Icons

The crumbling walls of Saint-Petersburg, whose sinking back to mere matter is documented by Sasha Terebenin, are used as new basic material by Vadim Bo to create modern icons. Their relationship is well shown by the fact that the images make the most natural impression there where they have been taken from: on the walls of the courtyards of Saint-Petersburg.

The walls of the city were decorated with every kind of precious stone.
The first was jasper, the second sapphire,
the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald,
the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian,
the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl,
the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase,
the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. (Rev 21:20)

Lucca, Sunday afternoon

This note has remained on a wall of Lucca since Christmas: “The Banca del Monte of Lucca wishes a merry Christmas and happy new year to all the customers ruined by them.”

Recently we recounted how the Pisans, invading in 1114 the Muslim Mallorca, took from the mosque of Medina Mayurka – today’s Palma – the two red porphyry columns which today adorn the front door of the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral. The Pisans offered them to Florence as a token of gratitude for the Florentines’ having defended in the absence of the Pisan army the city of Pisa from any perfidious intention of the neighboring Lucca. The truth is that in those years the Pisan army often undertook various adventures, especially by sea, from where they returned with a rich booty. Not so those of Lucca who chose to make their (fabulous) fortune by the arts of diplomacy, shrewdness, industry (mostly silk), finances and speculations. The mint of Lucca was the only one who dared to coin a currency with the portrait of Christ (we will soon understand why), and this currency often served as a reference value all over the medieval and Renaissance Europe, as it is attested by phrases like “L’oro di Bologna a passar da Lucca si vergogna” – “The gold of Bologna is ashamed when passing through Lucca”.


Another memorable booty of the Pisan army is from the time of the first crusade, from where they returned with the precious relics of St. Nicodemus, now preserved in the Cathedral of Pisa. Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin, and the Gospel of John reports on his conversion to Christ and his contribution with a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe to embalming the body of Christ. However, at the same time the inhabitants of Lucca did not need to leave the safety and quiet of their town on the banks of the Serchio to obtain even better relics. The story is recounted like this by the De inventione, revelatione ac translatione Sanctissimi Vultu:

After Nicodemus helped Joseph of Arimathea to take down Christ from the cross and to prepare His body for burial, he wanted to make a wooden sculpture that would preserve the living memory of the body and face of Christ. He carved the body, but then hesitated and did not dare to begin to form the head. Tired and sad for the difficulty of the task, he fell asleep. While sleeping, angels finished the work. It is said that after Nicodemus was martyred, the crucifix remained forgotten for generations, hidden deep in a cave, until an angel appeared to the good bishop Subalpinus, and told him to go to the Mount Kidron where he would find the sculpture in the cave. The angel also commanded him to immediately build a tabernacle in the form of a ship, put the crucifix inside and let it on the sea, as God would lead it to its destination. When the bishop let the ship on the waves, a gentle wind arose with a special aroma, as if all the spices of the world had been united. And the ship arrived to the Tuscan coast, where it was spotted by a Genoese ship who wanted to seize it, but in vain they chased it for several days, they could not get even near to it. In the end, they reached it in the port of Luni, but again they tried to get on it without success for several days. The bishop of Luni then offered a large reward to whoever could catch the ship, but it was all in vain. Meanwhile, the bishop of Lucca was visited by another angel who said him: “Gather your people and go with them to the beach of Luni to receive the gift that God sends you. And do not forget to be generous with the Bishop of Luni when you see what is inside the cross.” When the good bishop of Lucca with his entourage arrived in Luni, where already all the sailors were laying exhausted, the first they did was to kneel down and pray in the sand. And suddenly a scented air arose, as if all the flowers of the world had been united, and the ship came by itself near to them. The bishop pulled it from the sea with his own hand as if it weighed less than a feather, opened its seals and found in it the tabernacle of the True Cross and the Holy Face carved by St. Nicodemus with the help of angels. Then he looked inside the cross and found a scroll with its history, and another with the story of its discovery by Bishop Subalpinus, furthermore a piece of the crown of thorns, a remnant of the garment of Christ, a nail from His cross, a phial with the blood of Christ and the Holy Shroud. The bishop of Lucca gave the phial with the Holy Blood to the bishop of Luni. But, as expected, it was not enough to settle the arguments over the ownership of the venerable objects. Thus the bishop of Lucca proposed that, as it happened until then, the will of God should decide. They put the tabernacle and all its contents in a chariot drawn by two white oxen, and the beasts without hesitation took the road to Lucca and did not stop until they reached the door of the church of Saint Martin. And so the Volto Santo has since become a symbol and religious focus of Lucca and the origin of their great feasts, and its image adorns the currency of the city of Lucca.

The fact is that in Catalonia you can hear the same story. The inhabitants of the town of Balaguer argue that it is they who preserve the Christ of Nicodemus which came floating on the waves of the sea from Beirut where it had been hiding, to the delta of the Ebro, then upstream the river and its tributary, the little Segre to the town of Balaguer along the river. Also in this case, God allowed only to the abbess of the Poor Clares to take it out of the water and to keep it in the church. Perhaps this anecdote highlights a difference between Italy, which has always succeeded in exploiting its symbolic resources, and Spain – in this case, Catalonia – where there is a greater tendency to put things away, to keep reticence and, ultimately, to be along history always some steps behind Italy. A proof is the great reputation of the Volto Santo of Lucca as opposed to the Cristo of Balaguer, which is barely known by the villages of the region.

Lucca is always worth a visit, especially in September, during the feast of La Luminara
celebrated in honor of the Volto Santo. We were there on a quiet
Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago.

Tarde de domingo en Lucca

Esta nota permanece en un muro de Lucca desde Navidad: «La Banca del Monte de Lucca desea una buena Navidad y feliz Año Nuevo a todos los clientes que ha arruinado»

Hace poco contábamos cómo los pisanos, en su ataque a la Mallorca musulmana del año 1114, se llevaron de la mezquita de Medina Mayurqa las dos columnas de pórfido rojo que hoy adornan la puerta principal del baptisterio de la Catedral de Florencia. Los pisanos regalaron estas columnas a Florencia en agradecimiento por el rigor con que los florentinos habían defendido Pisa de cualquier intento de agresión de la vecina Lucca. Lo cierto es que en aquellos años los pisanos salían a menudo de sus fronteras, sobre todo por mar, y emprendían aventuras de las que volvían cargados con abundantes botines. No así los de Lucca, que prefirieron labrar su fortuna (enorme) con las artes de la diplomacia, la astucia, la industria (de seda, sobre todo), las finanzas y hasta la especulación monetaria. La ceca de Lucca es la única que se ha atrevido a acuñar en una moneda de uso corriente el retrato de Cristo (veremos la razón), y sus monedas sirvieron a menudo de valor de referencia en toda la Europa medieval y renacentista —así lo revelan frases hechas como esta: «L’oro di Bologna a passar da Lucca si vergogna» (el oro de Bolonia al pasar por Lucca se avergüenza).


Otro ejemplo de botín del ejército pisano lo tenemos en su participación en la Primera Cruzada. Volvieron a su ciudad con las preciadísimas reliquias de San Nicodemo, que hoy se conservan en la Catedral de Pisa —San Nicodemo fue aquel miembro del Sanedrín del que cuenta el Evangelio de Juan su conversión al cristianismo y su colaboración con cien libras de mirra y áloe en el embalsamamiento del cuerpo de Cristo—. Sin embargo, los habitantes de Lucca no necesitaron moverse de su segura y tranquila ciudad a las riberas del Serchio para obtener, por los mismos años, mejores reliquias aún.  Esta es, en resumen, la historia, más o menos tal como la cuenta el De inventione, revelatione ac translatione Sanctissimi Vultu:

Tras haber ayudado Nicodemo a José de Arimatea a desclavar a Cristo de la cruz y preparar el cadáver para el entierro, quiso hacer una escultura en madera que preservase su recuerdo directo del cuerpo y el rostro de Jesús. Talló el cuerpo pero dudaba y no se atrevía a emprender la talla de la cabeza. Cansado y pesaroso por la dificultad y el compromiso de la tarea, se quedó dormido. Mientras descansaba, unos ángeles acabaron la labor. Se cuenta que al morir Nicodemo (parece que martirizado), el crucifijo permaneció olvidado durante generaciones, escondido en lo profundo de una cueva. Un ángel se apareció al buen obispo Subalpino y le dijo que se dirigiera al Monte Cedron, donde encontraría la escultura en una gruta. El ángel le ordenó también que construyera inmediatamente un tabernáculo en forma de nave, pusiera el crucifijo en su interior y lo lanzara al mar, pues Dios lo llevaría a su destino. Cuando el obispo dejó la nave sobre las olas, se levantó un viento suave y de extraordinario aroma, como si todas las especias de la tierra se hubieran reunido. Llegó así la nave hasta las costas toscanas, donde fue avistada por unos barcos genoveses que intentaron abordarla. La persiguieron de aquí allá durante días sin poder acercarse nunca lo suficiente. Al final, se encontraron vagando frente al puerto de Luni. Durante algunos días más intentaron atrapar la nave–tabernáculo sin éxito. El obispo de Luni ofreció entonces una fuerte recompensa a quien lo consiguiera. Todo fue en vano. Mientras tanto, el obispo de Lucca recibió la visita de otro ángel. «Reúne a la gente —le dijo— y ve con ellos a la playa de Luni a recibir el presente que Dios te envía. Y no dejes de ser generoso con el obispo de Luni cuando veas lo que hay en el interior de la cruz.» En definitiva, cuando el buen obispo de Lucca con su comitiva llegó a Luni, donde los marineros de allí yacían exhaustos, lo primero que hizo fue arrodillarse y rezar en la arena. De pronto, un aire perfumado como si se hubieran juntado todas las flores del mundo hizo arribar ante él la embarcación. Con sus propias manos la sacó del mar como si pesara menos que una pluma, desarmó sus cierres herméticos y encontró en el tabernáculo la Vera Cruz y la Santa Faz tallada por San Nicodemo con ayuda de los ángeles. Buscó luego en el interior de la cruz y halló un pergamino con la historia de su elaboración y otro con la historia de su descubrimiento por el obispo Subalpino. Y también un fragmento de la corona de espinas, un retal de las vestiduras de Cristo, un clavo de la crucifixión, un frasco con sangre de Cristo y el santo sudario. El obispo de Lucca entregó el frasco de sangre al obispo de Luni. Pero, como era de esperar, no bastó para zanjar las discusiones sobre la propiedad del resto de objetos venerables. El obispo de Lucca propuso entonces que, tal como había ocurrido hasta entonces, decidiera Dios. Pusieron el tabernáculo y todo su contenido en un carro tirado por dos bueyes blancos. Las bestias emprendieron sin titubear el camino de Lucca y no pararon hasta llegar a la puerta de la iglesia de San Martino. Y así el Volto Santo es desde entonces símbolo y eje religioso, origen de las grandes fiestas de Lucca y, como dijimos, hasta la cara (a veces el reverso) de las monedas de la ciudad de Lucca.

Pero resulta que en Cataluña podemos oír la misma historia. En el pueblo de Balaguer sostienen que son ellos quienes guardan el Cristo de Nicodemo: llegó flotando desde Beirut, donde estaba oculto, hasta el Delta del Ebro, subió por el río y siguió subiendo por el Segre arriba hasta llegar a Balaguer. En este caso, Dios solo permitió que fuera la abadesa de las clarisas quien lo sacara del agua y lo guardara en la iglesia. Quizá esta anécdota esconde una diferencia entre Italia, que siempre ha sabido explotar desde todos los ángulos posibles su imagen y sus recursos simbólicos, y España —en este caso Cataluña— donde hay una mayor tendencia a guardarse las cosas, a cerrarse, a mantener siempre puntos de reticencia y, en definitiva, a quedar a lo largo de la historia un par de escalones por detrás de Italia. La prueba es la gran fama del Volto Santo de Lucca frente al Cristo de Balaguer, que apenas lo conocen los pueblos de la comarca.

Objetivamente, Lucca siempre merecerá una visita. Incluso en la masiva fiesta de
La Luminara, en septiembre, en honor de Volto Santo. Nosotros estuvimos
hace un par de semanas, una tarde cualquiera de domingo.

Back door

Since our posts are usually heavily loaded with images, on the first page of río Wang you can see only the most recent four or five posts. Let us therefore have here this back door for a quick overview of all the posts.

Ghost sign in Isfahan

مرگ بر شاه morg bar shâh, death to the shah. Now, in July 2015. Thirty-six years after the revolution. In Isfahan, in the alleys behind the bazaar.

Come with us to Iran!

If the stunning beauty of the country, the kindness of the people, the multitude of historic monuments, and the great Iranian cuisine were widely known, we would not be able to step away from the many tourists.

Armenian Iran: New Julfa

In 1606, when Shah Abbas began the construction of Isfahan, he ordered the artisans of the Armenian Julfa to be its first builders. He settled the whole population of Julfa next to Isfahan.

Iran arménien: à la Nouvelle Jolfa

En 1606, alors que Shah Abbas venait de lancer la construction d’Ispahan, il invita les artisans de Jolfa à s’y installer pour en être les maîtres d’œuvre — et ce fut ainsi toute la population de Jolfa qu’il déplaça à Ispahan.

Dissolving: For woman poets, on invitation cards

Utamaro, From the series Seven women applying make-up, 1792-93 • Hofbauer, Invitation to the reading of Hana Kvapilová in the Youth Club of Prague, 1899

Ashura en Abyaneh

El ritual de la conmemoración anual de la tragedia de hace mil quinientos años brinda la oportunidad de que cada uno experimente también el dolor personal de la pérdida.

Ashura in Abyaneh

The annual ritual commemoration of the tragedy of one thousand five hundred years ago provides an opportunity for everyone to experience personal loss as well.

Cuna

«Una de las primeras labores por la mañana es espumar el yoghurt que se ha ido formando durante la noche. El cuero de cabra está suspendido con un trípode.»

Crib

“One of the first tasks in the morning is churning the whole-milk yoghurt, which has been forming over night. The goat-skin churn is suspended from a tripod.”

Abyaneh, el Pueblo Rojo

La mayoría llevan trajes tradicionales. Los hombres, calzones anchos negros, de seda. Los vestidos de tela estampada de las mujeres recuerdan la antigua ropa zoroástrica.

Abyaneh, the Red Village

Most people still wear traditional costumes, the men black baggy silk trousers, while the women’s flower-printed white robes are reminiscent of the former Zoroastrian wear.

El desierto persa

«Le comenté que estaba haciendo fotos del desierto. Me dijo que no sabía leer ni escribir pero que consideraba el desierto hermoso.»

The Persian desert

“I told him that I was taking pictures of the desert. He said he couldn’t read or write, but he regarded the desert beautiful.”

Sultán Savalán

Me despierto al amanecer en el bus, un cortado vertiginoso a la derecha, el cañón del río Qezel Ozan en el momento en que corta las montañas doradas de los nómadas Afshari.

Sultan Savalan

I wake up at dawn in the bus, a dizzying depth to the right, the canyon of Qezel Ozan river, as it cuts through the golden-colored mountains of the Afshari nomads.

Sorud

To the one-eyed small beggar, who on the Tehran subway sang Rumi poems from terminus to terminus.

Sorud

Para el mendigo tuerto que, de parada en parada, cantaba poemas de Rumi en el metro de Teherán.

The tomb of Queen Esther in Persia

“Do pilgrims still come here?” I ask Rabbi Rajad. “Of course, very many! At Purim, the courtyard is full, but throughout the year they come from every Jewish city of Iran.”

La tumba de la reina Ester en Persia

«¿Aún vienen peregrinos?», le pregunto. «Claro, ¡muchos! Por Purim el patio se llena, pero a lo largo del año vienen de todas las ciudades judías de Irán.»

Pink postcards 23

“The field card I send you now is an eternal memory from your birthplace, because this is a birch bark.”

Pink postcards 22

The field postcards, which were the most convenient from the censor’s point of view, did not contain any personal information.

Faces of Kashan

“There lives God”, she says, with eyebrows pulled together, pointing to the small apartment-mosque. “God?” I ask. “Yes, God”, she nods seriously, not even stopping.

Rostros de Kashán

«Allí vive Dios», dice frunciendo el ceño, señalando el pequeño piso de la mezquita. «¿Dios?», pregunto. «Sí, Dios», asiente con seriedad, sin detenerse.

Pink postcards 21

“Life is already very boring here. The geese and chicken start to run out. Perhaps we will get to a place where there is more, because this is what the soldier likes, not the war.”

Come with us to Azerbaijan!

We go up along the northern slopes of the Caucasus to the mountain Jews in Quba, and to Xinaliq, the highest-lying ancient settlement of the Caucasus – places where one can hardly get individually.

Los Judíos de Montaña de Azerbaiyán

Al volver del cementerio oímos música de boda en una de las casas. Los anfitriones nos invitan a formar parte de la fiesta «entren, aunque sea diez minutos».

Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan

Descending from the cemetery, we hear wedding music from one of the houses. The hosts, standing in front of the house, politely invite us to take part, to “come in just for ten minutes”.

Lahij

Palabras turcas se mezclan con un arcaico, lapidario persa, como si quisiera gritar al otro lado de una línea divisoria de dos mil años. El tiempo se despliega ante mí como un panorama montañoso.

Lahij

Turkic words are mixed with some archaic, lapidary Persian, as if he wanted to shout across the divide of two thousand years. Time unfolds before me like a dazzling mountain panorama.

Pink postcars 20

“Here at the front we have such an apartment, like in Hotel Ritz. All covered with wallpaper, flowers in vase, pictures on the wall.”

Midsummer’s Day

During our Eastern journeys in recent months, we encountered several representations of St. John the Baptist with an iconography which is fairly unusual for the Western viewer.

En uno de los techos del mundo: Xinaliq

«Cuando vino el comunismo sacamos todos los libros del pueblo y los llevamos a la cueva del Şahdağ. Pero los comunistas los encontraron y lo quemaron todo.»

On one of the roofs of the world: Xinaliq

“When the Communists came, the books were evacuated from the village, and moved into the cave of the Şahdağ. But the Communists found them, and they set the whole thing on fire.”

Road to Xinaliq

We travel to Xinaliq on a ribbon of asphalt, frayed at the edges, and flying; because that is what it feels like as we float high above the valley bottom.

De camino a Xinaliq

Nos acercamos a Xinaliq por encima de una cinta de asfalto con los bordes deshilachados, volando. Es como si flotáramos muy alto sobre el fondo del valle.

Pink postcards 19

“Now we are not in the Carpathians. Much better so, that those giant mountains are not here.”

Galícia mítoszai, avagy meghívás időutazásra

Kutya Galícia. A mi történelmi emlékezetünkben nagyjából ennyi maradt meg Galíciáról. Mikor mentem Galícia felé, még a fák is sírtak.

Pink postcards 18

“I write this on the train while watching this view, although having all my thougths in Budapest. A million kisses from Károly”

Pink postcards 17

“My dear Janka. I’m so sorry I had to leave without a farewell, but I could not come to see you, because I had no time.”

Pink postcards 16b

At this time Private Károly Timó spends the last weeks of the recovery period unexpectedly allotted to him, thanks to the “thousand crowns shot”, in the earlier mentioned hospital in Molnár Street, Budapest.

Saint Nino and the mystic light

According to tradition, the king, while hunting in a deep and dark forest, lost his way, and found it only after praying to “the God of Nino”.

Kseroks

At the kseroks stall, a policeman comes up to us. “Please do not take pictures of this. Soon we will build a new one in its place.”

Kseroks

En el puesto de kseroks un policía se nos acerca. «Por favor, no hagan fotos ahora de esto. Pronto construiremos aquí uno nuevo».

Pan profano

La iglesia armenia de Abastumani está hoy en muy mal estado. De hecho, en período soviético fue transformada en horno de pan.

Unholy bread

The Armenian church of Abastumani is today in very poor condition. In fact, during the Soviet period the church was transformed into a bread oven.

Come with us to Maramureș-Bukovina!

Through the medieval city of Baia Mare/Nagybánya, the cradle of Hungarian Impressionism and the gate of historical Maramureș, we arrive at one of the most archaic regions of Transylvania.

Welcome to Azerbaijan

A bus goes daily from Istanbul to Baku, it stops sometime in the afternoon on the highway around Kutaisi, at a Turkish grill.

Bienvenidos a Azerbaiyán

Un autobús parte cada día de Estambul hacia Bakú, se detiene en algún momento de la tarde en la carretera, cerca de Kutaisi, en un asador turco.

After the Flood

The Holy Trinity Church of Gergeti was built so high up on the “roof of the Caucasus”, that they say, this alone was not inundated by the Flood.

Tras el Diluvio

La iglesia de la Santísima Trinidad de Gergeti fue construida tan arriba en el «techo del Cáucaso», que se dice, que es el único lugar no anegado por el Diluvio.

Shepherd

Ten-year old pandurist Rezo plays and sings during a feast at the Katskhi Monastery

Pastor

Rezo, un pandurista de diez años, toca y canta durante la fiesta en el Monasterio de Katskhi

Kutaisi awakes / Amanecer en Kutaisi

Tamaroba

El icono de la reina – Rey – Tamar se muestra solitario en una hornacina aislada y difícil de alcanzar, subrayando así la devoción que suscita y su significado para las gentes del lugar.

Tamaroba

The icon of Queen – King – Tamar stands alone in a niche which is difficult to reach, highlighting the devotion to the Queen and her significance..

