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To wear a lip plate, someone must pierce his or her lip, and slowly stretch the hole. Classically, the piercing has been accomplished by cutting into the lip and inserting a small peg, and allowing the piercing to fully heal before installing a slightly larger peg. Stretching a lip to accommodate a lip plate can take time, as the goal is to take advantage of natural tissue elasticity to create a very large hole in the lip which can be filled with a plate made from clay, wood, or metal. Some lip plates take the form of hollow rings, depending on the culture.
The size of a lip plate can vary considerably. Some are relatively small, while others can approach the size of a dinner plate. Although a number of theories about the different sizes worn have been posited, the most likely explanation has to do with the individual elasticity of the wearer. Some people are capable of stretching their lips much more than others, and all people are forced to stop stretching at a certain point.
Lip plates can be worn in the upper, lower, or both lips. Both men and women have historically worn lip plates, with many people crafting their own. African women in the Mursi tribe, a tribe famous for its lip plates, decorate their lip plates, turning them into complex works of art which are meant to reflect the personality of the owner. The Mursi are in fact so famous for their lip stretching that some people in the West refer to a lip plate as a Mursi.
Among tribal peoples, the lip plate is designed as a personal ornamentation, and sometimes the lip plate also has religious or social connotations. For example, Suri women historically started stretching for a lip plate at the time of marriage. In the Northern Hemisphere, people usually wear lip plates because they find them aesthetically appealing, or because they want to identify with tribal peoples. Some people find this practice distasteful, either because of personal aesthetics or because they dislike cultural appropriation.
©Ingetje Tadros
St. Gregory and Jerome
Chiesa di San Pietro a Gemonio (sec. X-XI)
La Chiesa di San Pietro a Gemonio, nata probabilmente come cappella in epoca carolingia (VIII sec.) subì varie fasi di rifacimento e ampliamento nel corso del X-XI secolo, fino a raggiungere nel XVI secolo l'attuale connotazione.
L'esterno presenta una facciata romanica, con tetto a capanna, affiancata da un imponente campanile romanico a cinque ordini.
L'interno è a tre navate asimmetriche, divise tra loro da archi di dimensioni e stili diversi, con relative absidi interamente affrescate.
Nell'abside centrale, antico altare (X sec.) in muratura intonacata e decorata da disegni e simboli non ancora decifrati.
Alle pareti affreschi del XIV-XVI sec. di varia fattura e di autori ignoti ma verosimilmente di scuola lombarda.
The Church of San Pietro in Gemonio, most likely originally built as a chapel in the Carolingian period (VIII sec.), has undergone various phases of renovation and expansion during the X-XI century, until reaching the current connotation in the sixteenth century,
The exterior features a Romanesque façade, with a gabled roof, flanked by an imposing Romanesque bell tower of five orders.
The interior has three asymmetric naves, divided by arches of different sizes and styles, with their frescoed apses.
In the main aspe,an ancient altar (X sec.) with plastered masonry decorated with drawings and symbols still to be deciphered.
Various unknown artists, presumably of the Lombard school, painted the XIV-XVI century frescoes.
The Kaiser roll (Emperor roll, German: Kaisersemmel, Kaiserbrötchen), also called a Vienna roll (Wiener Kaisersemmel; as made by hand also: Handsemmel, Slovene: kajzerca) or a hard roll, is a typically crusty round bread roll, originally from Austria. It is made from white flour, yeast, malt, water and salt, with the top side usually divided in a symmetric pattern of five segments, separated by curved superficial cuts radiating from the centre outwards or folded in a series of overlapping lobes resembling a crown. The crisp 'Kaisersemmel' is a traditional Austrian food officially approved by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
Kaiser rolls have existed in a recognizable form at least since 1760. They are thought to have been named to honor Emperor (Kaiser) Franz Joseph I of Austria (born 1830, reigned 1848–1916). In the 18th century a law fixed retail prices of Semmeln (bread rolls) in the Habsburg Monarchy. Allegedly, the name Kaisersemmel came into general use after the bakers' guild sent a delegation in 1789 to Emperor Joseph II (b. 1741, r. 1765–1790) and convinced him to deregulate the price of bread rolls.
With its monarchical connotation, Kaiser rolls stood out against common rolls known as 'Mundsemmeln' ("mouth rolls") or 'Schustersemmeln' ("cobbler's rolls"). They are traditionally found in Austria, but have also become popular in other countries of the former Austrian Habsburg Empire, such as the Galicia region in Poland (where it is known as kajzerka), Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia (kajzerica), Hungary (császárzsemle), the Czech Republic (kaiserka), as well as in Germany, the United States, and Canada. During Austrian rule in Lombardy, Italian bakers produced a hollow version known as 'michetta' or 'rosetta'.
Source: wikipedia.org
Albert Heijn BV.
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UK Journal Day 40 (Travel Diary Day 78)
(travel blog - strange-lands.com/daily/2012/10/01/another-jetty/)
It turns out I’ve been speaking an archaic form of English.
One of the challenges and biggest rewards of our journey is learning languages. Having the local lingo is the only way to really integrate yourself into your new community. Even in England I’ve been practicing this.
My nephew informed me that I was no longer cool – I was ‘old-fashioned’. It doesn’t matter how amazingly youthful my skin is because I’ve been using moisturiser this week, or how few wrinkles I have compared to most men, or even how powerfully youthful my aura is, my poor use of modern English will always give away the fact that I was an early 80s child – a terrible thing in the eyes of my nephew.
On the back of this I tried to learn the lingo of the of today, because, after all, YOLO! That’s ‘You Only Live Once’ in cool talk. Notice how I used that effortlessly.
The next word I learned was ‘Reem’. This is both a verb and an adjective. It’s trickier than YOLO. Wanting to show my understanding of ‘Reem’ and identify more with younger people, I used the fish & chips I was eating as the context and said ‘These chips are reeming’.
This, it turns out, was not the correct use of the verb ‘To reem’. Apparently it means to have sexual intercourse. Directly translated, I’d stated that my chips were having sexual intercourse.
My next attempt at using reem was in its purest form as an adjective. I knew immediately that I had erred upon using it for the first time. I said, ‘Shut up Dylan, you’re a reem’. Correcting me he claimed that reem is in fact aching to the words ‘cool’ or ‘with-it’, therefore positive in nature. It also should not be preceded by an ‘a’.
He then tried to teach me the new North Eastern term ‘Ladgeful’ (spelling unverified), which has negative connotations. At this point I gave up and returned to my French studies. It’s much more simple.
Today’s photo – the jetty
This place seems like a distant memory – karimunjawa island off Idnonesia. I have a truly disgusting story to tell about this place but I’ve never found the opportunity. Maybe next time. It really isn’t pretty, mind you.
Description below is directly from wikipedia, as indicated in the tags. It does not represent my personal beliefs, feelings or emotions.
According to the first accounts of the Guadalupan apparition, during a walk from his village to the city on December 9, 1531, Juan Diego saw a vision of a Virgin at the Hill of Tepeyac. Speaking in Nahuatl, Guadalupe said to build an abbey on the site, but when Juan Diego spoke to the Spanish bishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, the prelate asked for a miraculous sign. So the Virgin told Juan Diego to gather flowers from the hill, even though it was winter, when normally nothing bloomed. He found Spanish roses, gathered them on his tilma, and presented these to the bishop. When the roses fell from it an icon of the Guadalupe remained imprinted on the cloth.
Documentation
A number of primary historical documents are used to support this apparition account, including: the Nahuatl-language Huei tlamahuiçoltica or Nican mopohua ("here it is recounted"), a tract about the Virgin which contains the aforementioned story, and which was printed in 1649; a Spanish-language book about the apparitions titled Imagen de la Virgen María ("Image of the Virgin Mary"), printed in 1648; a seventeenth-century engraving by Samuel Stradanus which used the Virgin's image to advertise indulgences; and the Codex Escalada, a pictographic account of the Virgin on Tepeyac, printed on deerskin and said to date back to 1548.
