Published: 1 November 2021 ~ Celebrating the Memory of Königsberg Tour Guide Stas
28th November 2021. Today was the anniversary of Stas Konovalov’s death. After paying our resects at the graveside, a group, consisting of family, close friends and neighbours, were brought together by Stas’ mother for a memorial gathering. It was an emotional, at times difficult, and yet nevertheless, heart-warming occasion.
Encouraged and mentored by artist and art-teacher Victor Ryabinin, from an early age it seemed as if Stas would pursue a career in art himself. Some of his drawings and paintings, most of which he had created in his youth and teenage years, and in which the symbolic hand of Ryabinin is clearly apparent, were displayed by his mother at the memorial gathering today. His art showed promise and had not life intervened in that indifferent way that it does, he might very well have gone on to fulfil his artistic destiny.
Mick Hart and Stas’ mother with some of Stas’ artwork that he created as a student of art
One of Stas’s more bleak compositions, ‘What awaits us …’
Later, again under Ryabinin’s tutelage, Stas developed a love for the history of Königsberg and the region to which it belonged and went on to establish his own tour guides and tour-guide videos, which he worked, reworked and honed to perfection.
Among the complement of friends and neighbours who had gathered today to pay tribute to him were people who had known him for most of his life, some of whom he had been at kindergarten with. By comparison, Olga and I were newcomers. We had known Stas for less than two years, but we had taken to him easily and instantaneously and had formed an insoluble friendship.
Stas told me afterwards that Victor had said to him, “An Englishman is coming to live in Kaliningrad. I think you should meet him. He is interesting, and I think you will find a common language.” I never did pay Victor for calling me ‘interesting’, but Stas and I did find a common language ~ in our love of the past and through our mutual and high regard for the history of Königsberg-Kaliningrad and its region. We also found a common language in the degree to which we found beer, vodka, cognac and good conversation agreeable!
Under the direction and guidance of Victor Ryabinin, we had arrived at Stas’ flat on a cold winter’s evening. The puddles on the road and pavement had turned to ice, and the snow underfoot was multi-layered and covered with a fresh fall. Victor pressed the doorbell to Stas’ flat and then began to perform star-jumps on a square of pavement next to the building where the snow had not penetrated. Each time he jumped, he clicked his heels together in mid-air, performing the ritual with a cheery grin.
The obvious question was why? And when asked, the not so obvious reply had been that Stas’ flat was possibly the only flat in Kaliningrad where you would not be asked to remove your shoes on entering, so Victor was doing Stas the honour of cleaning his boots before crossing the threshold.
Stas was a big man, who looked even bigger in contrast to little Victor, but it soon became apparent that this difference in size had no bearing on the common personality and interest denominators that both shared ~ in fact, which we all we shared.
Stas’ flat was an intriguing place. It bore all the hallmarks of expressive work in progress and was dotted about with Königsberg relics, more of which were proudly displayed inside a large, antique, cabinet. It was a home from home for me ~ the flat as well as the walnut cabinet!
Celebrating the Memory of Königsberg Tour Guide Stas
It was our mutual interest in history, relics of the past and the warm, open nature of our friend, Stas, together with the good memories of the times we spent together, that found us at his memorial gathering today. There were, perhaps, about 30 people in attendance ~ family, friends, neighbours ~ and most had tales to tell of their relationship with Stas or wanted to express their gratitude for knowing him in life and the sorrow they felt at his death.
I am always amazed at how proficient and adept Russian people are at public speaking and how openly and without reservation they bare their souls and reveal their innermost feelings. It is a lesson that we Brits, who are frightened to stray too far from banter and/or prevarication, could certainly learn from.
The individually rendered memories and tributes were sometimes moving, sometimes amusing and consistently complementary.
At times the tributes to Stas were so touching as to be almost overwhelming. I caught myself more than once glancing wistfully across at Stas, grinning from his photo-framed portrait behind the statutory glass of vodka with its piece of bread placed on top. Would he have been surprised at this gathering and to hear the tributes to him that were so touching as to be almost overwhelming?
