actors on television, should same sex couples be allowed to adopt children, LGBT issues, gender issues, race issues and aarrrrggghhh!!
And then comes Brexit, with its liberal-motivated back-stabbing, double dealing, wriggling, writhing shiftiness and utter contempt for democracy — the liberal leavers screaming (and don’t they just!) that we must have a ‘people’s vote’ in the name of democracy when by the democratic process that is exactly what we had, it was called a referendum. (Apropos of this, it amused me recently to see the headline in one of the UK’s extreme left newspapers which claimed that if Trump was not impeached it would be a ‘threat to democracy’. Talk about ironic!)
Even though Democracy ~ battered, bloody, tarnished, sullied, bribed, threatened and subjected to all manner of shameful legal illegalities ~ would eventually break free from its criminal leave abductors, thanks primarily to Nigel Farage, by now my mind was made up. We were sailing on a cultural Titanic. It was time to leave the sinking ship
There were some who asked, “Why not got to Spain?” and “Why not go to France”. I suspect my reply was somewhat too obtuse for them: “The EU ~ NGOs ~ Merkel”.
And now, when fellow Brits ask me ‘do I like living in Russia?’ I play their game. Knowing what they want to hear, I reply, in a suitably pained tone: “Why did I do it …?” And as a triumphant smile begins to dawn on their faces, before they can say I told you so I quickly conclude my statement with, “ … leave it so long, I mean. I should have moved ten years’ ago!”
Next (when I have time to write in between beers) ‘What I like about life in Kaliningrad’
When it’s gone, it’s gone … Updated 5 March 2024 | First published: 16 September 2021 ~ Death of the House of Culture Remembering Zalivino’s House of Culture. The space once occupied by the House of Culture is now just a bed of hardcore and thistles. Here is what it was like before they made… Read more: Death of the House of Culture
What I like about Kaliningrad Updated 18 April 2022 | First published: 2 March 2021 ~ Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West [INTRO} I wrote this piece over a year ago, at a time when western media had nothing better to do than push a hysteria-fomenting narrative about the coronavirus pandemic; now, apparently, it… Read more: Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 645 [9 December 2021] Published: 8 December 2021 ~ Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants Diary of a self-isolator is one of a series of posts and thoughts on self-isolating in Kaliningrad. Links to previous posts appear at the end of this post. It’s amazing isn’t it! Just when… Read more: Vaccination Passports Stop the Spread of Underpants
In Memory of a Good Friend Published: 1 November 2021 ~ Celebrating the Memory of Königsberg Tour Guide Stas 28th November 2021. Today was the anniversary of Stas Konovalov’s death. After paying our resects at the graveside, a group, consisting of family, close friends and neighbours, were brought together by Stas’ mother for a memorial… Read more: Celebrating the Memory of Königsberg Tour Guide Stas
“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… Read more: Old Tin Buckets & QR Codes
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 292 [31 December 2020] or Goodbye 2020, if I never see you again will it be too soon?
Published: 31 December 2020 ~ 2020 Memories are made of this
The End is Nigh! Well, you would think so from the aggregated hype bubbling furiously over the past 12 months in the cauldrons of the western media. Never before in recent history has the press had the opportunity to indulge itself in a Groundhog Field Day like the one that has been handed to them by the pandemic (or is that scamdemic?). But enough of the soothsaying and a tad more soothing-saying, if you don’t mind. The end is nigh for 2020: Time to reflect on the past 12 months.
My period of voluntary self-isolation began back in March 2020, and like most people I have evaluated the quality of my life during this epoch as a series of stops, starts and checks. However, on looking back I realise that although the impediment of coronavirus fear and its attendant restrictions have cast a long shadow over our social life, it never succeeded in inflicting a total eclipse. As my wife is fond of saying, “Humans can adapt to anything in time”, and whilst in my books I have committed the cardinal sin by steering clear of bars and other places where people tend to congregate, in retrospect 2020 was far from totally written off. Indeed, in spite of muzzle-wearing and fetishistic hand-sanitising, we did still have a life ~ we met friends, took several trips to the coast, visited art galleries and places of historical interest, entertained at home and, most importantly, used the extra time that we had at our disposal in the most constructive ways.
We certainly managed to get more done around the house and in the garden ~ especially in the garden. This is Olga’s pet project: converting what was a slab of inherited concrete into a proper, functioning outdoor area, where she can enjoy the flowers and trees, and I can enjoy a pint.
Years ago, in the mists of a different time, I worked on a magazine called Successful Gardening, from which I learnt that my greatest contribution to any practical endeavour in this field would be to make myself scarce, which is exactly what I did. So, I have to confess that the lion’s share of the work was done by my wife. Yet, I feel no need for excuse making. Gardening is a sport, and like any other sport, some you participate in; in others you are a spectator.
