Published: 22 October 2021 ~ Kaliningrad Leaves Autumn to the Leaf Suckers
I am not precisely sure when it was, but I know that I converted to the religion of insomnia many, many years ago, during which time, having lived in numerous, too numerous to recall, properties, I have lain awake at night, or, indeed, have woken during the night, listening to the sounds of the world on the other side of my window.
Naturally, every different place in which we find ourselves sleeping, or not, as the case may be, possesses its own external world of noise, its own audible signature, and Königsberg-Kaliningrad is no exception.
For the sake of brevity and the object of this article, let us hastily pass over tempting references to unthinking ‘dugs’ and thoughtless ‘dug’ owners, both doing what they do because they haven’t the sense to do otherwise, and focus instead on a noise, or noises, the type of which are pertinent to and typical to no other but Kaliningrad at night.
During the summer months, night noises in cities and towns, wherever these places may be, are plentiful and variegated, because universally the heat of the night invariably brings forth denizens, particularly young denizens, whose expression of the first flush of yoof is noise. ‘Hey, I’m alive! I must make a racket!”: Bum, de Bum, de Bum (In case you are wondering what that is, it is the world-over urban sound of a delinquent’s ignorant base-beater.).
But even in the summer months, against the backdrop of predictable noises, such as someone staggering home with a skinful or someone with a motorbike thrust between their legs, there are strange noises, weird noises that once having entered your consciousness refuse to let go or give up, until, to the best of your ability, you either solve their mystery or surrender to their influence and fall asleep in spite of them.
For a long period, and the night is long when sleep is in an elusive mood, I focussed my deductive powers on the source of a low-humming drone. And yet it was some time, successive early mornings later, before the identity of my preoccupations decided to make itself known to me. What I had been listening to was neither a space ship nor banshee, a hover car or a hole in a trumpet, it was in fact a road sweeper or, to be more precise, a lowly street cleansing vehicle: a truck that trundles about the city sloshing water around the street when normal people are sleeping.
Kaliningrad Leaves Autumn to the Leaf Suckers
It was yesterday, at 4am. I was thinking about the usual things, the ghosts of pub crawls past, QR-coded existence, all I was going to do in life, should have done, might still do, but might not have time to do them now ~ you know how the gospel goes for we insomniacs ~ when I heard what at first impressed me as the sound of a distant street slosher. I lay there for a good twenty minutes, using the constancy of this sound, its soothing continuity, to lull me into further thoughts, tranquil and obsessive, before it eventually dawned on me that this was the month of October and that the days of summer dust-damping had been succeeded by autumn leaves.
There was the clue I needed! Fellow insomniasts will understand when I say that we who need sleep, just as much as you do, but don’t get it, are no strangers to Eureka moments that fly phantom-like from out of the darkness and keep us awake even more! That long, that mid-range humming tone to which my thoughts were singing and which had occupied my mind as if it was a reference library, was not the sound of water on dust, it was nothing of the sort. It was the steady rhythmic lilt emanating from the suction hoses of the pre-dawn leaf-sucking lorries!
Have you taken leaves of your senses?
Cast your mind back, if you please, to a post I wrote in 2020. In that post I stated that Kaliningrad is a green city, a city full of trees. Yes, in the summer of 2020, I wrote, Kaliningrad is a green city, to which I should add, and now will, that in autumn it turns yellow, as well as orange, red, russet, purple and many shades of brown. This is because trees, unlike many of us, are not known for insomnia. In the autumn they get busy, shedding their leaves in the imminent countdown to winter, when all as one will sleep. And in places where there are lots of trees about to bed down for winter, there are also lots of fallen leaves.
Thus, for the past three weeks or so, gangs of Kaliningrad leaf shufflers have been marshalling piles of leaves, stacking them at the sides of streets and raking them up from lawns and verges. Both by day, but mainly by night, when you are asleep and we are awake, the leaf-sucking lorries and flat-bed trucks crawl stealthily out of their depots to ply their trade on Königsberg’s cobbles and Kaliningrad’s highways and byways.
If you cannot shut them worry not, it is truly a sight for sore eyes, and the distinctive hum is not so bad. Think of it as an autumn lullaby, played for you and for me by the Loyal Fill Those Trucks Up Orchestra.
And so it makes you think. And lying there in the dark, steals you away to a time so far away in your youth that it may never have really happened ~ if it was not because in the night, there, alone in the dark, you have to place your trust in something, so why not your mind and its memory?
When I was a young boy, and I was never anything else when young, growing up in a small English village at a time when Arsebook and PlayStation were but devious twinkles in the ‘me, myself, I’ of a neoliberal’s bank account, I found that I was fascinated by the tarmac gangs resurfacing the road; the dustbin men collecting the rubbish; the drain unblockers unblocking the drains; the road sweepers sweeping the roadsides; and last, but by no means least, the crème de la crème of them all, the men who rode around in a tanker into which they emptied the house latrines ~ the all-important ‘Bucket Men’!
In fact, I was so took up with this last profession that when my well-to-do auntie and uncle visited us at our family home, and I was asked in an imperious voice by an omnipotent-looking lady all done up in a large fur coat, “So, tell me Michael, when you grow up what do you want to be?” Instead of answering a doctor, lawyer or banker, which is what I suppose she wanted to hear, I replied, with childlike candour, “I want to be a bucket man!”
Granted, perhaps not the most salubrious or rewarding of vocations, but at that particular time, when connection to mains sewerage was far from universal in small villages, the necessity of the bucket man, even more than the leaf-sucking lads, commanded a certain respect. However, every ‘dug’ has its day (bang!) and the day of the bucket man (I think it was Tuesday?) came and inevitably went, driven eventually to extinction by the triumphant rise of the bucket-man-free self-propelling flush lavatory.
How fortuitous then that I eventually went into publishing, and also how lucky I was to have narrowly missed working on newspapers. Mind you, if I had gone in for news media, would it have been so very much different in terms of substance, stirring and shovelling to what would have been my lot had I found an opening in bucket toilets. Let me in hindsight be thankful for one and romance lament for the other.
With the humming still in my ears, I returned from the place where my auntie still stands to this day. She has taken root in my memory; her face all shocked and dumbfounded. Meanwhile, in my thoughtful unsleep, I offered a prayer of thanks to the nocturnal Kaliningrad leaf suckers* for autumnal services rendered when everyone else, except for us, are sound asleep in their beds zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
(*sounds like the sort of lyrics Frank Zappa would have been proud of!).
Updated: 3 May 2021 | originally published 24 January 2020
Königsberg, the former East Prussian capital which preceded Kaliningrad, was heavily fortified by two formidable rings of forts and interconnecting walls punctuated with bastions and other defensive structures. Today, these forts exist in various states of repair and disrepair, some extensively damaged as a result of military action in WWII, others being cared for by people who are renting them on a lease basis.
In 2015, we learnt that one of the forts belonging to the outer belt was being meticulously restored with a view to opening it as a tourist destination. Then, as now, a good friend of ours arranged for us to visit the fort. In January 2020, we were introduced to the entrepreneur who had taken on this ambitious restoration project. We were to meet him again at Fort XI to see how things were developing.
Fort XI (Fort Dönhoff), one of Königsberg’s forts within the outer defensive ring, is currently undergoing an extensive renovation programme. Already welcoming tourists, the massive and intricate structure is being painstakingly repaired, brick by brick, wall by wall, room by room. As I said to Arthur, the man behind the plan, “You’ve done a lot since we were here last in 2015.” Said he, with more than a touch of irony, “There’s still a lot to do.”
Having turned off the main highway, you arrive at the fort after travelling down a long narrow road that opens up into the visitors carpark. At the end of WWII and until recently, the fort was requisitioned and used as a munitions and armaments store. This explains why the perimeter of the fort is ringed with barbed wire fences, coils of barbed wire and a secondary metal gate, and why there are rusting warning signs and spotlights stationed in the trees. At this point you have not entered the red-brick fort. You are not in 19th century Königsberg, or Königsberg World War II, but atmosphere-wise you are very much back in the Cold War era.
Soviet entrance to the fort (summer 2015)
Where’s James Bond when you need him?
Not looking at all like James Bond, any of us, our
friend Venzel, Olga and I pass through the Soviet military gate, which is now
on the skew and decidedly rickety. We pass a portable cabin, which, for the
time being, functions as a front office, pay-desk and souvenir shop, and walk
the short distance to the fort’s gate proper.
The main entrance to the fort, built, as with the rest of the structure, in Neo-Gothic form, stands a few metres away from the later entrance, the banks on one side and the flatter terrain on the other still protected with military fencing.
The two tall pillars of the entrance continue to
support the original iron gates to the fortress. They are awesome in every
respect, thick and heavy with hinges and handle to match. What an excellent logo
they would make for border control in Britain when we finally leave the EU.
Hmmm, I think I should copyright this one.
Mick Hart at the entrance to Fort Dönhoff, Kaliningrad, Russia
Inside the compound, immediately inside, nothing much
seemed to have changed from our last visit: small building on the left, small
shed-like building to the right. But this position does give the visitor a
commanding view of the front of the fort: the hardstone track crossing the moat
to the great arched doorway; the side walls of the fort fanning out to form the
open end of a chevron.
Our host, Arthur, the fort’s lease owner, greeted us,
and we walked together towards the fort entrance. As we crossed the narrow
bridge, I could see immediately that repointing and cleaning work had been undertaken
and that the old windows had all been replaced with wooden-framed double-glazed
units. The overgrowth, and the rubbish that it contained, along both outer
walls of the fort had been cleared, the grass on both sides of the footpath in
front trimmed and the vegetation stripped from the moat. Arthur explained that
they had managed to lower the level of the moat by one metre, which must have
had a beneficial effect in combatting rising damp inside the fort.
Rare bits and rabbits
The mown grass banks that slope gently down towards the moat side contain a small profusion of little wooden houses. These were not homes for a rising population constructed on a green belt, but executive homes for rabbits. Arthur explained that they had a number of resident rabbits, curious and exotic species, half-a-dozen of which could be seen bobbing around munching the grass.
Gathering outside the entrance to the fort to discuss what had been achieved since we were here last, I observed that an outer door had been added. This new door followed the original contours of the arch. The frame was black steel, the inner criss-crossed with vertical and horizontal struts in the manner of a portcullis, the intervals between the squares infilled with double-sided, ribbed, translucent plastic. This theme, I would soon discover, had been adopted throughout the fort. The portcullis effect was highly suitable to the surroundings in which it had been employed, whilst the translucent plastic served two fortuitous purposes: letting in light whilst retaining heat.
And heat there was, not in every room and corridor,
but certainly in the rooms where renovation was complete. The heating of
choice, and it could hardly have been any other bearing in mind the fort’s
location, is wood burners. Nothing more, except for open fire hearths, would be
appropriate. The stoves have a retro-look about them and fit well into the
backdrop of red-brick walls and vaulted Gothic ceilings.
We passed through two ante-chambers containing relics from World War II: munition shells, military helmets, various items of field gear all discovered either in the fort itself or in the grounds surrounding it. The walls are interspersed at regular intervals with printed and pictorial information boards depicting the history of Königsberg’s defenses, the particular fort we were in, and the RAF bombing raids and subsequent battle which saw Königsberg reduced to ruins.