Viejas postales de Kutaisi

Las fotos, de jóvenes georgianos que parten a la Gran Guerra, fueron entregadas a padres y hermanos para que los recordaran tras su muerte en algún rincón de Galizia, de los Cárpatos húngaros o Przemyśl.

Old photos from Kutaisi

The photos, by Georgian boys leaving for the Great War, were left to their parents and brothers, so they would remember them after they died somewhere in Galicia, the Hungarian Carpathians, or under Przemyśl.

Barcelona – Bayern München

Messi kicks the second goal. A member of the company rises to toast, with an archaic clay vessel in the hand, filled to the brim.

Barcelona – Bayern München

Messi marca el segundo gol. Un miembro de la compañía alza un anticuado vaso de barro lleno hasta los bordes.

The red wall board

“Do you know why the bottom of the fire bucket was pointed in those days?” asks András. “So it would not be stolen. Because like this, it could not be used for anything else.”

El colgador rojo

«¿Por qué se harían estos cubos en forma de cono en aquella época?», se pregunta András. «Así nadie se los llevaba. Con esta forma no podían utilizarse para otra cosa».

Gelati, royal monastery

Mama o shenma. (Our Father). The monks of the monastery and singer school of Zarzma

El centenario

«Quisiera preguntarle, caballero, ¿qué piensan en Europa sobre lo que nos pasó? ¿Hay alguien que reconozca que hubo un genocidio armenio?»

The hundredth year

“I want to ask you, Sir, what they think in Europe about what happened to us? Is there anyone who recognizes that there was an Armenian genocide?”

For St. George’s Day

According to the ancient Georgian tradition, St. George defeated not the dragon, but Emperor Diocletian.

Celebració de San Jordi

Segons l’antiga tradició georgiana, Sant Jordi va vèncer no al drac, sinó a l’emperador Dioclecià.

War

“We heard about the war only from our grandparents. All these horrors were far away, and seemed to never reach here. But things have changed in the Ukraine.”

Pascua en el cementerio

Aquí enterraron a los jóvenes soldados caídos en defensa de las fronteras orientales del país. Las coronas están aún frescas en la mayoría de tumbas.

Easter in the cemetery

They bury here the young soldiers fallen in defense of the country’s eastern borders. The wreaths are still fresh on most of the graves.

Pascua en Lviv

A medianoche se anuncia la resurrección de Cristo en medio del alborozo general y arranca la procesión por las calles de Leópolis.

Easter in Lviv

At midnight they announce the resurrection of Christ in the midst of great joy, and a procession begins through the streets of Lemberg.

Armenian Easter

“I sing to you one of our Easter hymns. It is about the light penetrating into the darkness of the tomb. Just as it penetrates now into the church.”

Pascua armenia

«voy a cantarles uno de nuestros himnos litúrgicos. Trata de la luz que se introduce en la oscuridad de la tumba. Tal como entra ahora en la iglesia».

El largo camino a Ushguli

Llegamos a Ushguli al final de la tarde, en su alto y remoto valle, sin ni una sola carretera de acceso antes de la década de 1930, y aún aparentemente inmune al paso del tiempo.

El largo camino a Ushguli

Llegamos a Ushguli al final de la tarde, en su alto y remoto valle, sin ni una sola carretera de acceso antes de la década de 1930, y aún aparentemente inmune al paso del tiempo.

A long road to Ushguli

We arrive in Ushguli late in the afternoon, nestled in its high, remote mountain valley, unreachable by any road at all before the 1930s, and still apparently untroubled by the passing of time.

White Easter

White Easter in Russia, 1941

The land of forgotten songs

These fortresses are not emblems of a lost civilization; they’re the most visible signs of a culture that has endured almost miraculously through the ages.

Entre ritual y teatro: la berikaoba

Este género teatral se define por la mascarada y la improvisación. Su nacimiento se remonta a las antiguas fiestas de fertilidad y renacimiento, así como al culto de los dioses paganos Kviria y Telef..

Between ritual and theater: the berikaoba

This theatrical genre is defined by masquerade and improvisation. Its birth reaches back to the ancient fertility and rebirth feasts, as well as to the cult of the pagan gods Kviria and Telef.

Musa Dagh, the mountain of resistance

April 1915, one hundred years ago. Five thousand Armenians, persecuted by the Turks, seek refuge on the massif of Musa Dagh, nort of the Bay of Antioch.

Armenian pictures, 1977

The majority of them represent the monasteries standing for centuries, or more than a thousand of years in the highlands, the incredibly elaborate cross-stones, and the beautiful Armenian scenery.

Imágenes de Armenia, 1977

En su gran mayoría representan a esos monasterios firmes durante siglos, o por más de mil de años, en las tierras altas, aquellas increíblemente elaboradas cruces de piedra y el hermoso paisaje armenio.

Happiness

“Before I die I want to…”

Marcas

Es sorprendente no sólo la abundancia de marcas y señales anotadas a mano, sino también cómo hacen alusión de manera tangencial a la historia profundamente estratificada y multiétnica de esta vieja ciudad.

Marks

They are striking not only for the copiousness of their handwritten marks, but also for the way they hint, in foreshortened form, at this old city’s profoundly layered and multi-ethnic history.

Armenian Iran, from Tabriz to Jolfa

The superior listens to the request, shrugs his shoulders, and pulls out a pen from his pocket. He draws a pass in fine arabesques in the palm of the guide’s hand, directly on his skin.

Iran arménien, de Tabriz à Jolfa

Le chef écoute la requête, hausse les épaules et sort un stylo de sa poche. En fines arabesques, il dessine un laisser-passer dans la paume de notre guide, directement sur sa peau.

Dissolving: “…cor meum vigilat”

It is a more or less unconscious survival of expressive pictorial formulas, which takes shape in the form of the rays emanating from the heart of the security guard.

Disolución: «…cor meum vigilat»

Es una insurgencia inconsciente de representaciones o fórmulas expresivas que nos salta ahora a los ojos en el resplandor del corazón del guardia.

The Sultan’s new clothes

I wonder why she replaced “Turkish dictator” with “Turkish Sultan”? Perhaps in order not to hurt the sensitivity of the Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union?

El traje nuevo del sultán

Me pregunto por qué cambiaría «dictador turco» por «sultán turco». ¿Tal vez para no herir la sensibilidad de los pueblos turcos de la Unión Soviética?

Ceci n’est pas une pipe

The French photographers who in the late 19th century roamed the country to make ethnographic photos, were really amazed at the sight of the old pipe-smoking Breton women.

The House of Life

As he moves through the rooms of his home, he gradually unfolds the fabric of his life, keeping a delicate balance between the detailed technical description of the objects, and a self-critical revelation of himself.

La Casa della Vita

Mientras va recorriendo las habitaciones de la casa, una vida intenta aclararse en equilibrio entre la descripción técnica, objeto tras objeto, y el desnudamiento íntimo, refractado en una justa inteligencia autocrítica.

Noruz in the Kotti

It is clear therefore, that they organize here the Noruz-day festivities, with dancing and a stake tamed to the conditions of Berlin.

Nouruz en la Kotti

Está claro, por tanto, que será aquí donde se organicen los festejos del día del Nouruz, con los bailes y una hoguera algo amortiguada por las condiciones de Berlín.

The smell of Noruz

Noruz has a pungent smell of smoke, the smoke of the steakhouses and the smoke of the bonfires made in the squares and courtyards for the night fire-jumping.

El olor del Nouruz

Nouruz es un olor acre a humo, el humo de los asadores sumado al de las hogueras en las plazas y patios preparadas para el anochecer, para saltar el fuego.

Thaw

Hitherto I have believed the strange things you have told me, because I look upon you as a sober fair man, but now I am sure you lie.

Deshielo

Hasta este momento he creído las cosas extrañas que me has relatado, porque vi en ti un hombre sensato y de honor; pero ahora estoy seguro de que mientes.

The European costume

An official protest has been made against the book, and not from the clearly secular-minded army, or from some committed Atatürk fan club.

Letters to Saint Peter from Ruthenia

What was the black market for these letters like, the grave robberies, the elimination of the name of the deceased in the letters and their replacement in the hands of another, less wealthy deceased?

Cartas a San Pedro desde Rutenia

¿Cómo sería entonces el mercado negro de estas letras, los robos en los cementerios para cambiar el nombre del difunto sobre el papel y ponerlo entre las manos de otro menos afortunado?

Seven days in Georgia

You cannot get to know a country in seven days. This is not what we will attempt in our first Georgian tour. We would rather like to have a taste of all the typical regions of the country.

Come with us to the Eastern Easter in Lemberg!

Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv is always beautiful, but especially beautiful during the Eastern Easter, which is also a veritable festival in the multi-ethnic city.

I’ll cross the sea swimming

The ideology of Moscow fought with a special devotion against all values and symbols of the United States, also including jeans, and therefore the Soviet citizens considered, that where there are jeans, there is happiness.

Marshrutka

Circulamos unas horas en la penumbra y los faros de vez en cuando iluminan una figura de pie al lado de la carretera.

Marshrutka

We ride for a few hours in the semi-darkness, and the headlamps occasionally pick out figures standing next to the road.

The sea in Tbilisi

The Tatar mosque is the only mosque in Tbilisi, and virtually the only one in all Georgia.

El mar en Tbilisi

La mezquita tártara es la única de Tbilisi, y apenas se encuentra otra en toda Georgia.

Los judíos de Georgia. Historia de una diáspora

Según algunos, llegaron hasta aquí hace 2.600 años, y por tanto serían también uno de los grupos judíos de la diáspora de más larga supervivencia.

Georgian Jews. History of a diaspora

According to some, they came here 2600 years ago, and thus they are one of the oldest surviving diaspora communities.

Rózsaszínű levelek 16.

Kedves fiam. A ridikül nem tetszik annak az illetőnek hanem papucs kell.

Vámonos a Georgia

Al principio de los tiempos, en los días en que Dios se propuso repartir la Tierra entre los pueblos, todos ellos obedientemente se pusieron a la cola, solo los georgianos quedaron bebiendo y cantando detrás de las montañas.

Come with us to Georgia!

At the beginning of time, when God was giving out land to the peoples of the Earth, they all obediently stood in line, only the Georgians were drinking and singing behind the mountains.

Eating well and cheap in Rome

is not so easy. Like the structure of the city, the rules of finding the good eating places are not as transparent as you would like.

A lucky journey

As the Russian-speaking waitress places the over-full cups before us, mine is tipped a bit too much, and a stream of black slurry runs down the side of the cup.

Un viaje afortunado

Cuando la camarera de habla rusa nos pone delante las tazas bien colmadas, la mía se inclina ligeramente y un reguero de lodo oscuro se escurre por el borde.

Peaje

Veo la gruesa cuerda atravesada en la carretera, fuegos en las cunetas, unas figuras enmascaradas que avanzan hacia nosotros.

The toll

I catch sight of the thick rope across the road, the fires on the roadside, the masked persons who start toward us.

Pink postcards 15

My dear son, I have a new apartment again. But I like it very much, because I have not yet lived in such a smart hospital.

Sábado por la tarde en la iglesia de Metekhi

El umbral de la entrada a la iglesia de Metekhi está desgastado y brillante por los más de ochocientos años de roces y besos de creyentes.

Saturday afternoon in the Metekhi Church

The doorpost of the gate of Metekhi Church has been worn shiny over eight hundred years from the kisses of the believers entering.

En el valle del río Inguri

«Esta carretera la construyó Saakashvili», dice con reverencia nuestro chófer mientras esquiva una vaca huesuda o algún cerdo que cruza en el frío glacial.

In the valley of the Inguri river

“This road was built by Saakashvili”, our driver says in awe, while dodging the skinny cows and pigs, who cross at their glacial leisure.

Kutaiszi

“Where you from?” “America.” “Have camera?” “Yes, I have a camera.” “Take my picture!”

Georgia, minuto a minuto

Budapest está cubierta de nieve recién caída y hay placas de hielo en las calles mientras damos inicio a nuestro vuelo nocturno. En Kutaisi hace quince grados y los naranjos maduran en las fotos de los blogueros rusos.

Georgia, minute by minute

Budapest is covered by freshly fallen snow, ice patches on the street, as we start off for our midnight flight. In Kutaisi, it is fifteen degrees Celsius, and the oranges blossom on the photos of the Russian bloggers.

Pink postcards 14

My son, I asked for some money from home, because I cannot even buy cigarettes.

Windows of Lublin

The former citizens of Lublin moved back into their town. They look out from their former flats, at the table they sit, they take sips from our glasses

Thank you

At the loan desk of Berlin’s Staatliche Bibliothek they are grateful for the book, they say thanks, and it seems that they are really happy about it.

In search of Adolf Guttmann, 3. Marriages

Bertha Marks born Guttmann obviously cannot attend a woman, the proves of whose adultery are so obvious and touch her so closely.

À la recherche d’Adolf Guttmann (3): mariages

Bertha Marks née Guttmann ne pouvait évidemment pas fréquenter une femme dont les preuves d’adultère étaient si évidentes et la touchaient de si près.

Pune encounters

I use the morning for a visit to the 8th-century Pataleshwar Caves temple, to the north of the Peths.

Encuentros en Pune

Paso la mañana en el templo de las cuevas de Pataleshwar, del siglo VIII, al norte de los Peths.

Tired water

Palma, along the Parque del Mar, under the windows of the Bishop’s Palace, where the water is the closest to the wall.

Agua estancada

Palma, a orillas del Parque del Mar, bajo las ventanas del palacio del obispo, donde el agua se acerca más a la muralla.

La sonrisa de la Madonna

Una mujer vestida de hombre fue elegida Papa y cuando, durante una procesión, dio públicamente a luz un niño, el pueblo mató a ambos.

The smile of the Madonna

A woman dressed as a man was elected pope, and when she, while riding, publicly gave birth to a child, the people killed both of them.

Talk to us, we can help you

This morning in the Trastevere. A knotty problem, isn’t it? But the solution is obvious.

Peths of Pune

In the old town of Pune, gray eagles circle the sky like fragments of paper ash floating on the heat over a fire.

Pink postcards 13

Regarding the request of private Károly Timó, special effort will be made to drown our soldiers in the mud, rather than in the frosty snowfalls coming with beautiful dreams.

Pasquino greets Hitler

On his pedestal, night after night, savagely biting political pamphlets in verse – pasquinades – saw the moonlight, and Rome’s people happily got up before sunrise to read, memorize and pass them on.”

Metro

As an underground system, the metro is necessarily a space apart from the happier face of the city in sunlight, being confined beneath it to dark, meandering passages, and comprising a Hades, an underworld.

Grassroots

“MY BELOVED HOMELAND. I need volunteers for the establishment of this party (center-left).” Lisbon, yesterday

White Christmas

A childhood dream. Freshly fallen snow, a walk on the hillside in the twilight, on the crunching snow, the light of the candelabra dissolving as the milk loaf, the sound of the snow being bumped off the branches.

Azulejos

“…are found on the interior and exterior of churches, palaces, ordinary houses, schools, and nowadays, restaurants, bars and even railways or subway stations.”

Pink postcards 12

“Now it is very quiet here, and for the last couple of days there have been hardly any battles. They say that there is a 21-day truce, and peace negotiations are going on, is this true?”

Budapest, seventh district

The objects in the windows are not for sale • Ahead, for an outstanding year of 2015! • Industrial Cooperative of Embroidery and Flag-making • Király. The most typical street of Budapest

The conquest of the air

A double-decker, with bellows camera, hand-released bomb. Kolomea, the chief town of the Hutsul land, 1916.

Crows

When we find ourselves at year’s end, do we ask ourselves, have we sucked each day of all its sweetness, have we found enough moments worthy of our personal scrapbooks?

Pink postcards 11

“I am writing this letter in the Carpathians, by the light of a campfire. I send my wishes of luck, so that the new year be more pleasant than the past one.”

Coordinates

Here is the “X” we wanted: the devise of Emperor Augustus, the crab clutching in its pincers a butterfly – an image usually accompanied with the Latin motto Matura –, converted in a graphic sign.

Coordenadas

Ahí está la «X» que queríamos: la divisa del emperador Augusto, el cangrejo que atrapa entre sus pinzas a una mariposa —imagen habitualmente unida al mote latino Matura— se metamorfosea en signo gráfico.

La casa Manili del barrio judío

Este edificio, construido en estilo «clásico» por un simple ciudadano romano testifica de manera más elocuente que cualquier gran obra de arte la fuerza y el impacto del Renacimiento emergente.

Manili House in the Jewish Square

This building, built in the “Classical” style by a simple Roman citizen testifies more eloquently than any major work of art to the strength and impact of the emerging Renaissance.

Christmas of the enemy

The enemy is us. And our Christmas has just been presented in the exhibition Auguri dal Fronte, “Greetings from the Front”, at the Palazzo Corner Mocenigo in Venice, by the Cats Museum of Cattaro/Kotor.

A secret message

Two short texts on the sides of the emblem, which cannot be read in any known language. We suspect it may be some kind of secret script.

Mensaje secreto

Dos textos breves, a ambos lados de la pictura, que no logramos atribuir a ningún idioma conocido. Sospechamos que pudiera tratarse de algún tipo de escritura secreta.

The miracle tree

“Dear Santa, I simply want to be happy.”

Field postcards for Christmas

On the occasion of Christmas, we remember with a few seventy-year old field postcards those, who, not of their own choice, spent the feast thousands of miles away from their loved ones.

Pink postcards 10

“Please come in the same way that we agreed last week. Today we go to confession. How are you? I feel as if I were in prison.”

My castle

Budapest, Angyalföld, little gardens.

With camera in the Don Bend

That the soldiers of the Second World War, in spite to any earlier notion, mass-produced private photos, has become a well-known fact for more than two decades, mainly due to the German war photo exhibitions.

Don. A tragedy and its afterlives

The exhibition documents the fate of the 2nd Hungarian Army, sent to the Don Bend, from their leaving through the Voronezh breakthrough of the Red Army until the return of the surviving soldiers in April 1943.

Don vs. Sinai

The artillery batteries of Kassa and Budapest served the Emperor and King in the same Holy Land, where no Hungarians had fought since the crusades – until the summer of 1916.

The long voyage

“C’est de Paris la ville incomparable… From Paris, the incomparable city sets out the long voyage, which passes through all the great cities of Europe.”

Le grand voyage

« C’est de Paris la ville incomparable, qu’a lieu le départ du grand voyage qui va nous faire parcourir toutes les grandes villes de l’Europe. »

Winterreise

In the Netherlands there had been landscape painters since the late 16th century. Some of them made the tour to Italy and painted the landscapes flooded with the warm light of the sun.

Voyage d’hiver

Il y eut aux Pays-Bas, dès la fin du XVIe siècle, des peintres de paysage. Certains d’entre eux faisaient le voyage en Italie et peignaient des paysages à la chaude lumière du sud.

Edge of the Old World

As many observatories, as many local meridians. But only a few of them had the privilege to be accepted by the international society of cartographers as a generally valid prime meridian.

Drawing the time: all a meridian can measure

This spot of light runs, month after month, along the great meridian of the former hospital in Tonnerre, founded in 1293 by Margaret of Burgundy, widow of Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily.

Dessiner le temps: les mesures d’un méridien

Cette tache de soleil court, mois après mois, sur la grande méridienne de l’ancien hôtel Dieu de Tonnerre qu’avait fondé en 1293 Marguerite de Bourgogne, la veuve du roi de Sicile Charles d’Anjou.

Dissolving: The organ-grinder

Willy Römer, the photographer of everyday life in Berlin between 1905 and 1935: An organ grinder and his monkey amusing the children in the courtyard, 1925.

A rózsa neve

The Görlitz Train Station was built in 1865 by the “Railway King” of Berlin, Bethel Henry (originally Baruch Hirsch) Strousberg (1823-1884).

Time loop

For many children in Angyalföld, the organ-grinder’s music was linked to the Sunday lunch. Others for the price of an ice cream helped to to pick up the coins thrown from the courtyard windows.

East Unlimited

The thousand-kilometer long road meanders back and forth with the irresoluteness of the billiard ball over the borders of the countries apparently invented by Shakespeare.

Lenin’s bodyguard

Nonsense, Lenin’s body guard? “Well, he took out a photo and showed that this is Lenin, this is Stalin, and lo, this is me.”

Lenins Leibwachter

Unsinn, Lenins Leibwächter? „Nun, er hat ein Foto vorgezogen, und zeigte, dass das ist Lenin, das ist Stalin, und siehe, das bin ich.“

Képek világvégére

Ivan Vladimirov’s most expressive and realistic works are his documentary sketches from 1917-1918. During this period he worked at the Petrograd police, and was actively involved in its daily activities.

Bilder für das Ende der Welt

Ivan Vladimirovs ausdrucksstarksten Werke sind seine dokumentarischen Skizzen von 1917 und 1918. Während dieser Zeit arbeitete er an der Petrograder Polizei, und war aktiv in ihren täglichen Aktivitäten beteiligt.

Картинки на конец света

Но наиболее выразительным и реалистичным явился цикл его документальных зарисовок 1917-1918 годов. В этот период он работал в Петроградской милиции, и активно участвовал в ее повседневной деятельности.

Life is beautiful

What first touches us in these pictures is the radical absurdity, the perfect incompatibility of scenes, objects, people, the parallel realities coexisting in the photos.

La vida es hermosa

Lo primero que nos toca en estas fotos es el absurdo radical, la icongruencia perfecta entre escenas, objetos y gentes; unas realidades paralelas que convergen en cada foto.