The apparition account is also strengthened by a document called the Informaciones Jurídicas of 1666, a collection of oral interviews gathered near Juan Diego's hometown of Cuautitlan. In the "Informaciones Jurídicas," various witnesses affirmed, in interview format, basic details about Saint Juan Diego and the Guadalupan apparition story.
Some historians and clerics, including the U.S. priest-historian Fr.Stafford Poole, the famous Mexican historian Joaquín García Icazbalceta, and former abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe, Guillermo Schulenburg, have expressed doubts about the historicity of the apparition accounts. Schulenburg in particular caused a stir with his 1996 interview with the Catholic magazine Ixthus, when he said that Juan Diego was "a symbol, not a reality."
One problem with the apparition tradition is that Juan Diego is said to have met the Virgin in 1531, while the earliest account about their meeting was published in 1648. When discussing the 117-year gap between the apparition and written accounts describing it, apparition believers point to the Codex Escalada, a recently-discovered document which illustrates the Tepeyac apparition and which dates to 1548. The document, a painting on deerskin which illustrates the apparition and discusses Juan Diego's death, was used to shore up Juan Diego's 1990s canonization process. Critics, including Stafford Poole and David A. Brading, find the document suspicious -- partly because of when it was discovered, and partly because it contains the handiwork of both Antonio Valeriano (a man many apparition partisans believe to be the true author of the Nican mopohua) and the signature of Bernardino de Sahagún, the Franciscan missionary and anthropologist. Brading said that within the context of the Christian tradition, it was rather like finding a picture of St. Paul's vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, drawn by St. Luke and signed by St. Peter.
Believers in the Codex counter that the Codex has been vetted by scientific tests which prove it is an authentic 16th-century document. Zumárraga was silent on the topic of the apparition: there is no mention of Juan Diego nor the Virgin in any of his writings. In a catechism written the year before his death he stated: “The Redeemer of the world doesn’t want any more miracles, because they are no longer necessary.” Furthermore, in 1531 Zumárraga was not Mexico's Archbishop but merely Bishop-elect: he would not be consecrated until 1533.
Guillermo Schulenburg, the Basílica's abbot for over 30 years, declared in 1996 Juan Diego as a symbol and myth, a constructed character made to conquer the hearts of the native people and seize their religiosity in order to redirect it to the Vatican's will. He also commisioned a serious study, "out of sheer love for truth", which demonstrates the Lady of Guadalupe as a man-made painting, with no supernatural elements whatsoever. There is ample evidence of a 16th century shrine to Guadalupe at Tepeyac: however skeptics contend that this shrine was dedicated to the Spanish icon Our Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura.
Symbol of Mexico
Guadalupe's first major use as a nationalistic symbol was in the writing of Miguel Sánchez, the author of the first Spanish language apparition account. Sanchez identified Guadalupe as Revelation's Woman of the Apocalypse, and said that
"this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary...[who had] prepared, disposed, and contrived her exquisite likeness in this her Mexican land, which was conquered for such a glorious purpose, won that there should appear so Mexican an image."
In 1810 Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla initiated the bid for Mexican independence with his Grito de Dolores, yelling words to the effect of "Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!" When Hidalgo's mestizo-indigenous army attacked Guanajuato and Valladolid, they placed "the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was the insignia of their enterprise, on sticks or on reeds painted different colors" and "they all wore a print of the Virgin on their hats." Royalists responded by putting Guadalupe's image on the soles of their shoes.
When Hidalgo died, leadership of the revolution fell to a mestizo priest named Jose Maria Morelos who led insurgent troops in the Mexican south. Morelos was also a Guadalupan partisan: he made the Virgin the seal of his Congress of Chilpancingo, stating "New Spain puts less faith in its own efforts than in the power of God and the intercession of its Blessed Mother, who appeared within the precincts of Tepeyac as the miraculous image of Guadalupe that had come to comfort us, defend us, visibly be our protection."
He inscribed the Virgin's feast day, December 12, into the Chilpancingo constitution, and declared that Guadalupe was the power behind his military victories. One of Morelos' officers, a man named Felix Fernandez who would later become the first Mexican president, even changed his name to Guadalupe Victoria. Simón Bolívar, noticed the Guadalupan theme in these uprisings, and shortly before Morelos' death in 1815 wrote: "...the leaders of the independence struggle have put fanaticism to use by proclaiming the famous Virgin of Guadalupe as the queen of the patriots, praying to her in times of hardship and displaying her on their flags...the veneration for this image in Mexico far exceeds the greatest reverence that the shrewdest prophet might inspire."
In 1914, Emiliano Zapata's peasant army rose out of the south against the government of Porfirio Diaz. Though Zapata's rebel forces were primarily interested in land reform --"tierra y libertad" (land and liberty) was the slogan of the uprising -- when Zapata's peasant troops penetrated Mexico City, they carried Guadalupan banners. Nobel laureate Octavio Paz wrote in 1974 that "Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery"
The Virgin of Guadalupe has also symbolized the Mexican nation since Mexico's War of Independence. Both Miguel Hidalgo and Emiliano Zapata's armies traveled underneath Guadalupan flags. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes once said that "...one may no longer consider himself a Christian, but you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe."
More recently, the contemporary Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) named their "mobile city" in honor of the Virgin: it is called Guadalupe Tepeyac. EZLN spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos wrote a humorous letter in 1995 describing the EZLN bickering over what to do with a Guadalupe statue they had received as a gift.
In 1994, the mexican sculptor Eduardo Leal de la Gala make a tree dimension version in wood of the Lady of Guadalupe for the Cultural Center of the Mexican Embassy in Paris, France.
Mestizo culture and Mexican identity
Guadalupe is often considered a mixture of the cultures which blend to form Mexico, both racially and religiously Guadalupe is sometimes called the "first mestiza" or "the first Mexican". In the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Mary O'Connor writes that Guadalupe "bring[s] together people of distinct cultural heritages, while at the same time affirming their distinctness."
One theory is that the Virgin of Guadalupe was presented to the Aztecs as a sort of "Christianized" Tonantzin, necessary for the clergymen to convert the Indians to their True Faith. As Jacques Lafaye wrote in Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe, "...as the Christians built their first churches with the rubble and the columns of the ancient pagan temples, so they often borrowed pagan customs for their own cult purposes." An alternate view is that Guadalupe-Tonantzin gave the native Americans a hidden method to continue worshipping their own goddess in a Christianized form; similar patterns of syncretic worship can be seen throughout the Catholic Americas (e.g. Vodun, Santería). Guadalupan religious syncretism is both lauded and disparaged as demonic.
Some theologians also associate the Virgin of Guadalupe with a special relationship between the indigenous peoples of the American continents and the Catholic Church. This perspective developed as the scriptural terms of truths "hid ... from the wise and prudent" but "revealed...unto babes" (Matthew 11:25), but later developed into the "spiritual mestizaje of the Americas", and the "option for the poor" provided by Liberation theology.
The author Judy King asserts that Guadalupe is a "common denominator" uniting Mexicans. Writing that Mexico is composed of a vast patchwork of differences -- linguistic, ethnic, and class-based -- King says "The Virgin of Guadalupe is the rubber band that binds this disparate nation into a whole."
This sentiment was echoed by two celebrants interviewed in the New York Times at the Virgin's feast day in 1998: "We say that we are more Guadalupanos than Mexicans," said the Jesuit Brother Joel Magallan. "We say that because our Lady Guadalupe is our symbol, our identity." David Solanas, another feast-goer, agreed, saying "We have faith in her. She's like the mama of all the Mexicans."