Fort Dönhoff : ammo boxes
Fort Dönhoff: historical information
I would have liked to have lingered longer here, but
Arthur was calling us into what was effectively a suite of rooms, three
interconnecting chambers that flanked the main entrance which, with their tall
archways and multiple vaulted ceilings, were deliciously Königsberg Gothic. In
here, the wall displays and glass cabinet containing both German and Soviet
firearms from WWII, were augmented with a large wall-mounted monitor on which a
video of the battle for Königsberg was running. From the presence of a longish
conference table, complete with modern chairs, their back supports decorated
armorial style, it would appear that this room was used for business meetings
and educational purposes. Arthur was particularly proud of the real wood floor
which, he surmised, would have been the status quo at the time when the fort
was constructed.
Fort Dönhoff: Conference table
It was explained to us before we continued our tour, that the two front radial arms of the fort had been the soldiers’ barracks, their living quarters.
When you first visit the fort, it is hard to visualise the layout, even with the help of plans which are dotted about on large display boards. For the novice visitor and us, effectively on our second visit, the initial and lasting impression is one of being swallowed up within a vast maze of corridors and arched-roof chambers. Obviously, electric lighting has been installed, but some areas are dimmer than others and others really quite dark. For the time being, however, the route we were on was figurable. On either side of the main entrance, long corridors run the length of the fort behind a series of arched rooms, the windows of which look out over the grassed bank and moat beyond. This would have been the view that the troops stationed here from the 19th century to the end of WWII would have had on a daily basis.
Passageway running the length of the barracks, Fort Dönhoff, Kaliningrad, Russia
As we walked, Arthur explained that these rooms were
at the forefront of the renovation process and would eventually be rented as
commercial units. All of the rooms were of the same proportion, except for the
first, this larger space having been arranged to accommodate parties over the
festive season. The main feature herein was the huge open fireplace with its
solid oak mantle beam.
Function room at Fort Dönhoff, destined to become the fort’s cafeteria
A unifying theme of both the left and right sections
of this area of the fort, and, indeed, throughout, was the application of the
portcullis-style doors, which fitted handsomely into the original archways and
were used to good effect in dividing the length of the corridors.
I asked Arthur how the entrance to each room would
have been originally, and he was able to show me, as one of the rooms was being
restored in order to demonstrate the original design. The arches to the front
of each room had been brick to the point where the verticals curved, with a
conventional door at the centre. The arched upper section would have been
filled with a wooden frame and windows.
Recreating the barrack-room experience! Soviet re-enactors’ beds
The chambers on the opposite side to the one we had
first visited were a mirror image, and, once again, contained relics and
artefacts associated with the history of the fort and Königsberg in general.
The first room had a giant plan of the fort on one side of the wall and, on the
other, a circle of ceramic plaques showing the outer circle of forts, including
Fort XI, with Königsberg at their centre.
Konigsberg’s outer ring of fortifications
The main suite of chambers here contained a modern, but refectory-style, table, and, if I remember correctly, recently these rooms had been used for holding parties.
Fort Dönhoff Caféteria
The design of the Königsberg forts was such that both sides had been constructed to include open yards. To get to these you have to pass through big, heavy iron doors. In fact, to get to anything here it’s big heavy iron doors! The yards are sunk well-like at ground level; they are valleys, with the ramparts of the superstructure rising precipitously above them on all sides. To get to the higher levels, you need to negotiate steep stairways or grassed tracks that rise gradually, but precipitously, along a lengthy incline. These yards are fitted with outbuildings sunk into the side of the banks, the exposed portions of their roofs grassed over, as is the fort in its entirety, making it look from the rooftop more like a giant mound covered in hills and valleys than a building. We would ascend to the roof in good time, but first it had done my chilled fingers and toes a power of good to see that in the corner of the yard was the welcoming sign of a café.
Cafe at Fort Dönhoff
Cafe at Fort Dönhoff: A welcome sight on a cold day!
Naturally, written in Cyrillic (isn’t my Russian
improving!), I was heartened to see that in keeping with the historical tenor
the sign was perfectly suited. It had been written, or painted, in hand and the
wooden frontage and doors below had a rough-hewn plank effect.
Inside, the accent was on basic; just as it should be. The natural stone floor and seats arranged down one side as a series of wooden box-frame units, painted to look distressed, ostracised any attempt at modernity, making for a completely inline atmosphere.
The interior of Fort Dönhoff’s atmospheric cafe
Before ordering something warm to drink, and a snack
to go with it, we were advised that quality and exotic coffees were the
specialities of the house, and I have to say that my choice, coffee with real
ginger, was superb.
Fort Dönhoff’s cafe: some of the most exotic and tasty coffee I have ever tasted!
Suitably replenished, we followed our guide into a
long passageway set into the side of the bank. He asked us to close our eyes
and imagine this as a street, with retail units of various kinds on either
side. So, I put on my architect’s head and what do you know, it worked!
Aren’t your toilets wonderful!
From this point onwards the exact route that we took
becomes a little blurred. We returned to the fort interior, checked out the
long, arched powder rooms, entered several narrow walkways, popped out again
into the open air, this being the opposite yard where in 2015 I had been filmed
by Moscow television coming out of one the historic toilet blocks and all I
could think of saying was, ‘the toilets are really wonderful’, returned inside,
climbed a very steep flight of steps and came out on the upper level
overlooking the entrance.
At this juncture, Arthur drew our attention to various scratched inscriptions in the walls and ceilings just behind the doorway. The names and their attendant dates largely belonged to the 1950s, and it was Arthur’s opinion that they had been incised there by a succession of lonely guards who, when the fort had been employed as a munitions store in Soviet times, would have been standing here in this doorway, rifle in hand, wracked with boredom.
Our excursion was now becoming more labyrinth-like by
the minute. We traced our steps, literally, to a lower level, and then climbed
a spiral staircase that brought us out on the top of the fort a few yards away
from the main entrance. Wooden decking had been laid here, on which there were
two park benches and, looking out towards Königsberg, a pair of coin-operated
binoculars raised on a metal stanchion.
Fort XI, Dönhoff, in World War II
From this point you could just make out using your own built-in optics a distant Kaliningrad. Said Arthur, “The fort garrison could clearly see from here the city of Königsberg going up in flames. The Soviet artillery was placed not much more than a metre apart and firing was so intense that some of the barrels were melting.” It was not surprising, therefore, that the morale of the German forces occupying the fort had, like the once grand city before them, disintegrated.
Grave of Soviet soldier
Not all of Königsberg’s ancient forts had been this fortunate: some saw heavy fighting during the battle for Königsberg, and some were reduced to rubble. Later, as we were walking back through the main tunnel, Arthur said with an ironic sigh, “Ahh, all this material and work ~ for nothing!” He referred to the fact that by the time Königsberg’s legendary fortifications had been completed, they were already out of date. Developments in artillery meant that the massive walls and ramparts offered little or no effective resistance and, of course, come aerial warfare they were all but perfectly redundant. The crowning irony has to be that whilst large swathes of Königsberg were wiped off the map in WWII, much of its fortifications survived the onslaught.
Back in 2020, on the grassy roof of the fort the Germans had bequeathed us, I marvelled at the garrison of chimneys marching across the skyline. Each red-brick chimney block, capped against the wind and rain, seemed to contain several flues. It was good to see one or two of them smoking. Arthur had informed us that they had undertaken assessments of all the flues in the rooms that had been earmarked for later use and all were in functionable order.
Since we were here last, in 2015, the trees, bushes and undergrowth sprouting from the roof of the fort had been done away with. It was now possible to stand on the entrance peninsular and look out over grassed areas that were not too far from golfing-green standard, except for the presence of tree stumps, and when we climbed to the highest point, and took up position at the base of the flagpole flying the Russian flag, the hills and dales of the rooftop landscape traversed with wooden walkways really was a sight to behold.
We ventured to the furthest extremity of the roof and looked out on the other side of the fort, where, extending from and behind the massy walls of the moat, more buildings were waiting among the trees to be renovated.
Gun emplacement on far side of Fort Dönhoff
Machine-gun post
At this moment, we were standing next to a great slab of concrete. It protruded from the ground at not much more than calf height and contained a pillar-box split, just wide and deep enough to peer through from the inside using a pair of binoculars or through which to mount a machine gun.
Arthur took us back into the fort so that we could see what this look-out/machine-gun post was like for the men who once were stationed here.
Our route took us past a peculiar tunnel, the walls and floor of which were almost smooth, that ran at a steep diagonal downwards. Apparently, it had once been a staircase, but some kind of high-powered incendiary device had been tested there, the heat from which had been so intense that it had literally melted the brickwork. The effect could clearly be seen and touched at the farthermost point of the ceiling, where the bricks resembled petrified jelly!
Incendiary experiment = brick meltdown! ~ Fort Dönhoff
We also passed some large oval iron plates in the
floor. These were trapdoors, which, when opened, would have allowed ammunition
to have been hoisted up from the floors below.
Trapdoors for elevating munitions to the upper storeys ~ Fort Dönhoff
We made it to the machine-gun nest, the last leg of the journey necessitating a short climb up a vertical ladder. Inside it was damp and claustrophobic, but those stationed inside would have had a narrow but commanding view over the moat. With a heavy machine gun trained on them from this elevated position many lives would need to be sacrificed before the fort could be stormed at this point.
Viewing & machine gun nest
View from slit window
We wended our way back from here to the lower level, where we were shown the fixtures and viewing windows to the right and left of the moat, where some kind of heavy cannons would have been trained, making any attempt to bridge the fort by boat a costly if nigh impossible one, and then we made our way back through a narrow corridor closer to the front of the fort.
I’ve never seen one as big as this before!
We had been talking about horses and stables when I thought I could smell hay and, hey presto!, at the end of the corridor in which we were standing was a room full of hay bales. Tempted to revert to my Judge Dread and Ivor Bigun upbringing, I won’t say it after all, but the occupant of this room was a large one ~ one of the biggest and most self-confident cockerels that I have ever clapped eyes on. He looked at us as if to say ‘follow me’, and led us through an open doorway onto the chilly embankment outside.
What a beauty!
We emerged about three-quarters of the way along the moat side, which put us in Funny Bunny country. Whilst Olga conversed with the cockerel, I observed three or four species of rabbit, the likes of which I had never beheld. I won’t dwell on this too much, as I have a friend in England who cannot stand rabbits. He claims that they were introduced to England by the ‘bloody Normans’, and that this was when for England ‘it all went wrong!’.
Tamelife at Fort Dönhoff
We had spent a splendid afternoon at Fort XI (Fort Dönhoff) and look forward to returning later in the year to see how things are progressing there. It is truly a marvelous and atmospheric place, particularly if, like me, you are only too pleased when the past catches up with you!
Venzel, Arthur & Mick in Arthur’s fort. Boys will always be boys!
When you visit the Kaliningrad region, put Fort XI (Dönhoff) high on your itinerary of must-see places. I assure you, you won’t regret it!