Where coronavirus is concerned, it is for my family and friends back in the UK that I feel the most sorry. The UK media has not had the opportunity to be this gory and ghastly in its coverage since Jack the Ripper terrorised Whitechapel. Not even brutal acts of terrorism, which are officially swept under the carpet by deflection techniques that focus on holding hands and candle-lit vigils, come close to the penny dreadful coverage that coronavirus receives. It would not be half so bad if 1 + 1 = 2, but nothing about the measures being taken to combat coronavirus in the UK ~ the draconian measures ~ seems to add up, and, as with Brexit, the country appears to be split yet again, and uncannily yet again, as with Brexit, the fault lines are political and a peculiar inversion of the status quo.
In complete contradiction to the overt emphasis placed at any other time on civil liberties and the evils of the so-called surveillance society, 1984 and all that, it is the left that appears to be screaming for lockdown, mask-wearing and any other hard and fast rules. Indeed, they do not seem to be able to get enough of it, and, with the illiberality that is customary with liberals, are spitting tar and feathers at anyone who is impudent enough to advocate liberty above home slavery. The megaphone message is: Do as you are told! Stay in! Don’t go anywhere, or we are all going to die!!.
Admittedly, there are a lot better things to do with your time than dying but is being bolted and barred in your home for what little there is left of your life it? The older we become the more precious life becomes, but so does living your life. It is the Bitch of having been born at all.
The problem, or at least one of the salient problems of getting old ~ and for some inexplicable reason we all tend to do it, get old, I mean ~ is that you reach the stage where you think you can hear each grain of sand dropping into the hour glass, and whilst it is normal on the push-penny arcade machine of life to brace yourself for the moment when inevitably your turn will come, when you will be bumped off down the chute, the media over the past 12 months has not missed a trick in reminding us that the man with the cowl and scythe is busier than he has ever been pushing coins into the slot.
No one can deny that there has been a lot of death about, and sadly we were not spared. Our good friend, Stanislav (Stas) died in November 2020. Immediately, rumours abounded that he had died of coronavirus, the majority of people having become so obsessed with the virus that it has become almost impermissible to die from anything else. Stas did not die from coronavirus. But he did die, and with his passing we lost a very good and much-loved friend.
Without doubt, one of the most perplexing things about getting older is that not only do you have to come to terms with your own mortality, you also have to come to terms with the loss off those who are nearest and dearest. Each loss tears a hole in the fabric of life that can never be repaired.
But enough of this morbidity. Like everything in life, what some people lose on the swings others gain on the merry-go-rounds, and whilst we can conclude that whereas it has been a troubled year for most of us, especially those on the frontline ~ doctors, nurses, paramedics and the rest ~ if you have the good fortune to be a mask producer, the director of a pharmaceutical industry, a media magnate, I do not suppose that Mr Coronavirus seems such a bad fellow after all, and this is without mentioning the increased yields experienced in the funeral industry.
Enough said: In a consummately original and unplagiaristic moment, my valediction for the year 2020 is that it was ‘the best of years, ‘t’was the worst of years’.
Think of 2020 as a painful tooth that needs to be extracted by the dentist: you might miss it, but you will certainly be glad it has gone …
A new book on the vintage cars of Königsberg , titled The Steel Ghost of Königsberg, is a nostalgic & historical landmark
A historic moment was recorded today (17 October 2020) when our friend, Yury Grozmani, journalist, historian, vintage car enthusiast and organiser of the Kaliningrad international vintage car festival, The Golden Shadow of Königsberg, presented me with a signed copy of his recently completed book The Steel Ghost of Königsberg. The inscription on the inside front cover reads:
“To an excellent journalist Mick Hart from an equally excellent journalist Yury Grozmani. For a long memory in honor of the best years spent in the beautiful historical city of Kant and Schiller – the city of Königsberg – with respect from the author.”
New Book! Vintage Cars of Königsberg
Yury reminded us that it had been almost a year ago when we discussed the progress of this project over dinner at the Plushkin restaurant, sadly now closed. On that occasion he had brought with him a copy of the book’s proposed front cover, adding that there was still much work to do on the book itself. During that evening we discussed his previous book, The Iron Heart of Königsberg, which was published in 2015. The Steel Ghost of Königsberg is the sequel to this work.
Front cover design to The Steel Ghost of Königsberg
The Steel Ghost of Königsberg, which explores the relationship between the vintage cars of Königsberg and their owners, contextualised within the history of the East Prussian city, was no short time in the making. Yury confided in us that he has been researching, writing and compiling the book for an astounding 29 years!
