It’s Saturday and I’m in a Saturday night’s all right for fighting mood. I’m cross with myself for backhanding the militsi 400 Euro. I should have gone to Russian prison and had something meaningful to write about. I feel I’ve let down the whole blogging community.
Anyway. After a couple of red wines, there she is [...]

Dawn over the Kaliningrad-Polish border. In the night, we moved four car lengths.

Just when you are ready to run screaming out of Kaliningrad, you find you can’t.
I spent 40 hours in the queue at the Kaliningrad-Polish border at Mamonovo. Here they practice a kind of ethnic cleansing by lanes. There’s one lane for Russians and [...]

This wonderful Soviet-built sleep factory is the Hotel Baltika. Since it’s centrally located in the middle of nowhere, outside Kaliningrad city limits, it’s about the silliest base you could choose for your visit to Kaliningrad.
How did it get here? Well, you have to remember that Kaliningrad was a closed town for forty odd [...]

Kaliningraders have made a few giant leaps towards mankind since the Soviet era. Yes there are bankomats and now kitchen roll is appearing in many shops. But be aware that this is still a third world country.
With more tin-roofed shanties than Kingston, Jamaica, overflowing drains, pain threshold border crossings and utterly corrupt police, it’s a [...]

Kaliningrad has many old forts and ramparts. Konigsberg was a fortress city. But only a couple have been restored.
Some of the old gates, like the Sackheim gate above, don’t really lend themselves to happy snaps or history rambles. Which is a pity, since the whole of the Litovsky Val - formerly Litauer Valstraat - has [...]

‘You can send me, dead flowers every morning
Dead flowers in the US mail
You can send me, dead flowers for my wedding
And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave’
- Rolling Stones, ‘Dead Flowers’

It’s a unique feature of Russia. You can hardly pass an old monument or wall bust, and [...]

‘And it’s a heartbreak when you find out
That trouble is real
In a faraway city, with a faraway feel’
- Gram Parsons, ‘Hickory Wind’
There’s no chalk mark at the scene of the crime. Just a bankomat print-out registering the intersection where I was pulled over and shaken down for 400 Euro, one fine [...]

Weddings are just one of the social events that are celebrated on Kaliningrad’s new bridge, so my camera lucked in to this ready posed group.
Tacky dressing buffs may want to elaborate on the many style-pointers in this picture. It’s a bit advanced class tacky for me.
But I know what you’re wondering. [...]

Recently, Kaliningrad acquired a new bridge over the river Pregel.
Well, it’s not exactly new, it’s one of the ancient bridges of Konigsberg. Just that it’s taken Russians sixty odd years to re-instate it following war damage.
Kaliningraders are so surprised and delighted to actually get a piece of useful infrastructure that the bridge has become a [...]

Not many people are aware that all Kaliningrad’s tram drivers are women. And drop dyev gorgeous they are too.
Honestly, who needs a dating agency when you can just leg it down to the depot? Fortunately, Americans need an agency for everything and can’t get anywhere in Europe without their hands held. So my ‘Tramway To [...]