Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad by Mick Hart

Revised 18 July 2024 | First published: 17 April 2020

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.

Related article: An artist who can hear angels speak by Boris Nisnevich

When somebody prefaces an introduction with ‘you’ll like him/her’, the Imp of the Perverse often ensures that you won’t, but there is no doubt in my mind, or memory, that I warmed to Victor immediately. This surprised me, because I am naturally, or unnaturally, depending on your definition, cautious when meeting strangers, selective with whom I associate and when I do make friends I do so on my terms. But Victor was a prodigy; he won me over in an instant.

How much of his good nature, depth of intellect, openness and sincerity were perceived at that moment is open to question, and I am sure that the surroundings in which I found myself contributed not a little to my relaxed frame of mind, but I still recall that overriding impression, the one of being in the company of someone very special.

The Studio: Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

We met in Victor’s studio ~ a small, wedge-shaped room at the top of a non-descript concrete Soviet block of flats. Little did I know then as I climbed the tier upon tier of crumbling steps, how many more times in the next 18 years I would retrace my steps and how enthusiastically.

As an inveterate collector of vintage, antiques, junk, and having been obsessed with the past for as long as I can remember, at least from the age of four, Victor’s studio was an absolute paradise. It was a cornucopia of relics, a living memorial to the lost splendour of Königsberg, a stimulating reminder of its World War II legacy and a personalised reflection on its curious reincarnation as the Soviet city Kaliningrad.

The back wall of the studio alone was worth travelling one thousand, one hundred and seventy-five miles for! It had been clad from floor to ceiling with a carefully orchestrated mosaic of old enamel advertising, informational and military signs, some from pre-war Königsberg, others of wartime origin, validated as such by the presence of the swastika.

The back wall of the studio alone was worth travelling one thousand, one hundred and seventy-five miles for!

Stuff was everywhere: bottles dug out of the Königsberg ruins, the corroded remains of wartime weapons, vintage Soviet uniforms, metal wall plaques ~ including profiles of Hitler and Stalin ~ German and Soviet military helmets, plates, cutlery, jewellery, fragments of porcelain, bottles and bottle tops, religious icons of every shape and size, bits, bobs and all sorts of a thought-provoking nature. Everywhere ~ on tables, shelves, walls and floor was stuff ~ relics from a vapourised city sublimely sharing space with Victor’s works of art-history: his symbolic paintings, surreal sculptures and subliminally haunting ‘assemblages’.

Living history: Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

In one corner, by the wall, there was a set of old wooden steps that led to a small gantry, which had a slatted rail to the front. On our first visit to the studio in 2001, this rail was adorned with one or two vintage flags and three or four military visor caps. In those days, the ‘upper storey’ had been sufficiently empty for Victor to bed down there if the mood so took him. When we last visited in 2019, however, the entire front rail of the gantry was obscured with all manner of flags, hats and other items and the gantry itself was full. It was easy to see that Victor was, as they say, a man after my own heart! The studio was a nostalgists heaven! A work of living history to a city that had ceased to be.

On our first visit to the studio, we had taken with us a ‘picnic’: some meats, cheeses, salad items, crisps, olives and pickled gherkins. We had also taken some vodka. The small room was crowded, but we happily sat around the small rectangular table shared by all sorts of interesting bygones, including the busts of Marx and Lenin, who were watching us intently. This snack and vodka gathering in Victor’s room set in motion a social ritual which would be practised many times over the next 18 years.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

On my office wall, in the antique emporium that we used to run in England, hung a framed photograph of myself and Victor taken during a rainy day on Svetlogorsk (Rauschen) beach in winter 2004, together with a framed plaque of Lenin, which Victor had presented to me in the form of a spoof award. He had written the presentation in beautifully scrolling calligraphic script, but because at the time of the plaques creation he did not know my last name, only that I lived in Bedford, the dedication had been duly made out not to Mick Hart but ‘Mick Bedford’.

These two items were guaranteed to raise questions from friends and customers alike, and I was only too happy and extremely proud to introduce them to my friend Victor, a Russian from Kaliningrad who was an accomplished artist, philosopher and social historian and, simply but emphatically, a wonderful person to know.

I would show them the many photographs of my trips to Kaliningrad where Victor was present, especially photographs that had been taken in the studio, and then would assert that “It is worth going to Kaliningrad, just to meet this man.”

Sometimes I liked to add a touch of mystery. Just before I would leave for Kaliningrad, I would drop a hint that I was off on holiday. Where too? They would ask. “The Shrine to Königsberg,” I would reply, meaning Victor’s studio.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

Whenever I holidayed in Kaliningrad I would make the most of it, staying there for four or five weeks at a time. Victor and the studio were constantly top of my itinerary list, and I have lost count of the number of social evenings we spent in that hallowed place, the studio, and, later, the excursions Victor took us on, both around Kaliningrad itself and further into the region. Suffice it to say, they were wonderful times.

We had begun talking about moving to Kaliningrad as far back as 2015, although I do not think that I had any intention of committing myself at that time. However, Victor’s enthusiasm, positivity, indefatigable interest in novelty and sincere affirmation, ‘of course you could live here, ne problem!’, must have worked its magic behind the scenes of consciousness, for, one day, when my wife and I were discussing the prospect more earnestly, it suddenly dawned upon me that if I did move to Kaliningrad I would be living in Victor’s city, the city that was his life and his life’s work.