New Book! Vintage Cars of Königsberg
The book is based on real events. It narrates the stories of people who, after the Siege of Königsberg in 1945, had the honour to own or use the cars that once belonged to the ‘great and good’ ~ kings, heads of state, ministers, bankers, actors and leading Königsberg townspeople.
The book comprises 18 chapters distilled from the memoirs of people from diverse backgrounds and all walks of life, including those who took part in the Battle of Königsberg, famous Soviet generals, doctors, actors, housewives, taxi drivers, traffic wardens, tram drivers and so on. The stories are different — some intricate, some formal, some sentimental, some dramatic and many very amusing.
With its imaginative page designs, detailed accounts and being lavishly illustrated throughout, this landmark publication demonstrates yet again Yuri Grozmani’s top-flight ability as a writer, journalist and editor, whilst the breadth and incisiveness of his research speaks volumes for his love of vintage vehicles, the history of their ownership and the unique city and region upon whose dramatic stage the vehicles’ life stories and the stories of those who travelled in and/or travelled through existence with them have been played out over the years.
To seal the historic occasion, Yuri completed the inscription on the inside front cover by penning in today’s date just before he handed my copy to me ~ 17 October 2020.
Woodoo Barber Shop Kaliningrad. Cut along for a close shave with urban chic, 21st century style and razor-sharp professionalism
Published: 5 October 2020
It had been more than nine months since my last haircut. I remember it well. I was in Bedford, England, at the time, preparing to return to Russia for New Year. I chose D’Arcys out of the myriad hairdressers available, as I had used their services once before and because they are one of Bedford’s better barbers, established in 1998 no less.
Within three months of having returned to Kaliningrad, the coronavirus balloon went up and normal things, such as going to restaurants and bars, including going for a haircut, first took on a sinister character and quickly thereafter, as pandemic panic took root, became widely regarded as no-go areas.
Restaurants were forsaken, bars boycotted and hair was left to grow. Six months later, and looking like Robinson Crusoe on one of his least flattering days, my jenarr (wife) turned into a za nooder (moaner), complaining about how awful my hair looked and that it was high time that I should have a haircut. It had not helped any that in the meantime I had also grown a couple of Victorian sideburns, the legacy of watching one too many episodes of the old TV series The Onedin Line, but, whilst I agreed with the haircut bit, the daily tally of coronavirus cases argued robustly against trips to the barbers.
Summer came and summer went and hair continued to grow and then, on the 3 October, amidst world-media rumblings of a second wave and lockdowns, I bit the bullet, so to speak, and went off in search of hairdressers.
We left the house without really knowing where we were going, but after a short confab decided to head (pun intended) for a hairdressers that we had passed several times, and which we both liked the look of, situated on Nevsky Street.
Knowing that I would have to go barbering sooner or later, I had peeped through the open door on a couple of occasions when passing the shop and liked what I had seen.
Woodoo Barber Kaliningrad
The interior had a modern look (not something that I would normally go for in England, being a gent of a certain age), but there was something about the wooden-clad décor that resonated with me. Wood is good.
Approaching the building on this historic day ~ this would be my first haircut in Kaliningrad ~ we took out our coro masks and applied them accordingly, then Olga went into the building ahead of me to reconnoitre the tariff.
This precaution was endearingly old-fashioned of her, and she soon learnt that the tariffs for the various hairdressing services, although not quite set in stone, were clearly itemised in a book that had been handed to her by a young chap, who I assumed was one of the staff but who, it transpired, was the owner.
I already had my jacket off ready to jump into one of the vacant chairs. There were four or five of these, all clientless, so I could not understand what it was that Olga and the owner were taking so long to debate. I soon learnt, however, that although clippers were not whirring and scissors not chattering, they soon would be, as all the chairs had been booked.
This is something that I am not used to encountering in the UK, at least not in the barbers I use. The normal procedure is to look through the window and if the chairs are full and three or four people waiting, go elsewhere. Conversely, an empty room is a green light.
Nevertheless, just when I thought we would have to book or walk, I worked out (my, how my Russian language is improving!) that the young owner was offering me a lift to another establishment that he owns. This was a new one on me: being chauffeur driven by the hairdresser to a second venue.
Woodoo Barber Kaliningrad
The second establishment met with my approval immediately. It was situated in an old Khrushchev building, typically accessible via a set of metal steps.