All I know is that for me to accumulate so many well-wishers at my funeral or memorial wake, I would have to set up a trust fund or at the very least pay people in advance to attend.
Stas was, as Leonard Cohen would say, ‘almost’ young when he died ~ too young. But if there is any consolation to be had, then it echoes in Stas’ own words. With characteristic magnanimity, he left a note asking people not to brood in the event of his death, affirming that he had lived a full and eventful life in which he had achieved much of what he had set out to do.
Gracious, selfless and sensitive to the needs of others until the very end, this was Stas Konovalov. We are proud that we can count ourselves among his many friends, who loved and admired him in life and remember him in death for the commendable person he was.
R.I.P. Stas.
(We wish Stas’ mother, family and friends well, and thank his mother for her gracious invitation to attend the memorial gathering.)
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.
Victor’s grave is adorned with a headstone befitting the artist and the man
Published: 14 August 2020
Yesterday (Thursday 13 August 2020) a friend emailed a photograph to us of Victor Ryabinin’s recently completed and erected headstone. I was expecting the headstone to incorporate a photographic likeness of Victor’s face, as most gravestones in Russia seem to display a portrait of the deceased, but the image on Victor’s tombstone is more than that and all the more poignant for it.
It shows Victor sitting on a stool in his art studio. He is leaning nonchalantly in his chair, relaxed, unassuming, in tune with himself, his life and the world around him. His right arm is resting on one of his art-historian creations, his left arm cradling the base. The artwork is an assemblage, a composition of assorted Königsberg relics assembled icon-like within a frame, a symbolic reincarnation of parts that in their new unity pay homage to the unique bi-cultural character by which Victor defined the seamlessness of the Königsberg-Kaliningrad time continuum.
The image depicts a man forever and inextricably connected with the subject of his life’s work ~ Königsberg. It captures the eternal spiritual symbiosis that exists between each. It also captures the essence of the man himself: his unaffected attitude towards life and people, his open good-natured manner and his kind, calm and collected philosophical disposition.
Victor Ryabinin’s Headstone Königsberg
Victor was a larger than life person. He had a magnetic personality, first appreciated and then adored, and the fact that he is no longer part of life as we understand it is hard to accept, but the ethos and quality of this monument are a fitting tribute to him, both to the art-historian and the man.
When I look on this image it does not make missing him any easier. It captures who he was so well that it is difficult to gaze upon without wanting the yesterday we all once shared.
Consolation is all elusive, except for what we find in destiny and I cannot help believing in that respect that our loss is Königsberg’s gain.
Published: 18 July 2020 on the first anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death
Victor Ryabinin died on 18 July 2019
For those who knew him well, it has been a difficult 12 months. The first 12 months after someone dear passes away always is. There are so many occasions that memory will not let go of, everything becomes a commemorative anniversary of the last time, and it is virtually impossible not to fall victim to the ‘this time last year’ syndrome.
As the anniversary of Victor’s death closed in, it has also been impossible not to fall under the insidious spell of that morbid countdown: viz, this time last year Victor had only four weeks left to live … It is a macabre thought is it not, that last 60 seconds of life ticking inexorably away and then nothing? Not just the physical man himself gone but, as Leonard Cohen so eloquently puts it, “that tangle of matter and ghost”. A lifetime lost in a second. A unique loss of personality, thoughts, talent, experience, good nature, kindness, humanity. It is, indeed, a morbid thought, but as a friend of mine pragmatically said about death, “Well, you can’t stop it, can you?”
There is nothing much longer than eternity, but notwithstanding in the past 12 months those of us who were fortunate enough to be counted among Victor’s friends and those whom he taught and mentored have been just as busy preserving his memory as we have been cherishing it and missing him.