Das Leben ist schön

Was zunächst berührt uns in diesen Bildern, ist die radikale Absurdität, die perfekte Unvereinbarkeit von Szenen, Objekte und Menschen, die auf den Fotos nebeneinander existierenden parallelen Wirklichkeiten.

And now you investigate!

In the following – hopefully with the collaboration of our readers – we will unveil the last (?) protocol journey of the Arrow Cross government.

Und jetzt untersuchen Sie!

In den folgenden – hoffentlich mit der Zusammenarbeit unserer Leser – werden wir das letzte (?) Protokollreise der Pfeilkreuzler-Regierung enthüllen.

A sada neka istraže Vi!

Sada – pomoću Vas – želimo da otkrijemo detaljezadnjeg međunarodnog putakabineta strelastih križeva.

From an authoritative source

…now present you the portraits of those frivolous over-age students, musing in trendy pubs, who would flee abroad en masse, to benefit the West from the taxpayers’ money spent on them.

A tale of meridians

But our subject here is another Triestine landmark, an understated one of almost vanishing subtlety.

The rooster has crowed

Yesterday, on the concert of the Muzsikás Ensemble, the musicians told about how they collected from old Transylvanian and Moldovan musicians the repertoire of the Jewish folk music once played by them.

Der Hahn hat gekräht

Gestern, am Konzert des Muzsikás Ensembles die Musiker erzählten darüber, wie sie von alten siebenbürgischen und moldawischen Musikern das Repertoire der einmal von ihnen gespielten jüdischen Volksmusik gesammelt haben.

Genuine pearl

Similar icons have been produced by Romanian families in the Transylvanian Plain since the early 19th century.

Echte perle

Ähnliche Hinterglasbilder wurden von rumänischen Familien am Siebenbürgischen Tiefland seit dem frühen 19. Jahrhundert produziert.

Forgotten Jewish village music

Our faithful readers will surely remember that some years ago we made a meandering musical tour with Két Sheng, where we accompanied the history and parallels of the song The rooster is crowing.

Vergessene jüdische Dorfmusik

Unsere treue Leser werden sicherlich daran erinnern, dass vor einigen Jahren haben wir eine schlängelige musikalische Tour mit Két Sheng gemacht, wo wir die Geschichte und Parallelen des Liedes Der Hahn kräht begleiteten.

The gift of the magi

It is not so much for the little sentimental story pointed to a moral lesson, but rather for the fine-toned watercolors painted thirty years ago by Lisbeth Zwerger, that we publish this Christmas story.

Das Geschenk der Weisen

Es ist nicht so sehr für die kleine, auf eine Moral ausgespitzte Geschichte, sondern für die von Lisbeth Zwerger vor dreißig Jahren gemalten, fein getönten Aquarelle, dass wir diese Weihnachtsgeschichte veröffentlichen.

Memorial to the Liberators

It is surprising to read the Russian formula known since our childhood in a completely different context, and in addition four years ante festum.

Памятник Освободителям

Удивительно прочитать эту с детства знакомую русскую формулу в совершенно ином контексте, и кроме того четыре года ante festum.

Denkmal für die Befreier

Es ist überraschend, die seit unserer Kindheit bekannte russische Formel in einem völlig anderen Kontext, und noch dazu vier Jahre ante festum zu lesen.

Immaculate Conception

“On the day of your patron saint greets you and wishes you much happiness your brother who does not forget you: Federico”

Die Unbefleckte Empfängnis

„Am Tag deiner Schutzheiligen begrüßt dich und wünscht dir viel Glück dein Bruder, der dich nicht vergisst: Federico“

A city in-between

You can still find your way in Tbilisi with the old maps of the city published by the Baedeker on Russia in 1914 or of the guide of Moskvich from 1913.

Une ville dans l’entre-deux

On peut encore se diriger dans Tbilissi avec ces plans anciens, le plan de Tiflis publié dans le Baedeker sur la Russie de 1914 ou celui du guide Moskvitch de 1913.

Hip

Sweet home

Whom they could not persuade to voluntary surrender, wanted at least break his military morale by reminding him of his sweetheart left at home.

Dear Friends

This letter was published by the Romanian journalist Lucian Mîndruță on 1 December, the national feast of Romania and the official anniversary of the unification of Transylvania with the Old Kingdom.

Liebe Freunde

Dieser Brief wurde vom rumänischen Journalist Lucian Mîndruță am 1. Dezember, an der Nationalfeier Rumäniens, dem offiziellen Jahrestag der Vereinigung Siebenbürgens mit dem Altreich veröffentlicht.

Honor y honras

«Un ejemplo de colaboración fructífera entre investigadores de diferentes países que ha hecho accesible al público de habla inglesa una importante fuente primaria.»

Honras

“An example of a fruitful collaboration among scholars from different countries who made accessible to an English-speaking audience an important primary source.”

The American soldier

We do not know whether the Front of Liberation of Vietnam exhausted from the Soviet example or from their own inspiration to distribute to the American soldiers passports enhancing the voluntary surrender.

Guess

Can you identify all the flags on the cover of the public transport information booklet published for the 1937 Paris World Exposition?

Before the Storm

Seventy-five years ago, on 25 November 1937 closed its doors the Paris World Exposition, which gave for the last time a panorama of the development of humanity before the Second World War.

Avant la tempête

Il y a soixante-quinze ans, le 25 novembre 1937, L’Exposition internationale de Paris refermait ses portes. Pour la dernière fois avant la Seconde guerre mondiale, elle avait présenté un panorama du développement du monde.

Hawelka

“This is how the story of the brave Moravian brothers became part of the history of the Monarchy, and this is how it was amalgamated with the traditions of two nations. with which they originally had nothing to do.”

Hawelka

„Das ist es, wie die Geschichte der tapferen mährischen Brüder Teil der Geschichte der Monarchie wurde, und das ist es, wie sie mit den Traditionen zweier Nationen zusammengelegt wurde, mit denen sie ursprünglich nichts zu tun hatte.”

A very black sea

In 1920 he embarked hopeless, leaving a hopeless cause. He would throw his hat overboard, cross a very black sea, to a land full of exile, leaving behind him only scraps of scraps of memory.

Une mer très noire

En 1920, il embarquait en désespoir d’une cause désespérée. Il allait jeter sa casquette par-dessus bord, traverser une mer très Noire, pour ne laisser après lui que des bribes de bribes de mémoire.

Ein sehr schwarzes Meer

In 1920 hat er hoffnungslos von einer hoffnungslosen Sache Abschied genommen, um seine Militärmünze über den Bord werfend ein sehr schwarzes Meer durchzukreuzen.

Gyöngyösi Street

I was busy in quite different jobs, when I suddenly found myself in the courtyard of Gyöngyösi Street 45, vis-à-vis the statue of the talented rock guitarist who had started with promising hopes.

Gyöngyösi Straße

Ich war in ganz verschiedenen Sachen beschäftigt, als ich mich plötzlich im Hof des Gyöngyösi Straße 45, vis-à-vis der Statue des talentierten, mit vielversprechenden Hoffnungen abgefahrten Rock-Gitarristen gefunden habe.

A page from an album

He loved to posture so much, like in this picture, on the side of a friend, both dressed Chinese, in the Po-Chou studio of Hong Kong in 1897.

Une page d’album

Lui qui aimait tant poser, le voilà aux côtés d’un ami, tous deux costumés en Chinois au studio Po-Chou à Hong-Kong en 1897.

Ein Blatt aus einem Album

Er, der so sehr posieren mag, hier sitzt mit einem Freund, die beide als Chineser angezogen, im Studio Po-Chia in Hong Kong im Jahr 1897.

The schwarzgelb baize

Conversation with Robert Makłowicz about his new book Café Museum (Európa 2012, translated by Noémi Kertész)

Das schwarzgelbe Tuch

Gespräch mit Robert Makłowicz über sein neues Buch Café Museum (Európa 2012, übersetzt von Noémi Kertész)

The bench

The bench is the model of the world. Everything revolves around the bench. Love-starved couples, who have no place to go, seek for the bench.

Die Bank

Die Bank ist ein Modell der Welt. Alles dreht sich um die Bank. An Liebe verhungerte Paare, die keinen Platz haben, wo zu gehen, suchen die Bank.

The red tree

sometimes the day begins / with nothing to look forward to

Der rote Baum

manchmal der Tag beginnt / mit nichts zu warten

All quiet in the Eastern front

As this region of Southern Podolia was part of the Ottoman Empire between 1667 and 1699, its Jewish population was strongly influenced by the pseudo-Messiah of Smyrna, Sabbatai Zevi, whose movement lived its heyday just then.

Im Osten nichts neues

Da die Region war Teil des Osmanischen Reiches zwischen 1667 und 1669, wurde ihre jüdische Bevölkerung vom Pseudo-Messias von Smyrna, Schabtai Zwi beeinflusst, dessen Bewegung gerade dann ihre Blütezeit lebte.

Alexander Roinashvili, photographer

Alexander Roinashvili was born in 1846 in Dusheti, not far from the Georgian Military Road. We do not know how he discovered photography, but I imagine him posing, as a teenager, in front of an itinerant photographer.

Alexander Roinashvili, Fotograf

Alexander Roinashvili wurde in 1846 in Dusheti, nicht weit von der Georgischen Heerstraße geboren. Wir wissen nicht, wie er die Fotografie entdeckte, aber kann ihn wohl vorstellen als Junge, vor einem ambulanten Fotograf posierend.

Alexandre Roinashvili, photographe

Alexandre Roinashvili est né en 1846 à Dusheti, non loin de la route militaire géorgienne. Comment a-t-il découvert la photographie, ce n’est pas dit, mais je l’imagine adolescent, posant devant un photographe ambulant.

Recognition

Perhaps our readers still remember that we wrote several times about the manuscript legacy of the great Hungarian poet and holocaust victim Miklós Radnóti.

Anerkennung

Unsere Leser werden vielleicht noch daran erinnern, dass wir mehrfach über das handschriftliche Erbe des großen ungarischen Dichters und Holocaust-Opfers Miklós Radnóti geschrieben haben.

Die Mitte

“He had many weaknesses, that swine Redl, which finally made him a traitor, but for this one, his affection for the ham of Prague, I have at least a partial understanding.”

Behind the facades of Tiflis

In 1856 the wealthy Armenian merchant of Tiflis, Vardan Arshakuni gave commission to the architect G. Ivanov for a small building that had to be both intimate and original: the palace Arshakuni. Really original, he specified. And intimate.

Derrière les façades de Tiflis

Vardan Arshakuni, un riche marchand arménien, passa commande en 1856 à l’architecte G. Ivanov, pour un petit bâtiment qui aurait été à la fois intime et original. Vraiment original, avait-il précisé. Et intime.

The guide

And the traveler says goodbye to József Kovács, who claims himself a Little Russian, was a Czech soldier, believes himself to be a Calvinist, but he is in fact a Greek Catholic, and he is Russian not after his father, but his mother, who, however “was a Hungarian”.

On the Georgian military road

This is the road that Alexander the Great may have used if he really came to Colchis and he really built the iron gates to stop the peoples of the North, Gog and Magog.

Sur la route militaire géorgienne

C’est une route qu’Alexandre le Grand aurait pu emprunter si seulement il était venu en Colchide : il y aurait construit les Portes de fer pour arrêter les peuples du Nord — Gog et Magog.

Waiting for you, comrade bird

This picture should be actually not published today, but in May, when the lark sings and the nightingale replies.

Lighthouse of the revolution

The Mayakovsky memorial museum opened in Moscow during the perestroika, in 1989, at the foot of the old KGB headquarters, in the former home of the poet.

Маяк революции

Во время перестройки – в 1989-ом году – открылся в Москве мемориальный музей Владимира Маяковского. Выставку устроили в бывшей квартире поэта недалеко от центра КГБ.

Letter from Georgia

I always arrive at night to Georgia. The first time we crossed the Turkish border on foot, and took a taxi to Batumi.

Lettre de Géorgie

Arrivés sur une vaste place obscure, juste éclairée par un unique réverbère, le taxi nous avait laissés là sur cette esplanade de terre jaune, dans une chaleur moite qui évoquait une lointaine Afrique et ses sortilèges.

The swift water of Cheremosh

In the final scene of the recently mentioned Буковина – наша земля (Bukovina, our land) we can listen to the Rusyn folk song – kolomeika – on the Cheremosh river.

Together in Odessa

Three thousand kilometers, seven days, one hundred and twenty waking hours, a dozen visited places, a thousand adventures. Nineteen people who lived through all of this, and who report on their impressions below.

The Joys of Polish

We have seen, that The Joys of Yiddish, this magical little book is able to inspire authors even without reading it.

The navel of Europe

The center of the world is about half-way to Bukovina. South of Galicia, east of Máramaros, northwest of Moldova, along the river Tisza, there is a point.

Brothers

“Please! Just not this “Polish-Hungarian, two good friends”! It is a quite old and boring saying, and, excuse me, only a sentimental crap nowadays.”

To know a city

My neighbor Sue is very happy, she will soon travel to Budapest with her friend. She has always wanted to get to known this city, and now the time has come. She asked me for ideas on what to see.

Cernăuți, 1939 – Черновиц, 1940

Something was in the air in Romania in 1939, as the Journalul Sonor, the Romanian newsreels began to travel around the cities of the country and showed their beauty and development.

The cemetery of Czernowitz

The cemetery, which always reflects two or three generations earlier conditions, bears witness to the coexistence and not rarely coalescence of all these peoples.

Ghosts, 2. Spirits

Where are the spirits of the dead, separated from their corpses; those who haunt castles and old houses, who live in the stories passed down from generation to generation becoming literature?

Fantômes, 2. Esprits

Où sont ces esprits des morts égarés hors de leurs corps, ceux qui hantent châteaux et vieilles maisons, qui peuplent les récits qu’on se transmet de génération en génération et font la littérature?

The Oxford Arms Inn

Ghosts can become not only the unsuspecting passers-by, who are forever captured on the glass plate of the camera in front of the old buildings. But also the buildings themselves, whole streets and neighborhoods.

The ghosts of Old London

Draws the attention to those figures which, just like on a steampunk Google Street survey, were accidentally trapped in the camera photographing the hitherto disappeared buildings of the neighborhood.

Ghosts, 1. Shadows

I would have liked to be this man, the first ghost ever photographed.

Fantômes, 1. Ombres

J’aurais voulu être cet homme, le premier fantôme à avoir jamais été photographié.

The Art Nouveau in Szabadka

The building of the City Museum of Szabadka/Subotica, hosting the exhibition of the Art Nouveu in Szabadka is itself one of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture in Szabadka.

Szabadka Unlimited, 4. Globetrotters

According to the news of a hundred years ago, globetrotting was an established industry in the already multinational Szabadka, which was open to everything new.

The Library of a Nation

Select the Hungarian-English option of Google Translator. Copy/type in the left-side/Hungarian field the name of the Hungarian National Library: “Széchényi Könyvtár”. Check how this is translated by the doorkeeper.

Luz

Cinco fotos en la pared, cinco hermosas imágenes del legado cuya intemporalidad marca un fuerte contraste con la contextualizacion férrea de las que están abajo.

Light

Five photos on the wall, five beautiful pictures from the legacy, whose timelessnes is in a sharp contrast to the time-boundness of the documents laying under them.

Szabadka Unlimited, 3. So ugly that already disgusting

“The railway station in Szabadka is the building which all the foreign rulers unanimously declare to be ugly.” This sentence contains the essence of the journalism of Szabadka/Subotica.

The last Hungarian-Turkish war

We see nine players on a small stage, for which the unknown artist, as the label shows, chose Danzig as a background.

Szabadka Unlimited, 2.

Kangaroos and black police officers, Native American seminarists and Chinese idol figurine sellers, Russian revolutionaries and Odessa Jews in Szabadka/Subotica a hundred years ago.

The taste of traveling, 1905

As he began his last school year in a high school in Paris in October 1912, my grandfather had no idea that the intimate geography of his last days would be limited to Verdun and environs.

Une géographie, programme 1905

Alors qu’il entamait son année de Terminale dans un lycée parisien en octobre 1912, mon grand-père ne se doutait pas que sa géographie intime se dessinerait pour le reste de ses jours à Verdun.

In the old chocolate factory

On Studiolum’s advice I went to the museum quarter established in the Krasny Oktyabr chocolate factory in Moscow.

Catedral steampunk

Mientras tomo estas fotos, un anciano arrastra los pies fuera de la cabina donde guarda la motosierra y un montón de arena. «Fascinante», exclamo entusiasmado. «Está en construcción desde hace nueve años», responde con orgullo.

Steam cathedral

As I’m taking the photos, an old man shuffles out of the cabin guarding the saw machine and the sand pile. “Fascinating”, I enthuse. “They’ve been building it for nine years”, he says proudly.

Viajar a Lwów

Viajar a Lwów. De qué estación partir / a Lwów, sino de la del sueño, al alba, / cuando el rocío escarcha las maletas y nacen / trenes expreso y de alta velocidad

To go to Lwów

To go to Lwów. Which station / for Lwów, if not in a dream, at dawn, when dew / gleams on a suitcase, when express / trains and bullet trains are being born

Thank you / Muchas gracias

The news has been known for a week, but today we were also officially notified that Poemas del Río Wang was voted into the ten most popular Hungarian cultural blogs.

Año Nuevo en Uman

La calle Pushkin está a cinco minutos y dos mil kilómetros del centro de Uman.

New Year in Uman

The Pushkin Street is five minutes, but two thousand kilometers from the center of Uman.

Messages

In the demonstration of last Saturday in Madrid, two things surprised us, apart from the dimensions of the large crowd filling all the Plaza de Colón and the neighboring streets.

Inscriptiones

En la manifestación del pasado sábado en Madrid nos sorprendieron dos cosas –aparte de la gran cantidad de gente que asistió llenando la Plaza de Colón y desbordando las calles de alrededor.

Último aviso para Lemberg

Este próximo jueves por la mañana empezaremos nuestra vuelta a Lemberg / Lwów y a sus alrededores.

Last minute Lemberg

Within five days, on Thursday morning our next tour will start to Lemberg/Lwów and its environs.

Viajes de otoño: Lwów, Odesa, Subotica

Pese al retraso de unos días, por fin tenemos la lista definitiva de viajes que organizamos este otoño y cuyo abanico de posibilidades presentamos previamente.

Autumn travels: Lwów, Odessa, Subotica

Although with a delay of a few days, but we have finally composed the definitive list of the journeys organized by us in this autumn, first outlined in the page dedicated to our travel plans.

In the air

What is not trivial, instead, is to spread out clothes in Island. There, in early August we could only catch these few images.

Al aire

Lo que no es tan trivial es tender la ropa al aire libre de Islandia. Allí, a principios de agosto pudimos pillar al paso tan solo estas pocas imágenes.

Llegando a Drohobycz

En las laderas de los Cárpatos ya es otoño, los esqueletos del acanto gigante, hasta hace poco en flor, apuntan al cielo como secas garras negras. Con el crepúsculo llegamos a lo alto de la colina desde la que se domina Drohobycz.

Arriving at Drohobycz

Over the Carpathians it is already autumn, the skeletons of the recently still richly blooming giant hogweeds stare at the sky as dry black claws. At dusk we reach the hilltop before Drohobycz.

Szabadka Unlimited, 1.

A German tourist on his way to Greece passes in the night by the art nouveau spa of Szabadka-Palics, and hits a kangaroo that escaped from the Palics zoo. Soon the police arrives, and a black policeman gets out of the jeep.

El mercadillo de Odessa

El mercadillo de Odesa se ​​encuentra en el centro de la Moldavanka, en el Viejo Mercado del Caballo, aunque el último que compró aquí un caballo fue el carretero Pogrom Mendel, el padre de Benya Krik.

The flea market in Odessa

The flea market in Odessa is in the center of the Moldavanka, on the Starokonny, that is, Old Horse Fair Street, although the last one who bought here a horse was the carter Pogrom Mendel, Benya Krik’s father.

In Budapest they all love and respect each other

The day before yesterday was in Budapest the best Russian photo blogger, Ilya Varlamov, whose pictures have been quoted several times in Poemas del Río Wang.

The Fire-bird

As the brave archer the Fire-bird, so we bring this book about them from a far away land, from Odessa, the large book store in Greek Square.

Play with us

We have never applied for GoldenBlog, the most prestigious blog contest of Hungary. Yet each year our readers submit Poemas del Río Wang. And once we play, let us play it well.

The Jewish heritage

We collected for the first time in a list the posts of Río Wang written on the Eastern European Jewish cultural heritage when we announced excursions to in the region well known by us.

Tekeháza, Jewish cemetery.

Tekeháza/Теково is a small settlement in the former Ugocsa county of Hungary, now in the Ukrainian Transcarpathia, to the east of Nagyszőlős/Виноградово, on the left bank of the Tisza river.

Le voyageur cartographe

Longtemps, les érudits de l’étoile Sirius ont étudié la Terre. Parfois, de siècle en siècle, quand ils en ont eu les moyens, leur Académie a envoyé quelque voyageur visiter ce monde étrange.

Odessa Tales

Walking all the morning in the Moldavanka, looking for the traces of Babel. The Moldavanka is not any more the gangland it once was. True, the house of Misha Yaponchik is still standing, with Benya Krik’s dove-cot in the courtyard.

Chinese brick

And how many good used bricks are there. For example these with the inscription RKF. A huge amount of them. Sometimes people come and buy of them, to build them into the garage or the fence, for decoration.