You cannot beat an old building; neither, if you are or were once a Jim Beam bourbon drinker, could you fault the entrance hall, whose dark brick-clad walls are festooned with Jim Beam bottles as well as yankee number plates and retro metal signs. The steampunk pipe shelves on which the Jim Beam bottles sit and the whacky cream and red pop-art settee, with its erotic caryatid framework of leggy nude-women, were just two of an eclectic number of inventive design features which, together with a long ‘bar’ constructed from new ‘old’ pallets and bottles of booze on a shelving unit behind it, confused me ~ happily, I might add: Was this a hairdressers or a trendy 21st century bar?
No doubt about it ~ Time for a Haircut!
We entered the building in regulation light-blue cotton masks and disinfected our hands with the appliance laid on for this purpose.
After a brief conversation with his staff, which probably went something like “This is the famous British spy, Mick Hart, he needs a haircut so that not even he will recognize who he isn’t”, the owner allocated a barber to me by the name of Andrey, and I was shown to a chair.
I had taken the precaution earlier of removing my mutton-chop sideboards, since I had the notion that they would look thrice-times more strange with short hair than they had when it was long, the other reason being that I had been led to believe that this would be the first time that I would have my haircut whilst wearing a face mask, and the mask sat more easily without the facial hair.
This latter precaution turned out to be unnecessary, however, for I removed the mask before the barber started to alter my appearance. I simply could not see how one’s hair could be cut with one of these things flapping around one’s face and ears.
First, however, as I sat in the chair wearing a monographed chair cloth, I was asked to choose my new hairstyle from a catalogue containing numerous thumbnail photographs of men with modern styles (although, of course, the crux of the modern lad’s hairstyle is a clever fusion of what has already been ~ selecting and mixing elements from the early 20th century, the 1940s’ and punk eras).
Spoilt for choice if not overwhelmed, it certainly had not been like this in my young days.
I recalled one specific trip to a hairdressers in Fletton, Peterborough. I had gone to the barbers with one of my brothers, David, who also needed his ‘barnet’ trimming. The barber’s shop was as basic as basic. Three kitchen chairs, a small table with a couple of newspapers on it and, of course, the barber’s chair. In those days, you could not distinguish barbers from doctors, dentists and scientists as they all wore white smocks. There was no catalogue of different styles; what choice there was, was written on a chalk board hanging on the wall. In this particular establishment you could have a trim, a skinhead, a short back and sides, or ‘an over the ears’, which leads me to the conclusion that some things really do change for the better!
Woodoo’s catalogue exploded with every kind of hairstyle imaginable, although I cannot recall seeing ‘an over the ears’ among them. But, as there was the very real risk that in choosing one of these hairstyles I would instantly look 30 years younger, I decided that it was not the way to go, and settled for a haircut similar to that of Andrey, the barber, himself ~ who is 40 or more years younger.
Phase 1 taken care of, choosing the look, the cutting and styling commenced.
The second welcome surprise was that I was asked to up-seat and move into a chair next to a sink unit. I was going to have a ‘wet cut’. I had not had this done since I lived and worked in London about 14 years ago. In ‘the sticks’, at least in the barbers I used, they did not offer this option in spite of the fact that it was the easiest and most effective way of cutting and styling my kind of hair, which is difficult (wife: “Just like the rest of you!”).
I hardly dare say it, but say it I must, this young barber had a soft touch and talented hands, quite different from the Boston Strangler-type jobs I had experienced at barbers in the past.
Back in the barber’s chair, I was amused to see Andrey fasten two or three clips to his sleeve, which, with my hair now wet, he proceeded to apply to my hair, scooping it this way and that until I ended up looking like my Chinese top knot had migrated above my forehead. Then the trimming commenced.
Time for a haircut: Kaliningrad, Russia, 2020
Now, please note, as I said earlier, that I have never frequented a modern, I mean a really modern barbers, so all this was new to me. I had graduated somewhat from the chair outside on the pavement with a guzunder on my head, but, generally speaking, over the last 14 years the barbers that I have used have been rather less than ‘cutting edge’.
About five minutes into the scissors work, I was offered a drink. I do not mean a glass of water, I mean a proper drink. There was a choice of alcoholic beverages; I opted for vodka. The drink was complementary, on the house, and was brought out in a good-sized glass with two slices of lemon on a saucer. Andrey gave me a couple of minutes to savour the vodka and chew the lemon. “Now we’re cooking!!” I thought. And “How civilized is this!”
Mick Hart drinking vodka at Woodoo
Andrey went back to work again, carefully adjusting the chair cloth so that it covered my legs as it should, and, five minutes later, when he brought the electric shaver into play, he allowed me another break for a second swig of vodka.
A smaller battery-operated shaver made its debut, then it was back to the scissors and 10 minutes into the cut an old-fashioned sharp blade razor was waved above my head. An interesting touch here was that after Andrey had used some sterilising solution on it, he whipped out a flame-thrower and gave the blade a fiery blast. It was enough to make Sweeney Todd jealous and me to reach for the vodka!
