Thoughts on the fifth anniversary of the death of Victor Ryabinin
18 July 2024 ~ Königsberg Artist Beyond the One in a Million
I am asked by the curious both in my native country, England, and in Russia, why my blog is dedicated to Victor Ryabinin.
Surely, a blog written in English whose target audience is presumably English people could have been dedicated to any one of a number of English friends or colleagues with whom I am close or hold in high esteem?
To answer this question, I turned to the many people whom I have crossed paths with, and some with whom I have crossed swords, and drew the conclusion that outside of my family circle only three people, excluding Victor, qualified. One is my friend of 44 years, Mel (Melbourne) Smith; the other his brother, Rolly Smith; and the last, but by no means least, Mr Richard Oberman, my former English literature tutor, who taught at Kettering Technical College, aka Tresham College.
Mel and Rolly Smith are two of my life’s most colourful characters. They were an investment in experience which paid dividends in friendship. Without them I would have foregone so much by way of excitement and laughter that an omission of this magnitude would have been nothing short of criminal. Looking back, with the help of my diaries, the exploits that we shared have taken on a legendary status, made more so by the retelling of them. Of all the things in life that cannot be overvalued, friendship, laughter and camaraderie are difficult to compete with. Theirs is the currency in which we trust: the gold standard.
Richard Oberman was a master of his vocation. Dry humoured, slightly off the wall but always in control, he would play his classes like a fiddle. As good a psychologist as he was a teacher, he would deftly juggle his act using the stick and carrot approach to win his students over. He was our general, we were his troops, and like every astute and accomplished leader he brought us on by steady degrees to trust, obey and admire him. Displaying an in-depth knowledge of and an absolute love for his subject, better than any who would teach me later at university level, by the encouragement he gave and the respect that he engendered, he opened up a future for me to which before I had been oblivious and in the process of doing so changed the course of my life forever.
Set against this exquisite triumvirate, Mel, Rolly and Richard Oberman, who and what was Victor Ryabinin?
Königsberg Artist Victor Ryabinin
Victor Ryabinin was born in Königsberg, where, like the great German philosopher Emmanuel Kant before him, he worked, lived out his life and died. He shared with Emmanuel Kant a genuine, singular love for the city, and though he travelled quite extensively whereas Emmanuel Kant did not, he shared the convictions of the city’s academia that Königsberg was a spiritual magnet drawing into its centre intellectual and artistic excellence from the highest minds and most sentient hearts and from every sphere of imaginable talent.
Victor Ryabinin, the artist and historian, charmed all who came in contact with him. His professional and bohemian side possessed an aura of mystique and an intuited profundity. Like most creative minds, a managing ego must have been working somewhere behind the scenes, but wherever he kept it hidden it never got the upper hand and through all the years I knew him, he was never anything less than open, honest, affable, modest and perfectly unassuming. Indeed, Victor Ryabinin, the man, epitomised the best that human nature can offer. He was everything you could want and more than you could hope for. He was an ambassador for humankind.
Victor had a gentle heart, a warm welcome, and no edge to his character. He had a wonderful sense of humour that was often self-effacing (he said that those who could laugh at themselves had a right to laugh at others). He was endowed with a gravitational presence, a generous sense of spirit and had the most enchanting art studio, where I, for one, never painted but sat with him for hours on end, talking history, eating gherkins, smoking cigars of a cherry flavour and drinking beer and vodka.
Victor’s company never grew old. Victor himself never grew old. He collected years like the Königsberg relics with which he adorned his studio, but the years, like all who knew him, respected his ageless spirit. Driven and sustained by an endless curiosity and an endearing fascination for everybody and every new thing, this was perhaps the secret elixir by which he kept himself ever young.
The grim irony of his dying just nine short months from the time when he, more than anyone else, brought me to Kaliningrad, and the way in which his death, inconceivable and unexpected, swept away the blueprint of my future, came as a stark reminder, as it had with the death of my friend Mel Smith, that whilst we may all be unique and some of us exceptional, those most precious to us are simply irreplaceable, so that when they up and leave arm in arm with death a sizeable chunk of our present and more, much more, of our future leaves the table with them.
