Zelenogradsk ~ streets ahead with imaginative decorations
Published: 10 January 2023 ~ Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations Win First Prize
In the UK, the festive season is well and truly over. Unless you had a better time than most, the last remnants of the New Year’s Eve hangover will have sailed way into the ether, along with the memories you cannot remember and those you wish to forget. But here, in Russia, the festive holidays do not peter out until the morn of the 15th of January. This is because the Russian Orthodox Church follows the old Julian Calendar and not the Gregorian one, so, although some religious denominations still celebrate Christmas day on the 25th December and the big festive night for Russians is the same as that for the Scotties, New Year’s Eve, Russians also celebrate Orthodox Christmas on the 7th January and Orthodox New Year’s Eve on the 14th January. That’s an awful lot of celebrations in one month, but it does mean that the municipal decorations remain intact until the middle of January.
Zelenogradsk Christmas Decorations Win First Prize
Bearing this in mind, I took a trip to the Baltic seaside resort of Zelenogradsk on the 9th of January to shiver in front of the sea and say hello to what are without question the most inspiring display of Christmas decorations this side of the Russian border.
I have no idea whether Kaliningrad holds a Best Decorated Christmas Street in the Region competition, but if it did, the main street of Zelenogradsk would win hands down. Words like magical and enchanting easily spring to mind, along with novel, imaginative and even bizarre!
This year I took my camera along with me and, although the snaps that I have taken do not do the panoply near enough justice, they do manage to give an idea of the thought and effort that each shop, café, bar, restaurant, etc put into producing the best expression of Christmas joy. They certainly make my Christmas baubles look pathetic in comparison, even when lit with flashing lights.
Which of the Christmas ensembles along Zelenogradsk High Street would I nominate for first prize? That’s a tough ‘un’. I’ll leave it to you to decide.
Published: 22 April 2021 ~ Architectural Surprises on the Zelenogradsk Coast
The following photographs were taken whilst walking the Zelenogradsk coastal route, starting from the promenade end and heading away from the town. To the left lies the land; to the right, on the other side of the hedge, the Baltic Sea.
The route is divided into two sections, as indicated by different shades of block paving. One of these is the pedestrian walkway; the other accommodates all manner of locomotion. Which one is which is given away slightly by the presence of broken lane markings that run along the centre of the narrower strip.
Whilst this ‘road’ is closed to conventional vehicular traffic, among the roller bladers, skateboarders, bicycle and electric-powered scooter riders, small open-sided ‘buses’ can be seen trundling past at regular intervals crammed with tourists and those just unwilling to walk the not insubstantial distance that lies between the end of the prom and the white sandy beaches beyond. From one end of this route to the other is quite a trek, so if you are not much of a walker, all you need to do is hop onto one of these charabancs and away you go.
Architectural surprises on the Zelenogradsk coast
The first building to be photographed was this modern hotel peeping through the silver birch trees from behind a rather impressive wall of brick and granite construction, which has a wrought-iron railing top backed by translucent polycarbonate privacy panels. Such screens are ubiquitous in this part of the world, as is block paving. Whoever it was who introduced them it was not me, but, from a commercial viewpoint, I sincerely wished it had been.
Photograph 1: First hotel on the Zelenogradsk coastal route
I suppose as modern buildings go, from the angle of this first photograph it all looks fairly prosaic, the functional attraction lying in those long, sweeping, curved balconies, which, I should imagine, guarantees discerning hotel guests a magnificent sea view.
Moving along a little, it soon becomes apparent that what we have been looking at a moment ago is merely a wing extending from the main body of the building (photo 2).
Photograph 2: A wing of a very capacious hotel
Photograph 2 is a shot looking back at the wing, detailing both the curved balconies mentioned earlier and, above them, in the roof, recessed balconies of the sort that feature extensively in the design of the Hotel Russ, Svletogorsk’s premier hotel, which, sadly, if my informants do not deceive me, has recently closed.
Photograph 3: Hotel entrance
Photograph 3 reveals the front of the hotel, a solid-looking establishment with large arched windows, a tier of ‘porthole’ windows above and a grand entrance extension, the curved top an enclosed balcony in glass and below a recessed entrance hall fronted by a colonnade which supports the upper balcony.
The fourth photograph shows the cloistered effect achieved by the colonnades and gives some indication of the not inconsiderable space occupied by this building.
Photograph 4: Side view showing the cloistered extension of the entrance
Photograph 5 is taken looking away from the corner of the last building depicted. The brick pier wall continues and behind a solid gate, accessible via intercom system only (they like that sort of thing here, as well), sits another hotel, set back from the road, its central tower and turret paying appreciable homage to the architectural Gothic legacy from which it is descended, a striking feature reflected in and harmonised by the pitched window gables surmounting the rooftop balconies.
Photograph 5: In the Gothic style ~ Architectural Surprises on the Zelenogradsk Coast
As in the first hotel, the second design also favours roundel windows, and these are apparent yet again, but on a much larger scale, in the massy and incomplete edifice looming out of the background.
Photograph 6: Windows aplenty through which to see the sea
Photograph 6 depicts the curvilinear glass and steel structure of the furthermost point of the first hotel, whilst 7 gives you a fuller perspective of the Gothicised structure as seen above the entrance gate.
Photograph 7: Closer look at Gothic styling
The hulking monolith captured in photograph 8 reminds me of the J-hangar still resident on the site of Polebrook Aerodrome in the UK, a former US air base left over from World War II.
Photograph 8: Big and yet unfinished ~ Architectural Surprises on the Zelenogradsk Coast
In this picture, the building takes on the appearance of two half segments of a giant arch but as a later photo reveals (photo 11), taken from the opposite end of the building, the effect is an illusory one, as the unfinished project is missing its central vertical section which, had it been in place, would have completed the visual aspect of single-span uniformity.
From the distance, it appears as if the hulk is wearing my Uncle Son’s string vest, but at closer quarters it looks the same. The green string undergarment, which must have once been used, I presume, to screen the unfinished structure, is somewhat tattered and torn and now simply hangs there, adding to the forlorn neglect with which the building is heavily imbued. There is little doubt from the round tower, half risen at the front of the building (photo 9), that at its conception ‘big’ had gone hand in hand with grand, but unless something dramatic happens and happens fairly quickly, call me presumptuous if you will, I feel that there is little chance of booking a room in this hotel at any time in the near future.
Photograph 9: A would-be grand entrance
Photograph 10: Not quite complete
After this cavalcade of large and impressive, it is odd and oddly reassuring to discover that the landscape suddenly changes, revealing two normal-sized single residences, both senior in years to the previous buildings, sitting favourably in decent-sized plots behind a lush, green privet hedge. (photo 10)
Photograph 10: Houses of some age along the Zelenogradsk coastal route
The first house has had a recent makeover. Its original terracotta pantiled roof, which may have been replaced after the war with asbestos, as is the case on the house adjacent, having been fitted with a metal roof of tiled terracotta profile. Note the use of pretty carved edging boards, picking out the gradient of the Dorma windows and the nuanced roof levels, a theme accentuated by the blue and white fascia boards that run along the recessed gabled ends and emerge again in the blue window shutters, all of which make for an attractive cottage effect.