There was a little more scissor-work to do; he used a small clipper to trim around my Brezhnev-style eyebrows and remove any lingering reminders of my mutton chops and a few minutes later my transformation was complete. There had been one frightening moment when, in combing my fringe forward when it was still at its original length but after the sides of my head had been shaved, I looked into the mirror and thought I saw Adolf Hitler staring back at me, but we had gone past that stage, and it was now time to pay.
I downed the remains of my complementary vodka and took the glass back to the ‘bar’ (counter). “Thanks very much,” I said, and before you could say ‘the wife was giving me a reproving look’, the attractive woman behind the counter had offered to top up my glass. Well, how could I refuse!
The haircut cost me, in English money, £12, and I left the hairdressers well-pleased with the professionalism of the service, the end ~ or rather top ~ result, as well as feeling gratefully tipsy. A small gift of a bottle of shampoo was also a nice touch.
Complementary shampoo from Woodoo Barber, Kaliningrad
You have possibly already worked out that in my opinion this place gets the absolute thumbs up. It is highly recommended. Try it yourself and see!
Mick Hart at Woodoo Barbers, Kaliningrad, October 2020
A warning to the Curious (apologies to Peter Vaughan)
Updated: 12 March 2022 | Published: 24 September 2020
Warning! In response to Russia’s special operation aimed at ‘demilitarising and de-Nazifying Ukraine’, the UK media has embarked upon and is actively pursuing an intensive propaganda programme which is resulting in widespread anti-Russian sentiment and Russophobia. Aimed at cancelling Russian culture and demonising Russian citizens at every level, incidents of verbal abuse and physical aggression towards Russian nationals have been reported in various western countries, including the UK. This comes against the backdrop of reports suggesting that Facebook is greenlighting hate speech against Russians on its social media platform. You are advised to travel to the UK only for essential reasons and whilst there to exercise caution.
Part 1
An article in The Moscow Times (12 February 2016), ‘ Russian Women — They’re Just Not That Into You’, tells the disheartening tale that Russia’s “fascination with foreignness” is over and that Russian girls no longer fantasise about being “whisked away by a foreign prince in Levi’s”. (How about a foreign knave in a pair of ‘skinnies’ cut-price from Peacocks?).
As a long-time married man of a respectable senior age, I really could not tell you whether this is true or not. However, an inveterate Facebook commentator, a Facebook friend of my wife’s, who never misses an opportunity to respond negatively to my wife’s more political Russian posts, has asserted on more than one occasion that Russian’s are queuing to leave Russia and live in the UK and America. Allowing for the obvious hyperbole, an interesting question nevertheless emerges from this statement: Do Russian citizens still want to emigrate to the UK?
I use the word ‘still’ purposefully, based on my own observations that the Russia of today is considerably different from the one I encountered twenty years ago, which was reeling from the fallout of perestroika and was a time therefore when the quality-of-life divide between the East and West was at its most dramatic. Then, it was understandable that people, especially young people, were looking for a way out and that the West, with all its lauded material trappings and projected hedonism, was not simply a land of opportunity but a seductive Lady Bountiful ~ Shangri La personified.
You can imagine the banner advertisement, ‘Move to the UK ~ a better way of life awaits you!’ But life in the fast lane has a funny way of slowing down, and it could be argued, with no small degree of credibility, that since then Russia has caught up with, if not in many instances, overtaken the UK, where almost every citizen is heavily in debt, young people outpriced from the housing market, too many people and not enough jobs, and where political, social and ethnic division, moral malaise and gratuitous violence has replaced the cohesion and respect of the past.
Advice for Russians emigrating to UK part 1
Nevertheless, the answer is ‘yes’. Of course, there are Russians, predominantly younger Russians, who continue to be attracted by the lure of the West, but the allure is no longer the promise of a substantially better or more stable life. The internet has put paid to that naivety. Today, the internet offers a window on the world and however the media spins it, the other side of the so-called western democracies, like Jekyll’s Hyde, is continually surfacing.
As life on the edge and the chance to become embroiled in the left vs patriot battles are ‘No Sale’, I think we can conclude that what allure there is, is strictly financial. The old sheen may have worn off the good-times chimera with the insurgence of unserviceable credit cards and unsafe streets, but the financial remuneration from certain jobs and professions continues to pull and, you never know, there is always the chance you will beat the House no matter how fixed the wheel.