Victor Ryabinin disclosed that he would reach out to such people who possessed the qualities that he lacked. This statement alone reveals the modesty and humility that endeared him to so many, for it is difficult to imagine what those qualities could have been that he failed to see in himself whilst everyone around him saw them with such clarity.
If throughout my life I had taken a leaf from Victor’s book and leant towards those people whose qualities I lack, I would, to paraphrase my old friend Cohen, have “leant that way forever”.
In retrospect, my choice of friends would appear to have been determined on criteria not dissimilar to that adopted by Molly Fox, my former boss at a publishing house, who once confided in me that she no longer filled job placements on applicant suitability but according to their eccentricity, interest value and personality.
If ever a man could tick these boxes, and the many more besides by which exceptionality can be measured and companionship appreciated, then Victor Ryabinin was that man.
I have yet to meet another like him. I know I never will.
“I first met Victor Ryabinin in the spring of 2001. A friend of my wife’s, knowing how much my wife liked art and how fascinated I was with anything to do with the past, suggested that we meet this ‘very interesting’ man, who was an artist and a historian.” ~ by Mick Hart
“The first year of Victor Ryabinin’s life could have been his last. There was an epidemic in Königsberg which wiped out hundreds of children, both German and Russian. The military doctor who came to visit the Ryabinin family broke Victor’s parents’ heart when he delivered the verdict that there was nothing to be done to help their child. ‘A day, perhaps two,’ he said, ‘and the child will die’.” ~ by Boris Nisnevich
“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” ~ by Stanislav Konovalov ~ student and friend of Victor Ryabinin
Updated 18 April 2022 | First published: 2 March 2021 ~ Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West
[INTRO} I wrote this piece over a year ago, at a time when western media had nothing better to do than push a hysteria-fomenting narrative about the coronavirus pandemic; now, apparently, it has nothing better to do than to push a hysteria-fomenting narrative about the situation in Ukraine. Bearing this in mind, I dutifully revisited my post to see if anything had changed regarding my opinion of life in Russia and to what extent if any western media had succeeded in convincing me that I would be happier in the UK than if I remained a sanctioned Englishman living in Kaliningrad. I am pleased, but not surprised, to say that other than one or two grammatical improvements, there was nothing to revise! Here’s that post again …
We left the UK for Kaliningrad in winter 2018, but things were far from settled. Over the next twelve months I would have to return to the UK three or four times to renew my visa and to obtain official documents and then return again to pay an extortionate sum of money for a notarised apostille, a little rosette-looking thing verified by a notary that once clipped to the official documents could be used to complete my Leave to Remain in Russia. It was expensive; it was a rigmarole; but obtaining Leave to Remain meant that opening visas would be a thing of the past.
The last time that I was in the UK was December 2019. I returned to Kaliningrad just in time for the New Year celebrations and a month or so afterwards was granted Leave to Remain. We had intended to return to the UK in April for a month, as we had some business to attend to, but before we could do that coronavirus came along and the rest, as they say, is history.
In a previous article I revealed the circumstances which persuaded us to leave the UK and move to Kaliningrad. Now, with December 2019 to the present date being the longest uninterrupted period that I have been in Kaliningrad, it would seem appropriate that I pause to reflect on what it is about Kaliningrad that drew me to it and continues to endear and fascinate.
Our friend, the late Victor Ryabinin, used to refer to Kaliningrad and its surrounding territory as ‘this special place’, and I am with him on that. Whether it is because I see Kaliningrad through his eyes and feel it through his heart, I cannot rightly say. Certainly, his outlook and philosophy on life influenced me and my intuition bears his signature, but I rather imagine that he perceived in me from the earliest time of our friendship something of a kindred spirit, someone who shared his sensibility for the fascination of this ‘special place’.
Nevertheless, my feelings for Kaliningrad are in no way blinkered by a Romanticist streak, which, yes, I do have. If Victor could describe himself as a cheerful pessimist, then I have no qualms in describing myself as a pragmatic Romanticist. But I am no more or less a stranger to Kaliningrad’s flaws and imperfections than I am to my own.