Photograph 11: Different scales, different times: cottage & hotel
Photograph 11 also gives you an accurate idea of the scale differential between the J-hangar and the house I have just described.
The next house along (photo12) is obviously nowhere near as quaint and fetching as its neighbour, and may in fact be flats, but the roof format is novel and so far the building has survived land grab for development.
Photograph 12: A residential property overlooking the sea in Zelenogradsk, Russia
We now come to that part of the coastal route where a conglomeration of different buildings vie for visual attention, the scene dominated by one incredibly large but incomplete hotel, which out-scales everything else around it (photograph 13).
Photograph 13: One of those ‘you can’t miss it’ hotels ~ Architectural Surprises on the Zelenogradsk Coast
Disequilibrium of scale is nowhere more easily demonstrated than in the stark juxtaposition of the towering grey colossus with its single domicile rectangular neighbour (photograph 14).
Photograph 14: Built in the Modernist style
Built in the contemporary Modernist style, David is to Goliath what light is to dark, and whilst I am only guessing mind, since the owners have not asked me round to consider the finer points of their property, from ergonomics to materials used, in fact everything about this house, speaks to me of ‘smart home’. Take the precedence, for example, of the cut around in the fence to make way for the pampered bough of that tree (photos 15 & 16). How many trees either have their more assertive branches lopped off or have to wait a100 years or more before they can force their will upon a constraining fence? Not many trees can boast the patronage of such an ecologically enlightened owner as the one who designed, planned, built or simply resides and enjoys this light, airy, modern abode.
Photograph 15: Tree with a view
Photograph 16: A tree-friendly fence
Three paragraphs back I used the phrase ‘conglomeration of different’ buildings, and you can see what I am getting at in photographs 17 and 18. Photograph 17 reveals a building defined by steel, glass and cladding, which mixes its angles with its curves in such a way that it would not be out of place situated among the first of London’s Dockland’s building’s that popped up futuristically above the lines of Victorian terraces during Maggie Thatcher’s reign.
Photograph 17: Not London Dockland’s but a building on Zelenogradsk’s coastline
The commercial building in photograph 18 follows the lines of the former, but the brick fascia softens and traditionalises the general impression, and the pale colour scheme, quite by chance I am sure, falls satisfactorily into the company by which it is overshadowed.
Photograph 18: A gallery of windows from which to see the sea
Putting things into perspective, photograph 19 provides a view of the commercial building framed against the back of its ‘Dockland’s’ neighbour, whilst the long shot in photograph 20 freezes two people in time on their bicycles and pins down the scale differential of the adjacent buildings.
Photograph 19: New-builds in relation to one anotherPhotograph 20: Putting it into perspective
Next on the list, photographs 21 and 22 spell tasteful. This house, houses, apartments ~ what do you think? ~ synthesise modern lines with a diamond-shaped brick-infilled frieze, the type of which is evident on a number of Königsberg buildings extant in Kaliningrad.
Photograph 21: Architectural surprises on Zelenogradsk coastal route
Photograph 22: A residence of class
The overall impression is an amalgamation of the past and the present; bold but not brash; and you have to like the look and feel of those three-section big arched windows.
Whilst there is no shortage of different, alternating, archaic, modern, breathtaking, surprising, lavish, opulent, historic and ‘you name it, it’s here’ type of architecture in and around Kaliningrad, what is surprising, given the rest of the prolificity and sweeping variation in design and style, is the indisputable fact that the region as a whole finds itself extremely fence-challenged ~ more about that in a later article.
I would like to think that the old, tin, corrugated fence that encloses the properties in photograph 23 is not a woeful misjudgment made both by restrictions of budget and limited DIY skills but is merely a temporary fixture, knocked up to conceal ongoing building or garden work. This may well be the case, although whilst construction site hoarding in this part of the world is commonly metal and corrugated, it is usually identified by rather garish alternating blue and white panels, whereas home-owners’ fences can be anything in the same material from glistening silver to chocolate brown. In this instance, along this exclusive stretch of beautiful coastline, let us pray for respect and sanity and keep our fingers crossed!
Photograph 23: Lovely houses ~ shame about that fence!
The first house that rises in tone as well as substance above the offending fence is not the heretic that you might think it is. It could be a remodelled German house or a new-build that has been given the half-timbered look, either by adding the requisite woodwork or painting it on to achieve the desired effect (photo 23). Along this coastal strip it is, by virtue of its standalone difference, yet another example of the energised eclecticism that devolves to the individual if left to his own devices, free, that is, from the overwhelming behests and underwhelming mediocrity imposed by stolid planning restrictions.
Whilst this may be the only example of a love affair with medievality on this particular route, it is not alone. A number of revamped and new-build properties in and around the Kaliningrad region are in receipt of half-timbered dressing, and even high-rise tower blocks have not been deemed exempt.
The house depicted here wears it well, and heralds at this point on our route a return to in-scale housing, as illustrated in photographs 24 and 25.
Photograph 24: Attractive house on Zelenogradsk coast
Photograph 25: An individual approach
Admittedly, the intervening presence of a compact castle, built of or faced with red brick, intrudes somewhat (photograph 26), but for me and all like me who went Gothic when Goth subculture and steampunk were just a twinkle in a fad-fashion eye, the question what is not to like about a building overlooking the sea which has a tower to the front and flanking turrets on all four corners is one that need not be asked. One presumes, however, that the roofline has yet to be finished, and one would hope that such completion will entail the suitable erection of conical rooves on top of the central tower and the four adjoining emplacements. Photograph 27 shows the ‘castle’ from the return direction of the coastal route with the half-timbered residence to its left.
Photograph 26: A Russian man’s home is his castle!
Photograph 27: A castle & a half-timbered house
To end this tour, I include for your delectation three more photographs exemplifying the widely contrasting nature of architectural genres with which this magnificent stretch of the coast has been populated.
The first (photograph 28), is what I think of as the route’s halfway house. It is a hotel/restaurant/bar, whose architectural style is a flamboyant composite, a self-contained contrast that reflects the divergent compositions of which it is a part. For example, the balconies on the first floor could have mirrored those above them, not only in style but also in materials, but why not have Art Deco curves made from masonry on one level below a platform base supporting angled wrought-iron fencing on the next? More angularity is achieved in the vertical triangulated stairwell window, which is escorted on either side above eaves level by a pair of Gothic parapet piers surmounted with sloping tiles, whilst the roof itself manages a low pitch profile thanks to the two hulking chimney stacks that rise up from the back like mighty sentinels.
Photograph 28: Working out the angle ~ Zelenogradsk’s coastal route’s halfway house
The penultimate photograph (29) shows what happens when true juxtaposition is given free reign. The neoclassical addition in the background, which rubs shoulders with the angular pastiche in photograph 28, is yet another surprise on the architectural catwalk along which we have walked together. It is referred to in a previous post: An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route.