Book celebrating Victor Ryabinin’s work
As well as my blog, which is dedicated to Victor Ryabinin, to his artistic talent, to the magic that he found in and brought to Königsberg-Kaliningrad and to the man himself, one of Victor’s closest friends, Marina Simkina, herself an artist, has been working with writer and journalist Boris Nisnevich to bring to fruition a book about the life and work of this remarkable man: a thematically related text with essays, personal recollections, interviews, letters and poems which taken together speak of the rich legacy that Victor has bequeathed in his paintings, assemblages, collages and diaries and, for those of us who knew him personally, in the light that his sincerity, goodwill, open nature and profound interest in everything he heard or saw brought into our lives.
On the first anniversary of Victor’s death, I have added another article to the pages of my blog contributed by our friend Stanislov, whom Victor introduced us to shortly before he passed away
Catalogue of Victor Ryabinin’s work
Stas, as we know him, is actively involved in a project which will hopefully see the canon of Victor Ryabinin’s artistic work and his collection of Königsberg ‘relics’ housed and displayed in a permanent exhibition here in Kaliningrad. He also hopes to catalogue Victor’s work and produce a definitive version in print of the extraordinary talent of this man whose self-genre as Königsberg’s art-historian captured, celebrated and ultimately cast him as the spirit of the ruined city he had spent his life divining ~ the very Spirit of Königsberg.
Victor Ryabinin’s love affair with the interconnectivity of Königsberg’s past and Kaliningrad’s present, the surface paradox of two cultures hammered together in war but mysteriously wed by time and destiny, was as devotional as it was unconditional. For him, both transition and movement were seamless; it was the place itself that ‘drew people in’ as it had drawn him in.
Victor’s childhood impressions and art-historian perspective surpassed that of mere academia ~ he lived and breathed Königsberg. It was not a lifestyle choice; it was made for him; it was predestined. The symbiotic relationship that he formed with this special, this unique place, as he called the Königsberg.-Kaliningrad continuum, continually reminded him that his soul existed in two cultures, both Russian and German, and as much as he enjoyed anywhere else he intuitively knew he belonged nowhere else. He could not precisely say why, ‘I cannot explain this magic’, but as a child of Königsberg’s ruins he instinctively knew “this is my city”.
His city, represented symbolically through the artistic fusion of his childhood memories, the interaction between Gothic ruins and Hoffman’s Gothic fantasy, transcended time and place, engendering philosophical interpretations on a universal scale. His enduring belief in the insolubility of the past’s effect on the present and of existence viewed as a fantastic web of interconnectivity may suggest that whilst he had a definite sense of place and his place in it, he was also a child of the universe, but if so he was a prodigy.
In memory of Victor Ryabinin
The oft-cited opinion of those who were close to him, that he exhibited an almost childlike fascination in everything new that he saw or heard, was not a slight on his character but a character trait to be envious of. For the majority of people, interest, as with every other human faculty, slips further and further away from us the older we become, but not so with Victor, who remained alert, fascinated, enthralled to the last. Even in the latter days of his life, when in hindsight, by recourse to photographs of that time, he appeared discernibly older and more frail, he never lost his curiosity, he never grew old as others grow old, giving up his zest for life only when life itself decided that the time had come for him to paint his last picture, make his last entry in his pictorial diary and drink his last cognac with friends.
In the shadow of death and even more desperately in its gloomy, memory-filled aftermath, we rake among the embers not of the life that has passed, the life that has been extinguished, but in what remains of our left-behind lives, in hope of consolation.
But my consolation in Victor’s death lies in the certain knowledge that whilst we grieve for ourselves, we have no real need to grieve for him, for he has returned to the self-same spot where it all began. He is a child again in the ruins of Königsberg. His spirit has gone home. He is now a part of that history which so fascinated and clung to him from the moment of his birth. It is my belief that it never let go; he was just given to us on loan; and he drew us into Königsberg as he himself had been drawn in.