TOURIST INFORMATION BOARD Fort Dönhoff
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This article was originally posted to my blog on 24 January 2020 and revised on 4 May 2021. To preserve the historical integrity of this piece, the editorial revisions that I have made have been essentially confined to practical details, ie opening times, costs etc. For an update on Fort XI, please refer to my March 2021 post: Kaliningrad Hosts Retro Car Club Day.
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Essential details:
Fort XI Dönhoff Ulitsa Energetikov Kaliningrad Kaliningrad Oblast 236034
Opening times: The fort is open every day: Summer from 10am to 6pm; Winter from 10am to 5pm
Admission: 300 roubles Discount tickets 150 roubles (pupils and students, retirees, veterans of the Great Patriotic War, the disabled) Free admission for children under 7 years old
Sightseeing tours: Tours are provided free of charge On weekdays tours take place daily at 11am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm At weekends and holidays at 11am 12 noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm Approximate duration of tour is one hour For groups of more than 10 people, advanced booking is required. Tel: +7 401 239 0699
Updated: 15 April 2021 / Published: 14 August 2020 ~ Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman
If, like me, you love social history and the historical insight that different architectural features and the time-honoured states of buildings offer, then wherever you are in this region, in Kaliningrad itself, the small outlying towns or, as we were recently, walking around the backstreets of Zelenogradsk, one of this region’s coastal resorts, you will not be disappointed. Every street is an eclectic cornucopia of surprises. At first sight, there is, as they say, no rhyme or reason in it; it is what it is ~ a haphazard delight of old, new and second-hand ~ but memory lane has its own rhythmic structure and with each successive step you take any suspicion of discord soon converts to nostalgic rhapsody.
Idyllic Cranz cottage, Zelenogradsk 2020
Take one of the streets that we walked today. In no specific order, we were presented with old German two-storey apartment blocks, which once would have been quite lowly dwellings, interspersed with little German cottages, juxtaposed with Soviet concrete flats, contradicted by grandiose houses ~ modern Russian villas built in a fantasy Königsberg style, some boasting an impressive intricacy of irregular shapes and forms complete with fantailed turrets.
In contrast with the brand-spanking newness of the late-comers, almost all of the older buildings exhibit multiple signs of age-related wear bolstered by years of neglect, together with ‘they should never have done it themselves’ extensions, inadvisable infills and hasty slapdash repairs, all executed with expediency and cheapness aforethought, using whatever materials came to hand and by people who, by the looks of it, had no basic DIY skills, much less respect and even less sensitivity for stylistic integrity and continuity of any kind.
Paintwork upon paintwork overlaid and showing through; cement rendering failing and falling exposing the original bricks beneath; the weathered and blistered doors knocked-on, opened, shut and left unpainted for many a year; here a piece of bas-relief, there a small rusting plaque; the wooden lean-to crying out for paint; the ubiquitous asbestos roof shoved up there by make-do Soviet labourers; the myriad examples of patchwork and bodging ~ all of which put me in mind of a Victor Ryabinin ‘assemblage’, in which each piece of the uneven jigsaw owns its own significance but together are transformed into a higher understanding of the mysterious way Time has of moulding, reshaping and reforming structures, perception and our lives.
The combination of natural ageing and neglect in these properties are to the ardent history buff and nostalgia junkie alike what stratigraphy is to the professional archaeologist, each strata determining, by its recognised specificity, an indelible link to a certain period or time identifiable by the tastes, the fashions and fads by which it was defined. And each repair and ‘improvement’, however clumsily executed, from an add-on Soviet bunker in drab grey brick or degrading bullying concrete to lashed-up electric cabling that should never have been allowed, are part and parcel of these house’s history, a separate and distinct page or possibly complete chapter in the life of what was and is ~ at least for now.
As strange as it may seem, the streets that these houses are on do not suffer from any sense of disjoint or jumble. They exhibit true, aged-in-the-wood, natural time-honoured diversity, not the falsely sold, theme-park variety or anything forced through agendas. They exist within and as part of the changing seasons of time and require nothing from you, no cosmetic apology not even your appreciation if you would rather withhold it.
As natural as the phenomenon of nature itself, the two join hands and what could be intrusive in any other context becomes a comforting, comfortable soulmate.
Vegetation leans out through fences, both tumble-down and modern, to gossip with grass verge and luxurious-planted flower beds; the trees and bushes crane over these fences to listen in; some of these trees have not had a haircut since coronavirus began and long before a conspiracy theorist invented it. Almost joining aloft in some places, and thereby creating a green and some might say unkempt vista, the verdure tests the beholder’s eye. For me, however, this is where the inherent beauty lies. But as each of us makes our own reality, who am I to say?
Olga remarked that most people would not understand why we adored the ‘mankyness’ of it all. She was referring to the houses as much as, if not more than, to the overgrown gardens, rough garden tracks, hastily erected grey-brick soviet sheds, toppled fencing, unmanaged back yards, wild foliage and everything so natural and so unmolested that it reminded me of the England of my youth, when England really was England; a time when people still lived in small modest cottages with old tin extensions bolted on the side, when gardens were ramshackle with home-made sheds and there was a healthy preponderance of honest to goodness dereliction, land overgrown across rubble, and even deserted houses and barns, barns that were real barns not supercilious conversions ~ the England I knew as a boy, that ‘green and pleasant land’ before every piece of land was gobbled up for investment, every garden gentrified, every humble house knobbed up and every barn des resd, until, by stealth, inevitably and far too quickly, reality gave up the ghost and died, its corpse was carried out and pretentiousness moved in.
Loud scream across the empty void of time!
One architectural style typical in this part of the world which never fails to enthral me is exhibited in those houses/flats which are shaped like a letter ‘E’ turned on its side with the middle arm missing [photo 1].
1: A typical Zelenogradsk (Cranz) dwelling
The main structure of the house ~ the ‘E’ stem ~ runs parallel to the street. The two end arms are constructed usually of rendered brick, but the upper-storey sections are, in contrast, constructed of wood panelling with glazed units that run the length and depth of the three sides, usually covering three-quarters of the front [photo 2.1].
2.1: Plenty of history, little conformity2.2: Zelenogradsk (Cranz) house showing the design of the wooden compartment on the second floor
Now, I think we can bet our socks that there is a many an erudite work out there ~ book, pamphlet, treatise, internet article ~ on the historical origins of this style and its architectural nomenclature, but for the time being let us just dwell a moment on the Romanticist, fairy-tale element inherent in this feature. Take a look at the photograph that I have provided [photo 2.2]. The carved, pierced and moulded decoration, sometimes referred to as gingerbread trim, is as fanciful as it is quaint, taken together with the contrasting masonry and wooden structure it transforms what would otherwise be a quite plain Jane into something as nice as a Victorian petticoat. The real belt and braces of this property is, as I have already nominated, not the bits that do fit but the pieces that surprise and do not, such as the Soviet asbestos roof and the pleasing modernisation of the entrance and porch, which has no claim aesthetically on the aged wooden compartment above it or for that matter vice versa [photo 2.3].
2.3: Old sits easily on top of new in this example of Zelenogradsk housing
The next house to attract our attention on this same street had a tall tapering end section. It was not a tower exactly, but its tall perpendicular structure fulfilled the same cosmetic purpose [photos 3.1 & 3.2]. Note the broad arched window in the centre of two peaked-gothic windows, now filled in, and also, peeping through the overgrown bush at its base, a larger arched window with what could conceivably be the original German frames. The green paint peeling from the walls of this ground floor section also has some antiquity [photo 3.3].
3.1: Gothic & Art Nouvea features rub along nicely in this original -feature-rich home
3.2: Note the two pointed Gothic arch windows on the top storey, now bricked up3.3: Yet another original feature: large arched ground-floor window
Photograph 4.1 reveals an interesting stylised diamond carving above the front door that flows into the decorative stonework atop of the door frame in Art Nouveau fashion. Photograph 4.2 gives a closer view, with my wife having received permission from one of the house’s occupants to take a peep inside.
4.1: Stonework decoration above the front door4.2: Stonework decoration melding with the stylised door surround ~ no, I am not referring to my wife!
Photograph 4.3 shows a door of some age and quality. Note the carving to the glazing frames and the chevron effect to the base panels. The black and white diamond floor is typical of, and quite a universal feature in, European and British homes dating from the late 19th century through to the 1940s. I suspect, however, that the municipal look inside the corridor, the bog standard (pun intended) two layers of paint, in this case green and white, sometimes blue and white (in old British toilets black and white) are in this case a Soviet makeover. However, photograph 4.4 depicts a handsome wooden staircase complete with a nice line in stepped skirting board, an impressive turned base rail and matching turn-stop, glimpsed on the corner of the first landing. I think we can safely assume that the lovely painting at the top of the first flight of stairs, with dogs scampering through a meadow and a girl gathering flowers, is a work of art of not–too-distant origin. A closer view is available in photograph 4.5. The cat on the windowsill is real! He told me so.
4.3: A door to be proud of4.4: A fine old staircase4.5: This carefree painting would complement any nursery . The sleeping cat makes an excellent prop!
Thank you to the person who allowed us access to this wonderful old building!
5: A real character!
It was the intrusive electric cabling that drew our attention to the next abode, which, together with the many other discordant add-ons and workmanlike ‘improvements’, epitomises the changing times and fortunes which these houses and the people who lived in them experienced. The carelessly non-matching extensions at either end of this particular house [photo 5] have an architecturally masochistic appeal for me. I particularly like the blue and white brickwork on the left which gives way to a dark blue metal superstructure, as if Tim Martin of Wetherspoon’s fame has asked his designers to create a distressed effect, but which I am almost certain, without being absolutely sure, is the consequence of demand supplied in the absence of viable alternatives. The roof, by the way, is once again ubiquitous postwar asbestos. The washing lines, strung between the two extensions, have that real-world feel to them, the one I knew as a child, and thank heavens for the roadside foliage and unpretentious tree.
6: The accumulative effect of time
The little dwelling in photograph 6 might, for some people, be nothing more than a cursory example of Roger the Baltic Bodger inimitably at it again, but I like it. The layers of history added are there to be peeled back. Young faces have no story to tell, because they are waiting for life to write its narrative on them, whereas old faces are many stories combined; they tell of the difficult journey from cradle to grave and wear upon them every knock and scar that ever befell their owners.
7.1: On the same street but a different level
Hobnobbing from an inverted snobbery perspective is this NeoGothic scintillation [photo 7.1]. It stands without detriment or, in my mind, exclusivity to its older residents, as, like them, it, too, is no less a descendant of this region’s ancestral heritage, and whilst it may be young and brash (or it may be a bold restoration?), the fact that it respects its elders and knows its place in the history of this land is obvious from the deference that it shows to architectural concepts steeped in Germanic origin.
I am a tower and turret man myself, so need I say more. Although I must, since I cannot pass without showing my respect to the magnificent Gothic finial adorning the turret on this property, the mermaid bas relief on the street-facing wall and the stepped crenellation crowning the ground-floor windows. The effect is impressive-conservative with just enough and not too much to render it late-Russian capitalist.
Whether it is offended in having no option but to reside in the same street as the structure in photograph 8 is debatable, but the fact that it does is undeniably wonderful, in an eccentric kind of way.