Photograph 29: Architectural Surprises on the Zelenogradsk Coast
And the last photograph in this post (30) is reserved for what used to be and thankfully still is — a survivor of the ever-changing present. It even has a proper wooden fence!
Photograph 30: Architectural Surprises on the Zelenogradsk Coast ~ my kind of place ….
There are more things in Znamensk than meet the eye 9 May 2024 ~ Znamensk (Wehlau) Before You Go What to Know! It is about 50km / 30 miles from Kaliningrad to Znamensk. That is no distance when you are whipping along in an all-mod-cons motor vehicle, but when you are travelling by classic car,… Read more: Znamensk (Wehlau) Before You Go What to Know!
Fisherman’s House Museum Zalivino: a must for social history buffs 27 March 2024 ~ Fisherman’s House Museum Zalivino Kaliningrad region If you are planning on visiting Zalivino lighthouse or taking a day trip to Zalivino, you should take the time to stop off at Zalivino marine and maritime museum, aka Fisherman’s House. Although it is… Read more: Fisherman’s House Museum Zalivino Kaliningrad
A unique museum in Otradnoye, Kaliningrad region 8 October 2023 ~ Herman Brachert Museum Königsberg Sculptor Otradnoye [German: Georgenswald] is a small, unspoilt seaside enclave on Kaliningrad region’s Baltic Coast. It sits, relatively obscurely, on a wooded escarpment between the region’s two main resorts, Svetlogorsk (German: Rauschen) and Zelenogradsk (German: Cranz). Otradnoye is worth discovering… Read more: Herman Brachert Museum Königsberg Sculptor
Return to Zalvino Lighthouse Published: 5 February 2023 ~ Zalivino Lighthouse Restoration Reaches New Heights Returning to Zalivino lighthouse last month, it was remarkable to see what progress had been made since we first explored the site in 2021. Let’s start with the cosmetic improvements first and then proceed in order of importance: {Links to… Read more: Zalivino Lighthouse Restoration Reaches New Heights
Balt Restaurant Zelenogradsk Review Published: 29 January 2023 ~ Zelenogradsk Restaurant BALT a Lesson in Harmony I’m sure, almost certain, that it was not there 18 months ago, when I last visited Zelenogradsk (doesn’t time fly!), but it was there now. I am talking about a new restaurant ~ new to me ~ that sits… Read more: Zelenogradsk Restaurant BALT a Lesson in Harmony
Seeing the sites in sight of the sea in Zelenogradsk
Published: 19 April 2021
Preface
This post is based on an extract from an entry in my 2020 diary, written last August, which I would like to use as a prelude to a pictorial piece on the architecture lining the coastal route in the seaside resort of Zelenogradsk on the Baltic Coast in the Kaliningrad region of Russia.
Last May, and subsequent to it, articles began to appear both in Russian and international media, some favourable, some not, which reported that as coronavirus strengthened its grip a boom in domestic tourism had been sparked in Russia to take advantage of and to compensate for closed borders and international travel restrictions {Russia Wants to Spark a Domestic Tourism Boom. Will It Work? ~ The Moscow Times}
Zelenogradsk has a wonderful, long, broad sandy beach, more than enough space to accommodate this year’s influx of tourists. And all you need if you require a more secluded spot is to take the coastal path away from the centre and head off in the direction of the Curonian Spit.
We all know that walking is supposed to be good for you, but should you prefer to travel on wheels, you can always take one of the little six-to-eight-seater charabancs that buzz up and down the vehicular lane along the coastal route. Alternatively, you could rent yourself a bicycle for the day, or a small pedal go-kart, which accommodates a ‘driver’ and a passenger, or invest in one of those zippy little electric scooters that are fast becoming the most fashionable way of adding yourself to motorisation.
Whatever your choice of locomotion, It is worth taking the coastal route just to witness the diverse array of non-pedestrian options whizzing up and down, from the relatively mundane to the unreal, weird and whacky.
An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route
I am never quite sure what to call this stretch of, er? — this route. ‘Track’ creates the impression of something mud-like winding through the dunes and undergrowth; ‘path’ limits it to a contagion of plodding feet; and ‘road’ makes it sound like the M25. In essence, it is a combination of all three ideas, except that it has a block-paved hard surface, is essentially straight, is too wide to call a path and being closed to regular traffic cannot be called a road.
Although motor vehicles of the regular variety are prohibited, as I mentioned earlier, things with engines attached other than human legs do traverse it as, at the same time, so do feet.
Basically, the route is divided into two parts: one side, the broader of the two, is reserved for pedestrian access; the other, about three times the width of a standard bicycle lane, is allocated for vehicles and is divided yet again into two directional lanes.
On the landward side of this route, it is competition time for who can build the biggest and most impressionable hotel. They come in all shapes and in very large sizes, but most share an architectural predilection for the curvilinear forms utilised so memorably, and thus so effectively, in earlier Art Deco building formats.
Brought up to date in the early twenty-first century with the accent on glass and plenty of it, the semi-circular portico and centralised tower stairwell are particularly popular features in these ‘look, I can see the sea!’ hotels.
The odd one out in this nuanced continuity, which diverges in no uncertain terms from the prevalence of the others, is that which in its fundamental shape, external facings and decorative embellishments is a dead ringer for the sort of neoclassical hall that you would expect to find, and do, in the heart of the English countryside.
Neoclassical design on Zelinogradsk’s coastal route
Grandeur of scale, geometrical lines, functional columns, dentil moulding, cornices and balustrades, this building has the lot, and perhaps even a little more besides, for I have noticed that when modern Russian architectural design emulates the ideas of an earlier aesthetic period, imitation is not nearly enough when opportunity allows to surpass.
An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route
A sight that may not be exclusive to this part of the world or to Russia generally, but is ubiquitous enough to place it in a national context, is the unfinished, ‘grey scale’ construction. I have not counted them, but there are perhaps as many unfinished hotels along this route as there are complete ones, although, given the success story of Russia’s incentivised holiday-at-home programme and, news just in, that most of the region’s hotels are already fully booked for the 2021 summer season, it may possibly not be long before these redundant-before-completion hulks are finally brought to life.
The view from here will be spectacular once they finish building it …
In addition to hotels, also on this route you will see the last remaining but inevitably fleeting glimpse of homes that hark back to the days when Zelinogradsk was Germany’s Cranz. Although these buildings, once reasonably grand but modest by today’s standards and made doubly so by their bold new companions, display all kinds of interesting and sometimes quite astonishing DIY distortions enacted during the Soviet era, their quaint construction and kinder presence on the environmental scale can still be felt and appreciated, and it is a great pity that given the premium placed on the land that these houses occupy that it is only a matter of time, I suspect, before they are rubbed out and in the name of progress replaced by more of the same by which they are surrounded.
A Cranz home being restored along the Zelenogradsk coastal route
This stretch of road, causeway, path ~ call it what you will ~ does not go on forever. In fact, it runs out rather abruptly, interrupted by a tall and fairly non-descript hotel and thereafter a series of ground and one-storey flats with, at the rear, integral garages, tiny yards cloaked with high walls and that decidedly late Russian phenomenon, the massy wrought iron gate translucently obscured by polycarbonate sheeting.
