A crack


I did cross by ferry from Europe to Asia, but at that time the proportion of beauty per second made it clear that I was crossing the border of two continents at a bargain price of forty euro cents. But with a tram?

9 comentarios:

José Manuel Teixeira da Silva dijo...

Just to say how much I like to visit this river.

José Manuel T. S.

http://subito-jmts.blogspot.com/

MOCKBA dijo...

Not really in Ufa I suppose? Looks like Magnitogorsk city...

MOCKBA dijo...

Wow, they even have full-fledged trainspotters sites in Russia :O
http://transit.parovoz.com/muralista/pg_view.php?ID=17938

Studiolum dijo...

Thanks for the correction, МОСКБА, and especially for the good photo. I took mine from the photos of a journey to Ufa, and apparently it was not specified that this one was made already in the next city. Now I correct it.

Yes, José Manuel, me too… I have only seen it on photos and it must be a fascinating region. Thanks for your blog: I have already come across it earlier, and found it beautiful and inspiring. I will come back to read it more carefully soon.

Effe dijo...

Vedi come, a volte, per attraversare un Bridge over troubled water è sufficiente A Streetcar named Desire (di mondi altri)?
:-)

Studiolum dijo...

Infatti, è questa bella assurdità, la concorrenza delle realtà disparate che amiamo tanto in Russia :)

MOCKBA dijo...

Most of the photographs of this sign have some sort of an advertisement attached to it, so I can't help thinking that the sign on this bridge is a mere commercial ploy LOL. Especially since many self-righteous geographers would argue that the line between the continents doesn't go through Magnitogorsk at all. The line is traditionally drawn North-South along the Ural mountains until they melt into the Great Steppe, and then along Ural River (which has only received this name in XVIIIth century to erase the memory of rebellious Yaik Cosackdom).

It is true that Ural River divides the city, but its location is like a 100 km East of the eponymous mountains, still tall and strong in this area (Yamantau Mountain, due West of Magnitogorsk, is the highest point of a 1000+km stretch of Central-South Urals). This is the headwaters of a different river, the Belaya, which does flow to Ufa.

Belaya River and Ufa is a part of my family lore. On the Black Day of October 16th, 1941, my grandma discovered that the factory where she worked at has been evacuated overnight. The management only had time to warn the workers who lived on the nearby streets. By morning, the boxcars were gone, and Granny was told to go East on her own and to look for her factory "somewhere in the Urals". With some crazy luck and adventure, she made it all the way to Ufa, with her elderly mother-in-low and my infant mother in tow. But in Ufa, the authorities barred them from the Urals, where the towns have become so crowded with refugees that they didn't allow families with more than one dependendent/worker ratio! So the three women were locked on a river barge and sent away from town, drifting down the Belaya until the river finally froze and they were finally allowed to disembark, to spend the next year marooned in a remote Bashkir village.

Araz dijo...

Wow, the map above looks like from the famous Ottoman catalog by Piri Reis, and the main fort there says Alaniya, doesn't it?

Studiolum dijo...

Yes, it is Alanya, and of course from a deluxe copy of Piri Reis’ map from the Walters Library. I’m planning to present the maps of this edition side by side with a modest edition, for everyday use, of the same map from the same period, preserved in the Academy Library of Budapest. I originally intended to include to this post the map of Constantinople, but this leaf with this strong “crack” of the seashore (which in fact separates Europe from Asia) seemed visually much more fitting.

Thank you, Москва, for this evocative story. Don’t you want to write it for Río Wang, perhaps illustrated with some photos from the period? I would be very grateful for it.