If you do not believe me just listen to and read the testimonials of those who knew him and what they have to say ~ his students, friends and colleagues. Through their words and their impressions, they seek to understand the mystical aura with which Victor was endowed. We may never comprehend it entirely, but we share one thing in common which is a sense of pride and privilege that in this ephemeral but interconnected world it was fortunately predetermined that our paths should cross with his.
We shall miss him always, forget him never.
Victor Ryabinin died on 18 July 2020 Forever Königsberg
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.
Our second cultural day in a row (yesterday we attended an unusual art exhibition) found us heading off for a guided tour around a flat that had belonged to a Königsberg merchant in the early 20th century. I had heard of this flat from our dear friend Victor Ryabinin ~ artist, philosopher, historian (sadly now deceased) ~ who had, as with all things Königsberg, stimulated my curiosity by informing us that the flat in question had been preserved, and restored where necessary, in all its original glory.
The flat we were going to visit today is located at
11-1 Krasnaya Street, Kaliningrad. The official name of the venue is simply but
effectively ‘Apartment Museum’. A century ago, it was the home of merchant and
grocery store owner, Gustav Grossmann, and his family. As the advertising
leaflet boldly and honestly claims, the authentic interior allows you to
‘travel back a hundred years’ and experience life ‘as a citizen of Eastern
Prussia’.
Public interest in and success of the project had prompted the exhibition owner to invest in a retro café on the site of Grossmann’s original store, which is located in the same building as the merchant’s flat, and it was here that we were rendezvousing with friend and Königsberg historian Stanislav Konovalov, known to us as Stas.
The café, which is housed in a corner section of the historic apartment building, extends from the main structure out towards the pavement. The entrance to Grossmann’s apartment is recessed, away from the pavement, a small flagstoned area leading to the front door, and can therefore be easily missed. However, the café signage does a wonderful job, calling your attention to a building of stature, which is distinctive and old-world gentrified thanks predominantly to the large show window on the ground floor and above it on the first and second floors the unusual arched windows.
The lower window has been fitted out with shelving and, even before we climbed the small flight of steps leading to the café entrance, it excited us to see a variety of bygone items beckoning us inside. The artefacts displayed included, but were not limited to, kitchen pans, clothes’ irons, ceramic pots, oil lamps and the stock in trade of antique emporiums in this part of the world, the ubiquitous German stein.
Gustav Grossmann Cafe, Kaliningrad
Anyone obsessed with the past could tell, from the demeanour of the building and the items displayed in the window, that you would not be disappointed when you stepped inside. The interior of the building has been subject to a complete and comprehensive retro makeover, with so much by way of antiques and collectables adorning shelves, festooned on the walls, cuddling in cabinets, swinging from the ceiling and dotted here and there that ~ as it is with the nature of such places ~ it was impossible at first glance and even ten minutes afterwards to take everything in. Certain features, however, made their mark and stayed there. Behind the front counter, for example ~ a long counter and one of impressive height ~ wall-to-ceiling shelving has been erected, and this shelving, consisting as it does of different sized compartments, the top section reserved for larger items such as a pair of antique radios, is occupied by a mixture of vintage and antique objects rubbing shoulders with the modern accoutrements that are vital for running a business like this, such as branded cups and saucers, selections of teas, different kinds of coffee varieties and so on. The café till, which may be modern, appears on the customer side of the counter as though it is made of wood, whilst the coffee machine, all made of shining chrome, is, in shape and appearance, an icon of the 1950s. Indeed, not everything in the café was what we English would call Edwardian or of early 20th century origin: the radio in the window, which has most likely been fitted with an electronic player, was post WWII, although the music it aired pre-dated it as late 1920s or 30s.