An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route
At any point along this route, it is possible that you may wish to descend to the beach below, which is something that you can do thanks to thoughtful sequences of broad steps provided at regular intervals. There is one last chance to do the same at the front of the tall hotel, after which, if you want to proceed further, needs must that you hang a hard left. This takes you into a paved area fronted by what once must have been flats par excellence, but which have lately been dwarfed and left behind by one of the most amazing seaside residential developments ~ amazing both in scale and style extravaganza~ that has ever taken me by surprise whilst I was going around the bend.
But, in the last analysis, if, for some peculiar and indefinable reason, you are not taking this route to look at the buildings, then on the other side of the road, over the hedge, you will see the sea. In late summer, on this stretch of land, I have had the good fortune to witness some of the most sublime sunsets that I have ever encountered, which is another feather in the hotel cap along this particular road, track, path, walkway, esplanade or route. Call it what you will, if you are holidaying in this region don’t forget to travel it or, better still, book yourself an exclusive view from one of the splendid finished hotels. Either way, you won’t be disappointed.
Sunset: An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route
There are more things in Znamensk than meet the eye 9 May 2024 ~ Znamensk (Wehlau) Before You Go What to Know! It is about 50km / 30 miles from Kaliningrad to Znamensk. That is no distance when you are whipping along in an all-mod-cons motor vehicle, but when you are travelling by classic car,… Read more: Znamensk (Wehlau) Before You Go What to Know!
Fisherman’s House Museum Zalivino: a must for social history buffs 27 March 2024 ~ Fisherman’s House Museum Zalivino Kaliningrad region If you are planning on visiting Zalivino lighthouse or taking a day trip to Zalivino, you should take the time to stop off at Zalivino marine and maritime museum, aka Fisherman’s House. Although it is… Read more: Fisherman’s House Museum Zalivino Kaliningrad
A unique museum in Otradnoye, Kaliningrad region 8 October 2023 ~ Herman Brachert Museum Königsberg Sculptor Otradnoye [German: Georgenswald] is a small, unspoilt seaside enclave on Kaliningrad region’s Baltic Coast. It sits, relatively obscurely, on a wooded escarpment between the region’s two main resorts, Svetlogorsk (German: Rauschen) and Zelenogradsk (German: Cranz). Otradnoye is worth discovering… Read more: Herman Brachert Museum Königsberg Sculptor
Return to Zalvino Lighthouse Published: 5 February 2023 ~ Zalivino Lighthouse Restoration Reaches New Heights Returning to Zalivino lighthouse last month, it was remarkable to see what progress had been made since we first explored the site in 2021. Let’s start with the cosmetic improvements first and then proceed in order of importance: {Links to… Read more: Zalivino Lighthouse Restoration Reaches New Heights
Balt Restaurant Zelenogradsk Review Published: 29 January 2023 ~ Zelenogradsk Restaurant BALT a Lesson in Harmony I’m sure, almost certain, that it was not there 18 months ago, when I last visited Zelenogradsk (doesn’t time fly!), but it was there now. I am talking about a new restaurant ~ new to me ~ that sits… Read more: Zelenogradsk Restaurant BALT a Lesson in Harmony
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.
Published: 15 January 2021 ~ Amazed at the Museum of Skulls & Skeletons
To see it, especially from a distance, you would think that it was just another modern apartment block. Besides, your eyes would be led away by the nearby proximity of a far more interesting building ~ the Zelinogradsk (formerly, Krantz) water tower. Only when you draw closer do you get to see the hotel sign, as large as it is. This is the intriguingly named Boutique-Hotel Paradox; the first paradox being that entombed within this building lies the Museum of Skulls & Skeletons; the second, that it is not really a museum at all but more like an art centre, or exhibition centre, of skulls and skeletons. But you won’t know this until you get inside.
Once on the forecourt shared by the Boutique-Hotel and water tower, you will be unable to miss the directional sign for the museum. It is a large ~ larger than life ~ skeleton made of metal, steampunk style.
My wife, Olga, and I visited the museum on the 21 December 2020.
Here is an extract from my diary:
As we climbed the steps to the entrance of this building, the thought materialised that it was an odd building in which to have a museum. For a start, it was plainly modern, and for a second and last it was more or less nondescript, looking like a large block of flats with one of the lower walls in glass, through which it appeared was a bar or restaurant.
The entrance led us into a foyer, which, in keeping with the building’s general appearance, was office-like. Olga paid the girl sitting at the desk in one corner the skelet museum’s entrance money, and off we went, through some large glass doors and up a staircase, which was, well, office-like. And when we emerged into an identical landing on the second floor, where there was a long counter/reception desk, it felt as if we had come for a job interview.
To our right, there were two large, double, glass doors, and it was in here where the skeletons were lurking.
I am not exactly sure what it was that I had been expecting. Olga had spoken of the museum a year or so ago when she visited it whilst I was in England, and we had posed for a photograph next to the metalwork sculpture of a skeleton outside the front door on the concourse one night last year [2019]. This particular skelet had a bronzed, distressed finish, classifying it in my mind as steampunk, so I imagined that this was how the rest of the museum would be. I did not expect it to be a museum in the traditional sense, full of dusty, old, real bones, which was good, as it was not like this at all. No, Zelenogradsk’s skelet museum is, in fact, a brightly illuminated showroom containing a vast number and range of skelet art pieces of all shapes and sizes made from lots of different materials.
Amazed at the Museum of Skulls & Skeletons, Zelenogradsk
The desk to the left of the entrance, the shelves behind and other surfaces and the display units to the front and side were bristling with every conceivable skelet artefact in miniature or medium. On, within the glass-frontage and around the desk, the smaller items were souvenirs, waiting to be bought as mementoes of your visit. In front of you, and in the centre of the room, there was a large motorbike, possibly a Harley ~ they like Harleys in this part of the world ~ complete with flag, possibly one with a skeleton imprint ~ on which one could sit and have one’s photo taken. In fact, Olga suggested that I do just that, but I declined on the basis that I was not a motorbike sort of person.
I was, however, the sort of person who would be quite ready and willing to stand next to a ‘vintage’ wardrobe containing various skeleton pieces and which spoke to you in English when you opened the door. Olga snapped off three or four pictures of me in front of this, including a most arty-farty one, in which my face appears in the inside door mirror looking quizzically at a white bust of Putin.
Hello, fancy meeting you here
Amazed at the Museum of Skulls & Skeletons Zelenogradsk
The next experience was an unlikely one for us and one, moreover, which Olga placed great symbolic store on later. At the side of us, next to the wall, there was a doorway with multicoloured plastic streamers hanging vertically from the ceiling. A couple of yards away to the right there was an identical door furbished in the same manner. Above each door, on brightly coloured card, I was able to read, in Russian, the words ‘entrance’ and ‘exit’. I asked what this was, and Olga said it was a maze.
Amazed at the Museum of Skulls & Skeletons Zelenogradsk
“A maze!” I snorted.