The origin of the name "Guadalupe" is controversial. According to a sixteenth-century report the Virgin identified herself as Guadalupe when she appeared to Juan Diego's uncle, Juan Bernardino. It has also been suggested that "Guadalupe" is a corruption of a Nahuatl name "Coatlaxopeuh", which has been translated as "Who Crushes the Serpent. In this interpretation, the serpent referred to is Quetzalcoatl, one of the chief Aztec gods, whom the Virgin Mary "crushed" by inspiring the conversion of indigenous people to Catholicism. However, many historians believe that the 1533 Guadalupan shrine was dedicated to the Spanish Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura -- not to the Mexican Virgin venerated today. Thus, while the name "Guadalupe" would have had certain connotations to Nahuatl speakers, as noted above, its ultimate origins would be the Arabic-Latin term "Wadī Lupum", meaning "Valley of the Wolf".
María Guadalupe, or just Lupe, is a common female and male name among Mexican people or those with Mexican heritage.
Controversies
As early as 1556 Francisco de Bustamante, head of the Colony's Franciscans, delivered a sermon disparaging the holy origins of the painting: “The devotion that has been growing in a chapel dedicated to Our Lady, called of Guadalupe, in this city is greatly harmful for the natives, because it makes them believe that the image painted by Marcos the Indian is in any way miraculous.”
In 1611 the Dominican Martin de Leon, fourth viceroy of Mexico, denounced the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a disguised worship of the Aztec goddess Tonantzin.The missionary and anthropologist Bernardino de Sahagún held the same opinion: he wrote that the shrine at Tepeyac was extremely popular but worrisome because people called the Virgin of Guadalupe Tonantzin. Sahagún said that the worshippers claimed that Tonantzin was the proper Nahuatl for "Mother of God" -- but he disagreed, saying that "Mother of God" in Nahuatl would be "Dios y Nantzin."
In 2002, art restoration expert José Sol Rosales examined the icon with a stereomicroscope and identified calcium sulfate, pine soot, white, blue, and green "tierras" (soil), reds made from carmine and other pigments, as well as gold. Rosales said he found the work consistent with 16th century materials and methods.
Norberto Rivera Carrera, Archbishop of Mexico, commissioned a 1999 study to test the tilma's age. The researcher, Leoncio Garza-Valdés, had previously worked with the Shroud of Turin. Upon inspection Garza-Valdés found three distinct layers in the painting, at least one of which was signed and dated. He also said that the original painting showed striking similarities to the original Lady of Guadalupe found in Extremadura Spain, and that the second painting showed another Virgin with indigenous features. Finally, Garza-Valdés indicated that the fabric on which the icon is painted is made of conventional hemp and linen, not agave fibers as is popularly believed. The photographs of these putative overpaintings were not available in the Garza-Valdés 2002 publication, however. Gilberto Aguirre a San Antonio optometrist and colleague of Garza-Valdés who also took part in the 1999 study, examined the same photographs and stated that, while agreeing the painting had been tampered with, he disagreed with Garza-Valdes' conclusions. Gilberto Aguirre claims the conditions for conducting the study were inadequate. No control of the lighting and the fact that the painting was shot through an acrylic plate scientifically invalidates any results. He also questions Garza-Valdés' claim of ultraviolet light revealing two underlying images because according to Aguirre, ultraviolet light can't penetrate sub-surfaces. The team did take Infrared pictures but those didn't show additional images underneath the present one.
Similar Marian apparitions have been reported in many cities and towns throughout Mexico; in the Mexican town of Tlaltenango in the state of Morelos, a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe is claimed to have miraculously appeared in the inside of a box that two unknown travelers left in a hostel. The owners of the hostel called the local priest after noticing enticing aromas of flowers and sandalwood coming out of the box. The image has been venerated on September 8 since its finding in 1720, and is accepted as valid apparition by the local Catholic authorities.
It is important to note that at least 300 apparition of the Virgin Mary are reported every year to local church authorities, most of them seen in burnmarks in pieces of toast and Tortillas. In one of the most recent cases, believers have seen a vision of the Virgin of Guadalupe in a humidity stain in the Mexico City metro. This apparition is called the "Virgin of the Subway."
Religious theories regarding the image
Artistic symbolism
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is often read as a coded image. Miguel Sanchez, the author of the 1648 tract Imagen de la Virgen María, described the Virgin's image as the Woman of the Apocalypse from the New Testament's Revelation 12:1: "arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Mateo de la Cruz, writing twelve years after Sánchez, "argued that the Guadalupe possessed all the iconographical attributes of Mary in her Immaculate Conception". Likewise, a 1738 sermon preached by Miguel Picazo argued that the Guadalupe was the "best representation" of the Immaculate Conception.
Many writers, including Patricia Harrington and Virgil Elizondo, describe the image as containing coded messages for the indigenous people of Mexico.
"The Aztecs...had an elaborate, coherent symbolic system for making sense of their lives. When this was destroyed by the Spaniards, something new was needed to fill the void and make sense of New Spain...the image of Guadalupe served that purpose."
Her blue-green mantle was described as the color once reserved for the divine couple Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl; her belt is read as a sign of pregnancy; and a cross-shaped image symbolizing the cosmos and called nahui-ollin is said to be inscribed beneath the image's sash.
Yet another interpretation of the image is offered by the historian William B. Taylor, who recounted that Guadalupe has also been "acclaimed goddess of the maguey [agave]" and pulque was drunk on her feast day. A 1772 report described the rays of light around Guadalupe as maguey spines.
Alleged miraculous properties
Some consider it miraculous that the tilma, supposing it's still the original, maintains its structural integrity after nearly 500 years, since a replica of the image was once made, using the same colors and the same material for the tilma, and it lasted only about 15 years before it disintegrated.In addition to withstanding the elements, the tilma resisted a 1791 ammonia spill that made a considerable hole, which was then completely repaired in two weeks with no external help. In 1921, an anarchist placed an offering of flowers next to the image. A bomb hidden within the flowers exploded and destroyed the shrine. However, the image suffered no damage.
Photographers and ophthalmologists have claimed to locate images reflected in the eyes of the Virgin.In 1929 and 1951 photographers found a figure reflected in the Virgin's eyes; upon inspection they said that the reflection was tripled in what is called the Purkinje effect. This effect is commonly found in human eyes.The ophthalmologist Dr. Jose Aston Tonsmann later enlarged the image of the Virgin's eyes by 2500x magnification and said he saw not only the aforementioned single figure, but rather images of all the witnesses present when the tilma was shown to the Bishop in 1531. Tonsmann also reported seeing a small family -- mother, father, and a group of children -- in the center of the Virgin's eyes.
In response to the eye miracles, Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer wrote in Skeptical Inquirer that images seen in the Virgin's eyes could be the result of the human tendency to form familiar shapes from random patterns, much like a psychologist's inkblots -- a phenomenon known as religious pareidolia.
Richard Kuhn, who received the 1938 Nobel Chemistry prize, is said to have analyzed a sample of the fabric in 1936 and said the tint on the fabric was not from a known mineral, vegetable, or animal source.
In 1979 Philip Serna Callahan studied the icon with infrared light and stated that portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no paintbrush strokes.
Catholic devotions
With the Brief Non est equidem of May 25, 1754, Pope Benedict XIV declared Our Lady of Guadalupe patron of what was then called New Spain, corresponding to Spanish Central and Northern America, and approved liturgical texts for the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours in her honour. Pope Leo XIII granted new texts in 1891 and authorized coronation of the image in 1895. Pope Saint Pius X proclaimed her patron of Latin America in 1910. In 1935 Pope Pius XI proclaimed her patron of the Philippines and had a monument in her honor erected in the Vatican Gardens. In 1966 Pope Paul VI sent a Golden Rose to the shrine.
Pope John Paul II visited the shrine in the course of his first journey outside Italy as Pope from 26 to January 31, 1979, and again when he beatified Juan Diego there on 6 May 1990. In 1992 he dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe a chapel within St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. At the request of the Special Assembly for the Americas of the Synod of Bishops, he named Our Lady of Guadalupe patron of the Americas on January 22, 1999 (with the result that her liturgical celebration had, throughout the Americas, the rank of Solemnity), and visited the shrine again on the following day. On July 31, 2002, he canonized Juan Diego, and later that year included in the General Calendar of the Roman Rite, as optional memorials, the liturgical celebrations of Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (December 9) and Our Lady of Guadalupe (12 December).