When we arrived in Kaliningrad on a very cold day in winter 2018 to make arrangements for moving here, we were thrown in at the deep end. Early in the morning, still tired from our flight the night before, we had official business that would not wait, which meant trekking off to one of the city’s less salubrious districts. We had given ourselves sufficient time, allowances having been made for the usual protracted queuing, but on reaching our destination discovered that the office we were bound for was working to a different timetable than the one advertised, and consequently we had a two-hour wait before we would be seen! Asking some kind people if they would reserve our place in the queue, we ventured out to a small eatery, a cubicle on the side of the road, for a coffee and a bite to eat. I wrote in my diary:
“Outside, we were confronted yet again by downtown Kaliningrad at its ‘finest’: those ubiquitous concrete tower blocks, stained, crumbling and patched; pavements cracked, ruptured and sunken; kerbstones akimbo; grass verges churned by the wheels of numerous vehicles so that they resembled farmyard gateways; small soviet-era fences rusting and broken; and roads so full of potholes that I began to wonder if it was 1945 again and looked anxiously above me to check for the presence of Lancasters.
When I returned to Kaliningrad from England in December 2019, I wrote: “I am not sure whether I love Kaliningrad in spite of its imperfections or because of them”.
Kaliningrad beyond the headlines of the West
They say that it is people that make places what they are, and it is a difficult-to-disprove logic. In the UK, for example, left-leaning commentators, liberal media editors, state-blamers and apologists are continually referring to ‘disadvantaged’ people from ‘deprived areas’, whereas in my experience it is people who deprive areas not areas that deprive people and the only disadvantage is yours, if you should wander into these areas by mistake.
Case in point: Back in the 1990s I had a female acquaintance who lived in a notorious concrete citadel in south London’s Peckham; her reputation I was assured of, but when I visited her one late afternoon in autumn, my knowledge of the Badlands where she lived was incipiently less important to me than my amorous intent. Ahh, the follies of youth!
When it came time to leave, I was ready to phone for a taxi. It was then that she informed me that after dark taxis refused to enter the estate, in fact the entire area! I suggested hailing a black cab in the street and was told that black cabs were as “rare ‘round here as rocking horse s!*t!”.
There was nothing for it: I would have to walk. I cannot say that I was unduly perturbed by this prospect. I was young, well relatively young, and these were the days of my London-wide pub crawls, which would take me to every corner of London no matter which corner it was.
On this particular evening, I had not walked far before I espied my first pub. I was still some distance from it, and though the light from the one or two working streetlamps was dim, the building was easily distinguished as the front was bathed in a low, lurid glow.
As I drew closer, I discovered to my surprise that someone had propped a large mattress on the side of the pub wall and had set light to it. It must have been very damp, the proverbial piss-stained mattress I suppose, because the conflagration was limited to a slow, puthering, smoulder.
Being the Good Samaritan that I am, I popped my head around the pub door and called to the chap behind the bar, “Hey, did you know that there is a burning mattress strapped to the side of your pub?” I need not have felt so daft for saying this, as, barely looking up from his newspaper, the barman grunted in reply, “It’s not unusual around here, mate.”
I had not walked far from The Burning Mattress pub before I found another: The Demolition Inn. All of the windows on the pavement side were smashed, and one pathetic light shone miserably through the broken glass in what otherwise would be a superb and original 1920s’ doorway. I couldn’t just walk past!
The place was empty and quiet, but it had not always been. Evidence had it that not too long ago it had been extremely lively. In one corner there was a pile of broken furniture and that which was still standing had bandaged legs and strung-up backs. The mirror behind the bar was bust, western-film style, and all of the more expensive bottles, the shorts, had been removed from the shelves and the optics, presumably for their own safety.
I never did ask what had happened. It just did not seem the polite thing to do. I just ordered a pint from the man behind the bar, who had a lovely shining black eye and his arm in the nicest of slings, and spent the next thirty minutes on my own in this disadvantaged pub, philosophically ruminating on the nasty way in which bricks and mortar and the wider urban environment deprived people to such an extent that there was nothing they could do but set light to piss-stained mattresses, smash up backstreet pubs, terrify London cabbies and (a popular sport in London’s predominantly ethnic areas) mug the hapless white man.