I just had to step inside and in so doing was immediately and utterly overwhelmed, smothered by the sheer volume of the multi-coloured hanging plastic strips. I pushed my way through them until I reached the back of the cabinet. It must have been almost two yards deep. The density of plastic trailers made it impossible to see what exactly lay at the back of this cabinet, but I could feel a textile wall ~ and that was it. I felt my way back to the entrance, saying, as I almost emerged, “But there’s no way through; it is solid.”
“No,” Olga contradicted, “It’s a maze. It says so on the sign.”
I was just about to question the veracity of this statement when I realised that the vertical strut I was holding was not in fact adjoined to the outside wall.
“There,” said Olga at the same time as I discovered it, “is an entrance.”
Indeed, there was. It was narrow, about one slim person wide, tall, obscured by the crowding nature of the hanging tapes and the dark interior beyond but most of all by the assumption that no doorway would lie at right angles to the entrance.
By now I was curious and made to move inside. Olga was nervous and attempted to hold me back.
“Come on!” I laughed. And off we went.
No sooner had we stepped inside than we were overcome both by the darkness, which was now black as pitch, and by the obstructive density of the dangling ribbons. We had not gone three feet, I imagine, before our voices lowered and our pulses began to race. I edged forward, feeling the wall as I went, until my hand dropped into space. Another right-angled turn. I urged Olga to follow me.
As I entered into a wider void, I heard Olga’s voice in the darkness call out, “Hold my hand! Hold my hand!” I did, pulling her gently behind me. I was feeling for where I suspected the next opening in the maze would be, but it was not. The ribbons seemed to be growing in profusion, but I found another gap and proceeded through it, a frightened Olga clinging to my hand and calling in an alarmed voice, “I don’t like it”.
Into the next compartment we went, with Olga calling, “Let’s go back.”
It seemed to me that this part of the labyrinth was larger than the previous, and when my hands hit solid wall, and with Olga crying to get out behind me, I must confess to experiencing a paroxysm of panic, quite foolish and illogical I know, but panic all the same. I was on the cusp of saying, ‘you’re right; let’s retrace our steps’, when a science officer Spock-like rationale kicked in. “Don’t be so silly,” said a still, calm voice, “you’re only inside a cupboard.”
[I have omitted the next paragraph as it contains the secret to identifying where the ‘doorways’ are, and I would rather you go to the museum and get lost in the maze yourselves!]
Applying this simple science, we did a quick sharp turn and there, lo and behold! through the ribbons that hung like fog, the lights of the larger room penetrated.
As we emerged, I had to laugh, both at our fears and our appearance. My hat was all skew-wiff, making me look like Captain Mainwaring in one of those scenes when the entire Dad’s Army troop cram into the verger’s office, and Olga was as red and dishevelled as a beetroot fired from a cannon.
The difference was that whereas I had enjoyed the experience, she had not; and whereas I recovered instantly, she did not. She was still talking about how much it had disturbed her on the way home and, in fact, throughout the following day.
Made of sterner stuff, however, including a built-in denial system that allowed me to bury quickly any further thought of the spasm of fear experienced and certainly not to discuss it, I moved on to the exhibits, which were many and varied and laid out in large shelving units glazed front and back. My favourite was the excavation scene: a skeleton lying on its side in a shallow hole, its legs bent at the knee and one of its bony hands clutching an empty bottle of vodka. The red earth around the skeleton was caked, cracked and littered with the detritus of our modern age, suitably weathered and tarnished as though it had been there for some considerable time. There was a battered coke tin, a scrunched-up plastic bottle, a squashed memory stick, part of an old music cassette, a CD, a shattered ballpoint pen, a condom (still in its packet, I am glad to say!), coins, a battered mobile phone and other bits and pieces testifying literally to life in the throwaway age.
This exhibit was not, of course, a shelf one. It was contained in and presented through a large flatbed cabinet, tilted at an angle and raised on supports. It stood in front of a window, the closed strip blinds of which had one edge stencilled with the image of part of a skeleton, connected visually to the rest of its skeletal body, which was solid state, pinned above the blind fitting. Two similar designs were repeated in the second half of the room: one, with the skull and two hands of a skeleton mounted above the blind rail and the complete body of the skeleton stencilled beneath it; the other, one side of a skeleton in solid state with the skull, rib cage and one arm stencilled onto the fabric.
In the centre of the room where I had been studying the excavation scene, there was a table-mounted stretcher, on whose surface lay a skeletal leg and, standing next to it, a skeleton doctor, dressed in a white coat with a stethoscope around its neck. Hmm, not only was he not wearing his muzzle (mask), but he had also forgotten to put on his trousers.
The glass-fronted shelving units contained a profusion of artistic sculptures all designed around the theme of skulls and skeletons. My favourites consisted of: (1) a ‘giant’ Zippo lighter, with two skelets standing nearby, one holding the body of the lighter and the other supporting its top; (2) three skeletons together on a beach with a large jug of beer next to them, one of the skeletons is lying drunk on his back and next to him is the proverbial tall story ~ a giant fish; (3) three different tray and skull designs, each profusely decorated ~ one in blue & white motifs; the other deep red with abstract, almost psychedelic ornamentation; and the third in traditional Russian lacquer-work. I also liked the open-sided computer tower with a gold skull inside, and the skulls with green moss clinging in patches to the side of them. One of these had a small graveyard scene modelled on the skull’s cranium, complete with tumble-down picket fence and skewed tombstones.
Amazed at the Museum of Skulls & Skeletons Zelenogradsk
Of the numerous artefacts on display, if I was asked to choose my favourite, it would be without hesitation a figural piece, which was both touchingly symbolic and at the same time macabre. The composition is that of a long-haired female skeleton sitting on the knee of her skeleton male lover, the two are embracing and kissing, and the piece most aptly named, ‘True Love Never Dies’.
I would have purchased this without a second thought, but, alas, none of what we could see before us was purchasable. There were skeleton-themed items that you could buy, but they were cheaply made and overpriced. There were other pieces that I did not care for, mainly those skulls that looked as though they belonged to computer-game software and Halloween-type products: skulls and skeletons with glaring, gobstopper eyeballs. There was even a wall-hanging skeleton with the parched remains of brown flesh clinging to its bones. If this was available for purchase, would I have bought it and hung it on my wall …?
In the end, we settled for a skeleton pen, with two articulated arms. There are a couple of buttons at the back of these little devils and when you press them the arms move, as if they are boxing, oh, and the eyes light up.
I would have bought the skull lamp, but I thought it a tad expensive at thirty quid, and besides I was not sure whether our skelet, the one we have at home who is a member of the family, would be pleased. Skelets, like the human beings that they partly are, can be exceptionally jealous.
Essential details:
Museum of Skulls & Skeletons Saratovskaya St, 2A Zelenogradsk 238326 Russia
Travelling for the first time from a small railway station tucked away in Kaliningrad, my wife, Olga, and I recently visited the coastal resort Zelenogradsk. It was a wet, cold, overcast day, and it was also Monday, so we had the pleasure of travelling on a very sparsely populated train. Even though we were the only ones sitting in a carriage that could hold 60 people effortlessly, we were still obliged to obey the mandatory mask-wearing rule, aka ‘muzzles’, as Olga calls them.