This post, therefore, and those that follow in this series, are dedicated to those of you in Russia who are considering and/or seriously contemplating emigrating to the UK. You may still be wondering, should I really do this? Or you may already have made up your mind that you are off; either way, I trust that by shedding some light on what you can expect to find in the UK economically, socially and politically, that this series of articles will serve to alleviate any delusions and misconceptions that you may have adopted. And whilst these articles are primarily intended as a guide for prospective or potential emigrees, some sections may prove useful for those amongst you who are travelling to the UK on an international secondment or for the purpose of tourism.
Advice for Russians emigrating to UK part 1
In the following posts I will consider the bureaucratic, economic and social ramifications of moving to London/moving to England, and in it I will explain why I have deliberately chosen to deal with London as a separate entity to England as a whole.
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 189 [19 September 2020] The thin dividing line between caution and common sense
Published: 19 September 2020
Reckless, lax, less cautious, or a simple case of resumed normalcy? How should I describe the shift in my attitude to coronavirus, having, at the time of writing, completed my 189th day of ‘self-isolation’?
When self-isolation first started it was as it sounds, exactly that. My wife and I stayed put, only venturing out into the great beyond when necessity dictated, ie to go shopping. One hundred and eighty nine days into the isolating regimen, and we are not so punctilious. We still proceed with caution but have ceased to follow the caution-code to the letter.
For example, in our early self-isolating days before going to the shops, we underwent a countdown checklist as rigorous as any practised by Lancaster bomber crews prior to take off on their way to Berlin.
Facemasks x two ~ check. Hand wipes ~ check. Large shopping bags ~ check. Rubber gloves ~ check. Irvin flying jacket ~ check. OK, perhaps not the latter, but you get the picture.
This has all been steadily shelved. We do still take our masks with us but only because some shops, government offices and other such places demand that they are worn. We do not wear them in the street, and we no longer don them when we travel by taxi.
Taking a taxi in itself is another example of altered traffic-light syndrome, as we scale down from red for danger to amber for caution. Time was once when I would no more get into a taxi than climb into a hearse, but that time has long since passed. My initial return to this convenient mode of transport would not be countenanced unless my facemask was sternly in place, and we would ride out the duration of the journey with our faces poised before the open windows and wipe our hands thoroughly with disinfectant wipes as soon as we alighted. Now, we are happy to taxi-it sans masks. We still leave a window or two open and shoot each other a tight-lipped smile whenever our driver coughs or sneezes, but we are nowhere near as paranoid.
In days of yore when the coronavirus menace first hit, masked-up and ridiculous-looking, we would enter the local supermarket as if invited to a radiation-leak party. Once inside, we tore around the shop grabbing what we wanted as if our arses were on fire and religiously observed the one-metre distancing tapes at checkout.
Prior to Mission Shopping, and as part of our checklist ritual, we would first decide which of the two supermarkets we were going to shop in. We are lucky to have two supermarkets close to our abode, neither large but one smaller than the other, and as the smaller supermarket, which is also the more expensive, is always more empty than the other, for the sake of presumed safety and expediency, ie quickly in and more rapidly out, we always chose this shop. Now, however, as self-isolating veterans, we observe this rule no more, shopping in each supermarket as mood or necessity suggests.
Another precaution that has been downgraded from a stage 10 emergency situation to about a four and a half is the strict rule that we originally applied to quarantining our shop purchases.
On arriving home, flak damaged but yet intact, we would extract only those items from our shopping bags that we immediately required, for example food items for lunch, or which needed, because of their perishable nature, to be stowed away in the fridge. All food packages would be washed or wiped prior to opening and those destined for the fridge would be placed in the fridge isolation room ~ the chilling compartment (aptly named). The rest of the commodities remained in the bags and were placed in the hallway to the attic, where they would remain until safe the following day.
Now, Olga seems to ignore this ritual almost completely (she is more ~ considerably more ~ of a coronavirus skeptic than I), whilst I sometimes remember to ‘handle with care’ and sometimes do not.
In earlier times, on our return from wherever, one or other of us would take care to thoroughly disinfect the door handles, keys and anything else we had touched. We would wash our hands as soon as we returned, disinfect and then wash our hands again. We continue to wash our hands as though a liberal has shook them (cannot imagine that ever happening), but the attendant ritual has been more or less dispensed with.
On the social distancing front, the ironclad code of no fraternising with the suspect-contaminated has also been downplayed, and we have gone from no guests and social gatherings to selected guests and small social gatherings. Admittedly, these occasions have mainly taken place in the garden and not indoors but, as I believe I mentioned in a previous post in this series, maintaining prescribed social distancing measures quickly proved impractical if not impossible, and whilst we do not go around hugging and embracing as if we belong to France ~ when France was France ~ we are considerably less conscious of the risks of social interaction than we were six months ago.
Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad
Possibly ~ no, not possibly, definitely ~ the greatest alteration in our Covid-19 bunker mentality is that slowly, but surely, we have permitted ourselves the luxury of dining and drinking out. We are not entirely comfortable with this arrangement, and, indeed, it just happened rather than was planned.
The momentous first post-coronavirus café/bar occasion took place during a day trip to the small seaside resort Otradnoye. Olga wanted to swim and the most comfortable and convenient place to wait for her was in the outside area of the pop-up summer café, a party tent that services the food and beverage needs of the sand and sea clientele. We had a pack of antiseptic wipes on board and used these like a clumsy juggling circus act to decontaminate the beer bottle. We had also taken the precaution of bringing with us our own plastic cups.
The second bar/restaurant experience was when we travelled to Svetlogorsk to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. This was an indoor job, because the hotel staff would not allow us to dine and drink outside. At the time I thought it quite high risk, even allowing for the fact that Olga and I were the only patrons, but neither of these two events was as adventurous as our most recent outing when we ate and drank in the company of about 100 people or more at a beach-side restaurant in Zelenogradsk.
Once again, we refrained from sitting inside, choosing instead a table on the upper tier of the two-tier decking system facing the beach and sea. I believe, if my memory serves me right, that a pack of antiseptic wipes came into play but more by force of habit than with respect to coronavirus hygiene protocol.
Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad
In a few days’ time we have a relative from the UK coming to visit. As a matter of course, she will have to undergo a test for coronavirus at one of Kaliningrad’s clinics the day after she arrives. If she gets the all clear, we will no doubt push the boundaries back still further by going to a restaurant and, as the autumn chill sets in, we will be dining inside ~ That’s one small step for mankind, one giant leap for a Covid-19 self-isolator.
Mick Hart, the Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad, unleashes himself in Zelenogradsk
I spy with my little eye something beginning with bull…. (or How interference can go badly wrong …)
Published: 23 July 2020
I was sitting here in Kaliningrad, Russia, trying to avoid all contact with UK news, enjoying an old episode of The Avengers. The episode I was watching was a very early one, from the days when Ian Hendry was the star and Patrick Macnee’s John Steed was still in his embryonic stage. As a piece of television history, it was interesting to revisit but paled into relative insignificance against the style, panache, flamboyance and fantasy for which the later series became to be known.
Just as I was getting wistful about the demise of the spy-fi genre and thinking what a nice change these 1960s’ British programmes make from the politically correct obsessed and historical revisionist dramas, now the staple trade of UK television, I flicked onto Google News and was enraptured to find that the UK media, presumably having run out of things to say about coronavirus, was currently regaling us with a story so Brian Clemens in nature that I could almost hear the click of his typewriter.
My, what a cracker, I thought. With a bit more imagination this BBC article could be all bowler hats, furled umbrellas and impeccably mannered old-world spies, but coming from the BBC it couldn’t and, of course, it wasn’t.
It was one of those headlines, you know the sort, full of promise and expectation but no real substance to back it up. Within three short paragraphs of the article opening we were already out of John le Carré territory and sinking into the murkier world of innuendos, unfounded allegations, hearsay, rumour and speculation. Indeed, try as it might to steer us in one direction, and believe me it did try, the plotline twisted and swerved so much that the ride could not have been more ropey had we been roaring along in John Steed’s Bentley on the edge of Tall Story Road struggling to contain ourselves after finding the brakes had been tampered with.
And then, just as I was about to make allowances, since before the days of the PC lovies the BBC produced some quite applaudable stuff, it all became so predictable, so pithy and prosaic. Prof somebody or other from a famous UK university (that sounds quite Avengerish, doesn’t it!) spoilt the plot completely with his announcement that we are all at it, which is to say hacking around on the internet. He suggested that the Chinese do it, the Americans do it and even we in glass-house Britain do it! And how outrageous is that!
This tawdry end to what started out to be a story more unbelievable than Piers Morgan ranting just because he gets paid for it, ended up like something from Get Smart! I switched off and read one of my old Noddy books, an unexpurgated, non-PC purged, pre-revisionist edition, published long before poor old Enid B was sent the same way as Enoch ~ there’s an awful lot of statues in England’s heritage wilderness.
I was just wondering if there would ever be a PC update on Noddy in which Enid Blyton’s policeman would have to deal with a BLM riot, when I spotted another article* on the spy-fi theme and init some very interesting reader responses.
Do not expect too much from the article itself. Reading has never been the same since liberals took spanking out of the TheBeano, but the comments demonstrate a more incisive knowledge of what is going on than the media give Jo Public credit for. (I have quoted the following verbatim, with no editing on my part.)