So, what can we conclude from this? Most large towns and cities have rundown areas, but the difference between the rundown areas in Kaliningrad and those that we know and avoid in London and other UK cities ~ the ‘deprived areas’, as they are called ~ is that you are less likely to be deprived of your possessions, your faculties even your life, whilst walking through the Kaliningrad equivalents of the UK’s infamous sink estates. Although, to be precise, such equivalents do not exist.
Thus, without sounding too fanciful, let us agree that it is people ~ the way they act, talk, behave, dress and generally conduct themselves in public ~ that makes a place what it is. An observation that applies to anywhere ~ be it a 1920s’ terraced street, a 1970s’ concrete estate, a pedestrianised city centre, anywhere ~ from region to region, country to country.
I am not about to make any silly sweeping statements about what Russian people are really like. I could not accomplish this with any degree of validity if someone was to ask me to ‘sum up’ British people (not the least because true British are lumped together with people from foreign lands, who in appearance and behaviour are anything but British, and yet have a stamp in their passport that contradicts good sense) simply because every individual is different no matter where he or she hails from. What I can say hand on heart is that in the 22 years that I have been coming to Kaliningrad, I have had the good fortune to meet, and in some instances become friends with, people of the highest calibre in this small corner of Russia.
It is true that in June 2019 we lost Victor Ryabinin, which was and still is an inconsolable loss, and tragedy would overtake us again in November 2020, when our friend and Victor’s protégé, Stas Konovalov, who helped us through the emotional period of Victor’s death and with whom we shared so many good times, died also. For the second time in less than two years, irreplaceable people had been taken from us. We continue to miss them both.
As it had been for Stas and Victor, history plays an important part in my relationship with Kaliningrad. There is, of course, my own personal history of Kaliningrad, an interaction that stretches back over two decades, and then the energy of the greater past that flows from antiquity into the present. In Kaliningrad, and its region, the past and present parallel each other. There are times and places where the past seems so close that you feel all you need to do is reach out, pull back the curtain and take its hand in yours.
“There is something magnetic in this city; it pulled some of the world’s most significant people into it as it has pulled me. I cannot explain this magic, but I know that this is my city.”
Victor Ryabinin
For some, this confluence of the past has more disturbing connotations. My wife’s mother, who is attuned to the ‘otherness’ of our existence, complains that although she likes Kaliningrad, there is something inescapably ‘heavy’ about it, defined by her as emanating from its dark Teutonic and German past. And I am inclined to agree with her. But I do not share her more gloomy interpretation of the dark side or its negative affect. For me, the cloud has a silver lining: it is profundity and, at its core, cultural sensitivity, interlaced with creative energy. Indeed, creativity and creative people thrived and flourished in Königsberg and that legacy, I am pleased to say, lives on to this day.
Königsberg ~ the retrospective world of artist Victor Ryabinin
Whilst the bricks and mortar of Königsberg’s ruins ~ the haunting landscape in which Victor Ryabinin spent his susceptible childhood ~ may have largely been replaced, the spirit of the old city and the spirits of all those who passed through it, whether peacefully or violently during times of war, are ever present. And I earnestly believe that the energy of our two departed friends, Victor and Stas, walk among the living here as countless others do who were brought to this place by fate.
Königsberg after allied bombing ~ the childhood landscape of Victor RyabininKaliningrad 2019
Victor wrote that “there is something magnetic in this city; it pulled some of the world’s most significant people into it as it has pulled me. I cannot explain this magic, but I know that this is my city.”
I was told by someone, not by Victor himself, that Victor believed that no matter how we felt about the past, we have to live in the present. I never did get chance to ask him whether by that he meant that we had no choice but to live in the present or that we each had a moral imperative to do so, but whichever version you choose, I would qualify both by adding that to a certain extent we can pick and mix, take what we need from the past and present and leave the rest behind.
In my case, the past and present converge, and I am attracted to modern-day Kaliningrad as much as I am fascinated by its East Prussian, German and Soviet history.
When English people call me out, asking pointedly what it is I like about Kaliningrad. I reply, glibly: “What’s not to like?”