Zelenogradsk! Lit up like a Christmas tree
Cutting out the rail journey across town, the trip took about twenty minutes in total. First stop, Love café, for a bowl of piping hot mushroom soup, potato pancakes and a couple of carafes of vodka. Thus fortified against the inclement weather, we were better able to appreciate the delights of Zelenogradsk’s festive decorations. The upper end of the High Street was positively festooned with them, and there was no shortage for my paparazzi-minded wife to snap her mobile phone at, prior to uploading them onto Facebook.
Mick & Olga Hart in Love café Zelinogradsk, Russia, Christmas 2020
Although the lower end of the High Street was less profusely decorated, I was much taken with the latest socio-cultural symbol, which speaks volumes about our modern-day society. It takes the form of a bronze statue, modelled after a shapely young woman trouncing across the road. She is towing a case on wheels and, oblivious to everything around her but herself, is taking a selfie on her mobile phone. With her arm outstretched and her head tossed back, she is so completely self-entranced that when I put my arm around her she did not blink an eyelid. Thank you lady for that, but do watch out for the traffic now!
We took a stroll along the deserted beach, which only five months ago was a sardine tin of sun loungers, and then retraced our steps from the park, detouring in the direction of the Cranz water tower. My wife, knowing that I have a skeleton fetish, had steered me toward the Skeleton Museum, a truly novel establishment which I intend to write about later.
Then, it was back along the High Street, allowing Olga to indulge herself in her fetish ~ more photo-taking for Facebook. This made me grumble a bit. This never-ending compulsion to phone-photo everything for Führer Facebook has the irritating tendency to subjugate life to a series of fits and starts, placing real time in abeyance, putting it on hold in the most obtrusive and disjointing way. The inconvenience righted itself, however, when Olga, in order to placate me, suggested that we stop for a drink in the Telegraf restaurant, a capital suggestion with which it was inconceivable not to agree and which most mysteriously seemed to alter my point of view about photos. After all, I reasoned, over a nice refreshing ‘pint’, I would need the photographs for my blog.
Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 189 [19 September 2020] The thin dividing line between caution and common sense
Published: 19 September 2020
Reckless, lax, less cautious, or a simple case of resumed normalcy? How should I describe the shift in my attitude to coronavirus, having, at the time of writing, completed my 189th day of ‘self-isolation’?
When self-isolation first started it was as it sounds, exactly that. My wife and I stayed put, only venturing out into the great beyond when necessity dictated, ie to go shopping. One hundred and eighty nine days into the isolating regimen, and we are not so punctilious. We still proceed with caution but have ceased to follow the caution-code to the letter.
For example, in our early self-isolating days before going to the shops, we underwent a countdown checklist as rigorous as any practised by Lancaster bomber crews prior to take off on their way to Berlin.
Facemasks x two ~ check. Hand wipes ~ check. Large shopping bags ~ check. Rubber gloves ~ check. Irvin flying jacket ~ check. OK, perhaps not the latter, but you get the picture.
This has all been steadily shelved. We do still take our masks with us but only because some shops, government offices and other such places demand that they are worn. We do not wear them in the street, and we no longer don them when we travel by taxi.
Taking a taxi in itself is another example of altered traffic-light syndrome, as we scale down from red for danger to amber for caution. Time was once when I would no more get into a taxi than climb into a hearse, but that time has long since passed. My initial return to this convenient mode of transport would not be countenanced unless my facemask was sternly in place, and we would ride out the duration of the journey with our faces poised before the open windows and wipe our hands thoroughly with disinfectant wipes as soon as we alighted. Now, we are happy to taxi-it sans masks. We still leave a window or two open and shoot each other a tight-lipped smile whenever our driver coughs or sneezes, but we are nowhere near as paranoid.
In days of yore when the coronavirus menace first hit, masked-up and ridiculous-looking, we would enter the local supermarket as if invited to a radiation-leak party. Once inside, we tore around the shop grabbing what we wanted as if our arses were on fire and religiously observed the one-metre distancing tapes at checkout.
Prior to Mission Shopping, and as part of our checklist ritual, we would first decide which of the two supermarkets we were going to shop in. We are lucky to have two supermarkets close to our abode, neither large but one smaller than the other, and as the smaller supermarket, which is also the more expensive, is always more empty than the other, for the sake of presumed safety and expediency, ie quickly in and more rapidly out, we always chose this shop. Now, however, as self-isolating veterans, we observe this rule no more, shopping in each supermarket as mood or necessity suggests.
Another precaution that has been downgraded from a stage 10 emergency situation to about a four and a half is the strict rule that we originally applied to quarantining our shop purchases.
On arriving home, flak damaged but yet intact, we would extract only those items from our shopping bags that we immediately required, for example food items for lunch, or which needed, because of their perishable nature, to be stowed away in the fridge. All food packages would be washed or wiped prior to opening and those destined for the fridge would be placed in the fridge isolation room ~ the chilling compartment (aptly named). The rest of the commodities remained in the bags and were placed in the hallway to the attic, where they would remain until safe the following day.
Now, Olga seems to ignore this ritual almost completely (she is more ~ considerably more ~ of a coronavirus skeptic than I), whilst I sometimes remember to ‘handle with care’ and sometimes do not.
In earlier times, on our return from wherever, one or other of us would take care to thoroughly disinfect the door handles, keys and anything else we had touched. We would wash our hands as soon as we returned, disinfect and then wash our hands again. We continue to wash our hands as though a liberal has shook them (cannot imagine that ever happening), but the attendant ritual has been more or less dispensed with.
On the social distancing front, the ironclad code of no fraternising with the suspect-contaminated has also been downplayed, and we have gone from no guests and social gatherings to selected guests and small social gatherings. Admittedly, these occasions have mainly taken place in the garden and not indoors but, as I believe I mentioned in a previous post in this series, maintaining prescribed social distancing measures quickly proved impractical if not impossible, and whilst we do not go around hugging and embracing as if we belong to France ~ when France was France ~ we are considerably less conscious of the risks of social interaction than we were six months ago.
Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad
Possibly ~ no, not possibly, definitely ~ the greatest alteration in our Covid-19 bunker mentality is that slowly, but surely, we have permitted ourselves the luxury of dining and drinking out. We are not entirely comfortable with this arrangement, and, indeed, it just happened rather than was planned.
The momentous first post-coronavirus café/bar occasion took place during a day trip to the small seaside resort Otradnoye. Olga wanted to swim and the most comfortable and convenient place to wait for her was in the outside area of the pop-up summer café, a party tent that services the food and beverage needs of the sand and sea clientele. We had a pack of antiseptic wipes on board and used these like a clumsy juggling circus act to decontaminate the beer bottle. We had also taken the precaution of bringing with us our own plastic cups.