From what I can glean about There were something like 300 social media bot accounts accused of being Russian intelligence. Those accounts posted both pro Brexit and anti Brexit material because they were commercial bots attempting to generate likes and retweets. It think the top one got something like 2,000 views and 100 likes! compare that to the government spending tax payer money to send leaflets through every door urging people to vote remain and a whole host of foreign politicians being lined up, including Obama, telling us we should remain or else and the 24/7 project fear anti Brexit stories in media including the BBC along with celebs and lovies rolled out across the airwaves telling us how racist it was to want self determination and not be ruled by a bunch if foreign plutocrats and technocrats who issue diktats upon us. I mean the President of our closest ally was flown into Britain to threaten us but that isn’t foreign interference, nope but some random Twitter bot with 50 views won Brexit and definitely is LOL (Dan Brown)
They do say that bad things come in threes, so I am sitting here wondering what the final tale in the meddling trilogy will be as we romp our way through the current instalment of spiffing yarns about Russian interference. But do not get too excited. If the second episode is anything to go by, the third will be a repeat.
Stop me if you have heard this one before, but Was there Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum? (Today’s headline (22 July 2020) from The Guardian.) Here is your second episode, following swiftly on the heels of the spy-fi adventure about Covid-19. But stay tuned, as meddling and interference stories are like muggers in London’s Brixton: they often travel in 3s or more!
The simple answer for the rehash is that in the matter of timing it ties in nicely with the Covid story, and as Brexit is imminent liberals still insist that someone, somewhere, has got to take the wrap.
I suspect that the difficulty liberals have in accepting their defeat lies in its broader and more damning ramifications, that Brexit represents a firm, unequivocal and absolute rejection of their ideological agenda. But surely, even the most in-denial liberals have had time to adjust to the truth, as unpalatable for them as it is, that in the matter of Brexit they were fairly and squarely trounced. A democratic vote was taken, and they were simply, but honestly, outvoted. Leave won the day.
I have it on good authority, but from a source I cannot reveal, that John Steed, John Drake, Napoleon Solo and Maxwell Smart are unanimous in their view that foreign influences, like Chaos and Thrush, are less than ‘highly likely’ (thank you Theresa May (her only contribution)) to have been involved and that a more plausible place to lay the blame would be at the door of the UK’s homegrown enemy The Ministry of Unwanted and Unasked for Societal Change. But the real coup for the victorious leave camp, came, ironically, from an own-goal scored by remain’s partisan media.
Remain media influenced Brexit
The media’s attempt to thwart the democratic process before during and after the Brexit referendum pushed too far, grew self-hysterical and ended up as overkill, exposing itself in the process. Legacy Britons, who from the left’s perspective were looking comfortably soporific after year upon year of PC bullying, suddenly woke up, and in so doing found that they were a lot further down Sheeple Road than they could ever imagine. They were ready at last to listen to the warning voice of our ancestors: this is not the Yellow Brick Road, this is the road to a very dark place where you just don’t want to go. At last it had become clear that the slippery slope just had to be stopped because if not, the next stop was the Twilight Zone.
Now, there was a good programme, a very good programme. Do you remember that episode about cloak and daggers, espionage, clandestine goings on, spies in trilbies and raincoats, and in the end it was all just smoke and mirrors? Therein lies the answer. Think of the UK as a backyard full ~ too full ~ of things, nasty, uncomfortable things and every which way you turn all is going terribly wrong. If this was your neoliberal legacy wouldn’t you want to divert attention away from inside the yard, to conjure up fictions, extraneous threats, to point the finger elsewhere?
Reversing up a little, in John Steed’s Bentley preferably, I return to The Guardian headline, which I purposefully truncated. You see, the headline actually reads ‘Was there Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum? The Tories just didn’t care ‘ (my underlining).
This article, together with similar fare from the liberal press, is about trying to get a derailed Labour Party back on track. The question of meddling is less important than Tories not caring ~ so vote for Labour (as there is no one else). You get the picture. Yet another case of move along please, there is nothing here to see.
Of the many episodes of The Avengers that I deem classic and which once watched is never forgotten is ‘The Hour that Never Was’. You will not get the same entertainment value from the political pages of the UK media as you will from watching The Avengers, but one thing you can be sure of finding is a lot of ‘never was’. It should, of course, ‘never have been’ but unfortunately ‘it is’.
Londongrad, Londistan or BLM (Black London Matters) ~ whatever it was it isn’t.
*https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/outrageous-that-russia-trying-to-steal-or-sabotage-vaccine-research-raab/ar-BB16Vgu9?ocid=spartan-dhp-feeds {link no longer active 12/02/2022]
