There are almost 400 old radios, most of them from all over Europe, which rest quietly in a house in the south of Tenerife. They have witnessed much of the history of the 20th century, including the two world wars and the one between the two Spains. Its loudspeakers broadcast the outcome of the first global war, broadcasting the fierce national confrontation and amplifying the sounds of the great international war conflict that Hitler began with the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.
But today the old devices are not for the job of telling the world more wars, quite the opposite. They have declared a strike for fallen waves until the end of the invasion of Ukraine and declare peace in the country. All these museum pieces, many of them with spectacular wooden casings, wear a black ribbon as a sign of mourning for those who have died since last February 24, the date on which the war broke out.
There are Russian, Ukrainian and more than thirty country radios in this kind of Hertzian UN that watches over weapons to announce peace. Those that still work will be turned on the day the stations broadcast the most awaited phrase from the rooftops: “the war is over”. Even the name of the owner of the largest private collection of old radios in the Canary Islands, and the author of the idea, is in tune with the times: Vladimiro, although his friends call him Vladimir.
From Guaza (Arona), this Tenerife native born 67 years ago in Los Cristianos sends a message to his Russian namesake: “This must be stopped now, what is happening is crazy, it is enough”. He explains that “my girls (as he refers to his radios) have been sleeping in the Canary Islands for more than 40 years, which is a beach area with good weather, and they no longer want to know anything more about wars, because they have already reported too many” . He acknowledges that these days he practically does not watch television “because it makes me want to cry” and insists that everything happens because the Russian president “comes to his senses”. “All the power and all the money seems little to him, that’s why I would ask him: but why do you want so much, if you are going to die?”
In addition to the mourning ties, Vladimir has placed two flags, one Ukrainian and one Russian, both with a black crepe, in his particular radio shrine, as a sign that peaceful coexistence between the two nations is possible. “It is that there is no right that so many people are suffering so much!” He remarks.
collection for sale
Vladimiro Regalado Armas unveiled his particular museum on February 6 through DIARIO DE AVISOS to announce that he was putting up for sale the entire collection that he has built up throughout his life. At the moment he has not let go of her, although his phone has not stopped ringing since the publication of the report. “This has been a madness of television and radio,” he says. The agreement with some of the possible buyers could be reached soon. “That’s where we are,” he says. He is currently in talks with the City Council of Granadilla, which has shown interest in an exhibition. “We have seen some locals and we are thinking about it.”
The origin of his passion for old gadgets dates back to his childhood, when he fixed his mother’s black and white television. Already 21 years old, recently arrived in Sweden, she was hurt that at a local party they used old radios to light the bonfires: “I tried to save them, but they told me that nothing could be touched. That annoyed me and I said: I’m going to collect as many as I can and not one more will burn here. And so I started collecting them.
Vladimir then gave up smoking to buy old gadgets. That’s where his great passion began, today concentrated in a room that has become too small to store so much history and pile up so many memories. In fact, due to lack of space, he keeps some of the acquisitions in an adjoining workshop, where he has the necessary material for repairs.
“How much can this be worth? I have no idea, but here is a fortune. All the devices are original, exclusive, some of the oldest ones still work. There are Russian, Swedish, Danish… even Argentine brands. Their true value is that none of them can be bought today”, he explains, while underlining the costs he has had to assume to form a unique collection: “I have been buying them in Sweden, Saint Petersburg, Latvia, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Germany, France… Look, I’ve traveled kilometers to go look for them”.
Among the jewels of the domestic museum is included “the radio that Hitler ordered to be built for the people. Just as Germany chose the Volkswagen as the car for the people, Hitler commissioned this model [muestra un ejemplar de chapa negra y forma rectangular] to popularize radio. Vladimir also proudly displays a Nordic-made device with Swedish crowns stamped on the glass dating from the first decades of the last century, as well as several examples of galena and chapel.
Asked about the units with the greatest sentimental or economic value, this water engineer, who continues to travel to Sweden in the summer to repair heaters and air conditioners, acknowledges that “it is difficult”, because “each one has its charm and its history, and I cannot say this one is more beautiful than the other”.
In addition, in the warehouse there is a jukebox without batteries from 1908, a collection of original Elvis Presley records, magazines from the 50s and large original one and a half volt batteries, as well as a thousand lamps and nearly 500 needles. pick up and turntable. “Whoever wants to set up a museum, I’ll give it to them already,” he says.
But before parting with his valuable collection of antiquities, Vladimir dreams of hearing the end of the war in Ukraine on his radios. That day they will sound at full volume.
