Passatge Bacardi

The Passatge Bacardi, which connects the Rambla with Barcelona’s secret heart, the Plaza Real was built by the same Francesc Daniel Molina i Casamajó, chief architect of the town’s urban planning, who also designed the whole Plaza Real. It is no coincidence that the arcades of the Plaza continue the rhythm of the passage, or rather vice versa. In summer, it’s a big bazaar, filled with shops, cafes, umbrellas. Only this time, in the winter it unfolds its architectonic structure.

Gambling

It’s almost a hundred years now that these people have been staring fixedly at the lens of the long-destroyed camera. And what a hundred years! The postcard sent to St. Petersburg has survived several wars and civil wars, a blockade, evacuations, fall of leaders and regimes, its address became invalid and then valid again. And still there are a few years left from the hundred.

For the standing people the center of the scene at this moment is the photographer and his camera. But for the photographer – and also for them some minutes earlier and later – the center is the group of two or three men turning away from us and so busily focusing on something on the ground as if it did not interest them that they are just missing the only opportunity in their lives to figure on a picture.


We only know from the inscription printed on the back of the postcard what they are doing: Праздничное развлеченiе рабочихъ “Игра въ орлянку” – A festive entertainment for the workers: “Heads or Tails”

The rare term орлянка comes from орел, “eagle” and refers to small things related to or representing an eagle. Such as the old czarist officer’s belt buckle which was also called like this.


The big Brockhaus-Efron’s Энциклопедический словарь (1896-1907) gives this definition:

Орлянка: простонародная игра, состоящая в том, что бросают монету, и тот, кто угадает, какой стороной (решеткой или орлом) упадет она, выигрывает ее.

Orlyanka: game of the common people, consisting in throwing up a money. The player who figures out which side of the coin will be up, the lattice or the eagle, wins the money.

This definition makes it clear that the common people – I like very much the synthetic term простонародный, circa “simplefolkish” – pursued this festive entertainment with the lowest value kopeiki of which the two sides, at least at the time when the term was coined, was in fact decorated with the monogram of the ruler – for the illiterate: a lattice – and the double-headed imperial eagle.





For a Hungarian it is so obvious to call this game fej vagy írás, “head or script” that he would not believe if somebody told him that no other people says it exactly like this. The Germans say Kopf oder Zahl, the Spaniards and Italians Cara o cruz and Testa o croce, the Poles – just like Russians, and obviously after the same kopeiki – Orzeł czy reszka, the Irishmen Head or harps, the Greeks Κορώνα η γράμματα (crown or script), and the ancient Latins Navia aut caput (ship or head [of Janus]), depending on the actual designs of their coins. The most absurd one is the English Heads or tails, where “tails” does not refer to the image on the reverse, but as we read it in the 1870 edition of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, “is the opposite and obvious reverse to heads. The expression ‘can’t make head nor tail of it’ expresses this concept of opposites”.

If the Russian simplefolk were wealthy enough, then instead of kopeiki they could have played the game also with poltiniks (half-rubles), and thus call it “head or eagle” or even “one head or double-head”. But then they certainly would have had some different festive entertainment.

“If on a Sunday you looked down from the hill, you could only see the restless groups of those playing “heads or tails” everywhere. Now they bend down to throw money in the center of the circle or to clean up the winnings, now the toss their heads to stare at the sky, with their eyes following the path of the way of the petak [five kopeks], and then running violently to where it fell on the ground. If the head is up, then only the thrower bends down to pick up all the money, while the others dig out new stake from their pockets and erect new columns of copper and silver coins, with the silver ones on the top so it could be clearly seen how much money it is. The thrower examines the towers, and if the value exceeds the power of his purse, he lets removed from it, but if his pocket can bear it, he says: “I hold it!” He spits on the head – this is a kind of superstition – and rubs it to the sole of his boot, then he throws with an expert hand the petak, which is spinning whistling in the air, it is almost lost from sight, and the crowd once again raise their heads upwards. – “They are praying for rain” – the kibitzes say.”