Window Seat, Apartment Museum, Kaliningrad
As with the interior décor no expense in detail had been spared with regard to the café’s furniture, all of which has a heritage background, from the open-sided armchair beside the counter to the two armchairs and circular salon table in front of the window. As these chairs were occupied by patrons, who were studiously observing an unwritten code of conduct, which is, or so it would seem, to adhere to a kind of library silence in the presence of the past, we took up temporary residence in the only seats available, Olga on a dining chair with a Rococo-style splat and myself on an interesting settle, which was comfortably upholstered and had, at either end, small fitted cabinets with carved, pierced fronts.
Partaking of tea in Apartment Museum Cafe ~ Königsberg
Tea was served in two dish-shaped china cups with matching saucers, backstamped Konig… . We could not make out the exact wording, but we felt certain that the proprietor of this establishment would not have trusted us with an original Königsberg tea service.
Vintage china tea cup, Gustav Grossmann Cafe, Königsberg
More or less observing the silence that everyone else was bound to, we drank our tea and continued our visual assessment, taking in the various enamel-fronted advertising signs that no antique-oriented premise should ever be without and recognising three wall-mounted cast-iron signs as tram destination plates, each bearing the number of a specific tram and the Königsberg districts which each tram had served. These distinctive and, I should imagine, highly sought-after Königsberg mementoes, which remembered the route that specific trams took, I had only seen once before and that was in the art studio of our late friend Victor Ryabinin.
Apartment Museum Cafe sells antiques
Alas, these plaques were not for sale, but some of the items were. There were three large wood and glass display cabinets containing all manner of small antique pieces ~ ceramics, tableware, relics from Königsberg ~ as well as some larger items, such as a silver-topped walking cane and a silk top hat, all of which could be purchased. Both Olga and I took an interest in the two-tier, Art Nouveau plant stand, which was slightly more unusual than the standard fare, but as the asking price was considerably higher than that which I would normally expect to pay for a similar piece in England, our interest remained just that.
We finished our tea and now that Stas had arrived and wanted a smoke, we joined the other interested parties who were waiting outside on the damp and chilly streets for the venue to open.
As 11am came and went Stas took the initiative to ring the doorbell. And seconds later the door was opened by a tall lady appropriately dressed Edwardian style, that is in a high-necked blouse and long woolen dress fastened and highlighted around the waist by an enamel-buckled cinch belt.
We were shown in to the communal hallway of the
building, a spacious entrance hall with a flight of six or seven steps to the
ground-floor landing, beyond which could be seen a rather imposing wooden railed
staircase.
The door to the time capsule we were about to enter was mid-brown wood, with long vertical paneling , the upper section letting in light through a series of small windows, the glass inside being of the wire-reinforced variety. Our little entourage filed one by one inside and as we passed ~ me gratefully ~ from the 21st century into the past, I pointed out the doorbell to Olga, which was housed in a metal plate wrought into a typical and prepossessing Art Nouveau design.
Art Nouveau doorbell, Apartment Museum, Kaliningrad
The corridor inside the flat was rather narrow and, indeed, we were soon to discover that this merchant’s flat was of no great proportion anywhere. Naturally, the space was made considerably less by the unusual volume of people that it now occupied, all at once milling and jostling as they tried to divest themselves of their outer winter garments to place in temporary storage within the deep, but not very wide, cloakroom reserved for this purpose.
Naturally, the initial impact of the transition from now to then, from new to old, would be better served with less people present, but ventures such as these need to be administered and maintained, and I would anticipate that the fee for a private viewing might prove cost-prohibitive. Nevertheless, I did find room to reflect on how reserved and dignified Mr Grossmann’s hallway was, with its black and white tiled floor, tall dark doors fitted with ornate and heavy brass handles and its wonderful bygone telephone, equipped with open cradle and sporting a large pair of bells.
Open-plan design
When we were all partially disrobed, so to speak, we were led into the living quarters, which was fundamentally one large room divided into two halves by the simple decorative effect of wooden vertical frames and pierced and moulded fretwork where the uprights meet the ceiling.