8: From the West with love …
This grey-brick shed built by someone I know from Peterborough, who must have slipped into the Kaliningrad region during Soviet times to demonstrate the not-so-noble art of bodge building as counter-intuitive to the bourgeoise dream, has fallen further from grace but made no less interesting by a good dose of ‘urban artwork’. You will observe, I am sure, the give-away clue from which part of the world this nasty urban trend derives. I leave it to yourself and to your conscience to decide whether this deserves the name of street art or is simply a piece of vandalism daubed on a wall by a simpleton. Street art or street arse, you decide?
There were other interesting houses and other houses with interesting and eccentric features on this street, but I will close this post with a view of and on this building [photo 9] which, standing as it does dead centre at the end of the street, the road curving round to the right, said two words to me (and those as well!), ‘block house’.
9: It’s all happening in this picture …
It is a big solid structure with no frills and fripperies; another one of those buildings not unusual in this region that have been knocked around so much that it is difficult to say where exactly they come from and if they will ever be accepted ~ the architectural equivalent to a boat load of third-worlders lacking documentation.
Look at the windows ~ no, not in the boat ~ in the house. It is definitely a case of all shapes, sizes and co. Wood and plastic coexist here simply because they have no choice, a bit like British diversity. Any planning that may have led to this result has been cunningly concealed, and you must ask yourself whether living in it you would be living in harmony or would want to live elsewhere? The exterior has been clad. It is a cover-up, and the confusion of metal flues sit rather awkwardly with the traditional, conservative, red- brick chimney. Nevertheless, as an interesting experiment it is an interesting experiment, although I would strongly advise against the open-door policy as we all know, only too well, to what disaster that can lead!
This review has drawn for its inspiration from one street out of the many historically evocative examples with which Kaliningrad and its regional towns are invested. Stepping back in time has never been simpler and more compelling, so if you do get the chance to follow in my footsteps do not let the moment pass you by.
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.
Olga Hart photographing autumn in Kaliningrad, October 2020
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.
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)
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 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.
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 19th 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.
Castle, Cheese and Church in the Kaliningrad Region
Published: 28 October 2020
{See Feature image attribution at the end of this article}
Schaaken Castleis located in Nekrasovo, Kaliningrad Oblast. The castle, which was built for the Teutonic Knights in c.1270, was built on the site of an ancient fort and consisted of an octagonal walled-enclosure with two outer baileys. In the first half of the 14th century the original building, which was of wood construction, was replaced with stone. It was atypical of most of the castles constructed by the Teutonic Knights in that its perimeter wall was curved, almost round in formation, a feature that remains to this day.
(Photo credit: Caspar Henneberger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schaaken_Henneberger.jpg)
(Photo credit: Mmdocent, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A8%D0%B0%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B5%D0%BD_2.JPG)
In 1270, the castle defended the coast of the Curonian Lagoon against attacks from a Baltic tribe known as the Skalvians, who, by 1277, had been defeated and subjugated by the Teutonic Knights. Towards the end of the 13th century, Schaaken Castle’s defensive role took on greater significance in protecting the border and coast from repeated raids by Lithuanian pagans. It became one of a number of castles strategically positioned to prevent the Lithuanians from storming through the Curonian Lagoon. Towards the end of the 14th century its military function was controlled from Königsberg. The castle was destroyed by fire in the early years of the 17th century and only partly rebuilt. One of its greatest claims to fame is that Peter the Great and Catherine stayed there on three separate occasions between 1711 and 1717.
During the 19th century it was remodelled in the Romanticist-Gothic style, and it was during this time as part of that refit that the distinctive corner towers, which can still be seen today, were added.
At the end of the Second World War, the castle, which in 1945 was a family farmhouse, came under Soviet state control. The land was requisitioned and used until the 1960s as a collective farm, the castle’s rooms hived off as domestic units. For a short period of time, the castle acted as a children’s home.
By the mid-1970s, the castle had begun to fall into ruins, but one family salvaged the rooms that were inhabitable and continued to live there.
In the early 21st century under a joint Russian-German venture some renovation took place, and the castle was opened as a small museum exhibiting medieval artefacts. In 2012 the museum was damaged by fire.
And on 10 October 2020, it was visited by an Englishman in Kaliningrad, Mick Hart (I don’t suppose they would welcome a wall plaque?).
An Englishman at Schaaken Castle, Russia
Today, Schaaken Castle sits red-brick, gaunt and broken on a small eminence on the curve of a sharp bend overlooking the village of Nekrasovo within the Kaliningrad region, Russia.
To be perfectly frank, the first glimpse of what was left of the castle was one of unalloyed pathos, and getting out of the car into the damp-cold air, on the poor little bit of waste-ground that served as a make-shift carpark, and the sight of the wooden hut, the pay gate, knocked up of old odds and ends of ill-fitting boards, and the dog next to it, rather less than a thoroughbred, hanging off a piece of rope at the front of a homemade dog kennel, perpetuated this first impression. It had not taken me long to work out that this establishment did not enjoy the privileges and patronage of either the state or a private consortium, in other words that it was not part of the National Trust or any other such august body, which is a crying shame as Schaaken Castle has a rich and noble history, both in its East Prussian and Russian context.
Today, there was a man at the castle gate. He came out of the rather sad little hut in his jeans and baseball cap and, after some money had exchanged hands, we were allowed inside.
We passed through the entrance into the enclosure. To the right and close by to us was what remained of the castle’s living quarters. The functional building is little more than a narrow strip of red brick, not battle scarred but weathered and distressed from years of neglect and, from what I have been told, actions amounting to cultural vandalism.
For the sake of our hosts, and Victor, I tried to look and sound interested, not an easy thing to do as I was busy wondering if, apart from the narrow remains and crumbling exterior, there was anything here to see.
Had I been on my own, however, what there was would have been enough. It only takes an old brick or two to get my nostalgic flails turning, but, amazingly enough, we were not alone. There were four or five small groups milling around in the courtyard and, I would soon discover, about 20 more visitors at subterranean level.
This was where we went first. I had perplexed myself enough wondering what the proper name was for the small Gothic ‘towers’ erected at either end of the castle building, high upon the roof level, and going down underground seemed like a good idea.
No sooner had I begun descending, down the steps under the low curved brick ceiling, than out came my wife’s, Olga’s, mobile phone, and I was instructed to pose for a photograph. Needless to say, this would be one of many photos, but I restrained my natural inclination to criticise her illicit love for the camera, reasoning that should I write a piece for my blog on our visit to the castle, photographs would be needed and besides, no matter how much I complained, if 10 years of Arsebook-incentivised photo-snapping had taught me anything it was that such remonstrations are just about as futile as asking a liberal to examine his conscience.
So, I posed for the photograph graciously, grimaced just a bit and eventually life resumed.
Mick Hart going underground at Schaaken Castle
Down below, we found ourselves in one of two vaulted chambers. Space was relatively limited and the floor uneven. This was no dungeon by any stretch of the imagination, but the curators of the castle had seen fit to imply that it had been by using what space there was to mount an exhibition of medieval torture. You cannot blame them. Castles and dungeons go together like beer and hangovers; the two are inseparable, and there is nothing like an excursion into the dark side of human nature to draw in the punters and make them feel normal.
There were two chambers in this vaulted basement. We were in the first and in the second, the group of about twenty people I mentioned earlier, who were gathered together listening to the commentary of their guide, who was a young, stocky, bearded fellow. On hearing us talking in English, the guide called out to me in English. He addressed me as if I were an English gentleman (which, of course, I am) and I replied in kind, causing some of his audience to chuckle. On the way out, I was able to get my own back by addressing him in Russian, at least enough to state that “Excuse me, I have to go now as I want to drink vodka.”
Although the diabolical apparatus exhibited in the underground vaults are knocked-up scaled-down examples accompanied by photographs and text, if this sort of thing appeals to you there is enough to see, and from what I could make out the guide was doing a very good job of engaging his congregation.
Later, this same guide, on finishing his tour and we finishing ours, presented me with two small gifts outside the castle gate; one being part of a red brick from the castle itself, with the name of the manufacturer impressed into the surface, and the other a long, crooked smithy-made nail.
Mick Hart with Schaaken Castle guide and historic iron nail
On reflection, I do feel more than a little guilty for accepting these gifts. There is not much left of Castle Schaaken, and it is evident to me that it needs giving to and doing to rather than taking from. “Conscience. What a thing. If you believe you got a conscience it’ll pester you to death,” Humphrey Bogart’s Fred C. Dobbs once said. And am I not very proud to have these artefacts displayed on the shelf in my attic? “Ahh, hypocrisy, who needs it?” ~ I said that.
Inside the walls, the living quarters, constituting three rooms and an entrance hall, are enclosed and complete, but the taller structure to which they are appended is a narrow, crumbling shell, the wing extending to the rear in a state of open collapse. The surmounting crenellation of the main structure has survived, and the Gothic interest it stimulates is further assisted by the balancing presence of two turrets raised at either end to form the highest points of the building.
End towers to the extended section of Schaaken Castle. (Photo credit: Сергей С. Петров, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File)
Inside the three rooms, the curators have done their best to mock-up exhibits pertaining to the days when knights fought each other in armour and chain mail. There are a number of historical wall charts that map the history of the castle and of Königsberg, and a small diorama depicting a Soviet living room comprised of real artefacts and furnishings.
Outside, in the oval courtyard, other exhibits can be found demonstrating the skills of medieval artisans, and you can try your hand at archery. The centre of the courtyard contains what appears to be a combat ring, an area of ground set aside for re-enactors to demonstrate their skills of medieval martial arts. At one side, and close to the wall, a viewing stage complete with canopy has been erected, and in front of this, on a lower platform, a chair has been affixed where, no doubt, during tournaments the adjudicator presides and who, at the close of the contests, hands prizes out to the victors.
In one corner of the compound, stands a large, brick building, which has undergone extensive renovation. It contains the castle’s cafeteria, but, as enticing as it was on a chilly day like today, we reluctantly avoided it in keeping with the official guidelines to limit association in the wake of coronavirus. My wife, who lives by her Facebook images, made sure that a couple of photographs were taken of us standing next to the window shutter, on which the skin of a wild pig had been nailed (not a good advert for a vegetarian! ~ not too good for the pig either).
Mick & Olga Hart at Schaaken Castle, Kaliningrad region, October 2020
There are more buildings that run along the end of the defensive wall, but these are hollowed out ruins. Beneath them, however, lies another chamber containing the castles well, and this is well worth a visit (ah hem).
To speak honestly and plainly, it does not take you long to see what there is and what there isn’t left of Schaaken castle. And yet, if you are a Time junky like me, this is irrelevant, as it is enough to visit and to rub shoulders with so much history. Having said that, however, even on an inclement day like today there were 30 or so visitors in the short time that we were there. Imagine how many more there would be if funds were allocated, first for a comprehensive programme of renovation and then for the installation of a fully fledged East Prussian museum!
Cheese-making centre
The second leg of our trip today involved using our legs to walk the short and pleasant distance from the castle to the local cheese-making centre. The friendly guide, who had presented me with gifts earlier, advised us to follow the castle wall into the meadow and cut across it to the cheese-making plant from there.