V. A. Gilyarovsky: Мои скитания (My Travels), “The Theatre”

According to the inscription on the back of the postcard, the picture was taken on the territory of the Ленскiй Горный Округъ, the Lensk Mining District. The town of Lensk was founded along the Siberian river of Lena on the place of an Evenki settlement called Mukhtua which means “large water”. In the 19th and 20th century it was one of the centers of political prisoners sent to Siberian exile, and a number of various mines operated in its neighborhood. Such was also the Феодосьевский прiискъ, Feodosev Mine to be seen on the photo. In local histories one could certainly find more data about it, but on the internet it has only a single occurrence. It is frozen, like an archive photo, into the sample sentence taken from Soviet writer Vissarion Sayanov with which the Russian academic dictionary and its offsprings have illustrated the verb смочь, “can” since 1957:

“Вскоре Чердынцев смог вернуться на Феодосьевский прииск.”
“Cherdintsev could soon return to the Feodosev Mine.”

Perhaps he is already there on the picture.

From late 19th century a number of Russian companies of photography found it profitable to publish postcards on Siberian towns and landscapes. There were surely several photos taken on the territory of the Lensk Mining District as well, if this one is numbered as 58. Eight further ones can be seen on the portal devoted to the vintage postcards of the Russian Empire.


The sender of the postcard informs Anna Alexandrovna that if all goes well, he will arrive between 20 and 22 August to St. Petersburg. The date of the postcard is 28 July 1914.

The next day at five o’clock in the morning the general mobilization was ordered in Russia.

Escorca

In the mountain inns of Mallorca you still often find such kind of curiosities, trophies of mountain goats, stuffed black vultures, the photo galleries of the monsters born in the surrounding manors, memories of a one-time world, very different from that of today.



The Sierra de Tramuntana, the Western Mountains, as we have already written, used to be an extremely closed world, and in many respects still remained like that. However, it was crossed by a multitude of paths which connected to each other the houses, the hardly cultivable small valleys, the sheep-folds, oak forests, charcoal-klins, the hiding places of the smugglers coming up from the coast, the hideaways of outlaws, the watchtowers which observed the horizon of the sea and warned the villages about the emergence of pirates and hostile fleets. The following pictures were taken on the plateau of Escorca, from where the road begins to descend along the mountain river of Torrent de Pareis to the heart of the Sierra de Tramuntana. In the background the sea, an eternal border and promise.

“The region around the two main heights of the island, the Puig Major of Sóller and the Puig Major of Lluch emerges with wild and rocky ridges almost to the sea. There, at the coast emerge the fearful rocks of the Castell del Rey, under which lay the two small bays of Calobra  and Tuent, separated from each other by the Rocks of the Cow. In this almost unbroken series of cliffs only the Torrent de Pareis cuts the sole corridor, running down from the valley of Lluch. This wild chain of mountains which surprises so much the painter, on whose heights herds of scrawny goats graze he grass growing among the rocks, and above whose tops vultures hover in search of prey, is little adapted to human dwellings. The fishermen, when on calm days pass with horror under these threatening rocks, row without a break from Tuent to as far as Cala de San Vicente. […] After Tuent the scene unexpectedly changes. The mountains seem to leave the seashore, where only the narrow edge of the cliffs of the Costera remain. Here has its source the river of the same name, which is also used for producing electric power, and which discharges into the sea at the Punta de la Creu. (Archduke Luis Salvador de Austria, Die Balearen, ca. 1869)

In 1531 the famous Ottoman pirate Hayreddin Barbarossa, who had nested into the nearby island of Cabrera, raided the towns of Pollença and Sa Calobra, seizing a rich booty and many prisoners. His bloodiest and still remembered undertaking in the Balearic Islands was the plunder of the town of Mahón in Menorca, on 1 September 1535.