The second bar/restaurant experience was when we travelled to Svetlogorsk to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. This was an indoor job, because the hotel staff would not allow us to dine and drink outside. At the time I thought it quite high risk, even allowing for the fact that Olga and I were the only patrons, but neither of these two events was as adventurous as our most recent outing when we ate and drank in the company of about 100 people or more at a beach-side restaurant in Zelenogradsk.
Once again, we refrained from sitting inside, choosing instead a table on the upper tier of the two-tier decking system facing the beach and sea. I believe, if my memory serves me right, that a pack of antiseptic wipes came into play but more by force of habit than with respect to coronavirus hygiene protocol.
Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad
In a few days’ time we have a relative from the UK coming to visit. As a matter of course, she will have to undergo a test for coronavirus at one of Kaliningrad’s clinics the day after she arrives. If she gets the all clear, we will no doubt push the boundaries back still further by going to a restaurant and, as the autumn chill sets in, we will be dining inside ~ That’s one small step for mankind, one giant leap for a Covid-19 self-isolator.
Mick Hart, the Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad, unleashes himself in Zelenogradsk
As noted in those previous posts, the block-paved thoroughfare runs parallel with the sea, but on walking it you reach a point where a series of low-level private flats, not so terribly old, obstruct you from making further progress. At this juncture, you have no option if you want to proceed but to continue your walk in land, a route that very soon brings you before a rather prosaic development residential in nature, most of whose flats which were up for sale last year are up for sale this year (2020). But as you turn to the right a most amazing visual thing happens, helped not a little, I suspect, by the mediocre tenor of the flats you passed a moment ago. In less than 18 months a new development has sprung from the ground, which, in its domineering height, prodigious bulk and latitude and by dint of its sheer proliferation in a relatively short space of time, really knocks you for six.
Completely out of scale with everything around it and consuming more ground than a migrant camp in Calais is the most enormous high-rise residential estate that I have ever encountered. With your senses still reeling from scale fright, the foreground flats and those behind them marching regimentally down the steep fall of the hill, grab you by the Gothics. If, like me, you are a Gothic freak, adore Gothic almost as much as drinking a pint of real ale in the company of Nigel Farage, then you will put aside any prejudices that you may have adopted against kitsch and lap what you see before you up like a Westernised Bela Lugosi on a boy’s night out in Butlins.
Gothic ~ get the point!
Here, there are more than enough perpendiculars, faceted angles, towers, turrets and pinnacles to give every Gothic addict the fix they crave and need. Yes, I know that these structures are modern, but I have personally consulted with Tom Cat Murr in whom, he has assured me, no catatonia has been induced by their 21st century origin.
Zelenogradsk Apartment Blocks with a touch of Gothic
I am not sure, however, that either he or I feel the same way about the estate’s alter ego, those just as massy structures that run in line with their Gothic neighbours along the unfinished roadside and which extend at right angles from them.
Zelenogradsk flats, Russia: two styles face off against each other ~Zelenogradsk New Sea View Apartment Blocks
The flip side to the Gothicised coin is a vast battery of impressive apartments built, correction embellished, in the Neo-Classical and Neo-Renaissance spirit. Designed with corners, angles and twists enough to thwart prescribed conformity, and assisted in this respect by the natural decline of the landscape, along whose downward curve this Goliath series of buildings march in the most dramatic manner, the stacking effect of shelves and ledges, inclusion of white panels, many adorned with relief motifs, and woven into the frieze a colonnade of arches strike a Kensington/Chelsea chord in me, chiming, whilst not exactly in tune but all the better for it, with a nuanced note in their juxtaposition against the light-brick infill. The icing on top of this pastiche cherry has to be the recessed oval, a final flaunting touch of extravagance clearly seen at the front and centre of the classic Dutch-styled gable.
The icing on the top ~ Zelenogradsk New Sea View Apartment Blocks
Whatever your feelings towards these 21st century additions to Zelenogradsk’s built and natural environment, you have to admit they are a big improvement on the experimental, rectangular-limited, mass-housing pre-fab models constructed during Stalin’s reign and the clunky pre-cast concrete jobbies, known as the Khrushchyovka, that went up at an alarming rate in the late 1940s and 50s.
Nevertheless, for all their ubiquitous uniformity and quick-assembly triumph over the lauded principles of aesthetic finesse, they, these seemingly once drab predecessors, have, with the re-evaluation that typically comes with the passing of time and hindsight, acquired, especially in recent years, an era-defining nostalgic status similar in intrinsic import to the cult of personality.
However, whether today’s apartments that are changing Zelenogradsk’s shoreline profile into a high-density urbanised landscape will be accepted so sympathetically by tomorrow’s generations depends on values we cannot predict. As with everything in our immediate lives ~ only time will tell.
Although I am still prone to headlining this series of articles as the Diary of a Self-isolator, I have begun to wonder whether the relaxation of coronavirus restrictions warrants a change of name, say, for example, the Diary of a Social Distancer, but have come to the conclusion that in the interests of continuity the original appellation should persist.
You can see the etymological crux of the issue in the revelation that recently, whilst self-isolating, I accepted the invitation to emerge from the homestead to stay for a couple of days at a friend’s dacha in the heart of Zelenogradsk.
Zelenogradsk is considered to be the second principal seaside resort in the Kaliningrad region, the number-one slot invariably reserved for Svetlogorsk. Whilst it is widely accepted that Svetlogorsk wears the crown, in recent years that crown has been tarnished by a controversial extension of the coastlines promenade in preparation for an extensive building programme that has decimated the resort of what little beach it had.
Zelenogradsk, on the other hand, has a beach par excellence; acres of white and golden sand stretching across the curving coastline for as far as the eye can see. On a good day, that is under a bright blue sky with plenty of sun to boot, the Zelenogradsk coastline is a beach-lovers paradise and the rolling waves and surf from the sea a scintillating superlative for all that is loved about swimming and sailing about on the briny.
Natural sandy coastline: Zelenogradsk, Russia (July 2020)
Today (3 June 2020), the weather conditions could not have been better. And for reclusive comfort combined with close proximity to the front, the old German house in which we were lodging could not have been more inviting or better located.
Before heading off to the beach, we decided ~ my wife, our friend and I ~ to buy a pizza and a few edible accessories from one of the seafront bars. This was the first time since coronavirus began that I had eaten in a restaurant or been to a restaurant to buy food, and although we were sat outside on the decking and the waitresses were bemasked, the entire experience seemed strangely illicit and fraught with a sense of risk.
On paying for our order there was a poignant moment when one of the girls who had served us, possibly the manager, not only thanked us for our custom but almost begged us to return again, such is the devastation that coronavirus has wrought upon the café, bar and restaurant business.
We did not eat in the restaurant’s outside seating area, choosing instead the comparative safety of limited social numbers in the conservatory of our temporary German home.
Before eating the food we had bought we of course observed all of the risk-decreasing procedures handed down to us from the world’s health industry, which is to say that we washed our mitts and swabbed the polystyrene packaging with antiseptic wipes before opening it and then used cutlery to eat with.