This route allowed us to take in just how massy the granite-boulder perimeter wall was, how high and thick and curved. It also allowed our friend Sergei to introduce me to some concrete silos in which at one time hay would have been stored for farm animals. I had always wondered what these concrete cylinders were and was slightly disappointed to find that they were not some kind of rocket launcher.
From these disappointments, it is only a short walk from the castle to the cheese-making plant, which is housed in a long, large, old brick building. From the looks of it, I conjectured that in a previous life it had most likely been a cattle barn. Inside, the presence of iron rings in the original wooden uprights and walls seemed to lend my supposition credence. The supports and cross timbers were a mixture, some extant to the original structure others added in sympathetic style, replacing, no doubt, earlier ones that had gone too far down the road to decay to bring them back to life.
In here they make and sell lots of delicious cheeses!
In the centre of this capacious barn stands a rectangular counter where one can purchase all manner of cheeses, whilst on the left a central display unit and shelving extending around the L-shaped perimeter overflows with what they used to call up North in England ‘suckers’, but which we more civilised on our way down South colloquially referred to as sweets.
At the opposite end of the room, and to the right of the entrance, the brick wall ends at waist height, the remainder finished in glass, allowing visitors to look inside at the cheese-making process at work.
During my appreciation of the finer elements of the building and its history, my wife, Olga, had been procuring an adventurous selection of sweets and cheeses, which she passed to me for carriage as we emerged from the front door. On the shop forecourt stood a large decorative … “What do you call it in English?”
“Millstone,” I replied. “I’ve got one of my own; it’s called a wife!”
Our Russian friends enjoyed this sleight, as they had my previous remark, when, concerned that I might find the castle wanting in things to see, they asked me, “Is it [the castle] interesting enough?” To which I replied, “It’s fine. I love anything old … that’s why I love my wife!”
Fortunately, after 20 years together my wife makes allowances for me, and as long as I was carrying the chocolate and cheeses and doing an excellent job of alerting our party to the pavement presence of sheep droppings (Smartree Gavnor!!), which is where my knowledge of Russian language really excels, she was happy to let me babble inanely.
I shut up for a few moments whilst we were walking back through the village of Nekrasovo. It may only have one street, but now I had the opportunity to see at closer quarters, and therefore in more detail, the humble rusticity of the low-build German cottages and, of course, later domiciles that reared out and above the natural and cultivated vegetation, a little too obtrusively for scale and historical comfort.
The circuitous route we had taken also permitted us to see the castle from the opposite side of the enclosure, looking now at the perspective from the road to the T-shaped structure with its crumbling external walls and collapsed interior. It was obvious from this angle that to safeguard against further and irreparable dilapidation precise and extensive remedial work was urgently required.
Schaaken Church
From the castle, we drove the short distance to Schaaken Church, another ruined edifice of historical importance. Had it been built as a Gothic folly it would have been a wonderful evocation, but although its degenerated condition inspired reveries of a Romanticist nature, as the ruin it actually is, and as with all ruined churches, it was wreathed in a sense of loss that transcended the fault lines in bricks and mortar. What happens to all those prayers, all that hope for salvation once a church is abandoned and dies?
Through nature’s reclaiming influence ~ spindly trees, climbing plants and bushy overgrowth ~ the rectangular tower and outer walls, though partially screened from the road, are visible still. As with all ruins, the sight triggers an irresistible yearning to explore and, as with most ruins, when you get there you realise that so much human traffic has been there before you over the years ~ spot the early graffiti ~ and so much time has elapsed that it is an enduring mystery how the accumulative and many moments invested in the building are still able to exert such a powerful stimulus upon the imagination.
From a distance, this particular building looks less desecrated than it actually is. Close up comes the discovery that the roof is missing, the gaping holes in the walls are not all vestiges of former windows and much of the brickwork spalled on the outside are, on the inside, hollowed out in parts exposing the rubble core.
Adding greatly to the Romanticist ideal of the atmospheric ruin is the thick carpet of undergrowth that reigns supreme where once stone slabbed floors and pews would have been. The photograph that we had taken of us in the nave from inside the tower serves to illustrate the extent of the church and the extent to which nature is capable of re-asserting its claim over man-made structures, whatever they set themselves up to be.
Mick & Olga Hart inside Schaaken’s ruined church, October 2020
Mick Hart going up in the world at Schaaken Church, Russia, October 2020
It was just as well, then, that from the church we were taken to enjoy the view from an outcrop of land looking out over the bay. Our journey took us through an interesting and altogether uneven tract, which we would not have been able to traverse had we been travelling in anything else but a 4×4.
I cannot claim that we were off the beaten track, because the track was very beaten, but the joy was that it took us through one of those wild, densely vegetated areas that you stumble across now and then in this fascinating region, which bristles with all kinds of dwellings from different times of origin in all conceivable states of disrepair or stark modernity and whose spanned periods reflect the ethos of each epoch, with a heavy accent on Soviet make-do and esoteric improvisation.
I particularly liked the small series of boat houses, stamped with the individualism of their creators and imaginatively constructed from tin, asbestos, wood and concrete and/or made from the requisitioned back of trucks. These monuments to the Mother of Invention in association with build from what you’ve borrowed, which once would have looked so bold and brash, had, courtesy of the softening effect of time, settled in very nicely, achieving a singularly peculiar and yet quaint harmony in the leafy back-stream settings in which they had come to rest.
When we reached the end of our road (as we all must), the water-front opened out from the narrow stream against which the proud boat houses sat into a wide stretch of water, beyond which a distant Curonian Spit could be seen.
A slight breeze lifted a chill from the surface of the water, a coincidence of no deterrent to the two or three fisherman congregated at the waters’ edge, who, nevertheless, were complaining bitterly about the size of their catch, nor did it seem to worry the boating fraternity, several of whom were coming to shore in a small flotilla of motorised dinghies.
Inland, close to where we were at, a monument had been erected, typically demarcated by a heavy metal chain in black, testifying to the fact that back in the 1940s’ Russian lives had been lost along this stretch of water in running battles with the incumbent Third Reich. During WWII, Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) and its region was the scene of many a fierce battle and is therefore of special interest for anyone having a keen regard for military history.
All this history today had made, and was making, me thirsty. Anticipating that this would be the case, I had taken the wise precaution of bringing along a couple of bottles of Lidskae, whose contents I was destined to enjoy later this afternoon when we returned with our friends to their home.
An Englishman at Schaaken Castle, Russia
Schaaken Castle reminds me of a larger and ‘more grand on scale’ replica of a friend’s flat ~ it is being tarted up but needs a lot more doing to it. Having said that, I enjoyed my visit to the castle today. It really is hats off to those people, such as our guide, who put in so much time and effort in maintaining, running and raising funds in order to bring such unique heritage treasures as Schaaken Castle to the notice and appreciation of the public at large. It has not escaped me that with the right sort of planning and investment this modest attraction could be transformed into something monumental, something of a feather in the cap of the region’s cultural history. It already has the makings of a success story; all that it needs now is Vision, Support and Commitment ~ and there is your happy ending.
When I was a nipper, I would like nothing more when we visited the seaside than spending my parents’ money on the funfair rides. Sea and sand are OK to look at, but I like water in tea, and I am no beach lizard.
If you live in or are visiting Kaliningrad, you can get your funfair fix at the Youth amusement park, which is a spacious and well-equipped amusement park across the road from the Upper Lake.
Recently, on my birthday, I was smitten by the regressive desire to go oscillating on the park’s big wheel. This is quite unlike me, as I gave up heights in preference for the sure-footedness of good old terra firma many moons ago. But it was my birthday, I had eaten an ice cream by the lake, and the wheel, which I had often regarded with curiosity whilst partaking of beer at the front of the Mercor Hotel, must have said something to me today like, “you’d better do it now, before you get too old!”
Kaliningrad Ferris wheel at Youth Park
I have never argued with a Ferris wheel before, have you? And today was no exception. But had I have been inclined to do so nothing would have come of it, because Kaliningrad’s big wheel is not one of those fast-moving fairground attractions where you sit with your friends suspended in chairs and when the wheel stops at the top your friend begins to rock it and is no longer your friend anymore, it is, in its construction and spirit of revolution, more akin to the London Eye ~ big, solid, friendly and sedate.
Nevertheless, at 50 metres it is high enough for me, and as we stood on the departure platform waiting for one of the empty cars to descend and allow us to board, I caught myself thinking yet again how unlike me this is, even on my birthday.
Kaliningrad Ferris Wheel at Youth Park
The cars roll around at a gentle pace but even so you clamber quickly aboard goaded to do so by the Imp of the Perverse who is whispering in your ear, “Quick, imagine your trouser leg getting caught on the edge of the car; how embarrassing that would be, to go hopping off towards the end of the platform!”
Mick Hart about to board Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel
This thought, or thoughts similar, have you jumping aboard in no time. The car lurches and swings in response to your opposing momentum, but it is alright: the thing seems sturdy enough, and before you can say ‘motion sickness’ you have plonked yourself down on the bench seat.
Olga Hart not at all frightened on Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel
The wheel’s cars are in fact quite spacious and would, I imagine, hold six people quite comfortably. The cars have glass doors, so you are fully enclosed, and the wide windows offer an awesome and spectacular view not just of Kaliningrad from an aerial perspective but of the steel lattice-work fabric, nuts, bolts and bearings from which the revolving contraption is made.
View of Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel and Kaliningrad itself from one of the wheel’s cars
As we levelled out at a 45-degree angle to the ground, the angle of the dangle incidentally causing you to feel more vulnerable than when the car reaches the summit, this is when both the wheel’s superstructure and park layout below are at their most dramatic; and then, slowly, very slowly, as the car begins to rise, Kaliningrad in all its (as I have said before) green glory and contrasting urban extensiveness folds quietly out beneath you inciting a landmark-spotters epiphany.
Looking out across the once Königsberg district of Maraunenhof from Kaliningrad Ferris wheel
Away with apprehension and out with the camera, I get some fairly good shots of the wheel itself and some admiral ones of the city. Yes, the photographs would have been better had I come prepared with a proper camera instead of relying on the mobile phone’s, but spur of the moment decisions respect nothing but opportunism so, as I did not plan ahead, I have to be contented.
Kaliningrad Upper Lake
Kaliningrad boating lake
The view from the wheel’s highest point is nothing short of breathtaking, and for 200 rubles a ride (£1.99), presuming you do not own a microlight, this is the next best way to reach the dizzy heights, in other words to see the city of Kaliningrad as you have never seen it before.
Next on the bucket list is a spin on the wheel as dusk settles, when the wheel and the cityscape are bedecked with illumination.
Whereabouts
The Youth Park of Culture and Recreation is located in the Leningrad district of Kaliningrad at 3 Telman Street, opposite the Upper Lake.
It only seems five minutes ago that I was remarking on the welcome novelty of buds and leaves appearing on the Königsberg-Kaliningrad trees, and now here we are in September, the leaves turning brown and yellow and falling to the ground.