Of course, I start with the historical perspective ~ it would not be me if I didn’t ~ referring to the Teutonic Order, ancient Königsberg, Königsberg’s fate during the Second World War and its Soviet reincarnation. I emphasise what a fascinating destination it is for those who are interested in military history and woo antique and vintage dealers with seductive tales of dug-up relics, the incomparable fleamarket and colourful descriptions of alluring pieces hidden away in the city’s antique shops.
Relics of Königsberg & Soviet Kaliningrad’s past
Then I go on to say that Kaliningrad is a vibrant and dynamic city, a city of contrasts, of surprises; I talk up its superb bars and restaurants, the variety and price of the beer, the museums and art galleries, the excellent public transport facilities, the attractive coastal resorts that are a mere forty minutes away and cost you two quid by train or a tenner by taxi, the UNESCO World Heritage Curonian Spit, the small historic villages, how friendly the natives are to visitors and, when the wife is not about, the presence of many beautiful women.
Above: Kaliningrad region’s main coastal resorts: Svetlogorsk & Zelenogradsk
*********Editorial note [18 April 2022]******** In the paragraphs to follow, I refer to the onerous restrictions which at the time of writing were impacting international travel in the name of coronavirus. Since then, you will have probably noticed that we have entered a new, dramatically more restricting chapter in the history of international travel, thanks to the West’s anti-Russian hysteria and its sanction-futile attempts to isolate the largest country on Earth. This ill-advised and not very well thought through economic warfare programme has added multiple layers of estranging complexity for global travellers everywhere, not just for potential visitors who want to leave the West to travel to Kaliningrad. From a purely selfish standpoint, these self-defeating impositions have merely made the ‘special place’ that Kaliningrad is to me that little bit more special, its taboo status, difficult-to-get-to location and mythicised risk to westerners making my ‘secret holiday destination’ even more enticing, albeit, ironically, somewhat less secret since in the latest round of Russophobia it has been singled out as a strategic military obstacle to the New World Order aspirations of neoliberal globalism.
You will also find in my later comments evidence supporting Russia’s assertion that the West’s attempts to stigmatise and degrade its international standing and denigrate its culture did not start with Ukraine. The events that we see unfolding today have been a long time in the making and by comparing my honest depiction of life in Kaliningrad with life as you know it in the UK, you should begin to understand why Russia’s traditional cultural ethos inflames the rancour of the West and why it fuels a burning desire in its governments to corrupt, transform and replace that culture with something sub-standard resembling their own. All I can say is Heaven forbid! *********End of Editorial note [18 April 2022]********
Admittedly, as with everywhere else in the world, access to Kaliningrad and accessibility with regard to its facilities have suffered restrictions through the outbreak of coronavirus, but hopefully it will not be long before the borders are open again. Before coronavirus struck, I was looking forward to excursions into Poland and to Vilnius, Lithuania ~ one of my favourite cities ~ and I want to make that train trip across Russia to Siberia.
As I say, what’s not to like?
Above: Scenes from Kaliningrad and its Baltic Coast region
I realise, of course, that this is not what most English people expect or even want to hear. The UK media has done a good demolition job on Russia over the years, especially Kaliningrad. True, each year that goes by, as things improve here and grow inversely worse in the West, the UK media is finding it increasingly difficult to slag Kaliningrad off. Who can forget its failed propaganda coup in 2018, when it pulled every trick in the book in an attempt to terrify British fans from travelling to Russia for the World Cup?! The plan backfired spectacularly, since the fans that trusted in their own intuition and came to Kaliningrad in spite of media hype were later to report how immensely they enjoyed themselves. What an ‘own goal’ for the West and an embarrassing one at that!
Nevertheless, UK and American liberals continue to bang their conspiratorial heads against the door of this nation state, taking solace in the belief that should they ever run out of tall and sensational stories, there’s always Kaliningrad’s ‘military threat’, to latch onto. Simultaneously, they promise to bestow on Mother Russia ~ as if she is an ‘it’ or an ‘other’ (now, isn’t that just typical!) ~ the rights equivalent of the Emperor’s New Clothes, and all for the knock-down bargain price of Russia becoming a vassal state of the New World Liberal Disorder.