I have to admit that it was good to sample fast food again, even though the preliminaries had knocked it down a gear or two.
Social Distancing in Zelenogradsk
Victually resuscitated, plus a bottle of white wine later, our friend departed, leaving Olga and myself to make our way to the sea.
I wondered, as I walked towards the beach, if the low numbers of people present was a coronavirus consequence. If so, it was the perfect tragedy, but the volumetric increase in visitors on the following day, which was a Saturday, assured me that the comparatively low turnout had been the product of a working day.
By 12 noon on Saturday the numbers of people in Zelenogradsk had swelled enormously, but not to such an extent as to render social distancing ridiculous, as it had in England when people had flocked to Brighton beach in such appalling numbers that it was all they could do to find enough room in which to stab each other.
As we walked along the widened footpath with its pedestrian section on one side and its mini-road on the other, along which whizzed all kinds of two- and four-wheeled mini traffic, and with its astonishing eclecticism of man-made buildings on one side and the rolling sea and sand on the other, I hoped for their own sake that there were no representatives of a certain American media organisation lurking around in the undergrowth. From what I have read recently the western media seems to have a neurosis regarding ‘ethnic Russian families’, ‘smiling Slavic couples with children’ and ‘traditional family values’, all of which was refreshingly evident today. It is a peculiar point to ponder on, is it not, that what matters to some is of no matter to others.
Take the preferences of my wife and I, if you will: My wife swims; I drink.
Under the Old Normal, we would find a spot that was mutually suitable. An outside drinking area for me to relax in; a section of beach close to the sea for her to get sand in her toes and completely drenched in salt water.
Under the New Normal, however, this was not to be. Although the seating areas outside the bars were reassuringly patronised, the interiors being off-base, I had decided aforethought not to frequent them but carry on social distancing. So, whilst my wife dunked herself, I simply went for a stroll, and when I had strolled enough waited for her on a bench like the perfect husband I am.
Example of brand new old: Neoclassical building on the coastal path, Zelenogradsk, Russia (July 2020)
My fascination along this particular pedestrian thoroughfare is with the architectural anomaly. It is so outrageously ~ in an entrancing sort of way ~ diverse, with no two buildings the same either in scale or point of style. It is not visually unheard of, for example, to have a brand-spanking new hotel ~ all curvilinear, porticoed, sleek and slick in metal and glass and conspicuously erect ~ rubbing shoulders, I should say, with a great, grey giant of a building, a sad and sorry-looking concrete block of flats, neglected, uninhabited, windows open and vacant like the proverbial eyes in skulls and next to it, abstrusely, a red-brick castle pastiche, festooned with mini-turrets, or a vast building in magnolia-coloured stone boasting all the attributes of neoclassical architecture in its most defining form standing next to a humble shack, a distressed-brick and weathered wooden domicile with its roots in Eastern Prussia but with the added Soviet enhancements of an asbestos roof, steel railings and bulwarking metal sheets. I could walk up and down this road all day marvelling at these sites, which are far more interesting, and infinitely more imaginative, than anything you would see today on the fashion-circuit catwalks.
This lovely old building overlooks the sea along the Zelenogradsk coastline. Its much sought after location almost certainly means it will be demolished to make way for a palatial new residence, or, more likely, hotel. Myself, I would go for renovation. There is nothing like restoring heritage and making it your home.
Our excursion to the beach tomorrow would take me even further along this road, to a place of architectural extravagance the likes of which I have never beheld before, but more of this in a later post.
The sea and my wife having been reacquainted, it was now time to walk into town and purchase some bottles of ale from a well-stocked shop on Zelenogradsk’s high street. I would like to include these delights in my bottled beers of Kaliningrad appraisal, which I started compiling last week, but notwithstanding that they were not bought in the city itself, a minor point that could be overlooked, I have limited my bottled beer review to include brands that are generally available in supermarkets, so I will possibly leave the ones I tried today for a future specialist category on craft and imported beers.
Social Distancing in Zelenogradsk
Now, coronavirus has brought about a number of changes both in attitudes and lifestyle, some seemingly seismic, others more subtle. Like Nigel Farage, who on his Facebook page posted ‘103 days since I last drank a pint in a pub’, it has been 106 days-plus since I drank a beer in a bar or restaurant. Drinking at home is not my cup of tea, although that is what I drink there, and I have to say that sitting on a park bench and drinking ~drinking alcohol that is ~ is one of those dubious pleasures in life which up until now has passed me by. Today, however, as my wife wanted to go swimming again, and as I would rather be outdoors than in, whilst she got ready to swim this evening I packed up my beer in my old kit bag ready to find that bench.
To be honest it was not as bad as I had anticipated. All in life is relative and when you have been cooped up for the greater proportion of 106 days, a park bench and a bottle of beer is paradise. As the song goes, ‘the bare necessities of life will come to you!’
Mick Hart, in the company of a bottle of beer, happy to be on a bench on Zelenogradsk beach (July 2020)
Forgetting where I was for a moment, I looked nervously over my shoulder. That man on the opposite side of the road? Did he not look a little like Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader? Relax, I thought, this isn’t the UK? Even there, there is no Ed Davey Matters movement. Even there, he and his party does not matter very much, and here he does not matter at all.
Besides, I was not about to go legally to the pub and enjoy a pint like Nigel Farage and be accused by the liberal outrage industry. In fact, I was not about to break social distancing laws in any shape or form. After 106 days in self-isolation I was off to the seaside for a change of scenery.
What Really Matters
As we sped off in the car towards the coast, I thought to myself a couple of days at the seaside matters. It matters very much to get out into the fresh air and enjoy the bounteous gifts of nature. Sun, Sea and Sand Matters, I thought. Fresh Air Matters. A Change of Scenery Matters.
We were staying for two nights in a friend’s dacha. Good Friends Matter. The cottage was an old German building. History Matters. It was not far from the sea. Being Not Far From The Sea Matters.
Before we went to the beach we sat in the conservatory, ate a pizza and cracked open a bottle of wine. Good Company Matters. Good Conversation Matters. Good Wine Certainly Matters.
The seaside town was busy but not overcrowded. Being Busy But Not Overcrowded Matters. It was clearly a family occasion. Families Matter. There were mums and dads with their children. Mums and Dads with their Children Matters.
The sea was warm and good for a swim. Warm Sea Matters. The atmosphere was family-friendly with no hint of anti-social behaviour. No Anti-Social Behaviour Matters.
What Really Matters
In the evening, I bought a couple of bottles of quality beer. Quality Beer Matters (ask Nigel Farage!). And as I relaxed and drank those beers I thought to myself, everything that I have seen today and all that I have experienced matters. It matters a lot.
What wasn’t there to matter as it did not matter at all was a matter for commonsense. But that’s another matter which in the fullness of time will matter little and then will matter a great deal less.
I took another sip of beer and something closer than the celestial spheres whispered to me in the voice of history, “Consider the matter closed!” it said. “There are those that can end the matter now if push really comes to shove, and that is a matter of fact!”
Sitting on a Bench in Zelenogradsk Drinking Beer Matters!