Early yesterday morning I was alerted to this fact by our cat, who jumped off the sideboard and scampered out of the room. Gin-Ginskey is extremely intrepid when it comes to hunting flies but anything that sounds like a vacuum cleaner is bound to send him dashing for cover, and in this instance the vacuum cleaner was of the large lorry variety, sucking up leaves from the old cobbled streets and pavements in front of our house.
Kaliningrad a green city adorned with flowers
In spring and summer Kaliningrad is one of the greenest cities imaginable, a feature which the art-historian Victor Ryabinin noted was not true of its predecessor Königsberg. In what was the Maraunenhof district of Königsberg and in other areas developed during the first years of the 20th century through to the 1920s, the streets are lined with Königsberg trees. Now they are old and gnarled, venerable survivors of a brutalised city, but back in the day when they were mere precocious saplings they would not have provided the streets of Königsberg with the leafy green vistas and avenues of which Kaliningrad is the fortunate benefactor.
Indeed, Kaliningrad is a city of green open spaces: along the banks of the Pregel river where warehouses once have stood, surrounding the cathedral on Kneiphof Island, around and in front of the House of Soviets, that most controversial of Kaliningrad’s structures, in the numerous grassed quadrangles between the flats, and around the banks and perimeter of the upper and lower ponds.
Three or four large public parks, each endowed with their own distinctive character, contribute copiously to the leafy green landscape, creating rural backwaters in the heart of the city, which in the spring and summer months form natural retreats from the relentless pace and energy of urban living.
Kaliningrad green & adorned with flowers
Kaliningrad in the kind seasons is also a city rich with blooms and flowers of seemingly endless variety. You will find them everywhere: in the enviable gardens of the Maraunenhof villas, along the banks of the river, in municipal planters and thoughtfully planted flower beds, in the small border gardens that front the old German flats and the cottage gardens lovingly planted and tended at the foot of the Khrushchev flats ~ these borders can be surprisingly large and full of the most eclectic variety of flowers and flora.
You will find flowers adorning balconies, in window boxes and hanging baskets, some so prodigiously and impressively arranged that they are left to spill over on their own accord or are trained to cascade imaginatively into the garden below.
Shrubs, bushes, silver birch, pine, all manner of fir trees ~ even blue ones! ~ are thrown into the mix. Evergreen hedgerows tower above and push their way through perimeter railings, forming dense thickets for garden privacy, whilst fences new and old act as impromptu trellis work for climbing plants of every denomination.
And even though Kaliningrad is a bustling modern city, one of its more appealing attributes to my mind is that here and there you can stumble upon curious pockets of wild naturalistic vegetation, small friendly jungles that turn otherwise neglected spaces and mundane objects into inherently picturesque compositions ~ an old garage door, for example, biffed and battered through age and use, transformed by climbing foliage into a quaint vignette of antiquity or a ropey looking fence entwined with vines instantly elevated to photographic status~ the very stuff that artists delight in for its authentic old-world charm.
Although, as summer retreats, the pines and firs will not forsake us, in a few weeks from now the deciduous varieties will lose their foliage, the scene will shift to winter and the built-on urban landscape will assert itself again.
Hopefully, however, our collection of photographs taken during the spring and summer months will remind you how blessed Kaliningrad is to possess such examples of nature’s beauty and will help to sustain and lift your spirits through the winter months to come.
Snowy scenes in Kaliningrad 2021/2022 Published: 31 January 2022 ~ All White in Kaliningrad More Snow on its Way! For the past three or four days the rain has been teeming down here in Kaliningrad. It has washed away the snow and left the city and my shirt, which is hanging on the balcony railings,… Read more: All White in Kaliningrad More Snow on its Way!
Captain sinks with his ship off Königsberg Pond Published: 4 October 2021 ~ Pondering on the future of Kaliningrad Pond There are two lakes in Kaliningrad that are not lakes, they are in fact man-made water features and, as such, their real nomenclature is ‘pond’, even though rural English folk of a certain age will… Read more: Pondering on the future of Kaliningrad Pond
Kaliningrad Ferris Wheel at Youth Park Published: 30 September 2020 When I was a nipper, I would like nothing more when we visited the seaside than spending my parents’ money on the funfair rides. Sea and sand are OK to look at, but I like water in tea, and I am no beach lizard. If… Read more: Kaliningrad Ferris Wheel at Youth Park
As summer fades … Published: 13 September 2020 It only seems five minutes ago that I was remarking on the welcome novelty of buds and leaves appearing on the Königsberg-Kaliningrad trees, and now here we are in September, the leaves turning brown and yellow and falling to the ground. Early yesterday morning I was alerted… Read more: Kaliningrad Green & Adorned with Flowers
No Laughing Matter! Continuing with our theme of Kaliningrad City of Contrasts, I was out walking the other day and I came across this rather splendiferous example. On one side of the road you have this spanking new block of flats; on the other, this rather sad and sorry ruined Königsberg cottage. Kaliningrad City of… Read more: Kaliningrad City of Contrasts
Stanislav Konovalov ~ Stas ~ passed away in November 2020 from post-operative complications whilst undergoing hospital treatment. We salute him for the memories he has bequeathed us and grieve for those that would have been had death not suddenly deprived us of his company. The biographical article that follows was originally written and published on 18th July 2020. It stands in testament to Stas’ love of the history of this city and this land and as a tribute to Stas himself, a man that we are proud to have known and been able to call our friend.
About Stas Konovalov Stas Konovalov is a professional tour guide who specialises in tours of Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region. His tours are given in Russian and English. His love for this land was nurtured and advanced by his friend and mentor, Victor Ryabinin, the legendary artist-historian, for whom life began in the ruins of Königsberg and for whom Königsberg became his life. Under Victor’s tuition, Stas honed his knowledge of the city and its region, from its ancient Prussian roots, through the years of the Weimar Republic, through its rise, fall and eventual destruction from the beginning to end of WWII, its fate under Soviet rule, onto the modern bustling city, attractive coastal resorts and UNESCO heritage status by which it is defined today. Stas’ tours, given in both Russian and English, can be either broad-based or thematically tailored to suit individual or group interests. He refers to them in the second half of this article, where you will also find links to his internet tour page and his introductory YouTube videos.
Originally published: 18 July 2020 on the first anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death
My wife and I were introduced to Stanislov (Stas) in the winter of 2018 by Victor Ryabinin. He prefaced the meeting with “I want you to meet a very good friend of mine. He has a love for Königsberg. He is an interesting man, with a very interesting flat!”
At that time my wife and I were in temporary accommodation, looking for property to buy in Kaliningrad. It was but a short walk from where we were living to ‘the interesting man and his flat’. It had been snowing and it was snowing, and I will always remember Victor jumping up and down outside the door to the block of flats where Stas lives and clicking his heels together to shake the snow from his heels, saying “This is possibly the only flat in Kaliningrad where you are not expected to take off your shoes and run around in your socks.” Apart from this phenomenon, the interesting man and his interesting flat did not disappoint.
Sadly, our mutual friend Victor died in the summer of 2019.
At the end of his funeral, we thanked Stas for his support and his company. He replied, simply but sincerely: “I think we consoled each other.”
Since then we have continued to console each other, and Stas and his girlfriend (another Olga) have become good friends. I said to my wife, Olga, it was very fortunate that Victor introduced us to Stas when he did. Typically, Olga replied, “It was no coincidence. It was meant to be.”
Stas is planning to produce a catalogue of Victor’s work and is directly involved in attempts to establish a permanent exhibition, where the legacy of Victor’s art and relics from Königsberg can be properly displayed for future generations.
This is Stas’ story, of his life leading up to his meeting with Victor Ryabinin and how under Victor’s tutelage his life going forward has been directed and shaped.
Stanislav Konovalov ~ a brief biography
Upon leaving school, I entered the Kaliningrad Technical University Commercial Fisheries Department. In 1985, it was not difficult as that department was no longer popular. The course was not easy to follow in that it covered all aspects of engineering in depth, that is theoretical mechanics, strength of materials, physics, mathematics and so on.
My university study was interrupted for two years by national service in the Soviet Army. It was a period in the mid-1980s called ‘children of the children of WWII ’, when the army had to compensate for staff shortages by enlisting students, even from technical universities in spite of the fact that these had their own military departments.
My national service was undertaken mainly in the chemical defence forces. Once completed, I was so afraid that military service had kicked my brains out that when I returned to university I needed to prove otherwise and worked as hard as I could.
Army life ~ Only 100 Days to Go!!
At university, I met old friends and made new ones who felt the same way about the possible adverse effects of army life, so we united as a group of six to seven guys and studied eagerly. Soon, we were enjoying our studies and were surprised to find that on completion of our first ‘after army’ exams we were not as stupid as we thought. Thereafter, having developed a taste for study our later successes did not surprise us so much.
As undergraduates we were eager to invent and implement something extraordinary which would push commercial fisheries forward. My diploma thesis supervisor was Professor A L Fridman, who had studied under Professor F I Baranov. A street in Kaliningrad is named after Professor Baranov, who was the founder of scientific application for commercial fisheries. His name is well known among colleagues worldwide, as his book Techniques ofCommercial Fisheries, written in 1933, was translated into many languages.
The idea which I presented to Professor Fridman was to combine fish biology (fish behavior) with specific fishing equipment in order to develop efficient and selective fisheries.
Professor Fridman, who had professional contacts worldwide, arranged for lectures to be given at our university by two doctors of science from the Aberdeen Marine Laboratory, Scotland. Some of the topics encompassed by these lectures approximated to ideas covered in my course project, so I asked if I could meet with Clem Wardle, one of the visiting lecturers, to discuss these. I felt quite confident about my English, and besides Dr Wardle had extensive experience of communicating with non-English students.
These discussions led to me being invited for a training course at the Aberdeen Marine Laboratory, prior agreement having been made that two students from our university would participate in studies in Scotland.
I presented my Diploma Statement in both Russian and English, and the next day I became an engineer and assistant of the Commercial Fisheries Department of the university. But it did not last long. Perestroika was in full swing, and I had to channel my time and energy into earning money to feed my young family, which left little time for scientific research.
When did you first become interested in art?
I was seven years old when an art enthusiast, Alevtina Maksimova, created an experimental art group in the Kaliningrad Art School. At that time, entrance was restricted to children in the 10 to 12 age group. I cannot begin to imagine the effort she must have put into creating such a group under the Soviet system. Anyway, she succeeded.
Bureaucratic barriers having been overcome, she visited schools in Kaliningrad, examined children’s drawings and selected potential students on the basis of their work. I was one of them. Initially, the art lesson lasted 15 minutes, three times a week, but gradually class time was extended to normal hours.
For the next four years, I studied sculpture, painting, drawing, history of art and so on, and it soon became routine.
When did you first meet Victor Ryabinin and what part did he play in your artistic interest?
We were drawing and painting still life and in warm seasons went outside to practise. The last academic year included the subject Applicable Composition (Design). Viktor Ryabinin was our teacher.
As for the arts, Ryabinin directed me more towards feeling the harmony and philosophy of art. It was a sort of magic. He did it so gently that I thought that I had discovered it myself.
