To the German!
Brief excerpts from a trip to the Kaliningrad region on road, organizational and everyday issues and some unusual and unfamiliar things for us encountered in those parts. Well, and a little pre-departure passions.
February is approaching. . .
It can be said that it has become a tradition in our family to celebrate birthdays on the road. And this time, everything is somehow incomprehensible with my birthday. And the long February holidays in this year 2021 did not fall out very well for me. That same day of mine fell into the inter-exit space, which the authorities, more confident in their strengths and wishes, scored earlier. It's our own fault, we couldn't decide what and where we want. Or rather, we want it everywhere, but whether we can is the question, of course.
Do I need to say that in our pandemic times, everything stoked up and mummified so much that I wanted to go somewhere... to... Europe or something, to the Nemetchyna. But there is no free access for us there.
For reference: in ancient times, everything non-Nashen, non-Russian, was called German, and foreign European states - Nemetchina.
But there is one loophole, we have our own Russian Europe - Kaliningrad region.
Kant Island. Kaliningrad
I think the main milestones andhistory of a piece of former East Prussia, and now the Kaliningrad region, are known to most. I won't retype again Wikipedia.
Somewhere in the Amalienau region. Kaliningrad
Oh, and the cost of a flight is very pleasant for our fisted souls. This, of course, in February, later, in the summer, we no longer liked the price tag. That's where we directed our eyes and feet to change the environment. We bow at the feet of the authorities, coordinate with relatives the care of children, take air tickets at the expense of the deposit left over from Montenegro, which failed last summer. Everyone exhale! Dnyuhi decided on the place of drinking.
Gifts of the Baltic Sea
Calm, only calm! ©
The next day after I "exhaled", I cook, which means a quiet and peaceful dinner for the family. Here, something is wrong in my kitchen kingdom. . . Damn! I don't smell! No, just not that. After all, a slight nasal congestion cannot be that terrible virus, I reassured myself...
In our family, unfortunately, there were coronovirus losses. Therefore, my husband insisted on going to the doctor, despite my easy format. In general, it spun and spun. The diagnosis is confirmed. The children were immediately identified after my positive test, respectively, they also took tests from them and "closed" at home, regardless of the result. My husband is remote, and I didn’t have to apply sanctions to him. As far as possible in an ordinary "kopeck piece", I was isolated and distanced. It was wiped, processed, observed, but no one freed me from cooking : )). Yeah, wearing a mask and gloves : )). I endured all the hardships relatively easily, the temperature was slightly above 37, without coughing, but with great weakness, which accompanied me for a very long time. The flight went well. No matter how strange it was, but the family did not receive a dose of coronovirus units from me. The husband later took an analysis for the presence of antibodies, suddenly, asymptomatically suffered, but no, he did not have contact with the virus, the analysis said. Although he contacted me until the arrival of my positive result, apparently, some weak strain was caught, not transmitted through hugs : )).
In the first days of my illness, of course, I had a panic about the planned trip. While the doctor's call and taking the test, while the result - and the standard 14 days are calculated from the day of the result. And it turned out that the quarantine days expire exactly by the time of the flight. Everything seems to be going well. And if I remain on the quarantine list, well, the bureaucracy is there, or technical failures, and they won’t let me on the plane, but are there such lists at all, and are they transferred to the airline... And if, suddenly, I don’t recover at all by that moment... Oh, in the inflamed brain, everything was spinning. But gradually calmness and awareness came. Based on the results of the mandatory test on the 11th day, we will make a decision: if I am sick, then I am sick and start the process of returning non-refundable tickets, and if the test is negative, then there is nothing to think about.
Not winter winter
The stars have risen as they should. And we started the final transfer to Kaliningrad. Knowing about the insidiousness and unpredictability of the Baltic weather, we were going, as to the front, to the tundra, February, after all: winter uniforms and shoes and a thermos with a traveling teapot. In addition, in Moscow in those days the weather was quite frosty, and on the day of departure, it was minus 25 ° C.
Somewhere between Moscow and Kaliningrad
Weather sites, of course, did not show such frosts in the Kaliningrad region, and even promised pluses. But who really believes in these sites, and the winds in those parts are notable, in which these same "pluses" do not help much. So it's better to play it safe : )).
In Zelenogradsk
Since we were supposed to have only hand luggage, the thermos naturally remained empty, but was subjected to a thorough examination during the inspection: open-close-shake-knock. Eh, they just dragged him in vain. The Kaliningrad region met in the spring. Probably, you have come across this feeling when from cold and immediately into warmth. That's right, HEAT!
Somehow softly, it smells like the sun. No, not the south, of course, but there is no snow, and this fact after this winter in Moscow is already pleasing : ).