When I am asked about Kaliningrad, I respond to the critics by saying that I can only tell it how I find it, from my point of view, and that the Kaliningrad that I know is not the one readily fictionalised by UK mainstream media. They listen, but I suspect that Brits being Brits they routinely dismiss me as a latter-day Lord Haw Haw, even though the only hawing I do is when reflecting on their entrenched dogmas I allow myself a good chuckle.
However, there is one thing about Kaliningrad that has changed decisively for me: When I first came here, I was a tourist. I came for the good times; I had a good time; and then I went home until the next good time. I was a tourist.
Holiday venues are like that, they exist in the distance of your life, somewhere on the periphery. It’s a bit like having a mistress, or so they tell me: you can call round when it pleases you, take your pleasure, vow one day that you will move in together and then return to your life and forget it, until that is of course holiday time comes round again.
The risk is, however, that by returning time and time again ~ to places not mistresses (although …) ~ you develop friendships, and before you know it you have become a part of their life and they a part of yours. Your lives become enmeshed. You learn about each other’s hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, dreams and aspirations. You gain an informed insight into each other’s past and the course your lives have taken, and whilst you are living in each other’s lives fate, which is working behind the scenes, is quietly writing you into its narrative
The point at which you find yourself no longer living on the outside but looking in is indistinct, but it occurs somewhere at that imperceptible juncture where you are not only sharing the ‘ups’ of people’s lives but also the ‘downs’.
This is particularly true when you fall into the raw, barely consolable emotion, grief, in which fused as one by pain and despair, you eventually emerge on the other side less intact than you were but brothers in arms and sorrow. Such experiences are not peculiar to me or to Kaliningrad, or for that matter to any one time and place; they are timeless, universal. But it is these experiences that will ultimately determine which are the stations on your way and which your final destination.
And do you know what is most awesome? It is that you never know where it will be until after you arrive there.
Zelenogradsk in the sun … It’s not always cold in Russia!!
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.)
Published: 18 July 2021 ~ Victor Ryabinin a word with him after his Death
On the second anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death, I recall Victor saying of himself, “I suppose you could call me a cheerful pessimist.” His ironic self-assessment led me to the conclusion that if he could call himself a cheerful pessimist, I could call myself (amongst other things!) a pragmatic Romanticist.
My wife, Olga, however, is an explorer of and believer in esoteric, spiritual and metaphysical doctrines. Thus, it was no contraindication of our normality that just before falling asleep one night Olga should embark upon an epilogue that adumbrated her philosophic convictions that human kind, the world as we perceive it and the universe of which we are a part operate as an omnipotent mechanism, a machine of Art Nouveau amalgamation melding and interconnecting all of nature’s components, giving them purpose and place within a grand and mysterious scheme that starts before life and does not end with death.
I prefer to count sheep myself, or beer bottles, but that’s pragmatic Romanticism for you.
Olga believes that if you want something and that you visualise that something with devout conviction you can shape your own reality. It is simply another way of saying, “Life is what you make it”, or in Hollywood speak, “Dreams really can come true”.
On this particular occasion, however, she was not talking about her extreme good fortune of having met and married me, but about her increasing interest in and love for Königsberg-Kaliningrad, which has received inspirational impetus from her recent discovery of the architectural splendours of Komsomolskaya street, the street on which the Home for Veterans is situated, a street which has more than its fair share of late 19th century early 20th century buildings, built, embellished, thankfully preserved and carefully restored, in the grand style. She was so entranced by her May-time visit to this street that she wrote about it on her Facebook page:
Olga Korosteleva-Hart [Facebook]
Shared with Public
Do not underestimate the importance of the human factor! These beautiful bas-reliefs would have been destroyed if it were not for the woman in this series of pictures, whose name I sadly did not ask. She told me that building site workers tried to hammer the bas-reliefs from the walls of this 19th century house just before they began to paint the building, arguing that the symbols were Germanic and therefore were not relevant to Russians. It was only when the lady reasoned with them and wrote complaints to the city’s administration that the reliefs were restored and repainted in their original colour.