Stanislav Konovalov
At first sight, from a teenager’s point of view, he was this small and funny man, but very soon our attention was attracted to his methods of teaching. He was a breath of fresh air in my understanding of art. He was so alive in comparison with many of the other teachers. He ignited our imagination. He was not backward in pointing out our mistakes, but he inspired! And he took a sincere interest in our artistic development, which extended beyond the classroom.
When he invited us to his art studio, I was impressed on two accounts: first, that he had invited us at all; and second, by the studio itself. It was not as cluttered as it became in later years, but it had a special atmosphere that charmed me forever.
As for the arts, Ryabinin directed me more towards feeling the harmony and philosophy of art. It was a sort of magic. He did it so gently that I thought that I had discovered it myself.
With Victor’s help, I became interested in many artistic genres: Symbolism, Surrealism and others, and creating in graphics or in colour. Ryabinin attracted my attention to Impressionism as a means of playing with colours. Still life and landscape pictures are definitely important to me as are learning basic techniques from which drawing skills accumulate that can be implemented in any genre.
As a mentor, Victor was kind but did not hold back when pointing out mistakes. Drawing my attention to the Impressionists, he repeated the words of his mentor Valentine Grigoriev, “dark – darker, light – lighter”. What this means, for example, is that the shadow of a green apple must never be painted in a dark, green colour. He said (about any object drawn): “It must be tasty and alive!”
I continued to draw and paint after finishing art school. I showed Victor each new picture, listened to his remarks and very often corrected mistakes to which he alluded and even re-drew some of my pictures. When a new picture was ready, I would telephone Victor, and we would agree on a time to meet at his studio. Later, when I stopped drawing, we remained in contact.
What made you become more interested in the history of Königsberg than to proceed with your art studies?
I have been charmed by Königsberg for as long as I can remember. Of course, in my youth there were a lot of myths circulating among children and teenagers about underground objects relevant to old Königsberg that impressed my sense of fantasy. But it was Victor who inspired a new surge of interest in the history of the city and the surrounding land. Victor was an authority on Königsberg urban life. He knew very well the history of certain districts and even certain houses. He was an excellent storyteller, often attracting your attention to particular details that had passed you by in daily life.
Through Victor, I learnt many things that I had seen throughout my life in Königsberg but had never really thought about.
Stanislav Konovalov
I learnt a lot of things from Victor of this nature, for example about the hatches on the streets and pavements, in which factories they had been made and how they were brought to Königsberg; that the granite curb stones and cobbles used in the construction of the pavements and roads had been shipped from Scandinavia. Through Victor, I learnt many things that I had seen throughout my life in Königsberg but had never really thought about.
Have you any particular memories of your association with Victor both as mentor and friend?
Victor was always pleased when I arranged to meet him at his Kaliningrad studio with visitors from other Russian cities and from abroad. By the way, the first signature in his Guest Book was that of Noel Mizen, an engineer from the ELGA Pure Water Company, England. I was an interpreter for him when he installed the purification system at Kaliningrad’s vodka plant.
Being an artist, Victor had a sharp eye. I remember once walking with him among the ruins of Balga Castle and around the lagoon coast. We had a flask of cognac, from which we sipped from time to time. The weather was good and the leisurely walk enjoyable.
Next to the water’s edge Victor picked up a small piece of something and showed it to me. He explained that it was a metal button from the trousers of a Wehrmacht soldier. I was impressed that such a tiny detail had not escaped his notice. This was part of his magic: his ability to give a lesson invisibly.
I am happy I knew Victor and that I met with him a lot. For the last years of his life we lived almost in the same street, so we would bump into each other quite often. Victor appreciated my cooking. I used to invite him for a meal, and we would sit in my kitchen, talk, and often look at and discuss the latest entries in his pictorial diaries.
I am very lucky to have met Victor and to have been his student. I learnt a lot from him. He was a great artist and a good man.
By the way, I also feel lucky that I took lessons in in martial arts from Guy Aerts, 6-dan master, the student of Tanemura Sensei, the patriarch of the Traditional Jujutsu school and that I took guitar lessons from one of the best musicians and guitar players, Sergey Teplyakov.
Stas learnt to play the guitar, but he did not mention anything about horses!
Although, I can count some achievements, I have no pretensions of being a star student. I remember the words of one of the martial arts masters: “All your achievements are the achievements of your teachers. All your defeats are the result of your remissness.”
However, I keep in contact with all my teachers, and it seems to me they enjoy it too ~ I hope!
History-based tours of Kaliningrad
(a) Can you remember the first tour that you organised? To be honest, I can’t remember my first tour. It sometimes seems as if I have been doing them all of my life. As a child I shared the knowledge that I had gained about Königsberg-Kaliningrad from adults that I had met and from my parents’ friends with my mates. When I was older, I would use that knowledge to entertain visitors in the companies where I worked. I knew more about Königsberg than my colleagues, and this enabled me to arrange sightseeing trips. Of course, looking back I see how funny and unprofessional those tours were, but the main purpose was achieved – people came on my tours, received a first impression of the place they were interested in and, wanting to know more, returned again and again.
There are two occasions that I remember in particular. The second half of my national service was undertaken in Kaliningrad, but through my national service I had made friends with guys from all over the USSR. One of them came from Samara (at that time Kuibyshev) before he was sent to Kaliningrad. This friend would walk a lot through the city. He even created a chart of the routes he had taken.
He once opined that there was nothing to see in Kaliningrad. Although we were friends, his comment irritated me. Nevertheless, I patiently asked where exactly had he walked and what had he seen? He replied, and I explained to him exactly what he had seen and what had escaped his eye. After my ellucidation his route chart extended dramatically.
Later ~ 20 years later ~ thanks to the internet, we contacted each other again. He decided to visit me in Kaliningrad and stay for five days. When I met him at the airport, he introduced me to his wife: “Meet Stas, who I told you about,” he said. “It was he who made me fall in love with Kaliningrad.”
The second occasion that I recall concerns the regional manager in Germany of the company for which I worked. She had visited the company where I would eventually work six years before I joined it and had been avoiding Kaliningrad ever since! We got to know each other and met several times at events in Moscow and in Germany. Finally, she came to Kaliningrad again.
I didn’t try to show her something extraordinary in Kaliningrad or ‘the best of the best’, after all she had lived in Bremen and Schweinfurt for decades ~ two interesting cities. I simply showed her Kaliningrad, and we went for a walk around the coastal resort Svetlogorsk. I told her about Kaliningrad after the war and included some true stories about families that I knew. At the close of her visit, I gave her a lift to Gdansk Airport. As we embraced and said our farewells, she paid me the highest compliment: “I disliked Kaliningrad,” she said, “but, thanks to you, I have almost fallen in love with it!” For me, who loves the city and introduces visitors to it, what could be better to hear?
(b) How have your tours progressed since then? Having been told by many people for whom I have organised tours that I am in the wrong job, ie that I would be better as a tour guide, I asked if I was such a bad logistics manager. My friends and colleagues then tried to assure me that I was an excellent logistics manager, but my tour-guide abilities are superb. So, whilst accepting the compliment, I still doubt my logistics professionalism.
As I became more involved in giving tours, I set about reading up on the history of Königsberg-Kaliningrad and researched particular topics. It is one thing to give sightseeing tours to friends but quite another to visitors who might be well-read on the history of Königsberg and interested in specific details. My biggest problem is memorising exact dates, and this worried me. After a while, however, I consoled myself with the thought that bachelors and masters graduates of university history departments are not typical of the type of people who want to enlist my tour service, and that ‘normal’ people don’t usually want to be overloaded with precise dates (except, perhaps, with regard to a very few extremely interesting places or situations).
Exactly a year ago, as I am writing this, I received a tourist from Moscow. The young lady, a manager in a big international company in Moscow, had a background in history. She knew the history of Königsberg quite well. I must admit that I was rather nervous about the prospect of showing her around, especially as I was recommended to her by a mutual friend. I felt that it was more like an exam for me than an excursion for her. The excursion took about 10 hours instead of the expected three-and-a-half to four hours. She was open-minded, analytical but happy to see what it was that she had read about. We understood each other well, and I think I calculated quite accurately what she wanted to see on the tour and what would impress her. Several times I hit the bullseye!
(c) Which tours specifically do you offer now? Normally, I offer a general sightseeing tour, with some particular interest deviation, for example the history of beer brewing in Königsberg-Kaliningrad, Königsberg as a fortress city, the exploration of certain districts comparing its history with its modern life, the Curonian Spit, Baltic seaside towns and so on. What is most interesting for me about guiding is trying to identify the ‘general trend’ that a particular tourist or group are interested in ~ what they expect to see and hear.
The more detailed I am able to make a narrative, the more excited they get. But I never invent my own myths; I extract the expected theme from the history I have researched and then animate it. I focus on their interest with a view towards inspiring further interest in a specific topic, place and the history that surrounds it.
YouTube videos
(a) How many YouTube videos have you completed to date? There are six at the moment. The first video I did was undertaken for a tour guides’ competition. When it was completed, I watched my video and compared it with the videos made by other participants. I was pleased to discover that the theme of my video went beyond the format required by the contest. I immediately prepared two more videos. I did not get any reward for these, except for a phone call from a federal radio channel and the pleasure of having a couple of minutes conversation on-air with radio presenters whom I particularly like.
I posted my videos on my Facebook page and also on the YouTube channel and got a few positive responses, so I thought it would be a good idea to make some more videos, the idea being that they would act as a video business-card. In my opinion, very few people are prepared to read about you, but people respond to videos in the same way as they interact with television, using the remote-control mentality. You press a button listing the TV channels. If something attracts you, grabs your attention, you might stay on one channel for a few seconds. If not, you list forward. So, my videos are brief. On one hand, to demonstrate who I am and my ability to communicate, and on the other to provide a glimpse of what my tours are about and what can be learnt at a deeper level.
(b) Elaborate on the work involved, the difficulties and the positive aspects I’m not sure if I followed it to the letter, but I keep in mind Chekhov’s idea, “be short with words, but wide with thoughts”. It took quite a while to write texts based on that precept. The initial texts were excluded. When I checked the time that it took me to read them, I was able to work out what needed to be excluded. It was a good experience. After the fourth video, my camera man, a professional, said to me “You can now work on TV”, as we made fewer single-takes than we had before.
(c) Which of your current videos do you like the best and why? I both like and hate all of them. I hate my appearance in all of them. I like what we did and how we did it. I became friends with the camera man, Mikhail. My son handled the video editing. It was, besides the purpose behind producing them, fun to make these videos. Once my son, Ed, presented me with a ‘gift’ video; it contained all my pratfalls. I laughed watching it. That was great!
Good news. I talked to Galina Zabolotskaya, the Director of the Art Museum, and she told me that they could mount a permanent exhibition of Victor’s work within a hall on the museum’s ground floor in which they commemorate artists of Königsberg and Kaliningrad. She proposed that Victor’s masterpieces be displayed in a room reserved for his work exclusively. In my estimation, this could take some time. Sergey, Victor’s nephew, wants, on one hand, to bring Victor’s pictures and his collection to as wide an audience as possible but, on the other, he is extremely cautious about who he entrusts Victor’s work to.
I can see no benefit in trying to persuade him to act until he himself is ready; in fact, I am of the opinion that too push too hard will simply provoke resistance. I keep in contact with him, and we have taken some important steps in the right direction. I feel that he is pleased with what we have done.