Faces

from the City Park of Odessa, donated to the city in 1806 by the Catalan admiral of Catherine the Great’s fleet and the founder of Odessa, José de Ribas.

Powrót świętych

Andrzej Bobola jest jednym z najpopularniejszych polskich świętych, męczennikem Polski. W 1657 roku, podczas jego czynności misjonarskich, kozacy Bohdana Chmielnickiego ujeli i torturujac zamordowali misjonarza.

Return of saints

Andrzej Bobola is one of the most popular Polish saints, the Martyr of Poland. He was captured by the Cossacks as a missionary during the Bohdan Khmelnytsky uprising, brutally tortured and finally murdered.

But what did the Romans ever give us?

Chernowitz, Bukovina, Ukraine, at the corner of the University and Eliezer Steinbarg streets.

Come with us!

In the conversations with our readers and fellow travelers, the ideas of the following travels have been outlined for the rest of 2012. It depends on the number of applicants which one will be really launched.

The glory of Ukraine

– Glory to Ukraine! – Glory to its heroes! – replies the guard armed with a machine gun from the other side of the peep hole. The reinforced door opens. The guest, who knew the password, can enter the restaurant.

Four essays on Galicia

Only one report was missing from the collective post on our travel to Lemberg/Lwów: that of Catherine Darley, whose four beautiful essays required a separate post of their own.

Quatre essais sur la Galicie

Drohobicz ne cache pas ses ruines, elle les étale avec l’orgueil de l’inconscience. La synagogue n’accueille plus que les oiseaux, le vent et la pluie, nul meuble étranger ne l’encombre plus, nul ne peut y entrer.

Together in Lwów

We arrive in daylight at Lwów, where we had managed to reserve three elegant accommodations for the group around the prestigious Shevchenko (formerly Akademicka) Avenue.

I have weighed everything

To my peoples!

Dissolving: Measuring the world

Galileo Galilei: Drawings of the Moon, November-December 1609 (Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Ms. Gal. 48, f. 28r)

Dissolving: Fifer boys

Fifer. From the photo album of the Bibliothèque Nationale presenting the French imperial army between 1860 and 1870.

Sztuka

Notice the officer’s portrait at the left, beside the window. This was originally part of a series with many items.

Back from Lemberg

After the shutters of the late Mikolasch Passage, some further signs that refer to the unity of this one-time world.

Eating in Lwów

During our past journeys we have tasted and photographed nearly forty coffee houses and restaurants in the city. Let us start now with those which are located in and around the main square.

Lwów Tales

Next to me, in the domestic office they ask tickets for dreamlike destinations: Kherson, Simferopol, Odessa. I would willingly switch over for that queue.

Meander

Who can tell us the purpose of these iron/brass objects, which are made visible at the Ukrainian border, during the change of the wide/narrow gauge axis by the railway worker?

The Call

Their demands were radical: on the one hand, cancelling all the taxes, and on the second hand, an immediate conversion of all Jews to the Christian faith, or else their execution.

Last minute Lemberg

Today was finally made up the team which will leave in a week, on 20 Friday early morning for the Klezmer festival of Lemberg/Lwów.

It’s raining

In Britain it has been raining for four months. The advertisements, which encouraged to saving water in the critical shortage situation after the two past years of drought, were first faded out and then slowly washed away by the rain.

After feast

as I am making my way here below / and the moon his one up there

Ernest Chantre in the Caucasus

In the 1880s, when Dmitry Ermakov, the photo chronicler of the Caucasus walked with a mule convoy over the remote mountain valleys, another photo expedition passed through the Caucasus, too.

History

Give an explanation

In what language can the version at the right side mean the same as the other three, the 10th-century Arab baths?

Pictures cut

Under the pretext of the above mentioned post I present two books on the attempt of Sarajevo where the pictures are not only cut, but also cut together, and the omissions are also absolutely characteristic.

Bodega Santurce

Sus clientes habituales son los empleados de las oficinas de alrededor, trabajadores de los comercios. También hay siempre algún extranjero bien informado que sabe que aquí se come bien.

Bodega Santurce

Its regulars are also the office-clerks, shopkeepers and craftsmen working here, in the heart of the downtown. We also have been coming back here for ten years.

Képek a Kaukázusból

Since we have published Dmitry Ermakov’s collected late 19th-century photos from the Caucasus, about fifty more photos have been found on the net, which we now included at the end of that post.

¡España!

Palma de Mallorca, an hour before the Spanish-Italian cup match.

Picture writing

Sites and blogs all over the world remembered yesterday the attempt of Sarajevo of ninety-eight years ago.

Lemberg at home stretch

The program of our trip to the 4th Lemberg Klezmer Festival planned for 20-23 July is gradually being sorted out.

Lemberg’s empty places

Here, the memory of the former Jewish inhabitants has been written into the city’s fabric in the form of the places left empty in the wake of the ravages of World War II.

Wild East

Its unplastered red brick cover almost invites to noting down a hic fuit, and as the pictures show, after the nationalization there were a good number of people who could not resist the temptation.

Very rare video

I recently found some twenty hours of Finnish war newsreels on the web, and I’m going to write under their pretext some posts on the Finnish life around the Winter War.

My life

Bulat Okudzhava died fifteen years ago.

The Russian army

The Bibliothèque Nationale, however, preserves photo albums not only on the army of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, but also on those of other contemporary great powers. For example, of the Russian Empire.

Bruska

In our previous post, presenting the photo album of 1914 of the Austro-Hungarian army we were speculating about where stood the cadre headquarters No. 28, presented in the first photo.

Army found

This photo album of the Austro-Hungarian army, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, was published in 1914 in Paris.

They have won and

The “death match” of Kiev in August 1942, about which we wrote two months ago, now on the occasion of the Euro 2012 championship in the Ukraine has become a veritable gold mine for the journalists.

Old crafts

twenty-five in number, from the same Dutch Nationaal Archief.

Gitanos

Pobreza, precariedad, exclusión. Imágenes dramáticas de los gitanos en Europa occidental, principalmente en Holanda, entre 1930 y 1960, que creeríamos tomadas en Rumanía, Bulgaria o Yugoslavia.

Gypsies

Poverty, vulnerability, misery. Such dramatic images on the Gypsies of Western Europe, primarily of the Netherlands, from the 1930s to the 1960s, which we are accustomed to only from Romania, Bulgaria or Yugoslavia.

Flood

While looking at the water and thinking about an alternative route, it comes to my mind to publish here the photos of the great flood of 1908 in Moscow.

Stairways

The old towns of Lwów and Odessa are really similar to each other in many ways. Primarily because of that eclectic and Art Nouveau style which at that time was a common language of this region from Vienna to Baku

Courtyards of Odessa

In the houses that once saw better days, a number of renowned figures of the city lived in the golden age of Odessa. Their memory is preserved only by the walls and by the various sites compiled by the local lovers of the city.

Dance

At the Vörösmarty Square suddenly shine on the colorful dancers like a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Turks, Azerbaijanis, Gypsies from Anatolia, Romanians from the Ukrainian Bukovina.

Change of government

The 23 August 1989 issue of the Estonian journal Edasi (Forward) reviews with a vitriolic pen the curiosities to be read in the contemporary (Soviet) Estonian history books.

Flag science

This flag was sent to us, together with five other ones, from the store-room of the Memento Park (or the “park of Communist statues”), with the request to translate their Russian inscriptions.

GPS

For years I have traveled with companies using GPS, but I, to be on the safe side, always bring my maps with me. And never in vain.

Maximishin

Sergei Maximishin was born in 1964 in Kerch, since 1999 he has been the photographer of Izvestiya in St. Petersburg, since 2003 he has worked with the German Focus.

Come with us to the Klezmer festival in Lwów!

After the highly successful tour in Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv in May, as we have described in detail, a number of new journeys began to take shape to the sites of the Central and Eastern European Jewish heritage.

Captain Ostapenko’s statue

As it was the landmark in the outskirts of the city at which the traveler leaving Budapest cast a last glance, so the name of Ostapenko became more and more known and merged with its immediate environment.

Guglička

The guglička, or by other name walnut basket is one of the finest and most characteristic Slovak cookies of Csömör, which was made only for great feasts, weddings and illustrious events.

Dissolving: Grandpa and Wilhelm Miklas

Austrian Federal President Wilhelm Miklas’ visit to Budapest, 1937.

Dissolving: the future behind a veil

The 11 year old Sâliha Sultana, daughter of Sultan Abdülaziz (1861-1876) and of the Georgian Dürrünev Kadın Efendi, on her visit card made by the Abdullah Brothers in 1873.

Lemberg: the fifth grave of the hero of Gaza

We know very little about the life of Captain Władysław Truszkowski: actually not more than what the personal files of the Austrian War Archives in Vienna reveal about him.

Estamos de vuelta

de nuestra gira de cuatro días a Lemberg / Lwów y Galizia, organizada por nosotros conjuntamente con la Asociación Húngara de Cultura Judía.

We are back

from our four-day tour from Lemberg/Lwów and Galicia, organized by us together with the Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association.

Hungarian soldiers in Danemark

An estimated 12.000 Hungarian soldiers went as far as Denmark, to take over the places of the German soldiers, and virtually provided various tasks of guarding under the command of the German invaders.

Dissolving: Muzik

A Russian peasant from Kaluga, November 1941 – A Russian peasant from an unknown place, January 1942

Whom does it hurt

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the era of horse railways, flag-officer György Adorján etched into the clinker wall of the University during the probably boring hours of his job whatever just came to him.

Thirty-five stairs

The planks of the footbridge once already fully rot away, and the bridge passing over the railway station became impassable.

Perpetuum mobile

next to the former central railway workshop, at the derelict Istvántelek railway station, about which we will write more soon.

Super moon

yesterday evening, at the point of its orbit nearest to the Earth, above Banská Štiavnica.

Match

The movie focuses on the football match played on 9 August 1942 in Kiev’s Zenit stadium, where the soldiers of the Wehrmacht (“Flakelf”) and the players of the dissolved Dinamo Kiev (“FC Start”) clashed with each other.

And now you tell it

“[First day stamp] for the second anniversary of theh [Polish] General Government. [Lemberg/Lwów] 26 October 1941” (see also: Campanile)

Greetings from a Budapest

This is how they imagined at the turn of the past century how Budapest would look ten thousand years later, when the finally dried up Danube would dig itself into the depth of a canyon in the former river bed.

The Joys of Yinglish

ekstra neyes ayn die Ist Seyd! eyn groyser bankrat seyl fun vare fun men’s farnishing

Brave old world

In this house already at the middle of the 19th century there was a pharmacy, where Ignacy Łukasiewicz and Jan Zeh, of Hungarian origin, invented on 30 March 1853 the kerosene lamp.

Parallel worlds

The dates are not relevant in every photographer’s life, but in Dashevsky’s they are very much. He was born in 1935 in Moscow. Two years later his father fell victim to Stalin’s purges.

Eternal fire

In one piece of the futuristic postcard series issued by the Einem chocolate factory we find among the several technical wonders of the year of 2259 a surprisingly old-fashioned vehicle: a conventional fire truck.

Budapest 100

Por segunda vez en la historia, este fin de semana de abril todos los edificios de Budapest que llegan al centenario en 2012 abren las puertas de la calle, y también las del sótano y el ático, y hasta las de los pisos.

Budapest 100

It is already the second year that on this April weekend every building in Budapest which fills its centennial in this year keeps open not only its gate, but also the basement, attic and flats.

With a good breeze

One must be cautious with the spread-out sheets: as photogenic they are, as trivial they can become on the photo. However, Zsófi Porkoláb’s spreading-out blog helps to discover how much new is in them.

Venid con nosotros a Lemberg

Tenemos el honor de que la Asociación Húngara de Cultura Judía, tras haber descubierto las notas que hemos ido publicando sobre Lwów / Lemberg / Lviv, nos haya invitado a guiarles en la excursión que planean a esta ciudad el próximo mes de mayo.

Come with us to Lemberg

We had the honor that the Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association, on discovering our posts on Lwów/Lemberg/Lviv, asked us to be their guide on their excursion to the city in May.

Another bright future

Einem was wise enough to date the pictures not to the late 20th century, but to as far as 2259. And indeed, who knows whether the unforeseen anomalies of 20th-century development would not be really adjusted by then?

Amor’s bullets

We recently found in a downtown street of Paris this graffiti, a modernized and stylized version of the topos popularized, among others, by the following emblem in Daniel Heinsius’ Emblemata amatoria (Leiden, 1613).

Amor y balas

Hace unas semanas fotografiamos este grafito en la pared de una céntrica calle de París. Parece una curiosa versión moderna y muy estilizada del tema de este emblema de 1613 que se encuentra en el libro de Daniel Heinsius, Emblemata amatoria.

Mi patria

El Cabaret Leshchenko, conocido incluso en París como «el Maxim’s de Oriente», fue uno de los lugares de diversión más afamados del Bucarest de los años treinta.

My Homeland

The Leshchenko Cabaret, dubbed even in Paris as “the Maxim’s of the East”, was one of the most fashionable places of entertainment in the Bucharest of the thirties.

The sea at Lwów

Crocodile Gena: Blue train

Campanile

The town hall of Lwów

Janowska

Un altro giorno ha termine a Janowska, l’ultimo campo di lavoro tedesco ancora attivo nella stessa struttura e con la medesima finalità nella periferia di Lwów.

Janowska

Muere otro día en Janowska, a las afueras de Lwów: el último campo de concentración alemán cuyos edificios originales aún funcionan con usos de reclusión.

Janowska

Another day ended in the Janowska, the last German labor camp which still works in the same buildings and with the same function on the outskirts of Lwów.

Cortile della Madonna

Los pasos de alguien que baja retumban por la escalera de madera mientras ajusto la cámara. Un hombre se retira detrás de la columna —ahí, ¿veis?— y se queda quieto hasta que disparo. «Kommen, Madonna!», me dice enseguida con entusiasmo.

Cortile della Madonna

The steps rattle down the wooden stairs from the height of two floors while I set light. The man draws back behind the column – there, you see? – and waits until I click. “Kommen, Madonna!” he says then excitedly.

Long live, long live Comrade Rákosi

Mátyás Rákosi’s birthday celebrations were obviously modeled on Stalin’s two years earlier 70th birday celebrations.

Petőfi in Banská Štiavnica

The once famous Lyceum on the Trinity Square in Selmecbánya, where the poet Sándor Petőfi studied in 1838-1839.

Catastrophe tourism

The Elisabeth Bridge in Budapest was blown up on 18 January 1945 by the retreating German troops. The press of György Klösz and his son, one of the most important publishers of Hungarian city views was nationalized in 1948.

Başqa şəhər

Budapeşti Arazla birlikdə gəzirik və onun gözləri ilə şəhəri mən də özüm üçün kəşf edirəm: Osmanlı hökmranlığı dövründən (1541-1686) qalmış, neçə müsəlman mehrabının – ibadət üçün divarda Məkkəyə istiqamətlənmiş oyuğun xristian kilsələrində günümüzə çatdığını.

Another city

We are walking about Budapest with Araz, and I am also discovering the city with his eyes, noticing how many Muslim mihrabs, prayer niches turned towards Mekka have survived in the Christian churches from the period of the Ottoman domination (1541-1686).

Noruz

this time last year in Azerbaijan / bu dəfə keçən il, Azərbaycanda.

A history of two statues

I come back from hiking in the Bucegi, where Corporal Mușat is standing over the former Hungarian border. I pass in front of the Iron Székely on the main square of Székelyudvarhely, now Odorheiu Secuiesc. This is how the two statues make one complete story to me.

Cave

The den genre which was a great success yesterday, has several further classics as well. Let us show one of our favorites, the bear tales by Barbara Firth, without any comment: the pictures and text speak for themselves.

Den

It’s two years now that I have presented the tale whose protagonist, the fox spends its time in various attractive dens, just like the ones into which I as a child have imagined myself on the basis of a popular picture book presenting the animals living under earth.

Él da la nieve como lana

Un milagro que suele acontecer en Jerusalén cada cinco años y que nos hizo olvidar todas las penalidades de los días anteriores. Comenzaron a caer gruesos copos de nieve.

He spreads snow like wool

A miracle occurred which happens once every five years in Jerusalem, and which made us forget all the hardships of the previous days. It started to snow in huge flakes.

Rezeptionsästhetik

Con la obra de Baltasar Gracián se han venido cometiendo toda suerte de abusos interpretativos.

Rezeptionsästhetik

With the works of Baltasar Gracián all sorts of abuses of interpretation have already been committed.

A new Hungarian relic from the Holy Land

Why is it that the most fantastic discoveries – no matter whether the bigfoot, the monster of Loch Ness or the woolly mammoth crossing a river in Siberia – are always captured on photos out of focus?

Spring

on the southern slopes of the Zagros, over the Bakhtiari pastures. Image report of the Fars news agency.

Door

The pair of that of the Grodzka in Budapest, on the Krisztina boulevard, next to the former watchmaker’s shop.

The most difficult language of the world

Thanks to the readers of Río Wang, we already know which is the most entertaining language of the world. But which is the most difficult one?

The power of Persian music

Now, we have an irrefutable evidence that Persian music has a greater impact than any other music on the bias-free children’s soul.

Fragments

While looking for pictures on the Bakhtiari nomads, we have found Shahram Sharif’s flickr page. True, on the nomads he only had a few images, but more on other regions of Iran.

Dissolving: Budapest, February 1945

The blown up Margaret Bridge over Danube, seen from the Parliament. Click here for the photos of Budapest localized on the city map after the end of the siege on 13 February 1945.

Guess what this is

Pre-Columbian deity? Inuit walrus bone carving? Renaissance amulet? Baroque memento mori?

Masouleh, 1975

In the last entry we have belittled the northern Iranian tourist attraction, the village of Masouleh in comparison to the Bakhtiari mountain village, and now we would like to somehow make amends for this offense.

Sar Agha Seyyed

To the Bakthiari villages no roads lead: the Bakhtiaris themselves arranged it so during the centuries, thereby defending themselves against the various invaders from the Mongols to the Persian state.

Bakthiari tents

…still today migrate by millions from the summer grasslands to the winter ones, from the valleys up the mountains, along spectacular roads, swimming over rapid mountain rivers together with their flocks, as it was shown in the first Iranian ethnographic film, the Grass (1925).

Filomena Moretti

Filomena Moretti was born on the island of Sardinia in 1973. She graduated with honors from the Conservatory of Sassari. She has regularly performed (and won awards) since 1993 in Italy and France.

Dissolving: This was brought to us by the Party

Charles C. Ebbets: Lunch atop the Radio Corporation of America Building in construction, New York, ca. 1932

Agárrame ese fantasma

La invención de la fotografía de fantasmas fue logro de William Mumler, de Boston, quien en 1861 descubrió en una de sus fotografías el vago perfil de un primo que había muerto no hacía mucho.

Ghost photography

The creation of ghost photography was the merit of William Mumler from Boston, who in 1861 discovered on a photography taken by him the outlines of cousin who died not long before.

Tamten Lwów

Ora visiteremo un angolo di Leopoli che suppongo conosciuto poco o nulla dalla maggior parte degli abitanti della città. Quest’area di Leopoli era il quartiere ebraico nella parte nord della città vecchia.

Tamten Lwów

Vamos ahora a visitar un rincón de Lwów seguramente por completo desconocido o sólo conocido superficialmente, por la mayoría de habitantes de la ciudad. Esta parte de Lwów albergaba el barrio judío del norte.

Tamten Lwów

Now we will visit a corner of Lwów which, I guess, was completely unknown or only superficially known to most of the inhabitants of the city. This part of Lwów was the Jewish quarter in the northern part of the old Lwów.

Flores romanas, chinas

Brindamos generosamente a los eruditos una fuente obvia para estas Flores romanas, es La Relación de las cosas del mundo, de Zhang Hua (232-300 d. C).

Ilyen is van

It is just obvious that the source of the 16th-century Flores romanas cannot be anything else but Zhang Hua’s (A.D. 232-300) Relation on the things of the world which must have been brought to Mallorca by Zheng He’s fleet in 1421.

Google Translator, beta version, 1940

El ingenio de la máquina impresiona. Pero, ¿qué clase de plus (Gebrauchsmehrwert) añade a los simples glosarios alemán-ruso que ya hemos visto?

Google Translator, beta version, 1940

The ingenuity of the machine is stunning. But what kind of surplus use value (Gebrauchsmehrwert) may it have offered in comparison with the hitherto seen simple German-Russian glossaries?

I’ve Taken It To Pieces

The “I’ve Taken It To Pieces” project – “something just a bit, but something to the extreme, because the Lord has given a screwdriver in my hand” – fits quite well to the retronautic, fact-finding and creative thread of Río Wang.

Magic lantern

The predecessor of slides is the magic lantern, which is the combination of a projecting equipment and a series of images painted on glass. It is an exceptional luck when such glasses and equipments turn up.

The Black Cat

We’ve a doorway with a staircase, Also known as a “black door”. In that place as in a palace A black cat has set up store.

“The party is on” – The lost Warsaw

István Békeffy and Viktor Bánky in 1939 interwove into a new Daróczy-Hunnia production, the film Áll a bál (“The party is on”) a Warsaw thread, which otherwise would have not been necessary to the logic of the story.

„Áll a bál” – Zaginiona Warszawa

István Békeffy i Viktor Bánky w roku 1939 pisali warszawska czesc dla nowego filmu Daróczyego-Hunnii „Áll a bál” – ta warszawska czesc nie byla potrzebna – ze wzgledu na logike filmu.