The history of the suburb of Hufen (the location of the buildings) is mentioned in the 13th century, but only in the 19th century did it begin to assume the shape that Kaliningrad’s residents see today. Queen Louise of Prussia spent her summer months in Luisenval, as this area was known in her time [early 19th century] , and this was the reason for its rapid development.
In the 19th century Hufen was divided into three parts: Forder Hufen – Far Hufen, Mittelhufen – Middle Hufen and Hinter Hufen ~ Further Hufen and was later renamed Amalienau. By this time, the urban layout of the streets had already been formed, and the wealthy owners of the villas laid a cobblestone road. In 1896, an architectural competition for the development of the Luisenallee, organised by the Eastern Bank of Konigsberg, established planning rules. The first and most important rule was to restrict the height of the buildings, the second was to adhere to half-timbered construction and the third to incorporate abundant decorative elements. The rules also spelt out several mandatory cosmetic conditions, one of which involved the addition of elegant ornamentation iconic to Gothic architecture or associated with national romantic symbols.
I would like to thank the lovely lady who managed to save these evocative ancient pagan symbols from modern barbarism. If we all cared about our environment and our shared history regardless of nationality as she does, life would be so much more beautiful!
And, note this:
“I love my city! Vibrant, busy and green!”
Victor Ryabinin, a word with him after his death
She told me that whilst she was walking along this street, she realised just how much she loved Kaliningrad. She said that she sees its imperfections less and less and that, like Victor, she is always discovering and learning something new.
She thought how pleased Victor would have been to have known how much Kaliningrad and its Königsberg heritage meant to her, and, as she was thinking this, Victor appeared to her.
She said, I spoke to him. I asked what he was doing now, and he replied that I am still learning; I am just in another realm.
She connected these mutual feelings about Kaliningrad to her ‘life is what you want it to be’ philosophy. Some people, she infers, can see the good in Kaliningrad, others cannot or will not. But, she believes, that if you see and feel Kaliningrad-Königsberg in a positive light, the city will reward you.
She proceeded to remind me of a day we spent with Victor. We were walking past an old, partly burnt-out Königsberg building. When we brought this building to Victor’s attention, he chuckled. He told us that years ago it used to be a police station. He must have been rather drunk one night, because having been arrested on the streets of Kaliningrad he had the pleasure of spending the night in the cells of this building. When they released him, he cursed the place and wished it would burn down. Shortly afterwards, it did.
From which we had to conclude that our kind, inoffensive and easy-going friend was something of a subliminal pyromaniac. Still, I never had a problem when we visited him in his studio in getting a light for my cigar.
But it was not the mysterious elements of these two stories that had prompted Olga to recall this day. It was Victor’s enthusiasm for a number of old buildings along the street where the burnt-out police station stood.
“I could not understand how Victor could be so excited by these buildings and by the spaces occupied by new buildings where old buildings used to be. I just did not get it,” said Olga. “But now I understand.”
The Mystical Nature of Victor Ryabinin
She alluded to the mystical qualities inherent in this city, referring to the symbolism expressed in the many bas-reliefs and in the other forms of ancient decoration, concluding that in days gone by, and not so long ago, people were more attuned to the other dimension, the world beyond our material existence. It was this intuitiveness that endowed people with a sense of belonging, belonging to the world and the universe. It imparted knowledge of the ‘otherness’ and the place that mortals occupy within its schema. It gave people a deeper insight into and understanding of the mystical, all of which is now threatened by an overt and misappropriated emphasis instilled and prosecuted by the globalists for the sake of their ‘Me, Myself, I’ culture, at the centre of which is alienating technology and the drive to reduce us all to nothing more than consumer clones. And I am sure that within this context coronavirus and its divisive objective also got a mention.
I thought for a moment, and then said, “There was certainly something mystical about Victor.”
“We were perceptive to this,” she emphasised. “This is why we enjoyed Victor’s company, because we were on the same wavelength. Victor was unique in many ways. He was non-judgemental; he accepted people for what they were, and he accepted situations; I do not remember him being really negative about anything or anyone.”
It is two years now, by our understanding of time, since Victor stepped out of time, but hardly a day goes by when we do not mention him. Since his death, Victor has become the benchmark by which we judge both the architectural and cultural developments in this region. Whenever we observe something new, such as the restoration of an old building or the construction of a new one, one or other of us will ask, “I wonder if Victor would have approved of this?” or will categorically state, “Victor would have loved this!” or “Victor would not have liked this!” whatever the case may be.