The finca of Cosconar, built in the crack of the rock, played a key role to protect the coastline, especially because from here the road led to the main shrine of Mallorca in Lluc. From 1571 onwards a constant chain of watchtowers were raised along the coast. The above large building, however, was already built in the 20th century as a gendarme barracks, above all against the smugglers. Its modest results in this field are marked by the fact that the territory for its construction was donated in 1924 by Joan March Ordinas who became one of the world’s richest men through smuggling. After the Civil War the building was abandoned for a long time. Now, restored, is part of the Cosconar finca.

Pirate attacks were so common here that the inhabitants of Cala Tuent and Sa Calobra in the summer slept in the forest, so as not to be surprised by the enemy in their own houses. From the end of the 16th century the captain of Sóller obliged all the inhabitants of the coastal settlements under the penalty of 200 ducats to permanently leave their towns. The coasts were attacked not only by the ships of “The Great Turk”, but also by the Genovese, already from 1338 onwards, and sometimes with very large fleets. Occasionally there appeared also French pirates. In 1648 viceroy Gurrea warned the mayors and jurors of Valldemossa, Deià and Sóller to watch over the coast, because recently eighteen French galleons appeared around the island. These towns were also responsible for the protection of the Torrent de Pareis, “even if it does not belong to your land”.



The coast was threatened by a wide variety of dangers. Between 1784 and 1828 it was watched over by a permanent coast guard, a kind of a cordon sanitaire against the illegal ships from Southern France, to whose risks attention was drawn for the first time by the great plague of 1720 in Marseilles. The most important economic activity of the coastline, however, was over a long period smuggling, which the “health guards” had to prevent by any possible means. This task, however, was characterized by a complete failure, due to the guards’ miserable salary. The inquiries opened on this almost never had any tangible result: the web of complicity and mutual assistance proved to be impermeable. Nobody knew anything, seen nothing, heard nothing. The documents of the inquiries were archived one after another.

The hardship of life along the coast is attested by these strophes from some old Mallorcan ballads:

A sa platja de Tuent s'hi varen menjar un ca. ja podeu considerar que era a força de talent

At the coast of Tuent they ate a dog. You can imagine, how great was the hunger.

En es Torrent de Pareis han vengut a bolitjar, en no tenir què menjar és molt lluny de remeis.

They came to Torrente de Pareis to fish with bola. * If there is nothing to eat this also does not help much.

Sa Costera es un bordell ple d'artigues i batzers, qui hi va gras hi perd es greix i qui hi va prim hi perd sa pell.

The Costera is a brothel, there grows only nettle and bramble. Whoever is fat, loses his fat whoever is thin, loses his skin.

Escorca

En algunos restaurantes de la montaña de Mallorca encontramos cosas como esta cabra o un buitre negro disecados que, junto a la pequeña galería de monstruos más o menos domésticos que vemos abajo de la imagen, atestiguan una vida muy diferente a la de hoy (nada diremos del sentido estético de los propietarios).



La Sierra de Tramuntana, como ya escribimos, era un mundo en gran medida cerrado —y hasta cierto punto lo sigue siendo— pero a la vez estaba lleno de caminos que la cruzaban conectando las casas, los pequeños valles de cultivo difícil, los cercados de ovejas, los encinares y las carboneras, los escondites para el contrabando que subía de la costa abrupta, los refugios de los bandoleros que huían de la justicia, las torres de vigilancia que avisaban de la llegada de corsarios y piratas. Estas imágenes solo quieren dar una idea de la parte alta de Escorca, en el punto donde empieza el descenso hacia el Torrent de Pareis, en el corazón de la Sierra de Tramuntana. Al fondo, el mar, límite y promesa.