Replicas of the tilma can be found in thousands of churches throughout the world, including Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, and numerous parishes bear her name.
Rigpa is a Tibetan word, which in general means ‘intelligence’ or ‘awareness’. In Dzogchen, however, the highest teachings in the Buddhist tradition of Tibet, rigpa has a deeper connotation, ‘the innermost nature of the mind’. The whole of the teaching of Buddha is directed towards realizing this, our ultimate nature, the state of omniscience or enlightenment – a truth so universal, so primordial that it goes beyond all limits, and beyond even religion itself. —Sogyal Rinpoche (wikiquote)
Suburban Churches. Part of a series on local religious buildings. I am always intrigued by the architecture, influences and connotations associates with the local place orworship, and their places in everyday life and folklore.
St Johns Uniting church Wahroonga
In October 1981, flying tiger ancient human remains from Guizhou Provincial Museum trial excavation, the accumulation of complex, broadly divided into early and late phases. Early formation of yellow or grayish yellow, unearthed panda, Stegodon fossils, stone products are made for the late Paleolithic culture era. Advanced formation is black, black, unearthed animal genetic pulp for extant species, and human mandibular and chipped stone, grinding stone, grinding bone, pottery and other large, geological time for the Holocene, culture in the age of the Neolithic age, that about 4000 years ago to 6000 years.
Unearthed stone products made a total of 532 pieces of raw materials, mainly to flint stone, there is, nuclear, stone etc.. The stone to stone, with the forward direction of processing processing, types of hit device, a scraper, tip like device and dolabriform etc.. The scraper accounted for 76%, tip like device is small but fine processing. The axe is a symbol of the transformation of Neolithic culture. 27 pieces of polished stone, delicate process, a stone axe, stone adzes, stone spinning wheels, stone scraper, stone arrow head, small stones (spear) 8. The number of stone adzes, regular shape, with long oblique cutting tool representative. 79 pieces of bone, in addition to the 1 pieces of grinding residual bone scraper, are making bone, bone and bone shovel cone. The three notches in the teeth may be scratching the porcupine symbol. In addition to pottery and ball spinning round round cake 1, the rest are all pieces of artifacts. 1494 tablets. The uneven thickness, thickness of 1.2 cm, thickness of only 0.2 cm, high temperature, hard texture. About 70% of sand pottery, pottery sand shale pottery class accounted for 30%, very little. Sand and sand are mainly sand. Pottery ornamentation is complicated, there are thick rope lines and Fang Gewen cone, tattoo, carved lines and lines and other additional cone. There are 3 pieces of pottery pottery, which has 1 pieces of orange powder is subjected to pottery coating inside and outside the grey clay, on the exterior is painted with two parallel red bands. This is the first time in Guizhou, Guizhou is also the earliest pottery record.
The site has a new and old stone formation, and the cultural connotation is rich. Pottery appear more attractive, but considerable differences in advanced culture. These have great significance to the study of the relationship between the new and the old stone culture in Guizhou and the time continuity of the times.
In February 23, 1982, the Guizhou Provincial People's Government approved the publication of the provincial cultural relics protection units. 1981年10月，飞虎山古人类遗址由贵州省博物馆试掘，洞内堆积复杂，大致分早、晚两期。早期地层呈黄色或灰黄色，出土大熊猫、剑齿象等化石，石制品均为打制，文化时代为旧石器时代晚期。晚期地层呈黑色、灰黑色，出土动物遗髓为现生属种，并出人类下颌件和打制石器、磨制石器、磨制骨器、大量的陶片等，地质时代为全新世，文化时代属新石器时代，推测距今约4000年至6000年。
遗址出土打制的石制品共532件，原料以燧石为主，有是核、石片、石器等。石器以石片为主，加工方向以正向加工为主，类型有砸器、刮削器、尖状器和斧形器等。其中刮削器占76%，尖状器虽少但加工精细。斧形器似为向新石器文化转化的象征。磨制石器27件，加工精致，有石斧、石锛、石纺轮、石刮刀、石箭(矛)头、小石块等8种。石锛数量多，形制规整，以长形斜刃具代表性。骨器79件，除1件残的磨制骨刮刀外，均为打制骨器，有骨锥和骨铲。其中豪猪牙上的三道刻痕可能是刻划符。陶器除圆饼式及圆珠纺轮各1件外，其余全是器物碎片。计1494片。其厚度不匀，厚者达1.2厘米，薄者仅0.2厘米，火候高，质地坚硬。夹砂灰陶约占70%，夹砂黑陶占30%，泥质类陶极少。夹砂陶以夹细砂为主。陶片纹饰复杂多样，有粗细绳纹、方格纹、锥刺纹、刻划纹和附加锥纹等。陶片中有3片彩陶，其中有1片是在泥质灰陶的内外施以粉澄色陶衣，再于外表绘有两条平行的红色条带。这是贵州首次发现，也是贵州迄今最早的彩陶记录。
遗址具有新、旧石器地层叠压，文化内涵丰富。彩陶的出现更引人瞩目，但中、晚期文化差异颇大。这些对研究贵州新、旧石器文化的相互关系和时代延续问题具有重要的意义。
1982年2月23日，经贵州省人民政府批准公布为省级文物保护单位。
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
Client:
GQ Magazine & Mercedes
Photographer:
Rick Guest
Art Director:
Toria Sefton
CGI Artist:
Kristian Turner
Post Artist:
Pepê Alram
On the red brick walls surrounding the fabled Wellpark Brewery on Duke Street, in the east end of Glasgow, there are several murals that commemorate the many and wonderful satirical ad campaigns on the usage of the iconic red “T” logo of Tennent’s that has proudly been serving the nation’s favourite lager since 1885, a celebrated golden libation made with Scottish barley & water from Loch Katerine, and an almost ubiquitous fixture growing up in the Dear Green Place.
This particular ad was a take on Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s sexually racy 1969 song Je t’aime … moi non plus; which, for purity reasons, was widely kept off the airwaves because of its erotic adult connotations, with the ensuing blanket ban only serving to propel it to No.1 in the UK charts despite being sung in a foreign language.
But as my pedantic Francophile fanatics from the Thursday Club will only too gleefully and grammatically tell you, the curious thing about the verb “to love” in French – “aimer” – is that it is the same as the word for “to like”, so the title of this post is a slight play on words. (“Je t’aime” = “I love you” or “I like you”).
Now, I’d really like to tell you that I knew all this from French at school, but alas, Non! Like most, I presume, I only learned about this after listening/watching several documentaries/accounts of the era’s most fêted celebrity couple’s idiosyncratic contribution to the pop canon.
And fittingly, we include this photo today as a tribute to Serge’s muse, Ms Birkin, who died recently in Paris. But it could only be a double Je t’aime, as I both loved and liked the Anglo-French icon!
Fujifilm X100V & Fuji TCL-X100 II
Kodachrome 25 Film Simulation
On a hill above the gorge is a sham castle in mock-Gothic style overlooking Bristol, Avonmouth and the Avon Gorge, with views across to South Wales on a clear day. It was a popular attraction, open to paying visitors, from which vessels could be seen passing on the River Avon. The architect was Robert Mylne and the date of building 1766; it is now believed that the design and the choice of style may have had political connotations. Although referred to as a folly, it was inhabited well into the 20th century with sumptuous internal decoration.
Chapelle, rigodon et cri de la mouette … Kamini porte le clet’che au Carnaval de Dunkerque
Le zôt’che, c’est le baiser de carnaval. C’est sur la bouche, mais ça n’a pas de connotation sexuelle.
La version en mode web-publication est là : Karnaval !, Dunkerque, la bande de Malo, dimanche 10 mars 2019.