The door through which we had entered had taken us effectively into the living room/study. In the corner of the room, in front of the window, was a desk with shelves and drawers in all the usual places and with more incorporated in the elevated section of a glazed cabinet super structure. The desk held various interesting and curious pieces, including the first typewriter I had seen manufactured by Mercedes Benz. Next to the desk there was a large double-fronted glazed cabinet, containing many antique artefacts, and next to that a small sofa and copper-topped circular table.
This table was one for us. It had a built-in standard lamp, with a large bell-shaped fabric lampshade centred above it, c.1920s. Other objects of interest in this part of the room included a small, circular gramophone table complete with horn-type gramophone, a very nice carved and stuffed-over seat corner chair, used here as a desk chair, and various wall-hung paintings and antique ornaments.
Mr Grumpy (photograph withheld)
One thing that Olga had not forewarned me about was that Stas would be translating as the guide spoke, and Stas, in turn, had not been forewarned that Mr Grumpy was present. Mr Grumpy took umbrage at Stas’ mumblings in English, and even after Stas had explained his intent and purpose, Mr G could not quite permit himself the liberty of graciousness, turning every now and then to scowl at us, until eventually he slid away. At first I felt myself lean charitably in his direction, after all had not he paid for the tour like everyone else? ~ so why would he want to be distracted by Stas’ infernal utterances? But by and by I noticed that he was pretty much dissatisfied with everybody and everything. Perhaps his wife had dragged him there when he should have been in the bar? (If that had been the case, then it was perfectly understandable!)
Gustav Grossmann? No, Mick Hart at Gustav’s desk!
The guide’s talk continued for some time but the duration was necessary as we were not after all in the Palace of Versailles but in a very small, lower middle-class apartment, which, had the guide whipped us through, would have no doubt had Mr Grumpy demanding his entrance fee back!
Judging by the reaction of the rest of the group, with the omission of Mr Grumpy, the guide’s efforts appeared to meet with universal appreciation. Even with my sparse knowledge of Russian I could tell that she was a good speaker, instigating and maintaining interest and adding to it, from time to time, by drawing our attention to certain curious items, which she passed around for people to hold and examine, asking if anyone knew what they had been used for in their previous life. This technique was adopted throughout the tour, and, I am proud to say, I got most of the items right, except for a small pagoda-style, black-lacquered miniature house which, it transpired, had been a pet sanctuary for crickets, no less. As they say, and quite rightly so, you learn something new every day.
The second half of the room into which we had first been shown functioned as the dining area, the taper-legged table and simple but appealing early 20th century chairs occupying centre place. Behind the table, set against the wall, stood a typical Könisbergian lump of a sideboard. I do not mean to sound disparaging, since these heavy, massy pieces of furniture typically adorned with heraldic and armorial appliques and supported on chunky ball and claw feet or, as in this example, large lion pads, solicit the Gothic in me, but I fully understand that their dominating presence is not, as we English are wont to say, everyone’s cup of tea.
Apartment Museum magnificent fireplace/stove
In this instance, however, it was the fireplace that got the better. Here we had a typical German glazed-tile fire-come-boiler affair ~ a masonry heater ~ distinguished above any I had seen hitherto, with the possible exception of one very ornate example, which may or may not be original, which resides within a hotel bar on a picturesque stretch of the river a few kilometers from Königsberg.
The fireplace we were privy to today owed its impressive status to its two-tiered format, and the fact that the decorative tiling was taken up from floor to ceiling, the top being surmounted with a rather elaborate carved and scrolled finial.
The metal grate doors at the lower level of the boiler also expressed an Art Nouveau intricacy, the artistic quality of which I have not witnessed elsewhere in this region.
Overall, the furnished and decorative note struck in Mr Grossmann’s flat was a mellow and conservative one, possessing and conveying an unaffected dignity. Towards this consummation the doors, all of which exhibited the same uniformity of design, added not a little. In fact, they stamped an authority of social standing on the nature of this abode, their dark-wood, tall and sober character surmounted by a dignifying architectural gable pediment.