On 20 May 2021, Olga learnt that the green light had been given for Kaliningrad to invest in and organise the Kant celebration, which is scheduled to take place on the anniversary of the birth of Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, in 2024.
As a boy who grew up in the ruins of Konigsberg and for whom this city and its history was his first love and his life’s work, the prospect of the Kant celebration was something that was very dear to Victor’s heart and something he had been looking forward to experiencing. Said Olga, on hearing the news that the Kant celebration was to go head: “Victor would have been so proud!”
We, too, are proud, to have been blessed with the friendship of Victor Ryabinin.
Postscript:
On the first anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death, our friend Stas (Stanislav Konovalov), student and friend of Victor Ryabinin, drove us to Victor’s graveside to pay our respects. Afterwards, we stopped in Kaliningrad and went for a short walk along the top of the ramparts and defensive banks next to the King’s Gate. Stas died in November 2020.
С большой грустью сообщаю, что наш дорогой друг Стас (Станислав Коновалов) скончался от послеоперационных осложнений во время лечения в больнице. Мы с женой Ольгой познакомились со Стасом в январе 2019 года. Нас познакомил с ним наш общий друг, художник Виктор Рябинин. Позже Стас рассказывал мне, что Виктор сказал ему: «В Калининград переезжает англичанин. Тебе следует с ним встретиться. Он интересный человек, и я думаю, вы найдете общий язык ». Я не совсем уверен, что заслуживаю быть названным «интересный», но мы нашли общий язык в нашей любви к истории в целом и в частности к истории Кенигсберга- Калининграда и его окрестностей. Важным элементом нашего общего языка было вдохновение, которое мы оба получили от нашего друга и наставника Виктора Рябинина. Вскоре после смерти Виктора Рябинина в июле 2019 года я сказал Стасу, что нашел две картины Виктора среди своих вещей в Англии. Он ответил с присущей ему скромностью, что, хотя у него нет картин Виктора Рябинина с его автографами, ему достаточно того, что у него есть «тайная гордость», заключающаяся в том, что он был «близок к этому великому человеку». «Я был его учеником много лет, – сказал он. Когда я рискнул предположить, что Виктор был его другом, Стас ответил, опять с присущей ему скромностью: «Виктор знал очень многих людей, но он, вероятно, не считал их всех своими друзьями. . Могу сказать, что я был его учеником, что я восхищался им и был счастлив в его обществе… »Затем он сделал паузу, прежде чем сказать:« Но я хотел бы думать, что он считал меня своим другом ». Стас был скромным человеком. Он скромно относился ко всем своим достижениям, даже тогда когда было совершенно очевидно, что у него было столько же, если не больше, прав их превозносить. В знак признания его достижений, я попросил Стаса написать краткий биографический отчет о его работе и жизни, в том числе о его отношениях с Виктором Рябининым, и поместил его очерк, вместе со ссылками на его практику экскурсовода на страницах своего постоянного блога под рубрикой “Виктор Рябинин Кенигсберг”. “Стас Калининград Кенигсберг Путеводитель”https://expatkaliningrad.com/personal-tour-guide-kaliningrad/ Стас очень много работал над своими проектами гида, оттачивая и совершенствуя их, снимая несколько видеороликов на YouTube и всегда спрашивая: «Что ты думаешь об этом аспекте?» “Все в порядке?” «Есть ли в сценарии видеоролика что-нибудь, что, по твоему мнению, требует пояснения?». Как и смерть Виктора Рябинина до него, смерть Стаса лишила Кенигсберг-Калининград еще одного его великого посла. Но нас его смерть лишила гораздо большего. Стас был человеком прямолинейным, открытым, искренним. Он был добрым человеком, всегда готовым помочь, он был сердцем хорошей компании. Вместе, мы делили общий язык прошлого, а я через него – общий, но очень важный язык – человеческий. В общем, Стас был самым ценным арсеналом – он был незаменимым другом, которого мы не могли себе позволить потерять.