En mars 2014, il y avait déjà eu Les Dunkerquoises T.1 et Karnaval T.2, la version pour les karnavaleux.
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En juin 2012, il y avait déjà eu Dunkerque, Malo-le-bains en 3 volumes :
[1] la version pour les esthètes,
[2] la version pour les sportifs
[3] la version pour les autres,.
Le tout, part of JJ_BT l'intégrale, 135 publications powered by Issuu.
In October 1981, flying tiger ancient human remains from Guizhou Provincial Museum trial excavation, the accumulation of complex, broadly divided into early and late phases. Early formation of yellow or grayish yellow, unearthed panda, Stegodon fossils, stone products are made for the late Paleolithic culture era. Advanced formation is black, black, unearthed animal genetic pulp for extant species, and human mandibular and chipped stone, grinding stone, grinding bone, pottery and other large, geological time for the Holocene, culture in the age of the Neolithic age, that about 4000 years ago to 6000 years.
Unearthed stone products made a total of 532 pieces of raw materials, mainly to flint stone, there is, nuclear, stone etc.. The stone to stone, with the forward direction of processing processing, types of hit device, a scraper, tip like device and dolabriform etc.. The scraper accounted for 76%, tip like device is small but fine processing. The axe is a symbol of the transformation of Neolithic culture. 27 pieces of polished stone, delicate process, a stone axe, stone adzes, stone spinning wheels, stone scraper, stone arrow head, small stones (spear) 8. The number of stone adzes, regular shape, with long oblique cutting tool representative. 79 pieces of bone, in addition to the 1 pieces of grinding residual bone scraper, are making bone, bone and bone shovel cone. The three notches in the teeth may be scratching the porcupine symbol. In addition to pottery and ball spinning round round cake 1, the rest are all pieces of artifacts. 1494 tablets. The uneven thickness, thickness of 1.2 cm, thickness of only 0.2 cm, high temperature, hard texture. About 70% of sand pottery, pottery sand shale pottery class accounted for 30%, very little. Sand and sand are mainly sand. Pottery ornamentation is complicated, there are thick rope lines and Fang Gewen cone, tattoo, carved lines and lines and other additional cone. There are 3 pieces of pottery pottery, which has 1 pieces of orange powder is subjected to pottery coating inside and outside the grey clay, on the exterior is painted with two parallel red bands. This is the first time in Guizhou, Guizhou is also the earliest pottery record.
The site has a new and old stone formation, and the cultural connotation is rich. Pottery appear more attractive, but considerable differences in advanced culture. These have great significance to the study of the relationship between the new and the old stone culture in Guizhou and the time continuity of the times.
In February 23, 1982, the Guizhou Provincial People's Government approved the publication of the provincial cultural relics protection units. 1981年10月，飞虎山古人类遗址由贵州省博物馆试掘，洞内堆积复杂，大致分早、晚两期。早期地层呈黄色或灰黄色，出土大熊猫、剑齿象等化石，石制品均为打制，文化时代为旧石器时代晚期。晚期地层呈黑色、灰黑色，出土动物遗髓为现生属种，并出人类下颌件和打制石器、磨制石器、磨制骨器、大量的陶片等，地质时代为全新世，文化时代属新石器时代，推测距今约4000年至6000年。
遗址出土打制的石制品共532件，原料以燧石为主，有是核、石片、石器等。石器以石片为主，加工方向以正向加工为主，类型有砸器、刮削器、尖状器和斧形器等。其中刮削器占76%，尖状器虽少但加工精细。斧形器似为向新石器文化转化的象征。磨制石器27件，加工精致，有石斧、石锛、石纺轮、石刮刀、石箭(矛)头、小石块等8种。石锛数量多，形制规整，以长形斜刃具代表性。骨器79件，除1件残的磨制骨刮刀外，均为打制骨器，有骨锥和骨铲。其中豪猪牙上的三道刻痕可能是刻划符。陶器除圆饼式及圆珠纺轮各1件外，其余全是器物碎片。计1494片。其厚度不匀，厚者达1.2厘米，薄者仅0.2厘米，火候高，质地坚硬。夹砂灰陶约占70%，夹砂黑陶占30%，泥质类陶极少。夹砂陶以夹细砂为主。陶片纹饰复杂多样，有粗细绳纹、方格纹、锥刺纹、刻划纹和附加锥纹等。陶片中有3片彩陶，其中有1片是在泥质灰陶的内外施以粉澄色陶衣，再于外表绘有两条平行的红色条带。这是贵州首次发现，也是贵州迄今最早的彩陶记录。
遗址具有新、旧石器地层叠压，文化内涵丰富。彩陶的出现更引人瞩目，但中、晚期文化差异颇大。这些对研究贵州新、旧石器文化的相互关系和时代延续问题具有重要的意义。
1982年2月23日，经贵州省人民政府批准公布为省级文物保护单位。
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
For those people who are looking for a cruise experience away from the "Hoi Polloi", at least while on the ship!
Hoi polloi (/ˌhɔɪ pəˈlɔɪ/; from Ancient Greek οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloí) 'the many') is an expression from Greek that means "the many" or, in the strictest sense, "the people". In English, it has been given a negative connotation to signify the masses.
If you're looking for a cruise with the "right" kind of people you might consider a trip aboard the Windstar Star Pride. Carrying only 312 guests, Star Pride still tucks into small ports like Sanary-sur-Mer and Seville or narrow waterways like the Corinth and Keil Canal (and Antigua, with 3 other cruise ships)!.
www.windstarcruises.com/ships/star-pride/
Can you imagine....the fine folks on the Star Pride having to mingle with the commoners while in town? Well, that's exactly what happened when they decided that Antigua would be a good place to stop for a bit!
After looking at their website I can honestly tell you that their cruises are no more expensive than most premium cruise line cruises, dependent on the ship you choose to cruise on. Sounds to me like they're trying to cater to some fancy gits and when I say fancy gits I mean the Hyacinth Bucket variety!
For those who don't know Hyacinth Bucket:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_Up_Appearances
An incredibly funny sitcom even to this day!
PS, my standard disclaimer:
For those in the Show Your EXIF group you should note that the actual lens used is a Tamron AF 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 Di-II VC All-in-One Zoom for Canon APS-C Digital SLR. For some crazy reason it always shows up as a Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8, a lens I've never owned or used!
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), a subspecies of the red junglefowl, is a type of domesticated fowl, originally from Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult male bird. A younger male may be called a cockerel; a male that has been castrated is a capon. The adult female bird is called a hen. "Chicken" was originally a term only for an immature, or at least young, bird, but thanks to its usage on restaurant menus has now become the most common term for the subspecies in general, especially in American English. In older sources common fowl or domestic fowl were typically used for this.
Originally raised for cockfighting or for special ceremonies, chickens were not kept for food until the Hellenistic period (4th–2nd centuries BCE). Humans now keep chickens primarily as a source of food (consuming both their meat and eggs) and as pets.
Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of 23.7 billion as of 2018, up from more than 19 billion in 2011. There are more chickens in the world than any other bird. There are numerous cultural references to chickens – in myth, folklore and religion, and in language and literature.
Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia,[5] but the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originated from the Indian subcontinent. From ancient India, the chicken spread to Lydia in western Asia Minor, and to Greece by the 5th century BCE. Fowl have been known in Egypt since the mid-15th century BCE, with the "bird that gives birth every day" having come from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Thutmose III
Etymology
According to Merriam-Webster, the term "rooster" (i.e. a roosting bird) originated in the mid- or late 18th century as a euphemism to avoid the sexual connotation of the original English "cock", and is widely used throughout North America. "Roosting" is the action of perching aloft to sleep at night, which is done by both sexes.
General biology and habitat
Chickens are omnivores. In the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even animals as large as lizards, small snakes, or young mice.
The average chicken may live for five to ten years, depending on the breed. The world's oldest known chicken was a hen which died of heart failure at the age of 16 years according to the Guinness World Records.