Crotchless bloomers
The next stop on the itinerary was the bedroom. It was not at all very spacious and the two wooden single beds pushed together to make a pseudo double bed allowed for nothing more than a cabinet and a dressing table. The most remarkable bygone in this room was the mannequin, or rather the female underwear in which it was dressed, of which the principal feature was the long pantaloons. These, our guide revealed, were split-crotched in the most significant manner, which, my wife concluded, explained why men in the early 20th century made such an eager audience when young ladies danced the can-can.
Apartment Museum guide, Kaliningrad
You see what I mean when I say, ‘you learn something
new every day’.
We could not all get into the confines of the bed chamber, so some of us were necessitated to undertake our viewing from the hall, along which we then walked, as instructed by our guide, to the kitchen.
Nowhere does bygone domestic life impress itself more contrastively than in the kitchen setting. The kitchen décor of our modern age and the implements we use therein would seem so thoroughly futuristic from an early 20th century point of view, and also more recently for those who lived in the 1940s, as to make them impossible to envision. In years gone by kitchen items were heavy, solid-state, screwed, riveted, mechanical; they were constructed from metal and glazed stoneware, cast and wrought iron, and they were obviously made to last, which is why they are still with us. A few people aspire when they behold kitchens of yester-year to recreate something similar in their own home as a retro statement, but few people ~ only those of the most stalwart nature with a near to obsessive love of obsolescent times ~ are willing to go the whole hog, completely renouncing smooth, easy-to-clean surfaces and modern, time-saving kitchen utensils [see Art Exhibition Kaliningrad] for their more quirky but difficult to use and maintain predecessors.
Early 20th century kitchen utensils
In Mr Grossmann’s flat, the kitchen was quite small. Too many cooks was certainly not an option. The kitchen stove, or range, ruled the visual roost, it was, after all, an indispensable piece of home-living equipment, in this case cast iron, the front beige and green-enamel tiled and the whole raised on sculpted, ornate cabriole legs.
Above the cooker there was a row of hooks containing various kitchen utensils and, on the wall, cream and white enamel back-plates with integral hooks on which hung various straining, stirring and other culinary implements. The back plates to these utensil holders are lovingly shaped and are much sought after today by discerning collectors and interior decorators. Enamel products were, of course, the kitchen equipment stalwarts of their day, and another nice example, one of which I had seen before in Victor Ryabinin’s studio, was a three-compartmentalised kitchen-cleaning substance holder, which included a slot for a product well-known in England, Persil, the name of which, along with others, is printed on the surface.
Slider-controlled enamel kitchen shopping list reminder, c1910-20
One item that I was not acquainted with was an early refrigerator. The appliance looked like a tall, square, solid wooden box, but when the lid was lifted the top section could be seen to contain a perforated metal basket. The cabinet space below held the provisions whilst the ice above cooled the interior. A simple mechanism indeed, but I suppose it must have worked.
The kitchen was large enough to accommodate a dresser,
with glazed cabinets to the upper middle section flanked by two enclosed
cabinets, in which an assortment of curious contraptions were displayed, and
the storage space offered by this piece of furniture was augmented by a small
larder in the corner of the room, containing a stimulating jamboree of bottles,
tins and jars, many with ageing contents.
The last room on the inventory was the toilet and bathroom, and this indispensable facility was to be found on the left just inside the door. You’ve just got to love a proper toilet, being one with a high-rise cistern with a chain and porcelain hand-pull, of German heritage of course.
Gustav Grossmann’s toilet requisites
Whether large country estate, stately home or a relatively small apartment such as this one, the question I always ask myself at the conclusion of my visit is not did it interest me but did it have the desired effect, namely during the time I spent there was I there at the time and in a different time at the same time? The answer in the case of Kaliningrad’s (Königsberg’s) Museum Apartment is Yes. Thank you Apartment Museum and thank you Mr Grossmann!