That I believe was the defining moment; that was when the decision to move was made. Living just up the road from him, I could hop on a bus or tram, take a taxi or even walk and be there at the studio. The advantages now were clear to me. I looked forward, under his tutelage, to developing my knowledge of the city’s past, to the excursions he would organize both in and around the city and, of course, to memorable evenings  ~ evenings of camaraderie ~ sitting together with mutual friends in the studio, discussing art, culture and history, chatting and snacking away whilst drinking vodka or cognac. To live in Victor’s Königsberg would be an honour and a privilege, not forgetting a joy.

From that revelatory moment, it was no longer a question of should I move, but how quickly could I move?

Unfortunately, the practical aspects of relocation took too long and by the time we arrived in Kaliningrad in December 2018, unbeknown to us and to Victor himself, Victor’s life was ebbing away. Seven months later, he would be dead.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad

Victor Ryabinin was an artist-historian, but he was far and away beyond that. I thought of him  as a time traveller or at least as a man who could talk to Konigsberg’s past, empathise with the cruelty of its fate and commune with the ghosts of its people, whom, he told us, were constant visitors ~ they invaded his dreams at night.

Victor was a man of small stature but great presence. He had an aura about him, a magnetic personality and was thoroughly and utterly engaged and engaging. The magic ethos with which Victor was infused stemmed from many sources. His personality was one of calm and calming repose. He was good natured, good humoured, his sense of humour was playful but never acerbic. His philosophy of life seemed to be based on two short words: ‘ne problem’ ~ things could be an ‘issue’ but never ‘a problem’, and issues could be resolved, or would resolve themselves in the fullness of time. This reassuring attitude, this positive philosophy made Victor’s company always good. No matter how you might be feeling before you met with Victor, you came away from his company with an overwhelming sense that all was well in your world. Victor’s company had the feelgood factor.

The Spirit of Königsberg

As an artist and historian, there was profundity and depth, but they were free from the heaviness and pretentiousness by which these qualities are so often confounded. Victor practised humility and was never confrontational. He would express himself and then move on. He never forced his point of view upon you.

The magnetism of his innate character came from an energy that seemed almost preternatural, which I believe was made more potent as it was drawn from the same cosmos source, the same mysterious well, from that which Königsberg drew its spiritual energy. Victor was not just one among a number of talented people who originated from or who worked in the city of Königsberg, he was the Spirit of Königsberg ~ the personification of the spirit of the past.

Last but by no means least, there was Victor’s dynamic thirst for knowledge, which was one of his most endearing traits.

At the funeral gathering of friends and family, the term ‘a childlike inquisitiveness’ used by Victor’s nephew captured the essence of what it was: Victor had a curiosity to know, to learn, to explore, nothing was not without wonder, and it remained that way throughout his life.

As Boris Nisnevich records in his biographical essay An Artist Who Can Hear Angels Speak, it was Victor himself who said, “I can only guess what boredom is”.

“I can only guess what boredom is”.

Victor Ryabinin

Another of his friends claimed that ‘Victor created his own reality’. I suppose that each and every one of us does just that to some extent.

Victor’s reality is possibly best summed up in the name that he attributed to one of his final compositions (‘assemblages’, as he liked to call them). A framed composite of bits and pieces from the wreckage that remained of Königsberg, he christened it with the title The Relics that will Save my Soul.

It is impossible, in the last analysis, to extricate, separate or divorce Victor Ryabinin from Königsberg. Whenever I see the word Königsberg and whenever I hear it spoken, I see and hear Victor Ryabinin. The two were, are and always will be synonymous.

When Victor died of cancer in 2019, I was devastated. Apart from my wife, Olga, he was the single most influential person to tip the scales in favour of my coming to live in Kaliningrad. It makes me smile to think that if he was here today, he would correct me at this juncture: “Königsberg, Mike!” he would typically say. I liked him to pull me up on this and would often say ‘Kaliningrad’ just to have him correct me. He continues to do so to this day. I think he always will.

Victor Ryabinin was, without question, one of the finest people I have ever known. Apart from and in addition to his accomplishments as a much-loved art teacher and artist of the symbolist genre, he had the gift just by his company of making you feel that perhaps, after all, life was worth the struggle. “I am proud,” said another great man,” Stanislav Konovalov, Victor’s student and friend, “that I was close to this great man.”

I admired Victor for his artistic talent; I respected him for his philosophy; I adored him for his love of history; I loved him as a person. My only criticism of him is that he went and died when he did, making me miss him for the rest of my life.

In the work that follows, a biographical essay of Victor’s life and the experiences and influences that informed his art and love of Königsberg,  Boris Nisnevich celebrates the life of a unique artist-historian and an exceptional human being.

Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Historian, Philosopher ~ The Spirit of Königsberg
{17 December 1946 ~ 18 July 2019}

Victor Ryabinin could talk to angels, of that there is no doubt, and through his work and in his memory those angels speak to us.

Copyright © 2018-2024 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.