La nieve en Palma

En este lugar del mundo sabemos de la nieve gracias a su presencia imponente en la literatura centroeuropea, en la literatura nórdica, en la literatura rusa.

Snow in Palma

In this part of the world we know about the snow only from its imposing presence in Central European literature, in Nordic literature, in Russian literature.

The past future

The fashion of the city views pushed forward in the future also spread to Europe, and they apparently used the same montage elements to them.

Nueva Barcelona (Hungría, 1735)

Por entonces rodeada de pantanos, Nagybecskerek (húngaro), Bečkerek (en serbio), Großbetschkerek (alemán), Becicherecul Mare (rumano), es decir, la actual Zrenjanin serbia puede verse en este detalle de la Tabula Hungariae, c. 1528.

New Barcelona (Hungary, 1735)

The town of Nagybecskerek (Hungarian), Bečkerek (Serbian), Großbetschkerek (German), Becicherecul Mare (Rumanian), that is, the current Zrenjanin in Serbia was surrounded by large swamps already in this detail of the Tabula Hungariae, of ca. 1528.

Mao lives

We would like to present three series of photos connected with the Revolution, taken by three recognized Chinese artists. All three were exposed in the 百年印象 Băinián Yìnxiàng, “A Hundred Years of Impressions” photo gallery of Beijin in recent years.

Bienes familiares

Los fotografos de Beijing 黄庆军 Huáng Qìngjūn (1971) y 马宏杰 Mă Hóngjié (1963) han estado recorriendo durante años casi toda China intentando convencer a una familia en cada provincia de que expusieran sus propiedades delante de la casa.

Family stuff

Beijing photographers 黄庆军 Huáng Qìngjūn (1971) and 马宏杰 Mă Hóngjié (1963) have been roaming about all China for years by trying to persuade a family in each province – it’s not easy, they say – to put off all their stuff in front of the house.

Old Beijing

We were looking for photos to the reconstruction of the old Beijing which has been systematically destroyed since the 1950s, and this is how we found this series of several hundreds of color photos, taken by by Dmitri Kessel for LIFE in 1946.

La República del Otro Lado del Río

Esta república se ha establecido más allá del pequeño río de Vilnius, en el antiguo gueto repoblado primero por marginados y por los más pobres de la ciudad y luego, desde los setenta, por un creciente número de artistas bohemios y de pocos posibles.

The Republic Beyond the River

This republic lays beyond the little river of Vilnius, in the former ghetto, populated after the deportation of the Jews first by the underworld and the city’s poorest residents, and then, from the 70’s onwards, an increasing number of penniless artists.

红色弗兰肯斯坦

A dog after the cat. After a short pause, the Chinese language version of Río Wang is continued with a new post. Thank you, minus273!

Citizen Barrel Organ

The barrel organ, that is шарманка was popular in the towns and even villages of Russia at the turn of the century, together with its master, the шарманщик.

After harvest

Dense, green, hot, fragrant. The first bottle from Mallorca.

“I Even Met Happy Gypsies”

Aleksandar Petrović will perhaps forgive that we borrowed the first verse of a song from his world famous film, but now we enter a world in which this statement is entirely true.

Circular Time

From the “Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads” exhibition by Ai Weiwei, in the Edmond J. Safra Fountain courtyard of Somerset House, London, 12th May to 26th June 2011.

The Great Circle of Time

Ripples appeared on the smooth surface of the sea, and the Dragon rose from the depths of waters, to visit, like all twelve years, his children.

SOPA negra, or the black soup

Una SOPA muy negra, en suma, la que nos ponen sobre la mesa los legisladores estadounidenses. Algo como aquella μέλας ζωμός, que preparaban los espartanos y que era tan redomadamente mala que tras haberla probado entendía por qué siempre estaban dispuestos a morir.

SOPA negra, or the black soup

Una SOPA muy negra, a very black soup served on our table by the U.S. lawmakers, we commented it the other day in Studiolum, in whose working language, the noble castellano, this pun offers itself spontaneously.

Hammam cemetery

one of many in Iran.

Juego de sombras

“Estoy sentado en el patio, esperando a mi amigo para felicitarle por su hijo recién nacido. La casa antigua, el patio oscuro, un sofá en el patio. Mi amigo aparece en el vano de la puerta, con una cuna en la mano. La cuna está cubierta de terciopelo granate, bordado en oro.”

Shadow play

“I’m sitting in the courtyard, looking forward to my friend, to congratulate him on the birth of his newborn son. Old house, dark courtyard, a couch on the yard. My friend appears in the opening of the gate, with a cradle in the hand.”

This is how the houses see

themselves in the mirror of the canals of St. Petersburg. This is how Vladimir Kolbasov sees them in his fable book on the city.

Prague Quiz

So we invite to a game our readers, who, we know well, are lovers of Prague. Tell us which image where was exactly taken.

Lanzado al viento

Ten, hermoso serbal, piedad del gazapo, Ampárame, serbal, con tus bellas ramas. No des tu belleza al mal enemigo, Al mal enemigo, al malvado cuervo.

Scatter to the wind

Pity me, O rowan bush! O rowan bush, O fair rowan tree! Do not give thy beauty to the wicked enemy, The wicked enemy, the wicked raven.

Letters go slowly on Russian land

The illustrated postcard, however, like so many other items, was usually a shortage at the front, and if the soldier wanted to cheer up his beloved ones at home, he himself had to draw one.

Doktor

The Trabzon singer Sefa Topsakal, the new star of Turkish pop published in the last year her first album entitled Doktor, whose title song is still a huge success in Turkey.

Deià, 1.

En invierno Deià se arrebuja en un hueco de la Serra de Tramuntana, que la separa del interior de la isla.

Deià, 1.

Deià is wrapped around by the Serra de la Tramuntana which separates it from the rest of Mallorca.

Letter

Hafez, through dead six hundred years now, is so alive to every Persian as perhaps no other classical poet of any other nation.

No hablo de toda Odesa

Suena absurdo que el barrio de trabajadores de una ciudad sea anterior a la propia ciudad. Sin embargo, como diría Isaac Bábel, así se hacía en Odesa.

I don’t speak for all Odessa

It sounds absurd that the workers’ quarter of a city is older than the city itself. However, in Odessa they did it this way.

The last trolleybus

Electrical transport, as throughout the Monarchy, started in the 1890s in the Czech cities as well: we know how much Kafka loved to watch from his window the trams of Prague.

Busy town Florence

The great voyage

The great voyage is not the one that takes you far or lasts long. The great voyage is the one about which you feel the need to write a diary or a logbook, a travel blog, mirabilia Urbis and Milione, even if you ultimately fail to do so.

Читалкафе

В то время, когда я пишу это, начинается лекция Галины Иванкиной в московской книжной магазине Читалкафе: Быт москвичей в романах Ильфа и Петрова.

Chitalcafé

At the time when I’m writing this, the lecture of Galina Ivankina begins in the Chitalcafé bookstore in Moscow: Everyday life of Muscovites in Ilf and Petrov’s novels.

Dubbing

I do not like dubbed movies. Although I know there have been some genial ones, nevertheless much is lost in dubbing.

El año de la nieve

En la Biblia nieva una sola vez. Benaía, hijo de Joiada mató a un león un día en que estaba cayendo una nevada (2Sám 20:23). Estos dos acontecimientos extraordinarios y simultáneos cooperaron para mantenerse en la memoria histórica.

The first snow

Snow is mentioned in the Bible only once. Benaiah, son of Jehoiada killed a lion on the day when snow fell (2Sam 20:23). The two extraordinary events mutually reinforced each other in historical memory.

Requisition

Nineteen-forty-two, as we have seen, brought a boom of Russian phrasebook business with itself, and Hungary did not miss the international trend.

Dead bodies’ frozen light

However, the most common photographic genre from the beginning was the portrait, with a strongly Spanish peculiarity since the very first Spanish plates, the photo portraits of dead children.

Luz congelada sobre los muertos

Pero el retrato fue el género más común desde el principio, con una peculiaridad fuertemente española desde aquellas primeras placas —que se continuaría luego en la fotografía en papel—, los retratos de cadáveres de niños.

Rainbow Village

When I saw for the first time a photo on the barracks suburb of Taichung in Taiwan, I thought it was founded by the members of the native tribes descending into the city from the mountains of central Taiwan.

Windglyphs

Two years have passed

Two years ago, on 3 January the Muromtsev Dacha was put to fire in Moscow’s Tsaritsino district. The bloggers who defended the house for months against the authorities speculating for the estate, have commemorated the anniversary.

A midsummer day’s dream

The Langhe are a large hill region in the north-west of Italy, a land of corpulent wines and people accustomed to hard work, a scene of many wars, from the Napoleonic campaigns to the partisans’ Resistenza.

Сон в летный день

Ланге, это – крупный холмистый регион на северо-западе Италии, земля крепких вин и людей, привыкших к тяжелому труду, арена многих войн, от наполеоновской кампании до партизанского Сопротивления.

Sogno di un giorno di mezza estate

Le Langhe costituiscono un’ampia zona collinare nel nord-ovest d’Italia, terra di vini robusti e di gente abituata alla fatica, e teatro di molte guerre, dalle campagne napoleoniche alla Resistenza partigiana.

The fate of a man

The following pictures are fragments of a former family photo album. The data interpreting them have been added from the comments to the original post.

Hydrocycle

On Christmas Eve 1911 the Milanese weekly Letture della Domenica. Settimanale Illustrato gave news that finally, thanks to the genius of two brothers from Turin, it was possible to cross any river or lake without getting off the bike.

Hidrociclo

En Nochebuena de 1911, el semanario milanés Letture della Domenica. Settimanale Illustrato daba la noticia de que por fin, gracias al ingenio de unos hermanos turineses era posible cruzar cualquier río o lago sin apearse de la bicicleta.

Año Nuevo en Odessa

«Esta ciudad no se parece en nada a cualquier otra ciudad del Mar Negro, a ninguna otra ciudad de Ucrania. Es sencillamente imposible revelar su ambiente en las fotos»

New Year in Odessa

“This city is absolutely not similar to any cities of the Black Sea, to any other cities of the Ukraine. It is simply impossible to render its atmosphere on photos.”

In praise of the chimney sweep

Since my childhood it has been incomprehensible to me why the piglet and the chimney sweep, these inevitable figures of New Year greeting cards, gambling money and card calendars are considered luck-bringer around the end of the year.

Cuarenta y dos

Todo el mundo sabe a qué nos estamos refiriendo. Es la respuesta a la Gran Pregunta. La Vida, el Universo y Todo lo Demás.

Forty-two

Everyone knows what this is. The Answer to the Great Question. The Life, the Universe and Everything.

For a birthday

I have just noticed, as I went on my usual evening walk on the Russian net, that I have forgotten about a birthday again. On 30 December 1922 the Soviet Union was born.

Messina, 1908

Hundred and three years ago, on 28 December 1908 the most powerful ever recorded earthquake in Europe shook the city of Messina in Sicily, and within minutes a twelve-meter tsunami swept across the coast.

Night blue

I got this simple little book printed on foldout cardboard from my mother at the age of three, and I was very impressed.

The lost art of punch card decoders

The punch card itself is a ghost from the past, it’s century-plus history in warehouse orders, transportation fare-cards, and, finally, computer programming all but forgotten.

Забытое искусство декодеров перфокарт

Да и сама перфокарта давно превратилась в призрака ушедших дней. Её болле чем столетняя история в складских заказах, билетах на транспорте, и, наконец, в компьютерных технологиях почти позабыта.

Trinidad

One could ask the question again: when were these pictures taken? But we already know that we must be careful. A careful fading throws back by decades even the photos taken yesterday, especially if nothing changed during these decades.

The Albufera

Soon, in mid-January, when the feasts of Saint Anthony – about which we have already written – arrive, the Albufera of Alcúdia will give again its (already almost negligible) share of the island’s eel consumption.

Albufera

Dentro de poco, cuando a mediados de enero lleguen las fiestas de San Antonio —sobre las cuales ya hemos escrito un par de veces— la Albufera de Alcúdia dará de nuevo su cuota —ya casi ínfima— de anguilas a la isla.

Una feliz Navidad

Probablemente, la iglesia del pueblo católico árabe de Eilabun, en Galilea, sea la única del mundo cuya iconostasis ortodoxa ha sido hecha por un pintor de iconos judío, de nombre Sergei.

A happy Christmas

Probably the church of the Arab Catholic village of Eilabun in Galilee is the only one in the world whose Orthodox iconostasis was made by a Jewish icon painter, Sergei by name.

“He was born when light began to grow”

When reading Russian news, blogs and comments, or speaking with former Russian friends, it is almost tangible to what extent the nostalgia for Stalin is growing Russia-wide.

The language of stamps

Gradually disappear the stamps we used to stick on the postcards, and along with them also the customs once connected with them, including a most peculiar one: the language of the stamps.

Tipos, trazos, tinta, textos, tomos

El primer taller de imprenta de Mallorca se instaló en Valldemossa, en Miramar, en una fecha tan temprana en Europa como 1485.

Letters of ink and lead

The first printing shop in Mallorca was installed in Miramar of Valldemossa in 1485, a very early date overall Europe.

Calle Rusa, 4

En esta región de Europa, si uno tiene más de noventa y nueve años, lo normal es que haya sido ciudadano de cinco o seis países sin haberse movido de, digamos, Rimavská Sobota. Lo mismo vale, claro está, para los edificios.

Russian Street 4

Around this region of Europe it is not unusual for someone past ninety-nine to have been citizen of five or six countries without having ever moved, say, from Rimavská Sobota. The same holds for the houses.

Kiki, Bouba and the contours of tango

Murat Erdemsel, a tango teacher with 10 years of experience, likes to introduce himself as “an avid tango dancer and a thinker first”.

Kiki, Buba y los contornos del tango

A Murat Erdemsel, un profesor de tango con 10 años de experiencia, le gusta presentarse como «ávido bailarín de tango y primero pensador».

Кики, Буба и контуры музыки танго

Мурат Эрдемсель, учитель танго с 10-летним стажем, представляется так: “В первую очередь я – танцующий и мыслящий тангеро.”

Explosion at noon

Eighty years ago, on 5 December 1931 at noon Russia’s largest church, the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow was blown up.

Ant marries

I have been preparing for a whole year to present the life of Mrówka, full of unexpected twists. Now, thanks to the contribution of Studiolum, I can share it together with the English translation.

Love

“JULIA, I LOVE YOU”

Zabíjačka

Tento snímok bol zhotovený niekedy v neskorej 1950, na decembrový deň, na zabíjačke v Čemeri.

Zabíjačka

This picture was taken sometime in the late 1950s, on a December day, at pig slaughter in Csömör.

Foresight

“Dear Muscovites! This fence was erected for the case of the riots triggered by the massive frauds at the upcoming elections. We appreciate for your kind understanding for the temporary incovenience.”

The line of life

“For a long time I wanted to scan some pictures from Rena Effendi’s “The line of life” (Линия жизни)” – writes ulysses85.”

After elections

Once we have published the funny pictures of the Russian elections, it is now fair to publish some of the less funny post-elections ones as well.

Potemkin

The photo series of yesterday on the little town in ruins for seventy-five years in Eastern Germany seems to have stirred our readers.

Soldatenkaffee

«Una ciudad derruida y completamente abandonada después de la guerra, en la frontera oriental de Alemania, con un extraño nombre que olvidé por completo».

Soldatenkaffee

“Ruined and after the war completely abandoned town in the eastern border region of Germany, with a strange name I completely forgot”.

Wiatr ze wschodu

Historia kinematografii 1941 roku zna dwa filmy, których celem było uzasadnienie napaści na Polskę w 1939 roku i wzbudzenie nienawiści wobec narodu polskiego.

Wind from east

The film history of 1941 remembers two movies whose purpose was to justify the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and to keep alive the hatred against the Poles.

Elections report

Half an hour ago the Russian parlamentary elections were over, the count of the votes has begun, and the first photos have been posted on the Internet.

Mezuzá

«MEZUZÁ (Heb. מְזוּזָה), rollo de pergamino colocado en el umbral de las puertas de las habitaciones de los hogares judíos. El significado original de mezuzá es «umbral» (cf. Ex. 12:7)»

Mezuzah

“MEZUZAH (Heb. מְזוּזָה), parchment scroll affixed to the doorpost of rooms in the Jewish home. The original meaning of the word mezuzah is “doorpost” (cf. Ex. 12:7).”

A vörös Frankenstein

Bulgakov in one of his harshest satires on the new Soviet regime, the Heart of a Dog (1925) describes how a devout and grateful stray dog becomes after the implantation of a human pituitary a pretentious and primitive Soviet proletarian.

La Ciudad de los Milagros

Recientemente contamos que delante del Centro Calvin de Budapest apareció un elefante indio ataviado de gala, con un trono por silla y un maharajá sentado en ella.

The city of miracles

We have recently reported, that in front of the Calvin Center in downtown Budapest an Indian elephant appeared in full dress, complete with a throne and a maharaja.

Odessa, 1931

From the color slides by Branson DeCou made during his Russian journey in 1931 we have already seen those made in Moscow and in the two former imperial palace complexes next to Leningrad, Peterhof and Tsarskoe Selo.

A cemetery in Kostroma

Cemetery, it seems, has always been here, but the brick church was built only immediately before the first world war on the expenses of the local peasant-mason Polyashov.

A simple story

This is a very simple story. Its heroes lived in a little house with joyfully carved window frames. And the little house stood in a small village on the edge of the field, embraced by the forest..

Ex libris

Lwów conserva buena memoria de los días en que en la panorámica Librería de la Amistad se encontraban libros de todos los países amigos. Pero Lwów fue también durante un tiempo capital del libro polaco.

Ex libris

Lwów still faithfully preserves the memory of those days when in the panoramic Friendship Bookstore the books of all the friendly countries were available. But once Lwów also was the capital of the Polish book.

Say no to denatured alcohol

This constellation naturally results in the publication of the items with the label of “temperance campaign” of the poster collection in the Miejskie Muzeum Przemysłowe of Lwów.

Pomocy!

Szukamy polskiego czytelnika, który może pomóc nam sprawdzić jeden artykuł w języku polskim i z polskim tematem.

Province, early 80s

These pictures were taken in the early eighties of the past century in a small Soviet district center and in the surrounding villages.

The survival of images

We have recently found, in a series of hitherto unknown photos on the División Azul in the Soviet front, the following surprising photo on which the Spanish soldiers entertain themselves with «saloon bullfight».

La supervivencia de las imágenes

Reciéntemente hemos encontrado esta sorprendente foto de la División Azul. Los soldados españoles se entretienen en una sesión improvisada —y un poco chusca— de «toreo de salón» al aire libre.

Transition

Tonight we will go over to the new server. For this reason in some more remote locations the site of Studiolum and the images of the blog will not appear for a couple of hours.

Trees

On the Gretna pictures the trees are no protagonists, yet indispensable, for they mark out the space which is filled in by the dance of the millions of starlings.

Murmurations

No one knows why they do it. Yet each fall, thousands of starlings dance in the twilight above Gretna, Scotland.

Basta decir «no»

Entre los carteles antialcohólicos soviéticos el más emblemático es sin duda el creado por I. Govorkov en 1954, cuando el combate contra el alcohol, después de veinticinco años de tregua, volvió a encenderse a la muerte de Stalin.

Just Say Nyet

Among the Soviet temperance posters the most iconic is undoubtedly the one created by I. Govorkov in 1954, when the anti-alcohol campaign, after twenty-five year interval, flared up again after Stalin’s death.

The cemetery that disappeared

Unlike Krakow’s Kazimierz, in Singapore no glue attaches the Past to Present. Land is scarce, buildings are Towers, the Mall is religion and the dead do not compete with the living.

Doce vistas del Monte Fuji

En las oscuras mañanas de Londres, mientras tomo el té, miro atardecer sobre el monte Fuji —a distancia, en una webcam.

Twelve views of Mount Fuji

In the dark London mornings I take my tea and watch the sunset over Mount Fuji — remotely by webcam.

In eternal memory

Tanto el alcoholismo de masas como su combate formaron parte de la vida cotidiana de la Unión Soviética desde su formación hasta su disolución.

In eternal memory

Both mass alcoholism and the fight against it were integral parts of everyday life in the Soviet Union, from its formation until its dissolution.

Pure poetry

Politics is an art. And sometimes politics exceeds the highest peaks of avant-garde art, as in the following performance of the President of the Government of the Balearic Islands.

Poesía pura

La política es un arte. Y a veces la política supera las más altas cotas del arte de vanguardia, como en esta actuación del nuevo Presidente del Gobierno de las Islas Baleares.

Dissolving

Nikolai Rerikh: She who holds the world, 1933 – Ekkehard, Margrave of Meissen and his wife Uta. Statues of founders in the western choir of the Naumburg Cathedral, mid-13th century

Globat.com

Web host reviews, as we have just checked, today already consider Globat.com among the worst providers.

Fragile balance

The life of the community in Poteryaevka has been also captured by another young photographer from Moscow, Misha Maslennikov. The same persons, the same actions, but how different photos!

Poteryaevka

The name of Poteryaevka village comes from the word потерять, ʻto lose’, but in contrast to the lost Russian villages, Poteryaevka has just been found.

Yesterday in Khabarovsk

In the context of the visit of the President of the Russian Federation D. A. Medvedev we strongly ask you not to hang out underwear on the balconies.

Müteferrika en Irán

Ibrahim Müteferrika, el primer impresor turco, de origen húngaro recorrió un área tan vasta como pocos pudieron hacerlo en su tiempo.

