In contrast to Western governments throwing money at banksters, Russia isn’t buying the ‘too big to fail’ argument from a bunch of crooks.

I should have blogged this weeks ago but I was off the net. And maybe by now the New York Times has forgotten about Kaliningrad again. But at least its reporter, Ellen Barry, actually pitched up here.
I’m impressed. Ellen Barry really does work out of Russia (NYT’s Moscow office) and doesn’t sit in a London [...]

There’s nothing to see and only if you read Russian can you pass the time scanning the many bird-flu leaflets.

…The new post-war name of Sovietsk cheese was not a marketing success (laugh) and contributed to the decline in population.

The excellent ‘In Your Pocket’ guide wrote of Svetlogorsk: ‘The whole experience is still decidedly Russian. Savour it before it becomes another generic seaside resort.’

This was written before the Schengen curtain went up around Kaliningrad. These days, Svetlogorsk is in scant danger of euro-isation. The main visitors are Moscow property developers and day trippers from Kaliningrad. So you’ll still get dill with everything and a strong whiff of barbecues in the Baltic breeze.

A sunny Sunday is normally the cue for Kaliningraders to head for the coast.

A handy discovery in Kaliningrad is that the Russian for fast food is in fact, fast food. (Fact Fyd.)
In case this is still a difficult concept, most of the outlets provide a wall-chart where you simply point to the desired shape of deep-fried batter. One wonders about declining literacy rates.

When the Germans were expelled from Kaliningrad, they left behind a wonderful architectural heritage.
Some residential districts of Kaliningrad, and almost all the villas in Svetlogorsk, survived the the war untouched. What they survived less well was being untouched by even a lick of paint for next half century.

And where there aren’t pines, silver birch fill any leaf space left. Svetlogorsk - Kaliningrad’s Baltic beach - is a heavily wooded resort where only shafts of light make it through. Chances of a deep tan are slim and the only really bronzed resident I’ve come across is Pavlov. In sculpted form, of course.

[...]

Before the war, East Prussia was home to over two million people. The last of the few thousand survivors were all expelled by 1948.
The first Russian settlers of the new Kaliningrad Oblast arrived to eerie, half-empty houses in an alien landscape. Among the tiled German villas with steep gables, the Baltic sand and pines, there [...]

Only two short years ago, it was a delight to visit Kaliningrad. Now it’s as hard to break into the prison as it is to break out.
With their backs to the Baltic and fenced in by Schengen, nearly a million people live in what local resident Oleg describes as a ‘European Prison’.

Kaliningraders are locked [...]

This is the Wilhelm Gustloff, all set to sail on an exotic cruise from Hamburg. It was built during the golden age of luxury liners, a floating showcase of shining brass, polished mahogany, pampering cabin staff and Captain’s Table cuisine.
During wartime it was pressed into service as a hospital ship. On its last voyage it [...]