«La parte más hacia levante, al pie de las dos alturas principales de la isla, el Puig Major de Sóller y el Puig Major de Lluch, se levanta con escarpaduras salvajes y peñascosas pendientes casi hasta el mar. Allá están las temerarias alturas del Castell del Rey y las dos pequeñas ensenadas de la Calobra y Tuent, las cuales con los altos de la Vaca quedan divididas una de otra. Solo el Torrent de Pareis, que baja desde el valle de Lluch, forma en esta serie casi no interrumpida de acantilados un profundo corte. Este trecho bravío que tanto sorprende al pintor, y en cuyas alturas rebaños de cabras pacen la escuálida hierba que crece en medio de las rocas y en cuyas cumbres revolotean los buitres ansiosos de presa, poco se adapta para viviendas humanas. Los pescadores, cuando en días de calma pasan con horror al lado de aquellas pendientes sin resguardo, reman sin descansar desde Tuent hasta la Cala de San Vicente [...]. Después de Tuent, se muda de improviso la escena. Las alturas principales parecen retirarse de la orilla del mar, y allí queda solo el estrecho borde del acantilado de la Costera, donde se encuentra el gran manantial de igual nombre, que ha encontrado empleo para producir fuerza eléctrica, acabando con la punta de la Creu» (Archiduque Luis Salvador de Austria, Die Balearen, c.1869)

En 1531, el famoso corsario Jeireddín «Barbarroja», que se había acuartelado en la isla de Cabrera, desembarcó en Pollença y luego en Sa Calobra, saqueando y haciendo numerosos cautivos (aunque el episodio más sangriento de Barbarroja en Baleares fue el brutal y aún recordado expolio de Mahón, el 1 de septiembre de 1535).



La finca de Cosconar, con estas casas construidas aprovechando la hendidura de la roca, era clave para la defensa de la costa, sobre todo para proteger el Santuario de Lluc. Desde 1571 se dispusieron  atalayas permanentes. El gran edificio de arriba, sin embargo, se construyó en época más moderna, como cuartel de carabineros y en concreto para evitar el contrabando. Del logro de sus objetivos basta decir que fue construido sobre unos terrenos donados justamente por Joan March Ordinas en 1924, cuya fortuna nació con estas actividades. Después de la Guerra Civil el edificio se abandonó y hoy, restaurado, vuelve a formar parte de la finca de Cosconar.

Los ataques eran tan frecuentes que los habitantes de Cala Tuent y Sa Calobra en verano se iban a dormir al bosque para no ser sorprendidos dentro de las casas. A fines del XVI el capitán de armas de Sóller obligó bajo multa de 200 ducados que todos los habitantes de aquellas tierras marítimas las abandonasen. Los ataques no eran solo «del Turco», los genoveses se sumaban con frecuencia, en concreto desde 1338, y a veces con flotas considerables. Y también aparecían de vez en cuando los franceses. En 1648 el virrey Gurrea advertía a los alcaldes y jurados de las villas de Valldemossa, Deià y Sóller que vigilaran la costa ante la presencia de dieciocho galeras de la armada francesa que costeaban la isla. A estos pueblos, además de la defensa de sus marinas propias, se les encomendaba la mucho más complicada protección del Torrent de Pareis, «encare que no sia de vostro districte» (aunque no sea de vuestro distrito).



Los peligros en esta costa eran muy variados. De 1784 a 1828 se mantuvo vigilancia costera sufragada por varios municipios para prevenir los desembarcos no autorizados provenientes del sur de Francia. Fue la gran peste de Marsella de 1720 la que alertó especialmente del problema. Para ello se dispuso una buen contingente de hombres que, como «guardas secretas» de la costa, ejercían en lo posible un cordón sanitario.

El contrabando fue, por supuesto, durante mucho tiempo la actividad económica más importante de la zona. Así, aquellos guardias sanitarios también debían evitarlo con los medios a su alcance. El fracaso era total, y los motivos se entienden conociendo el miserable sueldo que se les pagaba y las condiciones en que trabajaban. En los documentos judiciales que se conservan, las investigaciones abiertas casi nunca concluye en nada claro. La trama de complicidades y apoyos entre los encausados era absolutamente impenetrable. Nadie sabía nada, nadie había visto nada ni oído nada de nada, y una tras otra las denuncias se archivaban.