Müteferrika in Iran

Ibrahim Müteferrika, the first Turkish printer, of Hungarian origin traveled over such a vast area as few others in his time.

Murat Reis’ cemetery

Murat Reis – that is, Admiral – was already born in Rhodes, in a Muslim Albanian family settled on the island. Since the age of twelve he served under the greatest Ottoman admirals, Turgut Reis, Piri Reis and Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha.

Kurban Bayram

In the village consisting of three streets and a few dozen houses every family cut sheep for the greatest Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, or as they call it in Turkic and Persian regions, Kurban Bayram, the festival of sacrifice.

El cementerio de Balatonudvari

El viajero que recorra de este a oeste la orilla norte del lago Balaton, justo antes de entrar en el pequeño pueblo de Balatonudvari, verá a su derecha un peculiar cementerio, con unas antiguas y grandes lápidas, blancas, redondeadas.

The cemetery of Balatonudvari

When traveling from east to west along the northern shore of lake Balaton, before entering the tiny village of Balatonudvari, you can see to the right a strange cemetery with huge, archaic, white round gravestones.

Cemeteries

The cemetery is a necro-polis, the city of the dead, where, as in the fairy tale, everything is opposite to how it is in life.

Дорога к храму

На холме стоит церковь деревни моего деда, самое старое деревянное здание в современной Венгрии, построенное в 1670 г. в честь святого Николая Чудотворца.

Up the hill

On the hill stands the church of my grandfather’s village, the oldest wooden building in present-day Hungary, constructed in 1670 in the honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

Symbiosis

I would not upload these pictures if I had no dogs and I did not know too well this well-bred, sure in its portion, yet wistful look.

The image of Paris

Among the several photographers capturing the accident at Gare Montparnasse, Henri Roger-Viollet (1869-1946), with whose photo we started the previous post, was certainly the most renowned and most refined one.

The theme is laying on the street

– Is it difficult to take photos of railway stations? – It is easier than anything else – Švejk said –, because it does not move. The station always stands on its place, and you do not have to remind it that you want a friendly face…”

Тайна Вердемар

Эль Сеньор дель Танго Карлос ди Сарли, был также известен современникам под грубой кличкой Эль Туэрто (Кривой). В БсАс считалось, что и он, и даже само его имя - жета (сглаз).

El enigma de Verdemar

El Señor del Tango, Carlos Di Sarli, fue también cruelmente conocido como «El Tuerto» en Buenos Aires, donde sus contemporáneos lo consideraban un yeta (un gafe).

The Mystery of Verdemar

El Señor del Tango Carlos Di Sarli, was also cruelly known as El Tuerto (the One-Eyed) in Buenos Aires, where he was considered a yeta, a jynx by his contemporaries.

Dissolving: October trains

Nothing to lose but their chains

Lenin abolishing the prisons. Drawing by convict Mark Larionov, 27 year old. Convicted of four counts of theft, for the last time of two years of prison. A turner by profession.

The Kremlin as you have never seen

On the Kremlin which you will never see any more, because it was systematically destroyed in the 1930s together with a great part of old Moscow, you can create a picture for yourself on the basis of the photos of the last Tsar’s coronation ceremony in 1896.

Side and reverse

The second half of the 19th century passed both in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and in the neighboring countries by covering their own territory as well as those of the neighbors with detailed maps which were suitable for military tasks.

How clear was the world! How it opened up!

Natalia Gorbanevskaya, a poet and an activist (to whom the verses cited in this post have been dedicated), recalls how she gasped when Senderov suggested her to give a talk on any literary subject as long as it was a tabooed subject.

The poetry of exaggeration

Of abandoned places, factories, bunkers, pioneer camps, rust cemeteries we have enough in post-industrial, post-Cold War and post-Socialist Europe. Usually it is no great art even to penetrate there.

The villages of yesterday

I wanted to write just a short post on those villages in Kostroma province where the Black Ethnographer is gathering his photo findings in the abandoned houses.

Tashkent, 1956

From the 1956’s Moscow Jacques Dupâquier flew on to Tashkent, the center of the Uzbek autonomous republic. It appears that there he enjoyed the same freedom in sightseeing and taking photos as in the capital.

Sunday morning

Early Sunday morning, the sun just starts to shine in.

Moscow, 1926

From Moscow in 1956 we step back thirty years. These are the views of Moscow in 1926, and not just any views: they are special both for what they show and how they show.

The Via dei Falegnami

The Via dei Falegnami was such a narrow street that by looking out of the window of one of its poor homes, one could shake the hand of those who lived in the house opposite.

La Via dei Falegnami

La Via dei Falegnami era una stradina talmente stretta che, affacciandosi dalla finestra di una delle sue povere abitazioni, si poteva stringere la mano di chi viveva nella casa di fronte.

Autumn

Photos by Igor Podgorny.

Moscow, 1956

French historian Jacques Dupâquier digitized and put up on the net in 2009, one year before his death the color photos of his 1956 journey in the Soviet Union.

Past Chinas

It will be forty years ago within some months that in February 1972, after twenty-five years of diplomatic break, President Nixon visited Beijing.

Holidays

Today 69 years ago was published in Simferopol this German-Russian phrasebook, whose content, as the introduction says, “was determined by the practical needs of the German and Russian users who today are in close contact with each other.”

Romanian: Full Steam

“With the return of a part of Transylvania to our thousand year old homeland, apart from our dear Hungarian brothers and sisters a significant Romanian minority has also returned. My book aims at the easy mastery of the language of this minority.”

Souvenirs de Varsovia

La Segunda Guerra Mundial fue la primera guerra en que los soldados, especialmente los alemanes, tomaron fotos privadas de manera masiva.

Warsaw memories

World War II was the first war in which soldiers, especially German soldiers mass-produced private photos.

Pictures of an era

In Moscow’s Gorky Park, an open-air life work photo exhibition was recently organized for Viktor Akhlomov, the veteran photographer of the daily Izvestiya, “the living classic of Soviet photography”.

Russia is for everyone

The walls of the exhibition Россия для всех – “Russia is for everyone” are all covered by the paper graffitis by the contemporary Russian artists Viktor Bondarenko and Dmitry Gutov.

Dissolving: Procession

Dissolving: The great leap

My first step for the Einem Cookie, late 19th c. The candy factory established in 1851 by Theodor Ferdinand von Einem on the Arbat moved in the late 19th century to the Moscow Island, where the little girl is jumping to.

A bleeding heart

Today, when the world celebrates the fresh Nobel Peace Prize winners, let us remember for a minute about a great loser of the Nobel Peace Prize, too.

What did the tovarish say?

The Hungarian Language and Science portal yesterday published a detailed analysis on a recently found Russian-Hungarian glossary, which was apparently compiled to facilitate the basic communication with the Soviet occupation forces.

The battle of Blosdorf

The commanders of the Tsar’s army held a last survey over their forces, and then, led by the mountain rifles of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, they marched to the monument of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers fallen between 1914 and 1918.

Mallorcan, Menorcan, Ibizan and Formenteran

Some politicians and the media of the Balearic Islands from time to time – especially when elections are approaching – try to play out the card of the supposed linguistic problems of the autonomous region.

Mallorquín, menorquín, ibicenco y formenterense

Algunos políticos y medios de comunicación de las Islas Baleares, de vez en cuando —especialmente cuando se acercan las elecciones— azuzan un presunto problema lingüístico en esta Comunidad Autónoma.

The Soviet Capa

At the same time with the London exhibition of early 20th-century Hungarian photography, in June opened and in October closed in the Crimean Sevastopol the exhibition of the photos made seventy years ago by Yevgeny Khaldei.

Eyewitness

The London Royal Academy of Fine Arts organized a large-scale exhibition between 30 June and 2 October, with the title “EYEWITNESS – Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century”.

A day in the life of an icon painter

“My name is Sasha”, writes akortes. “I live in Moscow and I invite you to spend with me one of my normal working days.

The Tsar in Paris, 1896

A hundred and fifteen years ago, on 5 October 1896 the first foreign trip of the new Russian imperial couple after the coronation celebrations led to France.

5772

from one-way’s fantastic vintage Rosh Hashanah postcards of this and the last year.

Safe-conduct

The armies of the Second World War sent letters and illustrated postcards not only to home. But also to the enemy.

Illustrated front postcards

Besides the “triangular letters” and the non-illustrated field postcards, several armies of the Second World War introduced the illustrated front postcard as well.

Triangular letter

However, there was a time when this folding was not considered unusual at all, moreover the mails folded in this way were the most valuable the postman could bring.

The Battery Gardens

The Battery is the point of Mannhattan at the confluence of Hudson and East rivers where the first Dutch settlers landed.

Sagrada Familia

on the outskirts of the Far Eastern city of Artyom, being built from construction waste.

Memories of others

No, we could never see them like this, in this light evoking Flemish still-life paintings, in these calculatedly random and heroic compositions. Still we remember them exactly.

Honras

Just saw the light our edition of the Libro de las Honras de la Emperatriz María de Austria, a chronicle of the remarkable celebrations organized by the Jesuit college of St. Peter and Paul in Madrid.

Honras

Acaba de ver la luz nuestra edición del Libro de las Honras de la Emperatriz María de Austria. Es la crónica de las notables celebraciones que organizó el colegio jesuita de San Pedro y San Pablo de Madrid

Souvenir of Hiroshima

I have been collecting old cameras for many years, and occasionally it happens that I receive the camera ordered via internet together with the last film left in it.

Müteferrika

En el patio de los libreros de viejo del Gran Bazar de Estambul, donde en las miniaturas de los manuscritos médicos otomanos unos diablillos negros golpean con martillos de fuego los doloridos dientes, se encuentra el busto de un hombre con turbante.

Müteferrika

In the yard of antiquarian books of the Istanbul Grand Bazaar, where black jinns are hitting with burning hammers the aching tooth from inside on the miniatures of Ottoman medical manuscripts, the statue of a turbaned man is standing.

They have come

Today began in Moscow the XIVth Congress of the Russian Communist Party for the peaceful political takeover.

Silent movie

Ivan Boldyrev: Don Cossacks, 1875-76

Ivan Vasilevich Boldyrev was born in 1850 in a Cossack family, in the village of Ternovskoe along the Don. Since his mother died early and his father served in the Tsar’s Cossack division, he grew up almost as an orphan in his grandfather’s house.

Russian landscape

It has been several years now that the photo competition and outdoor photo exhibition “Russian landscape” is being organized between early September and mid-October in Moscow, on the Red Square.

Little town Kich

The six thousand strong Kichmengsky Gorodok, simply called by its inhabitants Little Town Kich, is located in the historical Russian region’s northeasternmost province Vologda, and namely in its easternmost district.

Bike craze

In the 1890s, with the appearance of the “safety bicycle”, the bike, for the very first time, ceased to be a caprice of young sportsmen, and became an everyday transport tool and – with the development of railroads – even a kind of a one-man branch-line for commuters.

Sapa

Sapa, laying two thousand meters high among the North Vietnamese mountains, is one of the most romantic regions of the country. In the inaccessible valleys a large number of little peoples and particular languages have survived from before the Chinese and Vietnamese conquests.

Amistad

En el mapa de Lwów pueden verse claramente los letreros de la librería más grande de la ciudad anunciando sus productos en varios idiomas.

Friendship

On the map of Lwów, at the southern end of the long Freedom Square you can clearly see that the signboards of the largest bookshop of Lwów announce its goods in several languages.

Thank you and good bye

It is quite refreshing to read a wartime conversational dictionary whose single message is apparently this: “Thanks for having liberated us!”

Johannes Hähle: Kharkov, Lubny, Baby Yar

Ten photos have been published in these days on the Russian net, on several sites within a short time, ten rather faded color photos from October 1941, on the Baby Yar mass murder, two weeks before the seventieth anniversary of Baby Yar.

Sakhalin, 1894-1905

The following one hundred and twenty photos are from the first “Russian” period of the island, from between 1894 and 1905, at least they are spreading with this indication on the Russian web..

Photo findings from Kostroma

“When traveling in the North, one often meets villages which are living the last years of their lives… Many of them look back on a rich history, and they happily share it with whom they can…”

Market

It is not easy to photograph the market. It is hard to overcome the allure of genre scenes, the charm of exoticism, the commonplaces of orientalism, the temptation to grasp this whole buzz at once, and in the end nothing remains in our hands.

Thank you

Exactly two weeks have passed since we have asked our readers to help us to collect the minimum amount of 1,500 euros necessary to our friends in Szék/Sic (Romania) to move before the coming winter in the new house.

Shooting dictators is a great fun

– wrote James Abbe in his memoirs, and he just had to know: he shot them all, from Franco through Mussolini and Hitler to Stalin.

Drohobycz and the world

The gently waving hills of eastern Galicia, still green at the end of August, are even more softened by the afternoon light. This light and this air are the protagonists of the first book by Bruno Schulz, The Cinnamon Shops.

Drohobycz y el mundo

El paisaje de colinas suaves de la Galitzia oriental, todavía verde a finales de agosto, es más dulce con la luz de la tarde. Esta luz y este aire son los protagonistas del primer libro de relatos de Bruno Schulz, Las tiendas de color canela.

Message on the wall

Marca

Lwów es quizás la única ciudad de Europa donde todavía se pueden ver por la calle inscripciones en yidis.

Brand

Lwów is perhaps the only city in Europe where you can still see Yiddish inscriptions on the streets.

La memoria de los muros

Mejores rones de té, vino nuevo de 1944, licores variados.

The memory of walls

Best tea rums, new wine of ’44, various liqueurs.

Quiviesa River

The road along the river runs through 23 settlements and is an important link between the coastline Camino de Santiago and the Camino Francés.

Río Quiviesa

Agrupa unos 23 núcleos habitados a lo largo del cauce del río y es un paso de enlace importante entre el Camino de Santiago de la costa y el Camino Francés.

God is great and I’m not

But this formula, when the little man increases the greatness of the figure by his own smallness, and draws safety and support for his smallness from the greatness of the figure, was fertile only for some decades.

Serra de ses Figueres

The schematic profile of Cabrera to the south of the island of Mallorca in the beautiful Kitab-i Bahriye (Book of Navigations, 1526) only marks the bays where to cast anchor.

Serra de ses Figueres

El esquemático perfil de Cabrera al sur de la isla de Mallorca, en el precioso Kitab-i Bahriye (Libro de las materias marinas, 1526) apenas marca las ensenadas donde fondear.

A new beginning

After the Bartholomew’s Day commemoration we climb up to Felszeg to see the houses that fell into ruin in last July, and then descend to the market place to see how our friends proceed with their new house.

Paganos vinieron, oh Señor, a tu heredad

Ya hemos escrito que el 24 de agosto, día de San Bartolomé, es un día de luto no sólo para los calvinistas de Francia, también para los de Szék (Sic, en Rumania).

Pagans came, o Lord, in thy inheritance

We have already written, that 24 August, St. Bartholomew’s Day is a day of mourning not only for the Calvinists of France, but also for those of Szék (Sic, in Romania).

Royal Doors

The royal doors of the former Greek Catholic wooden church of Kurimka (in Rusyn Havryanets) in Bardejov, in the Šariš Icon Museum.

Crocodiles

A Russian version of the very newspaper of the National Socialist Party, the Völkischer Beobachter was distributed in a large number of copies in Moscow several years before the invasion of the Soviet Union.

The Deva river

According to some authors, it was not in Africa, in the Near East or in any other place of the world, but here in Cantabria where humanity originated.

El río Deva

Según más de uno, cae por aquí y no en África, Oriente Próximo, ni en ningún otro sitio del mundo, el lugar donde tuvo origen la Humanidad.

Busy Town

Flood of the Kura in Tiflis in 1893, when Iosif Dzhugashvili arrived at the town to start his studies in the Orthodox seminary.

On the wings of fame

We have just received the news that our readers have nominated our blog for the 2011 Golden Blog of Hungary contest, and once it happened so, we cannot but face the challenge with honor.

A litle sheet or scrow of paper

Oh, wonderful gift of languages, a superior skill of idioms, which translates so fluently even such marginal words not only to Hungarian, but to Polish, and perhaps, if necessary, even to Chinese!

Heavenly place

The small town of Sebezh lays in a westernmost tip of Russia, at the Russian-Latvian-Belorussian border, in a wonderful setting, between lakes, on a peninsula reaching deep into the lake.

A fine feast for refined readers

Four hundred years ago was published Sebastián de Covarrubias’ Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, the first monumental Spanish thesaurus and etymological dictionary.

¿Tylko we Lwowie?

«¡Sólo en Lwów!» Este fue el título de una canción cuyas letra y música escribieron Emanuel Szlechter y Henryk Wars, figuras muy conocidas de la vida literaria de pre-guerra en Lwów.

Tylko we Lwowie?

– “Only in Lwów!” This was the title of a song, whose text and music were written by Emanuel Szlechter and Henryk Wars, well-known figures of pre-war literary life in Lwów.

“…but I’m not happy”

To Liébana one arrives as to an island, and the elder locals also speak about it like that.

«…pero no estoy contenta»

A Liébana se llega como a una isla, y así suelen referirse a ella los habitantes más viejos.

El Petőfi rus

Avui fa cent seixanta-dos anys que Sándor Petőfi, el famós poeta va ser vist per últim cop, el 31 de juliol de 1849 a les sis en punt a la tarda.

The Russian Petőfi

It does matter who translates a poet for the first time to a certain language. The genius of Pasternak has certainly contributed to the Russian readers’ feeling Petőfi their own.

Leópolis

Lwów, Львів, Lemberg, לעמבערג, Լվովի, Львов, Liov, Ľvov, Lvov, Лвов, Lavov, Leopolis, Léopol, Leopoli, Ilyvó. Pocas ciudades europeas comparten el privilegio de oír su nombre en tantos idiomas distintos.

Lwów

Lwów, Львів, Lemberg, לעמבערג, Լվովի, Львов, Liov, Ľvov, Lvov, Лвов, Lavov, Leopolis, Léopol, Leopoli, Ilyvó. Only a few European cities – Venice, Rome, Paris, London – have their own names in so many languages.

The Nazi elephant

That the unexpected appearance of elephants on the streets of big cities is a concomitant of great political earthquakes is proved by many examples of twentieth-century Russian history.

情热

百骸九窍之中有一物件，强名之曰风罗坊（fūrabō）（来行无定者之谓也），究其所以，实在是与织物之薄者，在风中时时欲破的情状相似。因得此物，好做狂句（俳句）日久，终来成了生涯始终之谋。

Fever

“In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones and nine orfices there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit for lack of a better name…”

Fervor

«En mi forma temporal, la de cien huesos y nueve orificios, hay también algo que, a falta de una denominación más adecuada, podría llamarse duende volátil…»

555

…years ago, on 22 July 1456 the Hungarian and Croatian defenders of the fortress of Belgrade after three weeks of siege fought off the Ottoman army led by Sultan Mehmed II.

In the valley of Liébana

No, this is not Berlin after the Allied bombing, this is the town of Potes in the heart of the Valley of Liébana, Cantabria, in 1937, one year after the beginning of the Civil War.

En el valle de Liébana

No es Berlín después de los bombardeos aliados, es el pueblo de Potes, en el corazón del Valle de Liébana, en Cantabria, en 1937. Hacía poco más de un año que había empezado la Guerra Civil.

The unbearable mask

The 120 woodcuts that make up the volume of Les songes drolatiques de Pantagruel appeared without almost any text in 1565.

El disfraz insoportable

Las 120 imágenes que componen el volumen de Les songes drolatiques de Pantagruel se publicaron en 1565 sin apenas explicaciones.

Rust in peace

Italian poetry is mainly divided into two types: the incomprehensible on the one hand and the boring on the other, because there is missing, on the side of the authors, the passion of being read.

Moscow 1900-1960

In recent years, a lot of surprisingly rich archival photo series has been published on Moscow and on Russia in general.

Retrospective

An exhibition from the posts of Río Wang on the indigenous dialogues tumblr.

No One Writes to the Colonel

Since Language Hat has quoted our post on Soviet kommunalki, the commentaries of the readers have made it clear that as for housing, Anglo-Saxon countries had it hard too at Stalin’s times.

Romualdas Požerskis

In 1992 I started to take photos on the smallest (90 cm high) man in Lithuania, the farmer Alfons Mickus, whose life was rich in both sad and happy events.

The Lithuanian school

A few months ago opened in Moscow the photo exhibition “The Lithuanian school. Western photography in the Soviet Union”.

In a different way

It was three years ago that we published a colloquial dictionary for the Soviet army which prepared the soldiers for the speech situations of a victorious attack advancing in Germany.

Bees against honey

Today I want to show you how Afghan police destroys poppy fields. Quite by accident I have hit upon one of these operations.

Kommunalki

旧资产阶级公寓的门上，门铃杂乱无章地挤在一起，个个都大不一样，但年岁久了，就渐渐难以分辨起来；这样的场景忠实反映了上一篇文章中提到的kommunalki（“公用住房”）的性质。

Kommunalki

Los timbres de los pisos colocados sin orden en la puerta de un antiguo piso burgués, todos distintos pero lentamente igualados por la mano del tiempo, reflejan bien la naturaleza de los kommunalki.

Kommunalki

The apartment doorbells packed without a plan on the door of the old bourgeois flat and slowly assimilated to each other by the layers of time faithfully reflect the nature of the kommunalki.