Looking ahead, I’ll say that we even ran into temperature records since the beginning of meteorological observations in those parts up to +18°C. No, it turned out, after all, one nasty day, with wind and periodic wetness from heaven. But we survived it by small dashes between popular tourist locations in Kaliningrad with some folk methods for warming up, so to speak : )
Not aristocratic, of course, but warming : ). Moreover, the place is equipped right at the alcohol market. Clean, neat. When paying for the scales, they clarified whether it was possible. They answered that they were careful not to litter : )
About car rental
The whole trip was originally planned by me to be slow, so that without haste and urgent inspection of all the obligatory sights. Two nights in Zelenogradskfor seaside relaxation.
Curonian Spit
By the way, there is already a photo series about the Kupshskaya Spit Winter sketches of the Curonian Spit. The Other Side version. And two nights already in Kaliningrad for a more active pastime: gates, forts and museums.
Kaliningrad
And homlins, of course.
Someone dressed grandfather in a hat and wrapped him in a scarf. But a gust of wind swept them away. They ended up under the bridge
And the lethargy and weakness that fell on me after the illness convinced me of my visionary abilities. But my faithful friend and comrade-in-arms, overjoyed at the successful outcome of the covid story, decided that since such a booze had gone, then it was necessary to walk in full, and literally a day before departure, he rented a car. Oh, don’t steer for me, let it be. The service is in great demand among the guests of Kaliningrad, especially against the backdrop of increased popularity in the last travel-restricted year. And even in February, which seems to be not a very tourist season, it turned out to be difficult, but possible, to find a free economy class car.
There are a lot of rental offices. Someone has a counter at the airport, someone adjusts it to the designated time, somewhere it is calculated clearly by the day, and if you took the car in the morning and hand it over a few days later by the middle of the day, for example, then everyone takes payment for these hours - equal to a day. But they often go to a meeting and calculate the cost more flexibly. For example, our case: Volkswagen polo automatic, 1500 r. a day, a deposit of 5000, for a pick-up at the airport 600, for a return anywhere in Kaliningrad 300, they took it from our hotel. 4.000 were returned from the deposit, 1.000 in case of fines, if everything is ok, a month later a return to the specified card. We had to be reminded of this thousand, but we are not proud). After a call to the office, a few hours later, money was dropped onto the card.
Our faithful horse
"And the fines? " is the most common question at friendly gatherings after our return. As for fines: we are careful drivers, we try to follow the rules. But there are few cameras on the roads. To be honest, I don’t remember at all, but there probably is. In populated areas, you still drop it. And on old German roads you can’t really accelerate, it’s a little narrow, however...
About paths
A separate song about roads. In general, they are good and even beautiful.
The road from the airport towards Zelenogradsk
The old German highways have been preserved, as I already mentioned. And, probably, they even prevail.
Although, of course, it's hard for me to judge. In three days, only the coastal section was circled, and then, very partially. The coverage has been updated, but the width! Oh oh oh! Especially when giant trees stand along roadsides.
That's it, it seems to be nothing, but out of habit with oncoming buses or trucks, it's quite exciting. Fortunately, the traffic is not very intense. So we plunged into the European flavor : )
There are also such areas. Yeah, shaking and shaking the internal contents of the body are guaranteed : ).
Of course, there will always and everywhere be some kind of trash jungle where you have to maneuver on a car between pits and potholes. Such parts include the segment of the path from the village of Yantarny to the observation deck of the Primorsky quarry. But this, after all, is an industrial zone, which is already there, and everything is not so scary. We just have a car... not for industrial zones. The most colorful in terms of coverage, or rather, its absence, turned out to be the roads of the direction on the Baltic Spit.
This is just for warning. Although, by the time I got to my “reporting”, everything could have changed for the better. Which is unlikely...
I won’t say anything about the roads in Kaliningrad itself, because we only got there in the late evening by car to hotel "Berlin" 3*, located not far from the South railway station, and already walking around the city. All Kaliningrad tourist attractions are scattered around the city, you should not rely on the so-called "old city" or "historical center", as in most ancient cities chosen by tourists - I ran around and that's it. You will have to ride and stomp. Therefore, the presence of a car under the booty should be a plus, on the one hand. And on the other hand, a new unfamiliar metropolis with unknown intersections, interchanges and overpasses, searches for parking lots, etc. , etc. In general, we decided that we would not go broke in a few taxi rides around Kaliningrad. Taxis today are not a luxury, but a means of transportation. Yes, and at least you can have a beer : ) .
Well, who builds like that ©
This paragraph is not about architecture. We encountered an unusual and unusual numbering of houses in Kaliningrad. So, maybe they didn’t pay attention, just one day they walked and walked and decided to call a taxi to the nearest house. And then misunderstandings with the number began.