La dureza de la vida en esta costa la atestiguan estos versos:

A sa platja de Tuent s'hi varen menjar un ca. Ja podeu considerar que era a força de talent

En la playa de Tuent se comieron un perro. Ya podéis considerar que fue a fuerza del hambre.

O estas otras redondillas:

En es Torrent de Pareis han vengut a bolitjar, en no tenir què menjar és molt lluny de remeis.

Al Torrente de Pareis han venido a «bolichear», * Si no hay nada qué comer está muy lejos de cualquier remedio.

Sa Costera es un bordell ple d'ortigues i batzers, qui hi va gras hi perd es greix i qui hi va prim hi perd sa pell.

Sa Costera es un burdel lleno de ortigas y zarzas, quien va gordo pierde la grasa y quien va flaco pierde la piel.

Prison cards

A fundamental work. Vitaly Lozovsky: How to survive and spend our time usefully
in the prison. Moscow, 2005

We have recently written about a card deck of the Dachau concentration camp, which, however, at the first shuffling turned out not to have been intended for use there, but to have been designed after the liberation of the camp as a kind of graphic memoirs. However, the following deck, published in the catalog of the Petersburg Card Museum, was actually drawn in the prison for the purpose of playing, perhaps sometime between 1967 and 1981. The sixteen cards included in the catalog contain several suits, so probably all fifty-three cards of the deck were decorated with a different drawing. We can only speculate on what the other figures were.

In lack of a closer knowledge of the world of Soviet prisons we can only conjecture about the identity of some details of the pictures. If you know how to decipher them, tell us.



The ace of hearts evokes the coveted freedom with the image of the wild geese flying high on the sky. The figure marked with a screw here and two rows below will be probably the jack in the disguise of a forced laborer. The typical Soviet envelope of the period, copied onto card 6 was sent to the Mordvin Autonomous Republic: perhaps the deck was made by a linguistic relative of us Hungarians?



The three cards representing guards in all colors are marked with an… er, characteristic figure, which leaves no doubt that this is the suit of the king. Card number 8 represents from their point of view, from outside the cell door with the sight-hole and the small counter of the size of a mess-tin, called kormushka, “feeder”. Card 6 reads a chastushka, obviously copied from a billboard on the courtyard of the prison or labor camp, which expresses in the idioms of contemporary agitation language the slogan well known from its much more concise German predecessor:

Помни сам, скажи другому:
Честный труд – дорога к дому.

Remember and tell to others:
honest work is the way to home.

The sentry box with the barbed wire speaks for itself on the diamond ace. Suits number 9 perhaps represented highly appreciated assets such as the black bread with something on its top and the most popular cigarette of Soviet times, Ленинградская Прима on this card. This one was also called Советская Прима for a while, and thus a nostalgy edition of it, decorated with the portraits of Stalin and Lenin, has recently come into the market. Card number 6 is a supplication to Roman Rudenko, the Chief Prosecutor of the Soviet Union. Rudenko, formerly Chief Prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, bore this office from 1953 until his death in 1981, so the latter date probably indicates the ante quem of the preparation of the deck



The ace of spades is the “bell” made out of a rail and bearing the name of the unit (подразделение), which signaled the time of muster in outdoor labor, just as it announced the air-raid alarm at us during the war. The inscription РАБ КПСС – “prisoner of the Soviet Communist Party” – on the forehead of the “screw” (jack?) was a typical prison tattoo of the period with which the prisoners expressed their protest against the regime; its form used by women prisoners was “Рабыня КПСС”. And on the last card number 6 we see the Monday, 24 April 1967 – George’s Day – edition of the prison daily За отличный труд – For the excellent work which was forbidden to be taken out from the sector of the unit (“газету за пределы подразделения не выносить”). Does the year indicate the date of preparation of the deck? Or is it rather related to some other important event, for example the expected date of release from the prison? Or a subtle reference to the proverb вот тебе Юрьев день, “here you are George’s Day”, ca. “have your bit of nothing and enjoy”? If so, then it probably took a long time to invent and then to guess it, but if something there was in the prison, it was time. To be spent usefully.