Roosters can usually be differentiated from hens by their striking plumage of long flowing tails and shiny, pointed feathers on their necks (hackles) and backs (saddle), which are typically of brighter, bolder colours than those of females of the same breed. However, in some breeds, such as the Sebright chicken, the rooster has only slightly pointed neck feathers, the same colour as the hen's. The identification can be made by looking at the comb, or eventually from the development of spurs on the male's legs (in a few breeds and in certain hybrids, the male and female chicks may be differentiated by colour). Adult chickens have a fleshy crest on their heads called a comb, or cockscomb, and hanging flaps of skin either side under their beaks called wattles. Collectively, these and other fleshy protuberances on the head and throat are called caruncles. Both the adult male and female have wattles and combs, but in most breeds these are more prominent in males. A muff or beard is a mutation found in several chicken breeds which causes extra feathering under the chicken's face, giving the appearance of a beard. Domestic chickens are not capable of long-distance flight, although lighter chickens are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences or into trees (where they would naturally roost). Chickens may occasionally fly briefly to explore their surroundings, but generally do so only to flee perceived danger.
Behavior
Social behaviour
Chickens are gregarious birds and live together in flocks. They have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and raising of young. Individual chickens in a flock will dominate others, establishing a "pecking order", with dominant individuals having priority for food access and nesting locations. Removing hens or roosters from a flock causes a temporary disruption to this social order until a new pecking order is established. Adding hens, especially younger birds, to an existing flock can lead to fighting and injury. When a rooster finds food, he may call other chickens to eat first. He does this by clucking in a high pitch as well as picking up and dropping the food. This behaviour may also be observed in mother hens to call their chicks and encourage them to eat.
A rooster's crowing is a loud and sometimes shrill call and sends a territorial signal to other roosters. However, roosters may also crow in response to sudden disturbances within their surroundings. Hens cluck loudly after laying an egg, and also to call their chicks. Chickens also give different warning calls when they sense a predator approaching from the air or on the ground.
Crowing
Roosters almost always start crowing before four months of age. Although it is possible for a hen to crow as well, crowing (together with hackles development) is one of the clearest signs of being a rooster.
Rooster crowing contests
Rooster crowing contests are a traditional sport in several countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United States, Indonesia and Japan. The oldest contests are held with longcrowers. Depending on the breed, either the duration of the crowing or the times the rooster crows within a certain time is measured.
Courtship
To initiate courting, some roosters may dance in a circle around or near a hen ("a circle dance"), often lowering the wing which is closest to the hen. The dance triggers a response in the hen and when she responds to his "call", the rooster may mount the hen and proceed with the mating.
More specifically, mating typically involves the following sequence: 1. Male approaching the hen. 2. Male pre-copulatory waltzing. 3. Male waltzing. 4. Female crouching (receptive posture) or stepping aside or running away (if unwilling to copulate). 5. Male mounting. 6. Male treading with both feet on hen's back. 7. Male tail bending (following successful copulation).
Nesting and laying behaviour
Hens will often try to lay in nests that already contain eggs and have been known to move eggs from neighbouring nests into their own. The result of this behaviour is that a flock will use only a few preferred locations, rather than having a different nest for every bird. Hens will often express a preference to lay in the same location. It is not unknown for two (or more) hens to try to share the same nest at the same time. If the nest is small, or one of the hens is particularly determined, this may result in chickens trying to lay on top of each other. There is evidence that individual hens prefer to be either solitary or gregarious nesters.
Broodiness
Under natural conditions, most birds lay only until a clutch is complete, and they will then incubate all the eggs. Hens are then said to "go broody". The broody hen will stop laying and instead will focus on the incubation of the eggs (a full clutch is usually about 12 eggs). She will "sit" or "set" on the nest, protesting or pecking in defense if disturbed or removed, and she will rarely leave the nest to eat, drink, or dust-bathe. While brooding, the hen maintains the nest at a constant temperature and humidity, as well as turning the eggs regularly during the first part of the incubation. To stimulate broodiness, owners may place several artificial eggs in the nest. To discourage it, they may place the hen in an elevated cage with an open wire floor.
Breeds artificially developed for egg production rarely go broody, and those that do often stop part-way through the incubation. However, other breeds, such as the Cochin, Cornish and Silkie, do regularly go broody, and they make excellent mothers, not only for chicken eggs but also for those of other species — even those with much smaller or larger eggs and different incubation periods, such as quail, pheasants, ducks, turkeys, or geese.
Hatching and early life
Fertile chicken eggs hatch at the end of the incubation period, about 21 days. Development of the chick starts only when incubation begins, so all chicks hatch within a day or two of each other, despite perhaps being laid over a period of two weeks or so. Before hatching, the hen can hear the chicks peeping inside the eggs, and will gently cluck to stimulate them to break out of their shells. The chick begins by "pipping"; pecking a breathing hole with its egg tooth towards the blunt end of the egg, usually on the upper side. The chick then rests for some hours, absorbing the remaining egg yolk and withdrawing the blood supply from the membrane beneath the shell (used earlier for breathing through the shell). The chick then enlarges the hole, gradually turning round as it goes, and eventually severing the blunt end of the shell completely to make a lid. The chick crawls out of the remaining shell, and the wet down dries out in the warmth of the nest.
Hens usually remain on the nest for about two days after the first chick hatches, and during this time the newly hatched chicks feed by absorbing the internal yolk sac. Some breeds sometimes start eating cracked eggs, which can become habitual. Hens fiercely guard their chicks, and brood them when necessary to keep them warm, at first often returning to the nest at night. She leads them to food and water and will call them toward edible items, but seldom feeds them directly. She continues to care for them until they are several weeks old.
Defensive behaviour
Chickens may occasionally gang up on a weak or inexperienced predator. At least one credible report exists of a young fox killed by hens. A group of hens have been recorded in attacking a hawk that had entered their coop.
Reproduction
Sperm transfer occurs by cloacal contact between the male and female, in a maneuver known as the "cloacal kiss".
Embryology
Chicken embryos have long been used as model systems to study developing embryos. Large numbers of embryos can be provided by commercial chicken farmers who sell fertilized eggs which can be easily opened and used to observe the developing embryo. Equally important, embryologists can carry out experiments on such embryos, close the egg again and study the effect later on. For instance, many important discoveries in the area of limb development have been made using chicken embryos, such as the discovery of the apical ectodermal ridge (AER) and the zone of polarizing activity (ZPA) by John W. Saunders.
In 2006, scientists researching the ancestry of birds "turned on" a chicken recessive gene, talpid2, and found that the embryo jaws initiated formation of teeth, like those found in ancient bird fossils. John Fallon, the overseer of the project, stated that chickens have "...retained the ability to make teeth, under certain conditions... ."
Genetics and genomics
Given its eminent role in farming, meat production, but also research, the house chicken was the first bird genome to be sequenced. At 1.21 Gb, the chicken genome is considerably smaller than other vertebrate genomes, such as the human genome (3 Gb). The final gene set contained 26,640 genes (including noncoding genes and pseudogenes), with a total of 19,119 protein-coding genes in annotation release 103 (2017), a similar number of protein-coding genes as in the human genome.
Physiology
Populations of chickens from high altitude regions like Tibet have special physiological adaptations that result in a higher hatching rate in low oxygen environments. When eggs are placed in a hypoxic environment, chicken embryos from these populations express much more hemoglobin than embryos from other chicken populations. This hemoglobin also has a greater affinity for oxygen, allowing hemoglobin to bind to oxygen more readily.