门铃

独特的中庭有独特的门铃。下面这些domofon是利沃夫人克苏莎·马耶夫斯基（Ksusha Mayevsky）的摄影作品。

Doorbells

To unique courtyards, unique doorbells. The domofons below were photographed by Ksusha Maevsky in Lwów.

Courtyards of Lwów

on the photos of Alexander Ivanov.

利沃夫的中庭

亚历山大·伊万诺夫的相片。打开大图，就真的活了起来。

Balance of a hundred years

The Art historia blog offers one more photo by Nicolae Ionescu, but in a separate post, as do we.

Shadows in Bucharest

We have already written, that between the two world wards Bucharest was micul Paris, “little Paris”, the city of luxury and of an exaggerated desire for life. And as usual, light had its shadow.

The Hungarian and his bear

This photo was sent by Wang Wei from the mountains of Cantabria, the valley of the monastery of Liébana where the magical Beatus manuscripts were copied a thousand and three hundred years ago.

Black people in the zoo

Seventy-five years ago, in 1936 closed the last of the zoo houses in Europe – notably in Turin, and one year before that the penultimate one in Basel – where black people were presented to visitors.

The Museum of Censorship

I get to know late about the best exhibitions. Just now I’m reading that in the Museum of Censure they closed four days ago this overview of the political cartoons of Europe between 1940 and 1950.

The banality of crime

The circumstances of Federico García Lorca’s death were surrounded by uncertainty and legends over a long time. A few weeks ago appeared Miguel Caballero Pérez’s The thirteen last hours of Lorca’s life.

Blessing and peace

Gastarbayter

If there’s nowhere to go, people go to Moscow. They escape the bad life, go for the money, love, luck – Moscow has it all.

Lighthouses

At each end of the Serra de Tramuntana there stands a lighthouse. To the north, that of Formentor. To the south, that of Sa Mola in Andratx.

Faros

En cada extremo de la Serra de Tramuntana hay un faro. Al norte, el de Formentor. Al sur, el de Sa Mola, en Andratx.

A killer game

War, like any other product of the government, has to be sold to the public.

Excursion

“Excursion to Paris. See you on the Boulevard!” (David Welch: Germany, Propaganda and Total War, 1914-1918, 2000)

A summary

“Look, the tiger of Ussuri came this year to pull us out of every evil plague, to devour the American crisis, to distribute happiness and love to all, to bring all kinds of riches in this Happy New Year!”

Paper Museum

I liked simple-minded paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored folk prints; old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings…

Such huge

Москва’s commentary to the previous post: “…and I guess you know what happened after they tied the angler's wrists together, so that he couldn’t exaggerate anymore?”

The big fish

While we are cycling upstream along the Danube, we do not want to leave our readers out of the pleasures of wild waters either. Fedor Telkov somewhere in Russia asks the fishermen about how big was the biggest catch of their lives.

On a sea of words

In the preface of the first European Atlas by Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594), whose author did not live to see the complete publication of his great work, a warning is borrowed from Saint Isidore of Seville.

En un mar de palabras

En el prefacio del primer Atlas europeo, el de Gerardo Mercator (1512-1594), cuyo autor nunca llegó a ver completamente impreso, se lee una advertencia tomada —sin mencionarlo— de San Isidoro.

Juego

En la estación, una pareja de gitanos con tres niños espera a mi lado. Tienen unos veinticinco o treinta años.

Game

At the terminus a Gypsy man and woman with three children stood next to me. They were around twenty-five or thirty year old.

The German Kharkov

Kharkov, then Ukraine’s largest city and the third largest industrial cities in the Soviet Union was occupied by the German army in very heavy fighting on 24 October 1941.

Dance

The previous post also evokes an older series by one-way, selected from American public photo collections, with the same attention to the details of the pictures and to the span of their succession.

Singing is forbidden

prohibido el cante, this was written in several suburban pubs in the Franco era. And this is the title of the exhibition which the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo of Seville dedicated in 2009 to the forbidden song, the flamenco.

With joint forces

The picture book With joint forces against drunkenness, as its introduction writes, was published with the purpose of agitation for Gorbachev’s alcohol ban in 1989.

Peace and conflict

Slow, round-shaped seals are hiding between the pages of library books, like fossils between rock layers, witnesses of the prosperity and transformation of remote, exotic and unlikely geologic eras.

The enemy

It is for several years now that this picture has been on the wall of the old Swabian house along the Danube to where traditionally around this time, the end of June the birthday cycling tour starts.

应门但迎扫，畏有山僧来

四年以来，辋川边上的槐树愈发的茂密，树下的幽径也越行越远。十二个世纪以前王维和裴迪闲暇各赋的游戏，我们起初用英语，用西班牙语，用匈牙利语继续下去，后来，邀于所览之地，惠于同行其人，就又增加了意大利语、俄语、加泰罗尼亚语、阿塞拜疆语和土耳其语，更不用提摘译的篇章残句了。

Wang Wei vuelve a casa

Durante cuatro años las sóforas han crecido a lo largo del río Wang, y el camino se ha ido alargando a su sombra.

Wang Wei comes home

During four years the sophora trees grew large along the Wang river, and the road runs ever farther under their shadow.

斜雨

一个葡萄牙的朋友给我们寄来了这张照片，上面是一群“愤怒者”（indignados）在里斯本的Rossio广场聚集的场面。晚春的骤雨不期而至，让他们不得不在拿出来展示的帆布大标语下面躲雨。

Oblique rain

A friend from Portugal has sent us this photo of a group of «indignados» from the Praça do Rossio in Lisbon. Suddenly a late spring rain forced them to find shelter under the large canvas banner they were displaying.

Chuva oblíqua

Un amigo nos manda desde Portugal esta imagen del grupo de «indignados» de la Praça do Rossio de Lisboa. De pronto un chaparrón de fin de primavera les obligó a guarecerse bajo una de las lonas que utilizaban.

Frescoes rediscovered

He was clutching a piece of black bread he smuggled home and had a passport in the pocket to flee the country.

Gli affreschi ritrovati

Stringeva una forma di pane nero che portava di nascosto a casa, e in tasca aveva un passaporto per fuggire dal Paese.

On the way to Velikoretskoye

In 1383 along the northeastern borders of the then Russian principalities, near the town of Hlynov – later Vyatka, today Kirov – a peasant found an icon along the river Velikaya.

Tales of the Amur

As we have seen, it was the railway which brought the world fame to the Nanai tribes fishing and hunting in archaic circumstances along the Amur and its tributaries.

D-day

The above picture was sent by Kinga a few minutes ago from London, accompanied by the following letter. “About this photo I have a story, obviously not brand new, so you might know it, but maybe not.”

“If they ask me where the Paradise is”

Milenium – written with one l – is the name of the shop, because the owner is called Milen. People have realized that Milen takes care of bikes like nobody.

«Si me preguntan dónde está el Paraíso»

Milenium —escrito así— es el nombre del taller, porque el dueño se llama Milen. La gente se ha dado cuenta de que Milen cuida las bicicletas como nadie.

This was brought by the railway

In the village where I live, the railway arrived at the same time with the 20th century. However, the preparations and the development of the plans already begun a decade earlier.

European Vision

I doubt if two years ago anybody would imagine that a country with such a hard-to-pronounce name will win Europe’s most watched song contest.

Russkaya doroga

It was hundred and twenty years and three days ago, on 31 May 1891 that the Russian crown prince, later Czar Nicholas II in Vladivostok placed the foundation stone of the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

Kerchiefs, kerchiefs, kerchiefs

in all quantities, sizes, shapes, colors. The very first thing one encounters when exiting the Istanbul airport is the poster of the Armine fashion company showing a pretty young woman with a kerchief.

The Orthodox Crimea

This is the title of the unpublished photo album of Yuri Gladky from Simferopol, about which the author writes this: One more book that was composed but not published because of the crisis.

A question: gapi.plusone.go

In the present English version of the blog the javascript pop-up windows have ceased to work since yesterday, while in the Hungarian version they work merrily on.

World history in local view

One would not think that Csömör, this small dead-end village surrounded by forests in the outskirts of Budapest was sixty-six years ago the strategic hub of Hungary.

Paleocyclists

One thing is missing from the picture chronicle of the paleocycle: a photo album of paleocyclists.

Clavileña

In omaggio alla serie delle biciclette, una piccola, modesta macchina poetica con un motore a due tempi che opera alla perfezione solo con i componenti originali alla base del suo meccanismo.

Clavileña

As a tribute to the bicycle thread of the past days, voilà a small, modest poetry machine with a two-stroke engine which works perfectly only with the original components underlying its mechanism.

Cause they go like mad

The first picture is published on the Old Picture of the Day blog. Its caption leaves no doubt as to what we see: the traffic police fines the irresponsibly racing velocipedist. After all, we do not live in the jungle!

The photographic night

Is it possible to take photos of the darkness? In the latest edition of the Spanish Babelia Antonio Muñoz Molina writes about the photo historical exhibition Night Vision: Photography After Dark, recently opened in the Metropolitan Museum.

La noche fotográfica

¿Se puede fotografiar la oscuridad? En el último Babelia Antonio Muñoz Molina escribe sobre la exposición de fotografías que con el tema Night Vision: Photography After Dark se inauguró hace poco en el Metropolitan Museum.

Κύκλωψ

Πᾶν γνήσιον ἀντίτυπον φέρει τὴν κάτωθι ὑπογραφὴν καὶ σφραγίδα: each authentic copy bears the following signature and seal.

Κύκλωψ

Πᾶν γνήσιον ἀντίτυπον φέρει τὴν κάτωθι ὑπογραφὴν καὶ σφραγίδα: ogni copia autentica reca la seguente firma e il sigillo.

Gentili Sigg.

Mi scuso e ringrazio per l’invito ad una così importante Esposizione d’Arte, ma ci ho ripensato. Non credo che l’Italia abbia bisogno di me per essere rappresentata, e io mi sentirei come un gatto ad una esposizione canina, o viceversa.

Dear Sirs

I apologize and thank you for the invitation to such an important Art Exhibition, but I’ve given it some thought. I don’t believe Italy needs me for being represented, and I’d feel like a cat at a dog show or viceversa.

Grand couleur

However, Boris Indrikov can command much more than just two wheels at once, that lay on the shore of a Zone which was left behind not so much by an apocalypse but rather by a traveling circus.

Fietswinkel

Fietswinkel (Bicycle corner). Open Wednesday to Sunday from 3 pm to 9 pm. • Fietswinkel (Angolo della bicicletta) Aperto da mercoledì a domenica dalle 15:00 alle 21:00 • Mahlowerstr. 9, Berlin/Neukölln.

Dandy horse

It is not unusual in the history of civilization to discover one thing twice, either because it fell into oblivion, or because the initiates deliberately kept it in secret. This happened to the bike as well.

Yesterday

On the occasion of the Eurovision Song Contest the Rénhírek and Nyelv és Tudomány has also taken over our post written last year on the Buranovskie Babushki, the “Grannies of Buranovo”.

Великие велики

Вы ещё помните таинственный орден рыцарей Солнца и Луны, которые со времён Gesta Romanorum выходили на двух колесах впереди армии и были похоронены со своими любимыми велосипедами под стенами Шато-Гайар?

Velikie veliki

Do you still remember the mysterious Order of the Knights of the Sun and the Moon who since the centuries of the Gesta Romanorum went on two wheels in front of the army?

Come on, Kathy, the hurdy-gurdy’s playing

They believe that hurdy gurdy must be just turned, but no, it is exactly like the “manual piano”. If you have no practice and no feeling inside, then there is no “Takt”, and the song does not make any sense.

Acercáos hasta Óbuda

…para probar una rica pasta con queso suave — se cantaba con una melodía de moda antes de la II Guerra Mundial. Y era justamente así.Porque el suburbio barroco de Óbuda era el paraíso de los pequeños restaurantes bohemios.

Come out to Óbuda

…for a good pasta with soft cheese – sang the pre-WWII hit. And deservedly so. Because the baroque suburb of Óbuda in the northernmost outskirt of Budapest was the paradise of little bohemian restaurants.

Old world games

I can still remember as we set out in the asphalt jungle of Józsefváros, looking for horseshoe nails. We knew that they are sometimes lost by the industrious horses of Pest off their legs covered with gamashes of hair.

Playing with bones

In the Mallorca of our childhood (and, with small differences, in all the other islands) there were two games that we practiced with knucklebones, astragali or jacks.

Jugar con huesos

En la Mallorca de nuestra infancia (y en todas las otras islas, con pequeñas diferencias) hay dos juegos que practicábamos con huesecillos —astrágalos o tabas—.

Five stones

This story could be recounted chronologically, beginning at the beginning and ending it at the end, but also in the order as its details gradually emerged through the comments of the past few days.

Rabbit in the moon

What a pity that three months ago, when writing on the New Year’s Eve dinner of the Year of the Rabbit we did not yet know the Japanese New Year’s postcards of the Boston Fine Arts Museum.

Катюша

Май запомнился на Poemas del río Wang как месяц нескольких записей, наполненных духом Второй Мировой Войны: Маленькие люди о детях войны, Граффити, рассматривающая надписи на стенах павшего Берлина…

The sea

“In fact, I do not find anything more fitting to explain certain spiritual things than water.”

Children’s Games

The opening image provides an understanding of why we post this fin-de-siècle children’s games series after the previous post on child carriages. But these photos are also related, for example, to the “heads or tails” played in Siberia.

Stroller

The historical antecedent of today’s baby carriage was, as its name suggests, the horse carriage scaled down to child size.

Peterhof

After (or before) Moscow and Tsarskoe Selo, Bernard DeCou also made a series in the garden of the Summer Palace of Peterhof, of which hitherto twenty-five glass slides have been foun.

Transylvanian flavors

The descriptions of the plants are printed in five languages, and besides the Romanian and Bulgarian versions the Hungarian one was also made by a native translator.

Tsarskoe Selo

The thirty photos made of the former imperial residence in Tsarskoe Selo are particularly valuable, because exactly ten years after DeCou’s visit the German army invaded the palace.

Mañana de lunes en Farafra / Monday morning in Farafra

To the west of the oasis of Farafra there is only sand. The Great Sand Sea of Libya.

Tengri, the blue sky

The theme of Lenin statues had already been raised several times here on the blog, for example in connection with labor movement songs, the children’s cult of dictators, or recycled pedestals.

Icons

The crumbling walls of Saint-Petersburg, whose sinking back to mere matter is documented by Sasha Terebenin, are used as new basic material by Vadim Bo to create modern icons.

Lucca, Sunday afternoon

Recently we recounted how the Pisans, invading in 1114 the Muslim Mallorca, took from the mosque of Medina Mayurka – today’s Palma – the two red porphyry columns which today adorn the front door of the Baptistery of Florence.

Tarde de domingo en Lucca

Hace poco contábamos cómo los pisanos, en su ataque a la Mallorca musulmana del año 1114, se llevaron de la mezquita de Medina Mayurqa las dos columnas de pórfido rojo que hoy adornan la puerta principal del Baptisterio de Florencia.

Changing life

The surfaces grow old in their own way, take on fascinating autumn colors, create a particular aesthetics. Of this process is an objective and epic chronicler Sasha Terebenin from Saint-Petersburg.

Next year in Jerusalem

E. Schiller’s The First Photographs of Jerusalem and the Holy Land was published several decades ago, and by now it has become a much sought-after rarity for collectors.

Moscow, 1931

We have already published some photo galleries of Moscow from the 1980s and 1960s. Now a great leap follows back in time, to the beginning of the 1930s.

Exodus

In the opposite direction from the sea, in the Western Desert, only 1.5 km from the Temple of Hibis lays one of the oldest Christian cemeteries, Bagawat.

Éxodo

En dirección opuesta, en el Desierto Occidental, solo a 1,5 km del Templo de Hibis se encuentra una de las necrópolis cristianas más antiguas, Bagawat.

El drama de la Pasión

Los habitantes de Oberammergau, en Baviera, hicieron en 1633 una promesa: si sobrevivían a la peste, todo el pueblo cada diez años por Viernes Santo representaría la Pasión de Cristo.

Passion play

The inhabitants of Oberammergau in Bavaria in 1633 made a pledge: if they survive the plague, then every ten years on Good Friday they hold a passion play involving the whole town.

Armenian church in Singapore

The oldest church in Singapore is the Armenian Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator. Today, a listed National Monument, it is no longer in active use as a church.

Scout cards

This post is connected to several previously touched themes. Postcards from the bottom of the shoebox, at the crossroad of WWII, Easter and propaganda.

Soviet photo, 1926

Eighty-five years ago, in April 1926 appeared the first issue of the journal Советское Фото – Soviet Photo which was “dedicated to the problems of amateur photography and photo-reportage”.

Manitou’s Gift

Viera Bombová (1932-2005) was a master of the dreamlike Slovak book illustrations of the 60s and 70s.

Three generations

from a Russian family album.

Casual writings

Just some days ago I finished the Hungarian translation of Umberto Eco’s collected conference papers – or, as he calls them, “casual writings”: Costruire il nemico, “Constructing the enemy”.

Saul Wahl, king for a night

As a compensation for the few images, let me tell you who was Saul Wahl, the wealthy Jew of Brest, who was elected king of Poland for a night.

De/from el-Bahari a/to Medinet Habu

«Solo sobrevivirán fábulas» – “Only tales will survive”.

Language

We have already written about the Estonian-Russian military dictionary of 1940, the Russian-German military dictionaries of 1941 as well as the Russian primer made for German soldiers in 1942.

Əsəd Bəy kim idi?

Keçən əsrin 30-cu illərində bir çox dillərə tərcümə olunmuş bir neçə kitabın müəllifi və dövrün tanınmış ziyalılarının dostu, əsrarəngiz “Azərbaycan şahzadəsi” Əsəd Bəyin şöhrəti bütün dünyaya yayılmışdı.

Who was Essad Bey?

During the 30s of the last century, the fame of the mysterious “Azerbaijani prince” Essad Bey, author of several volumes and friend of renowned intellectuals of the time spread all over the world.

Quién fue Essad Bey?

Durante los años 30 del siglo pasado, Europa y el mundo vieron la fama del misterioso príncipe azerbaiyano Essad Bey, autor de best-sellers internacionales y amigo de intelectuales muy notables de su época.

Chi era Essad Bey?

Durante gli anni ’30 del secolo scorso, l’Europa e il mondo conobbero la fama del misterioso principe azero Essad Bey, autore di best-sellers internazionali e amico di noti intellettuali dell’epoca.

Entrada en Luxor, la dulce

Con tiempo, los lugares visitados adquieren un nuevo sentido en la memoria / Over time, the places visited acquire a new meaning in the memory.

Wang Wei (699-761): De vuelta al Río Wang

谷口疏鐘動，
漁樵稍欲稀。
Una campana lejos, al entrar en el valle.
Los pescadores y los leñadores se marchan.

Wang Wei (699-761): Returning to Río Wang

谷口疏鐘動，
漁樵稍欲稀。
a distant bell on entering the valley
less and less fishermen and woodmen

Santiago de Baku

Sebastián Alarcón entered the film school at the University of Chile in 1968, at the age of 19. In 1970 he was sent by way of a state scholarship program to study in Moscow.

Santyaqo de Baku

Sebastyan Alarkon Çili Universitetindəki kino məktəbinə 1968-ci ildə, 19 yaşı olarkən daxil olmuşdur. 1970-ci ildə o, təhsilini davam etdirmək üçün dövlət təqaüdü ilə Moskvadakı Kinematoqrafiya İnstitutuna göndərilir.

Santiago del Baku

Sebastián Alarcón entrò nella scuola dell’Università del Cile nel 1968, a 19 anni. Nel 1970, grazie ad una borsa di studio statale, continuò la propria formazione a Mosca.

Santiago de Baku

Sebastián Alarcón entró en la escuela de cine de la Universidad de Chile en 1968, a la edad de 19 años. En 1970 gracias a un programa estatal de becas fue enviado a proseguir los estudios en Moscú.

Wine card

In Azerbaijan mainly the Georgian wines dominate the shelves: Khvanchkara, Kindzmarauli, Pirosmani, the classical varieties and reliable quality known from the times of the empire.

Noruz, green grass grower / Novruz, göy otları göyərden

In the core of the old city, the 15th-century Shirvanshah Palace a spring-greeting children's drawing exhibition has been opened on the occasion of Noruz.

Novruzun qayıdışı

Azərbaycan 1991-ci ildə müstəqilliyini yenidən əldə edəndən bəri Novruz burada rəsmi bayram kimi dövlət səviyyəsində qeyd olunur.

Return of Novruz

In Azerbaijan Novruz is celebrated as a public holiday on a state level since regaining independence in 1991. But it was prohibited to celebrate it openly for a long time during the Soviet rule.

Equinox / Equinoccio

Mehr ve mâh, مهر و ماه in Persian means the sun and the moon, and in a figurative sense the day which is equally shared by the sun and the moon: the equinox, 21st of March, the day of the Spring New Year that is Noruz.

A cemetery in Üsküdar / Un cementerio en Üsküdar

Erecting a grave post in a mosque garden in the 16th and 17th century was just as a privilege as at us to be buried inside the church, next to the altar.

Hoşgeldiniz

In vain I try to post the first photos: Río Wang is unavailable in Istanbul. Instead, this message appears in large red letters: “Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir.”

Поручик Владимир Астафьев

Мы предполагаем, что поручик Владимир Астафьев был навигатором, потому что на обратной стороне постамента написано “поручик корпуса флотских штурманов”.