Apart from, and in addition to, setting up a permanent exhibition, I would like to see Victor, the man and art-historian, and the unique contribution that he has made to the memory of Königsberg, commemorated by publishing an album, or catalogue, of his work and collection. I am on the case and will keep you informed about how things are progressing.
Before going anywhere today, the first thing we do is
consult the internet. If you undertake ~ or have already undertaken ~ an
internet search of ‘Kaliningrad’ chances are that you will turn up, or have
already turned up, a disproportionate amount of negativity. This is especially
true of UK media articles, that is articles disseminated by the mainstream UK
press, particularly articles written prior to and up to 2018, when Kaliningrad
hosted the World Cup tournament in which England played against Belgium.
In the months leading up to the World Cup the
concerted vitriol reached its apotheosis, which was rather unfortunate for the
British press as, almost without exception, the majority of British fans who
were not dissuaded from coming to Kaliningrad agreed that they had enjoyed
themselves in Russia and in Kaliningrad in particular. So, it was a warm
welcome for the British footer fans and a red face for the British media.
Since 2018, there has been a noticeable change in tone,
with some, though not all, journalists adopting a more honest appraisal of Kaliningrad’s
status as a tourist destination. Leading travel guides for English-language
readers blaze the trail, using such words to describe Kaliningrad as ‘exciting,
vibrant, a city and region of contrasts, fascinating, quirky and historically
unique’.
Indeed, our late friend Victor Rybinin, artist and
historian, defined its unique character as the combination of two cultures, first
German and then Russian, and it is somewhere between this polarity that its
fascination resides.
Königsberg: a city that refuses to die
Kaliningrad’s duality really begins at the close of WWII. Until that time it had been the capital of East Prussia, an imposing and noble city, boasting an architectural composition of Romanesque, Baroque and Gothic designs. Originally known as Königsberg, the city changed names when it changed people and country in 1946, the historical city of Königsberg having been all but extirpated from aerial bombing in 1944 and the Soviet siege and battle of 1945. From 1946 onwards, Königsberg, now renamed Kaliningrad, and the territory surrounding it, was absorbed by the Soviet Union.
Home to the Baltic Fleet, and of strategic geo-political importance, the area became a closed domain and remained this way until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The dissolution of the satellite Baltic states in the 1990s and their subsequent harvesting by the European Union created a physical and psychological barrier ~ physical in that the Kaliningrad region is separated by countries unallied to Russia, psychological in the sense that this little piece of land, the westernmost outpost of the Russian Federation, has become a political/military bogeyman for the West to rattle its sabres at ~ little wonder, therefore, that it is ringed with NATO bases! Never mind, it does not worry the locals, so it need not worry you.
History is Kaliningrad’s speciality
For the history buff, especially those interested in
WWI, WWII and the Cold War, Königsberg-Kaliningrad has plenty to offer. The
city contains a number of wartime monuments and museums and so many underground
shelters that I have often amused myself whilst travelling from one side of the
city to the next by taking part in my own spot the bunker competition. One of
the bunkers, the aptly named Museum Bunker, is open to the public. It is very
Nazispheric and replete with military history exhibits.
Spot the German bunker competition
The most obvious examples of Königsberg’s military
history predate the conflicts of the 20th century, although, like
every building in the beleaguered city of 1945, they played a not
inconsiderable defensive role in the final battle for Königsberg.
Königsberg was a fortress city, which, by the middle
and the late 19th century, was heavily defended by two continuous
rings of red-brick forts joined by an elaborate network of slit walls,
bastions, gates, ramparts and crenelated towers. A prodigious proportion of
both defensive rings is extant today, thanks to their solid construction, the determination
of local history groups to conserve them and considerable restoration
investment. Some of the forts now house museums; others are work in progress.
One of Königsberg’s inner circle of fortsMoat surrounding one of Königsberg’s forts in the outer ring
Smaller relics both of Königsberg and from its military
past can be found in any one of the city’s antique shops and ~ joy of all joys
~ at the city’s central street market. This haven for collectors has evolved
into a boot fair/flea market hybrid, selling all manner of WWII and Soviet
relics along with remnants of Königsberg itself.
One of the most atmospheric, or should that be claustrophobic,
reminders of the Cold War is the Soviet submarine which is moored at the side
of the Pregolya (German: Pregel) River on a bankside development mainly
devoted to other marine vessels, museums and education centres under the
auspices of the World Ocean Museum.
Soviet submarine, Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad’s Amber Museum is possibly the most well-known museum in the city and its territory. It was established in 1972 and occupies one of the inner-circle forts on the bank of one of Kaliningrad’s lakes (the correct terminology for which, I am told, is ‘pond’ ~ which makes it a very big one!) This, incidentally, is the same tower depicted in various YouTube videos, on which victorious Russian troops hoist the Soviet flag high across the war-torn landscape which, in 1945, is all that remained of Königsberg ~ at least in its physical form.
Kaliningrad amber
Amber Museum, Kaliningrad, Russia
Established in the richest amber-producing area in the world, the Amber Museum holds impressive and ornate examples of artisan craftsmanship, and both the city and coastal resorts are dotted with specialist amber shops, supplemented by market stalls specialising in every conceivable manifestation of amber-work imaginable and in all its various hues ~ jewellery, souvenirs, framed pictures, clocks, statues, household goods … the list is seemingly endless.
Exotic amber jewellery, Kaliningrad, Russia
Opulent amber covered vase/urn, Kaliningrad, Russia
Coastal resorts of the Kaliningrad region
The largest coastal resorts, Svetlogorsk and Zelenogradsk,
are respectively a mere thirty and forty-five minutes away from Kaliningrad
city centre by car, train, taxi or bus. As both towns are extensively populated
with shops and stalls selling amber, and as the amount and range of goods for
sale is little short of amazing, amber hunters visiting these resorts can
combine their shopping expedition with a relaxing day by the sea.
Svetlogorsk (German: Rauschen) is a traditional
coastal spa resort nestled on an undulating headland, sprinkled with fir and
beech woods, in which quaint German houses of Hoffmanesque character peep out
from within small enclaves of trees.
High Gothic, Svetlogorsk, Russia
In recent years, renovation and large-scale investment has, like Kaliningrad, made this a place of contrasts and with it evoked controversy. Lavish and extravagant villas, high-rise buildings, even an entire street reconstructed in retrospective styles, have inevitably been precipitated by its growing popularity as a well-appointed, attractive coastal retreat.
Half-timbered reconstruction, Svetlogorsk, Russia
Following in the style of Rauschen (Svetlogorsk)
The, in my opinion, outsized multicomplex theatre and shopping centre, constructed in Svetlogorsk in 2015, seems to have been accepted, but there is decidedly less tolerance for what many see as a disproportionate extension to the seafront promenade, an enormous elevated walkway that has robbed Svetlogorsk of some of its little sandy beach and is destined to serve as the frontage for a parade of grand hotels and exclusive sea-view apartments. This notwithstanding, the older parts of Svetlogorsk are resolutely anchored by firm historical roots which, at the time of writing, continue to nurture the fairy tale.
Entertainment centre, Svetlogorsk, Russia
Zelenogradsk (German: Cranz) is by far the better option if sandy beaches are your thing. In German times, Cranz was considered to be the first resort and Rauschen the second, a position reversed in Soviet times and persisting to this day, but my prejudice is gradually moving in favour of Zelenogradsk. With its broad, golden swathe of beach, wide service-filled promenade, interesting beach-side cafes and restaurants offering unobstructed views of the sea, and its calm and easy serpentine high street containing many fine old buildings, some tastefully renovated others honestly gnarled and time-weathered, and not forgetting its awe-inspiring sunsets, a heavenly fusion of the sublime and surreal, Zelenogradsk for me is the perfect seaside retreat.
Zelinogradsk promenade, Russia
Zelinogradsk High Street, Russia
Zelinogradsk Hotel, Cranz Style
Lenin in Zelinogradsk
As stated previously, Svetlogorsk and Zelenogradsk are
the two main regional coastal resorts, but they are not the only ones along
this stretch of the Baltic coastline. Smaller and more secluded places await
the intrepid traveller!
Sandy beaches hidden away on Kaliningrad’s Baltic coatline
For nature lovers, and lovers of the great outdoors, the
Kaliningrad region’s jewel in the crown is indubitably Korski Spit (the
Curonian Spit) ~ a long (98km) narrow sand dune that arcs from the Kaliningrad region into south-west Lithuania,
with the Curonian Lagoon on one side and the Baltic Sea coast the other.
Carpeted with pine forest, and intricately laced with white sandy dips and
hollows, this Unesco World Heritage Site is a phenomenal natural landscape and a
natural habitat for a multitude of bird, animal and plant species. Wooden
pathways constructed by volunteers permit the traveller to enjoy the natural
beauty of the Curonian Spit whilst preserving the fragile ecosystem. It is
along one of these that you are invited to walk to the Dancing Forest ~ so
named because of the coiled and twisted nature of its trees. Visitors to the
Spit will find viewing platforms from which to appreciate the beauty of both
land and seascape, level cycle trails, and cafes tucked away in quiet little
woodland glades. As for guest houses in this protected part of the Kaliningrad
region, such are not prolific, although you may be lucky and find one in one of
the two small secluded settlements hidden away on the Spit.
Meanwhile, back in Kaliningrad, no reference to its
historic past would be complete without acknowledging the enduring presence of Königsberg
Cathedral. A mere husk after the war, sterling work, much effort, considerable
investment and skill has seen this fine specimen of 14th century
Gothic architecture restored to an unbelievable standard. In the daytime its unmistakable
profile hints at the glory of what once was; in the twilight its silhouette is
an eerie reminder of total war and the obliteration that still haunts this
city.
Kaliningrad: ‘City of Contrasts’
Kaliningrad: Victory Square
The label a ‘city of contrasts’ is as good as one as
any to try to hang on a place which is as enigmatic as it is ambiguous.
Modern-day Kaliningrad is vibrant and bustling ~ new apartment blocks,
expensive reconstructions cast in the mould of its Königsberg predecessors, an
eclectic array of bars, cafes, restaurants and clubs, brand-spanking
international hotel complexes rub shoulders with down-at-heel swathes of
Soviet-era concrete flats, all sharing the same physical and spiritual space as
the monuments to and memories of the ruins from which they have grown ~ Königsberg.
Original Königsberg building, Kaliningrad
Epilogue
When I began writing this article, I had envisaged a
succinct work of some 500 to 600 words. The fact that I have greatly exceeded
that is testament to the great variety of things to see and do here, within Kaliningrad
itself and its outlying region, and whilst I have deliberately focused on some
of the more prominent, more defining features unique to this special place, those
that I have not mentioned ~ of which there are many ~ less known, perhaps, but
equally deserving, are urging me to write about them and, more importantly, for
you to come and discover them for yourself.
Tour Guide/Accommodation
English-speaking visitors to this region are welcome
to contact us on email Königsbergmick@mail.com.
We provide a friendly, personal tour guide/interpreter service tailored to your
requirements. We also offer accommodation (maximum two people).
