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The exquisite interior of the Central Sofia Synagogue. The synagogue is still active, but with its capacity of more than one thousand it tells the story of a Jewish community that was once many times larger than at present day.
This is not precisely, as one might expect, because of the Holocaust. Despite the fact that Bulgaria was a (somewhat reluctant) ally of Germany, almost all Bulgarian Jews survived the war. This was largely due to the opposition of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and many other Bulgarians who loudly refused to cooperate with the Holocaust. It is in fact remarkable how many lives were saved or lost by the different responses of different peoples to the order to participate in the murder their Jewish neighbors. Many allies of Germany were enthusiastic participants, but some--most notably Bulgaria and Finland--mostly just refused to go along. And in occupied countries outcomes could also vary widely. The Danes, for example, behaved heroically and saved almost the entire Jewish population, while in many more shameful examples, occupied populations instead chose collaboration.
After the war, the vast majority of Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel. Today, though, Jews make up a notable proportion of international tourists in Bulgaria, which I presume has a lot to do with this history. Interior of the Sofia Central Synagogue, Sofia, Bulgaria.
We've seen shepherds guiding sheep, cattle, horses and goats out to forage common lands all over the world. In the Armenian highlands we saw shepherds moving all of these--but also hogs--in and out of settlements and to pasture. This common medieval practice of turning out pigs to forage (pannage) is increasingly rare today, when industrial farming of all livestock--and pigs in particular--predominates. Foraging hogs and cattle on the Trans Caucasian Trail, Armenian Highlands.
A neighbor gave me these 4 plants in the spring. I'm anxious to see if they will yield squash or pumpkins. But, they looked so pretty this morning.
Isar - Isarbrücke - Kalvarienberg - Tölzer Altstadt
Ich bin beeindruckt von der Qualität des Google Pixel 8 Pro, das hatte ich so nicht erwartet. Schwächen hat es bei direktem Sonnen-und Kunstlicht (Flares) und die automatischen Bilder v.a. bei Nacht sind nach meinem Geschmack etwas zu hell. Im Pro Modus kann man dann selbst Hand anlegen und die Helligkeit und andere Parameter manuell steuern.
Auch der 5fach optische Zoom und der 11mm Ultraweitwinkel - beide mit 48 MP - können voll überzeugen, der digitale Zoom ist bis ca. 10fach voll nutzbar (aufgrund der 50 MP bleibt hier genügend "Reserve". Der digitale 30fach Zoom ist natürlich nur ein Gimmick und höchstens für "Beweisfotos" zu gebrauchen.
Auf alle Fälle eine sinnvolle Ergänzung zu meinen Sony RX100 Kompaktkameras und meiner Canon 80D.
Google Pixel 8 Pro Nachtmodus
I'm not normally one for early rising, but we broke camp at Ribnoto Ezero about 5am and had an amazing morning--at least six hours--moving through the lakes and over Malyovitsa before meeting a single person on trail. Morning at the fourth of the Seven Rila Lakes, Bliznaka Ezero (Twin Lakes, 2,243m) on the Five Mountains Trail (E4), Bulgaria.
This tower (foreground) is called Baldwin's Tower after Count Baldwin IX of Flanders, one of several hundred knights who formed the leadership of the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204). This crusade had a theoretical objective of conquering Egypt. The fall of Egypt, it was thought, would undermine the Muslim position in the Holy Land and lay a foundation for the retaking of Jerusalem.
Motivations among the Crusaders were complex, and often genuinely pious, but in practice they were more akin to pirates than anything else, except that they were pirates granted remission of sins by the Pope, which made them especially nasty in an age already remarkable for nastiness. Through a convoluted series of events the Fourth Crusade ended up attacking not Egypt but Christian Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine / Eastern Roman Empire, which they mercilessly raped and pillaged in 1204. The crusading knights then divided up the plunder and appointed Baldwin as the first Latin Emperor of Constantinople, which he ruled briefly as Baldwin I.
Unfortunately for Baldwin and the knights of the Fourth Crusade, Baldwin rebuffed peace overtures from one of the Byzantines' historical rivals, the Bulgarians. Just a year into his reign Baldwin led the crusading forces against the Bulgarians at the Battle of Adrianople, where the Bulgarians under Tsar Kaloyan captured Baldwin and massacred nearly all of the crusading knights, providing a fitting coda to the Fourth Crusade. Baldwin was confined to this tower (rebuilt in modern times) until he died under mysterious but necessarily ignominious circumstances. Baldwin's Tower at the Tsarevets Fortress, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.