Lieutenant Wladimir Astafiew

We surmise that Lieutenant Wladimir Astafiew was an officer navigator, for on the plinth reverse is written “поручик корпуса флотских штурманов”, that is, “Lieutenant of the Corps of Naval Navigators”.

İstanbul sırları

Bu yazıya ilk olarak “Bana bir sır söyleyin” adı vermek istedim, ama sonra düşündüm ki, başlığında şehrin adı olunca hedefe aldığım okuyucuların - İstanbullular ve İstanbulu sevenlerin dikkatini daha çok çekir.

Istanbul’s secrets

I originally intended to post this call with the title “Tell me a secret”, but then I thought that with the city’s name in the title it would raise more the attention of the target audience: the inhabitants and lovers of Istanbul.

To write, to live

It was quite a few time ago that we reported about having found on the last page of an old printed book one of the most perfect expressions of satisfaction.

Escribir, existir

Comentamos hace un tiempo que en la última página de un libro impreso habíamos encontrado, manuscrita, una de las exclamaciones de satisfacción más rotundas que hemos visto.

This was seen by Oppenheim

The photos were made by Jules Gervais-Courtellemont (1863-1931) in the 1920s. Their themes follow the standard models of the Egyptian Grand Tour of the period.

Gods stitched up

Baron Max von Oppenheim (1860-1946) was primarily a diplomat and a secret agent, a womanizer and a bonvivant, an Oriental traveler as well as an amateur archaeologist and ethnographer.

Basket

Brumi was born five years ago in January, the first of eleven puppies. For her mother Vidra this was the first litter, so she almost had no milk.

Dubious quality

Josh Eaves sent me a link to a terrific and interesting website called Poemas del río Wang, but I’ll be damned if I can really explain what it covers.

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.

Ideal cities

The question of the previous post on how an earlier generation of photographers wanted to present their Moscow was replied by this link showing Moscow in the 60s.

Farewell

Valkorn, that is Moscow-based designer and photographer Vladimir Korneev recently also published a series on Moscow as it looked thirty years ago.

Bear ceremony

The secretary of the ethnic organization “Saving Yugria” has already said that they would hold a demonstration with tents and shaman dances in Moscow, in front of the Russian parliament.

Dissolving

Roman bridge above the Wadi al-Murr near Mosul, Iraq. Photo by the German archaeologist Max von Oppenheim researching the ancient city of Tell Halaf, 1920s.

¿Pirata, corsario o filibustero?

Consideremos primero los difusos límites entre piratería, corso y filibusterismo.

Pirate, Privateer or Freebooter?

We consider first the blurred boundaries between piracy, privateering and freebooting.

Snail’s house

The little Gothic courtyard opening from Carrer dels Lledó is a jewel box not only in a metaphoric sense. But the jewel shop and exhibition room Atelier Hàbit is just as hidden within it as the house itself.

Pictures from the box

The Italian soldier who is on guard against nothing and commenting on himself in the caption is Carlo Manfrini, nineteen years old at that time. Manfrini’s Russian photos have been kept for many years in his home near Bologna.

Fuori dalla scatola

Il soldato italiano che monta la guardia al nulla e che ne offre un commento nella didascalia è Carlo Manfrini, allora diciannovenne. Le foto di Manfrini sono state conservate per molti anni nella sua casa di Dozza.

Off the map

Medina Mayurqa was wiped off the map a couple of times. One of the greatest destructions is associated with the Pisan and Catalan armies in collaboration with Florence.

Fuera del mapa

Medina Mayūrqa fue arrasada un par de veces. Un episodio especialmente devastador fue el que protagonizó la armada organizada por pisanos y catalanes, con la colaboración de Florencia.

The pyramids of Nubia

These pyramids reminiscent of inverted icicles or Surrealist paintings have already appeared twice here at Río Wang.

A trip

“In the northern part of our region – writes photographer Ed Khitry from the Ukrainian Rovno – there is Europe’s longest narrow-gauge railway, affectionaly nicknamed «the cuckoo» or «little train».”

After siege 2.

Robert Capa and John Steinbeck in their beautiful report book A Russian Journal wrote impartially and with great warmth on the everyday life of the inhabitants of a resurgent Russia.

After siege 1.

Sixty-six years ago the siege of Budapest came to an end. When journalist Zoltán Horváth asked a Soviet soldier about the conditions, he answered “it is worse than Stalingrad”.

Good wishes

We have already seen that the short but intense period of the Soviet-Nazi liaison gave to the world not only such long-term achievements as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Sant Llorenç

The Ermita de Sant Llorenç was built as a chapel in the 13th century on the most important point of Mallorca’s northwestern corner, along the road coming from the sanctuary and pilgrimage site of Lluc.

Year of the rabbit

During the great wave of Chinese immigration to Hungary in the early 90s you could not find a single Chinese into whom a single Hungarian dish could be spoon-fed.

The sea

The little child walking all over the seashore
always finds one among the pebbles
which has belonged to him since ever
and could have never belonged to anyone else.

Chanson de la mer

The following commentary to the above image was written by the Occitan musician Miquèu Montanaro originally in French, accompanied by the Hungarian Ghymes from Slovakia and the Serbian Vujicsics from Hungary.

Holy mountain

In Mallorca it snows once in twenty years, and the fine snow settling on the jagged rocks and graceful Mediterranean vegetation within minutes changed the mountain range into Chinese.

Ermita

The hermitage, named after the Trinity, is rather just visited by the people from the neighborhood on Sunday mornings, when a Mass is held in the chapel.

Balance

Good marriages are made in heaven, but lasting ones must be made on earth. This was well known by Ivan Afanasevich Kurzhupov, when to his marriage ad he also included the balance of his property

Quatre Nacions

The building next to the Bacardi passage, the Hotel Quatre Nacions also owes its present to Francesc Daniel Molina i Casamajó.

Passatge Bacardi

The Passatge Bacardi, which connects the Rambla with Barcelona’s secret heart, the Plaza Real was built by the same Molina i Casamajó, chief architect of the town’s urban planning, who also designed the whole Plaza Real.

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!

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.

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.

Prison cards

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.

Restoration

“The Czar of Champagnes: СОВЕТСКОЕ ИГРИСТОЕ – Soviet Champagne”.

Room with a view

The first piece of Matteo Pericoli’s series launched in the Guardian with the title “Rooms with a View” is, and with good reason, Orhan Pamuk’s wonderful view on the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

In defense

Do you remember when a year ago we presented an open letter written by the vice-president of the co-governing right wing party of Slovakia in defense of the Slovak language which she felt to be in a serious danger?

Defensa

Quizá recuerden que hace un año presentamos una carta abierta de la vicepresidenta del ala derecha nacionalista gobernante por entonces en coalición en Eslovaquia, donde defendía la lengua eslovaca por verla seriamente amenazada.

In defense

Recorden que ara fa un any vam presentar una carta oberta de la vicepresidenta de l’ala dreta nacionalista governant en aquells dies en coalició a Eslovàquia on defensava la llengua eslovaca perquè la veia seriosament amenaçada?

Mr. President

If You are called Dmitry Anatolyevich, the Google translator will automatically call You Mr. President.

Under the skin

But the most peculiar feature of his work are these skulls. Skulls and skeletons and more skulls and more skeletons. They are the prevalent images of José Guadalupe Posada.

Debajo de la piel

Pero lo peculiar son estas calaveras. Calaveras, esqueletos y más calaveras y esqueletos dan la imagen más extendida de José Guadalupe Posada.

A year has passed

It is one year today that on the night from 2 to 3 January the Muromtsev dacha was burnt down in Moscow’s Tsaritsyno district.

Valcer

One-way, as if a New Year’s greeting, has posted some beautiful old pictures on violin players, thus giving me an excuse to publish some long-preserved photos as well as the most beautiful song I have ever heard on a fiddler.

Double exposure

The name of Ilya Ilf, if known to anybody, is mainly known from the two acclaimed satires of the 1920s and 30s, Twelve chairs and The little golden calf.

One year of garden

Late in the autumn of 2009 Algeier Wendy, the editor in chief of the prestigious Hungarian Kertbarát Magazin (The Garden Lover’s Magazine) wrote me to congratulate to my gardening blog.

El-Qasr

Before arriving to Mut, the most populous center of the oasis of Dakhla in the Egyptian Western Desert is the little medieval jewel of El-Qasr.

Al-Qasr

Antes de llegar a Mut, el centro más poblado del Oasis de Dakhla, en el Desierto Occidental de Egipto, está la pequeña joya medieval de Al-Qasr.

Two series

Time’s Chariot (Ehsan Amini) passes through the main square of Isfahan disguised as a tourist cab, between the familiar scenery and the always cheerful and sociable Isfahanians.

It’s winter

One of the finest examples of the winter metaphor comes from Iran, from one of the greatest Iranian poets of the 20th century, Mehdi Akhavan Sales (1928-1990), of whom we have already translated some poems.

A piece of history

To be Transylvanians means to be Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Armenians, Calvinists, Lutherans, Jews and Unitarians; it means to be cheek by jowl Romanians, Hungarians, Slavs, Saxons, Armenians.

Un pezzo di storia

Essere transilvani vuol dire essere ortodossi, cattolici romani e armeni, calvinisti, evangelici, ebrei, unitaristi; vuol dire essere gomito a gomito romeni, ungheresi, slavi, sassoni, armeni.

Old Christmases

…from one-way’s collection. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

The sea

This was the title of the book from which, more than thirty-five years ago, I first learned what the sea is.

Cartes de visite

The complex ritual of the visiting cards became an integral part of the etiquette of the European aristocracy in the 18th century.

Origins

“Others talk about “roots”. I do not use this word. I do not like the term “roots”, even less the image. Roots penetrate deep into the earth, wiggle in the mud, they fulfill themselves in the dark.”

Wisława Szymborska: Possibilities

I prefer movie.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.

Cards as literature

The novel written in the form of a deck recalls some other games in which cards and literature meet each other.

Szék

24 August, St. Bartholomew’s Day is a day of mourning not only for the Calvinists of France, but also for those of Szék (Sic). It was on this day that the Tartars burned the town in 1717.

Interior castle

Today, on the feast of Saint John of the Cross we have completed the Hungarian translation of the Interior castle by Saint Teresa of Ávila, the greatest work of Christian mysticism.

Linguistic record

Fifteen years ago when we came to this village, the old people still spoke among themselves in Slovak, or as they told, in “Tót”.

Door on the Grodzka

Chopin: Mazurka 6, Movement 1 fis-moll. Artur Rubinstein, 1965.

Red sludge

Twenty-one years after the change of regime the Ministry of Justice discovered a great number of Communist-themed works of art in their warehouses.

Homeward

The windows of the recently opened second floor auditorium of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences overlook the Danube and the Castle of Buda. The scene is a serious competitor of the lecturers.

Alter

Although Ivan Olbracht (1882-1952) was born in Northern Bohemia, he was the most significant writer of Subcarpathia between the two world wars. Between 1931 and 1936 he lived in these mountains.

Dissolving

“Byale (Biała Podlaska, Lublin province), 1926. Father and son. To protect himself from the Evil One, Leyzer Bawół, the blacksmith, will not say how old he is, but he must be over one hundred.”

Hurdy-gurdy

Alter Kacyzne (1885-1941) was born in the Kresy – the eastern region of Poland which after WWII was annected by the Soviet Union – just like Kipnis. He was also a writer, poet, journalist, and photographer.

“How deep is the ocean”

The compound title, Leviathan, or, The Whale, seems to refer to those two aspects that man has always seen in this animal: a monster which is as terrible as unfamiliar, or a mere object of business.

«How deep is the ocean»

El título disyuntivo, Leviatán, o la ballena, parece remitir a los dos aspectos que el hombre ha visto en el animal siempre que se le ha acercado: un monstruo tan temible como desconocido, o un puro objeto comercial.

A rose from Sóller

Maryam Akhondy: ساکی (The wine-waiter, by Rumi). From the CD سرمست Drunkenness (2010)

Abracadabra

La etimología de este ensalmo que abre puertas y revela secretos indescifrables, al menos en los cuentos fantásticos, es tan incierta como sujeta a numerosas interpretaciones y teorías.

Abracadabra

This spell is used to open up arcane doors and to reveal hidden secrets, at least in works of fiction. Its etymology is uncertain, although it has plenty of theories.

Mare nostrum in November

The Bellver Castle, as seen from the coast of Can Perantoni, still manages to dominate a city which has systematically devored the old neighborhoods.

Nuestro mar, en noviembre

El Castillo de Bellver aún consigue dominar una ciudad que ha devorado los antiguos barrios de El Terreno, Santa Catalina, Es Jonquet y la dársena de Can Barbarà.

Origami

The ruined concrete coasts of the Black Sea reminded Komaváry of the coasts of the Japanese sea ruined by the concrete.

Black Sea of concrete

“The first thing you notice by the sea is the concrete. Kilometres of grey blocks sometimes painted in blue and yellow – the national colors of Ukraine.”

Estampitas

“Estampitas” literally means “small prints”, but in everyday life it is used for the popular little holy images used as bookmarks in prayer books or distributed by the priest after the Mass to the altar boys.

I did not say that

There was a king who had a horse that he loved so much. The horse fell ill, and the king called the surgeon to tell whether the disease could be cured.

Yo no lo he dicho

Esto era un rey que tenía un caballo al que quería mucho. El caballo cayó enfermo y el rey llamó al veterinario para que le dijera si la dolencia que sufría se podría curar.

Unde malum?

The very first morning of the twentieth century found Sándor Kégl at his writing desk in the mansion of Szentkirálypuszta.

Bicycles

We have already written that nobody is more sensitive than the Iranian photographer. Perhaps only the Iranian female photographer.

Stone at the end of the world

Each time we go to Galicia we admire the granite of the buildings, the strength of the rough stone cut into large blocks, giving a feeling of weight and eternal stability to the constructions and pavements.

La piedra del fin del mundo

En todas las ocasiones en que vamos a Galicia nos admira el granito de los edificios, la solidez de la piedra áspera que, cortada a grandes bloques, da una sensación de peso y aposentamiento eterno a las construcciones y los pavimentos.

An Ottoman shoebox

Deniz Kızı (“Mermaid”) Eftelya (1891-1939), legendary singer of Istanbul: Kadıköy’lü.

Slaves of the moment

The Mexican Agustín Víctor Casasola, with the intermittent help of his brother Miguel, began to set up around 1900 one of the most important photographic archives for the history of a country.

Esclavos del momento

El mexicano Agustín Víctor Casasola, con la ayuda intermitente de su hermano Miguel, empezó a recoger, al filo de 1900, uno de los archivos fotográficos más relevantes para la historia de un país.

Chronicler of the Caucasus

For now, however, we start the story along the less known Russian thread, with the masters who started taking pictures in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and also reached Persia and Anatolia.

День мертвых

Дачный поселок Матяшфелд был основан в 1887 году, тогда еще за пределами Будапешта, представителями крупной буржуазии – ассоциацей дачевладелцев города.

The day of the dead

The summer colony Mátyásföld was founded in 1887, at that time still beyond the boundaries of Budapest, by the upper middle class cottage owner’s association of the city.

Images of the East

On 28 October 1839 the five-language – Turkish, Armenian, Greek, Arabic and French – Istanbul newspaper Takvim-i Vekayi announced the discovery of photography to the peoples of the Ottoman empire.

A question

It had been well known since the works of St. Augustine and St. Isidor of Seville that every language came from the Hebrew Ursprache of the Paradise which was divided only after the enterprise of Babel.

Una pregunta

Es algo que llega hasta el Renacimiento repitiéndose desde los textos de San Agustín y San Isidoros de Sevilla: todas las lenguas derivan de una Ursprache hebrea hablada en el Paraíso.

Clan towers

We have recently reported on the newbie blogger President General Yunus-bek Yevkurov’s having invited to Ingushetia the cream of Moscow’s bloggers who then published fascinating illustrated reports.

Good to eat

In Lubbock we ate rattlesnake. There they take the maximum advantage of these reptiles: they make boots, belts, jackets, shirts and amulets of their skin, and paperweights of their heads.

Bueno para comer

En Lubbock comimos serpiente cascabel. Allí se aprovecha absolutamente todo de estos reptiles: con su piel se hacen botas, cinturones, cazadoras; llaveros con el crótalo, amuletos y pisapapeles.

Ways

If you do not want to go by flight from Istanbul to Tehran, the simplest means is the train or the bus which covers the distance of 2700 kilometers in three or one and half days, respectively.

Man with a cat

Sándor Kégl already at high school read all literature in the original – Latin, Greek, German, English, French, Italian – languages, and he also acquired Russian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese.

Un hombre con un gato

Sándor Kégl ya en el instituto podía leer a los autores en sus lenguas propias –latín, griego, alemán, inglés, francés, italiano–, y más tarde aprendió ruso, holandés, danés, sueco, español y portugués.

Fugit hora

In Mallorca, on the facade of the cathedral of Sineu.

The day that I leave

Carlos Di Fulvio (*1939): The chacarera, on a Quechua melody, sung by Sebastiano Solís. From the CD El Gaucho, el Inca y la Nueva Música (1982).

Khaled Nabi’s cemetery

This has reminded us of another peculiar cemetery with unusual gravestones in Northern Iran, also left behind by an unknown people.

Reality show

In recent days, a major political drift took place in the Russian capital. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has come into conflicts on several occasions with President Medvedev.

Ingush report

A new fellow blogger has joined the most popular Russian blog network ЖЖ. Then new blogger is none but the Ingush General Yunus-bek Yevkurov, Hero of the Russian Federation and President of Ingushetia.

Pollença

Click for the complete images.

Lwów, un otoño

Hace un año, hacia el 22 de septiembre recordábamos la extraña parada militar conjunta de los ejércitos nazi y soviético que tuvo lugar setenta años atrás, en 1939, en la ciudad polaca de Brześć.

Autumn in Lwów

A year ago around September 22 we wrote about the military parade held seventy years earlier, in 1939 by the Nazi and the Soviet army together in the recently occupied Polish city of Brześć.

A bor

I have the luck to be in that privileged moment of learning a foreign language in which, crawling like a baby, for the very first time you explore a totally unknown environment.

A bor

Ho la fortuna di trovarmi in quella fase privilegiata dell’aprendimento di una lingua straniera in cui, gattonando come i bambini, si esplora per la prima volta un ambiente totalmente ignoto.

Odessa, the city of marvels

Odessa, the ghost city was recently revealed at Río Wang through the photos of Vsevolod Vlasenko. The genial Ilya Varlamov, that is Zyalt now discloses us another, rather living Odessa.

Tbilisi

“If Georgians had enough force and wish, they could transform their city into one of those Medieval Dutch or German towns on the Christmas cards. What a pity they do not have them.”

Солдатские могилы

Теперь и я хотел бы сделать свой вклад в эти сведения сообщением о двух советских солдатских кладбищах в Венгрии, о которых знают только те, кто живут неподалёку, а может не знают даже они.

Soldier’s graves

Now I would like to contribute to these data with the presentation of two Soviet soldier’s cemeteries in Hungary, only known by those living nearby – or neither by them.

Iron and fire

Although it was Sunday, the 77 year old blacksmith Vladimir Khutaba and his eldest son Daur opened the shop for the guest’s sake, and began to prepare the most important iron piece in a traditional Abkhaz household.

Filantropía

Adolf Hitler murió, sin la menor duda, y está bien enterrado. Concretamente bajo una losa vertical en el cementerio judío de Bucarest desde el 26 de octubre de 1892.

Philanthropy

Adolf Hitler has in fact died and has been buried. In the Jewish cemetery of Bucharest, on October 26, 1892.

Veritas filia Dei 4. Daughter of God

Fritz Saxl in his essay quoted in the previous chapter, discussing the story of the Renaissance topos of Truth revealed by Time, devoted special attention to the occurrences of the motif in England.

Smoke

“Dov’è gran fuoco, è gran fumo”, where there is great fire, there is also great smoke, asserts Paolo Giovio in the motto of the emblem of Odet de Foix.

Veritas filia Dei 3. Time and Truth

This poem presents another Renaissance face of Truth. It does not describe the Truth that shines by itself like the sun, but the hidden or oppressed Truth which has to be revealed by Time.

Faces from the past

We have spent seven days of masterclass by taking photos in Uglich and around – writes Nikolai Gontar –, and in the outskirts I came across this unambiguously historical building in sharp contrast to its surroundings.

Veritas filia Dei 2. The naked Truth

After the overview of the edition history and context of Ithika ieropolitika (1712) let us return to the image that first caught our attention: the representation of Truth.

Tantour

According to the Al Mashriq site, this headdress was worn by the married women of the Druze villages around Deir el Qamar, who usually received it of their husbands on the day of their wedding.

Damascus anno

Damascus in the 19th century was a sleepy provincial town of the Ottoman empire. It was endowed with some importance only by the meeting of the two main roads of Meccan pilgrimage coming from Anatolia and Persia, respectively.

Quod erat demonstrandum

Desde los inicios del siglo XVI la anatomía fue uno de los instrumentos —al lado de los mapas con retícula, la perspectiva central, el derecho romano…— que contribuyeron a homogeneizar el mundo.

Quod erat demonstrandum

Beginning with the 16th century, anatomy was one of the tools – along with world maps with graticule, central perspective or Roman law – that contributed to the homogenization of the world.

Veritas filia Dei 1. The Ithika

Some years ago in Moscow, while browsing among the bookstalls on the street, a strange image attracted our attention.

The first day in the school

…in Persia, Mazandaran province near the Caspian Sea. Photos by Hamed Khurshidi.