Breeding
Origins
Galliformes, the order of bird that chickens belong to, is directly linked to the survival of birds when all other dinosaurs went extinct. Water or ground-dwelling fowl, similar to modern partridges, survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that killed all tree-dwelling birds and dinosaurs. Some of these evolved into the modern galliformes, of which domesticated chickens are a main model. They are descended primarily from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) and are scientifically classified as the same species. As such, domesticated chickens can and do freely interbreed with populations of red junglefowl. Subsequent hybridization of the domestic chicken with grey junglefowl, Sri Lankan junglefowl and green junglefowl occurred; a gene for yellow skin, for instance, was incorporated into domestic birds through hybridization with the grey junglefowl (G. sonneratii). In a study published in 2020, it was found that chickens shared between 71% - 79% of their genome with red junglefowl, with the period of domestication dated to 8,000 years ago.
The traditional view is that chickens were first domesticated for cockfighting in Asia, Africa, and Europe. In the last decade, there have been a number of genetic studies to clarify the origins. According to one early study, a single domestication event which took place in what now is the country of Thailand gave rise to the modern chicken with minor transitions separating the modern breeds. However, that study was later found to be based on incomplete data, and recent studies point to multiple maternal origins, with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, originating from the Indian subcontinent, where a large number of unique haplotypes occur. The red junglefowl, known as the bamboo fowl in many Southeast Asian languages, is well adapted to take advantage of the vast quantities of seed produced during the end of the multi-decade bamboo seeding cycle, to boost its own reproduction. In domesticating the chicken, humans took advantage of this predisposition for prolific reproduction of the red junglefowl when exposed to large amounts of food.
Several controversies still surround the time the chicken was domesticated. Recent molecular evidence obtained from a whole-genome study published in 2020 reveals that the chicken was domesticated 8,000 years ago. Though, it was previously thought to have been domesticated in Southern China in 6000 BC based on paleoclimatic assumptions which has now raised doubts from another study that question whether those birds were the ancestors of chickens today. The majority of the world's domestic chickens may be traced to the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley. Eventually, the chicken moved to the Tarim basin of central Asia. It reached Europe (present-day Romania, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine) about 3000 BC. Introduction into Western Europe came far later, about the 1st millennium BC. Phoenicians spread chickens along the Mediterranean coasts as far as Iberia. Breeding increased under the Roman Empire, and was reduced in the Middle Ages. Genetic sequencing of chicken bones from archaeological sites in Europe revealed that in the High Middle Ages chickens became less aggressive and began to lay eggs earlier in the breeding season.
Middle Eastern chicken remains go back to a little earlier than 2000 BC, in Syria; chickens went southward only in the 1st millennium BC. They reached Egypt for purposes of cockfighting about 1400 BC, and became widely bred only in Ptolemaic Egypt (about 300 BC). Little is known about the chicken's introduction into Africa. It was during the Hellenistic period (4th-2nd centuries BC), in the Southern Levant, that chickens began widely to be widely domesticated for food. This change occurred at least 100 years before domestication of chickens spread to Europe.
Three possible routes of introduction into Africa around the early first millennium AD could have been through the Egyptian Nile Valley, the East Africa Roman-Greek or Indian trade, or from Carthage and the Berbers, across the Sahara. The earliest known remains are from Mali, Nubia, East Coast, and South Africa and date back to the middle of the first millennium AD.
Domestic chicken in the Americas before Western contact is still an ongoing discussion, but blue-egged chickens, found only in the Americas and Asia, suggest an Asian origin for early American chickens.
A lack of data from Thailand, Russia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa makes it difficult to lay out a clear map of the spread of chickens in these areas; better description and genetic analysis of local breeds threatened by extinction may also help with research into this area.
South America
An unusual variety of chicken that has its origins in South America is the Araucana, bred in southern Chile by the Mapuche people. Araucanas, some of which are tailless and some of which have tufts of feathers around their ears, lay blue-green eggs. It has long been suggested that they pre-date the arrival of European chickens brought by the Spanish and are evidence of pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contacts between Asian or Pacific Oceanic peoples, particularly the Polynesians, and South America. In 2007, an international team of researchers reported the results of analysis of chicken bones found on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile. Radiocarbon dating suggested that the chickens were Pre-Columbian, and DNA analysis showed that they were related to prehistoric populations of chickens in Polynesia. These results appeared to confirm that the chickens came from Polynesia and that there were transpacific contacts between Polynesia and South America before Columbus's arrival in the Americas.
However, a later report looking at the same specimens concluded:
A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre-European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.
The debate for and against a Polynesian origin for South American chickens continued with this 2014 paper and subsequent responses in PNAS.
Use by humans
Farming
Main articles: Poultry farming and Chicken as food
More than 50 billion chickens are reared annually as a source of meat and eggs. In the United States alone, more than 8 billion chickens are slaughtered each year for meat, and more than 300 million chickens are reared for egg production.
The vast majority of poultry are raised in factory farms. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry meat and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way. An alternative to intensive poultry farming is free-range farming.
Friction between these two main methods has led to long-term issues of ethical consumerism. Opponents of intensive farming argue that it harms the environment, creates human health risks and is inhumane. Advocates of intensive farming say that their highly efficient systems save land and food resources owing to increased productivity, and that the animals are looked after in state-of-the-art environmentally controlled facilities.
Reared for meat
Main article: Broiler
Chickens farmed for meat are called broilers. Chickens will naturally live for six or more years, but broiler breeds typically take less than six weeks to reach slaughter size. A free range or organic broiler will usually be slaughtered at about 14 weeks of age.
Reared for eggs
Main article: Egg as food
Chickens farmed primarily for eggs are called layer hens. In total, the UK alone consumes more than 34 million eggs per day. Some hen breeds can produce over 300 eggs per year, with "the highest authenticated rate of egg laying being 371 eggs in 364 days". After 12 months of laying, the commercial hen's egg-laying ability starts to decline to the point where the flock is commercially unviable. Hens, particularly from battery cage systems, are sometimes infirm or have lost a significant amount of their feathers, and their life expectancy has been reduced from around seven years to less than two years. In the UK and Europe, laying hens are then slaughtered and used in processed foods or sold as "soup hens". In some other countries, flocks are sometimes force moulted, rather than being slaughtered, to re-invigorate egg-laying. This involves complete withdrawal of food (and sometimes water) for 7–14 days or sufficiently long to cause a body weight loss of 25 to 35%, or up to 28 days under experimental conditions. This stimulates the hen to lose her feathers, but also re-invigorates egg-production. Some flocks may be force-moulted several times. In 2003, more than 75% of all flocks were moulted in the US.
As pets
Keeping chickens as pets became increasingly popular in the 2000s among urban and suburban residents. Many people obtain chickens for their egg production but often name them and treat them as any other pet. Chickens are just like any other pet in that they provide companionship and have individual personalities. While many do not cuddle much, they will eat from one's hand, respond to and follow their handlers, as well as show affection.
Chickens are social, inquisitive, intelligent[84] birds, and many find their behaviour entertaining. Certain breeds, such as Silkies and many bantam varieties, are generally docile and are often recommended as good pets around children with disabilities. Many people feed chickens in part with kitchen food scraps.
Chickens can carry and transmit salmonella in their dander and feces. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise against bringing them indoors or letting small children handle them.
Cockfighting
A cockfight is a contest held in a ring called a cockpit between two cocks known as gamecocks. This term, denoting a cock kept for game, sport, pastime or entertainment, appears in 1646, after "cock of the game" used by George Wilson in the earliest known book on the secular sport, The Commendation of Cocks and Cock Fighting of 1607. Gamecocks are not typical farm chickens. The cocks are specially bred and trained for increased stamina and strength. The comb and wattle are removed from a young gamecock because, if left intact, they would be a disadvantage during a match. This process is called dubbing. Sometimes the cocks are given drugs to increase their stamina or thicken their blood, which increases their chances of winning. Cockfighting is considered a traditional sporting event by some, and an example of animal cruelty by others and is therefore outlawed in most countries. Usually wagers are made on the outcome of the match, with the survivor or last bird standing declared winner.