The fact is that the old German numbering system for multi-entrance buildings was also inherited from the German past, when a number is assigned to each entrance, on the one hand the streets are even, on the other, respectively, odd. And in each of these entrances, the number of apartments starts from No. 1.
This house has entrances No. 6.8, 10.12. And another nuance – from right to left
Yes, a house in the usual sense for us = an entrance to Kaliningrad , well, or vice versa : ). For example, I pulled a more visual picture from the Internet
From the Internet
T. That is, this building has three entrances with numbers 17.19, 21, and on the other side of the street there will be buildings with even entrances.
Swan beauty and tragedy
Swans are, of course, not a curiosity. It's just that for us, the inhabitants of the central strip, it is in the category of miracles to observe these beautiful birds in free range, so to speak.
Not in a zoo or any closed park area, but just like that, on a river or even in the sea. That's how it is with us, ducks on every corner of the pond.
And everywhere they are in pairs. Oh, what a charm!
Swans fly to warmer climes for the winter. But in recent years, they have increasingly remained in nesting areas. According to ornithologists, this is due both to the general warming of winters and to their swan-like pampering, so to speak. Swans are used to being fed and, in general, there is not much point in leaving the bread place for them.
Most of the birds were found in Baltiysk.
And it was there, near the Western Fort, that the dead individuals were found.
I'm not sure what this is about. And just in Baltiysk, a poster with the rules for feeding swans was seen.
Apparently, one of the main causes of death is just us, people. With our good intentions, but not knowing the peculiarities, we are destroying beautiful birds. Let's know now.
Wonders of the plant world
For us, from a series of unusual things turned out to be mistletoe. Although we are adults, we are such children, honestly. We sincerely thought that these same balls, seemingly made of twigs, found on trees, were simply nests.
So it seemed from the car window. Strange, of course, nests - green... But then trees began to catch the eye, just strewn with these "nests". No, something is not right here.
We stopped, looked, this is not a nest, but a cluster of green leaves.
In Victory Park. Kaliningrad
Of course, Google and Wikipedia will help us. It was then that we learned for ourselves the evergreen semi-parasite mistletoe, which, by the way, among many nations is a symbol of life, a protector from all misfortunes and witchcraft, and it brings a lot of good things to people. In general, such a plant is positive, although it is a parasite.
And a little about food
Each country and even region of the country has its own delicacies, or gastronomic specialties, as it is now fashionable to say. So in the Kaliningrad Territory there are their own. On the Internet, it is easy and simple to find a list of dishes recommended for inspection sample for a tourist.
Bedbugs, I would call cutlets, meatballs. A prerequisite is cream sauce. Without it, cutlets are no longer bugs
An ear made from several types of fish
The first thing was, of course, Baltic smoked eel and garfish for company.
Eel, of course, is tastier, but garfish is fine. But eel is better. They say that many people do not like fish because of its fat content. Yes, there is such a thing. And we liked it. Here's a garfish, just a bit dry. Also with green bones. Some, including us, believe that this is due to the high content of phosphorus. But no, it's all my fault biliverdin. But read separately: )
There is a drawback to fish delicacies - the price tag is crazy. The most budget option, so to speak, was found on the market in Zelenogradsk. To be honest, I got confused in the intricacies of the fish industry. About the eel, for example: it seems to be an endangered species, but you can catch it; industrial fishing seems to be prohibited, but there are fish farms, and how do they meet the needs of the guests of the region in such a quantity? The seller at the market complained to us that there was not enough eel left (February 2021), “Muscovites” ate everything in the crazy summer of 2020 : ). “Moskvich”, as I understand it, all visitors call names.
I really liked the bonito stroganina.
Different establishments have their own serving, but the essence is the same: finely chopped frozen bonito. As the waiter explained, you need to carefully move everything, mash it with a fork, and already eat all this mess. But for some reason, I liked the non-wrinkled one more. And my husband did not understand my taste addiction, how can you eat raw fish : )). Oh, so yummy!
Oh, and what incomparable custard sticks (or tubes, but without filling) were in the stall near the Honey Bridge in Kaliningrad! There is no photo, taste buds worked faster than brain convolutions thought of photographing for history : ))
Now, from the local beer, which, it seems, is the heir to the Prussian past, there are no bright emotions left. Beer is like beer. Unless, the cost in establishments is humane by Moscow standards, which undoubtedly makes it tastier : ))
On the economic side, briefly, perhaps, everything. I made a mistake in something - correct me, there will be questions - ask.
From the same opera trip:
Winter studies of the Curonian Spit. Version "The Other Side" >>>