Dodo wall mural seen at Port Louis. Created by the artist Vincent Box.
The Dodo bird has become the quintessential icon of extinction. It was only found on the island of Mauritius. The last known bird died in 1662.
This is today's random choice, taken with my phone, I just liked the expressions on mother and child's face
This historic and picturesque city was the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary throughout the High Middle Ages. It was the birthplace of the Magyar Vajk, son of Geza, who in the year 1000 converted from paganism to Roman Catholicism, took the name Stephen, and became the first King of Hungary (Stephen I, later Saint Stephen), when he received a crown from the Pope. These acts prompted a Magyar civil war led by Stephen on the one side, and his cousin, Koppany, on the other. Koppany wanted to preserve the pagan ways and, of course, wield power himself. To cut a long story short, the Christian King won, had his cousin chopped to pieces and his body parts put on display, then set about the forcible conversion of the population, earning him sainthood. Today the city is the center of Hungarian Catholicism, symbolized by the enormous (100m high) Esztergom Basilica, built in the 19th century to replace a cathedral destroyed during the Ottoman Wars. Esztergom Basilica and Castle Hill in Esztergom, Hungary, viewed from across the Danube at Sturovo, Slovakia.
We didn't get a chance to visit Plovdiv our first time in Bulgaria. It is today perhaps the most beautiful city in the country and certainly among the most historically important.
By the 5th century BC the city had grown out of Neolithic and Bronze Age antecedents into the important Thracian center of Eumolpia. Little remains of that era except a collection of wonderful artifacts in the city's small archaeological museum and perhaps some cyclopian defensive walls on one of the city's seven hills, Nebet Tepe (from which the above was taken). In the mid 4th century BC the city was taken by Phillip II of Macedon and renamed (what else?) Phillipopolis. It grew rapidly and continued as an important city for hundreds of years, including under the Romans, who undertook some significant building projects, many of which remain in a state of fairly well-preserved ruin: a stadium, an agora, a theater, and several ancient christian basilicas.
From more recent times, there is also a very well-preserved Ottoman mosque (dating to the fourteenth century, center left of image), an Ottoman clocktower (dating to the 17th century, on one of the more distant hills just left of center), and very well preserved Bulgarian Revival architecture (19th century, much of the neighborhoods in the Old Town).
Overlaid atop all of this and in somewhat jarring contrast is a layer of massive buildings in Soviet Classicist and Brutalist style. Just to the right of Mrs. Orca (but almost too distant to make out) is the city's most controversial remain: the Alyosha Monument on Bunardzhik Hill. This is a colossal 1950s statue of a Soviet soldier, meant to commemorate the "liberation" of Bulgaria by the Soviets. In point of fact Bulgaria was an (albeit, somewhat reluctant) ally of Germany during WWII, so the arrival of the Soviets (who stayed in Bulgaria for 45 years) was not really a liberation.
Mrs. Orca atop Nebet Tepe, in Eumolpia, aka Phillipopolis, now Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Rila Monastery was founded in the tenth century during the First Bulgarian Empire by followers of the hermit Saint Ivan of Rila. Little survives of its earliest period, but it's quite an enormous and impressive multistory walled complex, complete with central church, defensive tower, cells for hundreds of monks, and massive facilities to support the economic functions of the monastery, which included milling, forestry, agriculture, beekeeping, fish farming and supporting the pilgrim trade.
Over the centuries the monastery was alternately plundered and protected by the conquering Ottomans. In 1833 most of it was destroyed in an accidental fire, but it was rebuilt with Ottoman permission. Today it mixes Byzantine, Moorish, Ottoman, Baroque and medieval defensive architectural styles in a manner that is somehow coherent and recognizable as the synthesis called Bulgarian Revival.
It is still an active pilgrimage destination and monastery, albeit with a very small complement of monks. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, of course, a popular tourist destination. Rila Monastery, Rila Mountains, Bulgaria.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqiTJK_uzUY
Light, my light, the world-filling light,
the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light!
Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life;
the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love;
the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.
The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light.
Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.
The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion.
Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling,
and gladness without measure.
The heaven's river has drowned its banks
and the flood of joy is abroad.
Rabindranath Tagore