Chickens were originally used for cockfighting, a sport where 2 male chickens or "cocks" fight each other until one dies or becomes badly injured. Cocks possess congenital aggression toward all other cocks to contest with females. Studies suggest that cockfights have existed even up to the Indus Valley Civilisation as a pastime. Today it is commonly associated with religious worship, pastime, and gambling in Asian and some South American countries. While not all fights are to the death, most use metal spurs as a "weapon" attached above or below the chicken's own spur and with this typically results in death in one or both cocks. If chickens are in practice owners place gloves on the spurs to prevent injuries. It has been banned it most western countries and debated by animal rights activist for its brutality.
Artificial incubation
Incubation can successfully occur artificially in machines that provide the correct, controlled environment for the developing chick. The average incubation period for chickens is 21 days but may depend on the temperature and humidity in the incubator. Temperature regulation is the most critical factor for a successful hatch. Variations of more than 1 °C (34 °F) from the optimum temperature of 37.5 °C (99.5 °F) will reduce hatch rates. Humidity is also important because the rate at which eggs lose water by evaporation depends on the ambient relative humidity. Evaporation can be assessed by candling, to view the size of the air sac, or by measuring weight loss. Relative humidity should be increased to around 70% in the last three days of incubation to keep the membrane around the hatching chick from drying out after the chick cracks the shell. Lower humidity is usual in the first 18 days to ensure adequate evaporation. The position of the eggs in the incubator can also influence hatch rates. For best results, eggs should be placed with the pointed ends down and turned regularly (at least three times per day) until one to three days before hatching. If the eggs aren't turned, the embryo inside may stick to the shell and may hatch with physical defects. Adequate ventilation is necessary to provide the embryo with oxygen. Older eggs require increased ventilation.
Many commercial incubators are industrial-sized with shelves holding tens of thousands of eggs at a time, with rotation of the eggs a fully automated process. Home incubators are boxes holding from 6 to 75 eggs; they are usually electrically powered, but in the past some were heated with an oil or paraffin lamp.
Diseases and ailments
See also: Poultry disease
Chickens are susceptible to several parasites, including lice, mites, ticks, fleas, and intestinal worms, as well as other diseases. Despite the name, they are not affected by chickenpox, which is generally restricted to humans.
History
An early domestication of chickens in Southeast Asia is probable, since the word for domestic chicken (*manuk) is part of the reconstructed Proto-Austronesian language (see Austronesian languages). Chickens, together with dogs and pigs, were the domestic animals of the Lapita culture, the first Neolithic culture of Oceania.
The first pictures of chickens in Europe are found on Corinthian pottery of the 7th century BC.
Chickens were spread by Polynesian seafarers and reached Easter Island in the 12th century AD, where they were the only domestic animal, with the possible exception of the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans). They were housed in extremely solid chicken coops built from stone, which was first reported as such to Linton Palmer in 1868, who also "expressed his doubts about this".
[Credit: en.wikipedia.org]
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
Those that know me well know that a major pet peeve of mine is the overuse and misuse of the term "fine art photographer". ;-) If you have spent much time with me, you have heard a rant or two about this. In fact, I think I may have posted a rant or two about it here on Flickr at one time or another.
Well it still peeves me, but I am not going to rant tonight. I do want to talk about the use of this term and what it means, and why I believe, if you are an upcoming photographer you should avoid using it. Granted, what I have to share is all just my opinion, but I think that I have a few decent opinions on the subject. And before I even get started, I want to mention that there was a time I labeled my work as "fine art". So if you feel defensive or offended by anything I have to say on the subject, well you are in good company, at least I think you are. And if that doesn't help you feel better, then you have larger problems than I am able to solve without several years of advance schooling.
Let me start briefly by looking at the term itself. Let's break it down for a moment and just look at the "art" portion. I have had this discussion before regarding what is art, so I am not going to repeat familiar ground. Basically, most all photography can be artistic, but not all of it always is artistic. I think artistic is an intent and not inherent. I think a photographer with an artistic intent tries to do many different things from capturing their unique relationship with their subject matter to expressing ideas that are new and bold, to moving large portions of the population emotionally for a specific goal, etc. All that aside, artistic intent endeavors toward the unique and different. Now the slight monkey wrench to this equation is pop art, which actually doesn't seem to trend toward different at all, I guess, at least not how we think of pop art today. Without bothering to try and pin down exactly what art is though, we can at least sketch a general idea. Going out and taking landscape photographers is not inherently artistic, though it can be approached in an artistic fashion.
So add in "fine" now. Fine seems to imply some degree of excellence or mastery, a level higher than normal. I think of fine art and I think basically of artistic genius, an artist or their work that revolutionizes how I see the world or perceive it. This to me is fine art. The pinnacle of artistic endeavor. Got me so far?
A big problem with using the term on yourself though is that generally you have not reached this pinnacle, you are usually still climbing. At least you should be. It may seem a harmless enough thing to tack on a few extra words to preface your work, but careless use of those same words can start to change your own perception of yourself. You begin to think of yourself as a fine art photographer with all the (self-alluded) connotations of greatness that carries. I think this is dangerous as it builds a bias in the photographer toward their own work that may actually hinder their ability to grow further and to receive criticism openly. In my personal experience, the photographers I know who have had the most trouble taking critiques of their work seriously generally label themselves as fine art photographers. Coincidence? Perhaps, perhaps not.
That is all sort of an aside though, and honestly I have begun with my weakest argument. Let me lay out my second. The term is horribly overused today, and hence has become diluted at best and at worst has a negative connotation of pompousness and arrogance. Go pick up a photography magazine and flip through the ads in the back for photographers. Each of them calls themselves fine art photographers. Venture through your peers' websites and take note of how many use the term on themselves. You, me, grandma, grandma's half-sister Berta, heck even the dog has begun styling himself a fine art landscape photographer who does fine art nudes on the side when he isn't booked to shoot a fine art wedding album. I have to restrain an urge to roll my eyes when I hear photographers describing themselves as fine art, and inwardly I think "Oh, great. Another one of THESE." Now, I try to approach all work as openly as I can, but again, the point is the misuse of the term for me has actually created a handicap in appreciating what a photographer is doing. That is unless I am looking at your work in MOMA or I have five of your books in front of me checked out from the library representing 30 years of work. In that case I am not turned off by the use of the term. I do believe it is an earn-able and deserving title for some.
But I do wonder about this backlash in public opinion, sort of like how HDR became really really popular and then got so overused that many photographers actually started to scorn its use and take it less seriously. I wonder if the same will prove to be true of the use of "fine art photography".
And lastly, my best argument against using the term to describe yourself. I know a lot of photographers use it because everyone else seems to be, and it just seems like the thing to do if you are a serious photographer. The old, "Everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't I?" mentality. Well, that is exactly why you DON'T.
Look at it this way.
Today's photographic world is incredibly saturated. Photographers number in the millions. Photographs in the, what, trillions? Quadrillions? Quintuplezillions? It is difficult to make much headway as a lone photographer in terms of commercial success. So you look for every advantage you can find to make yourself stand out. That is the point right? To stand out so you are noticed. Well why do you want to do what everyone else is doing then? That just makes you another face in the crowd, hardly the way to stand out. Now, you can stand out in two different ways. You can do what everyone else is to such a degree of excellence that you raise yourself above them. This is the route that most photographers try to take because it is the most obvious. If I can just take better and better photos, the world will have to notice me. The problem with this approach is again, this is the route that most of your competition is trying to take as well, to get better and better so their greatness has to be noticed. But up is not the only possible direction. You can also stand apart from the crowd too. You can do something entirely different than everyone else as well. Something unique. Now, this is probably the trickier route, but it isn't as hard as many imagine. Imagination is a skill that gets better with practice.
The irony here is that many photographers use the term "fine art" as a marketing scheme, a manner of labeling their work in a way familiar to the public. It doesn't actually have much to do with their abilities with a camera, but their attempts to make their photographs seem more valuable. Except by calling their work the same thing as every other photographer with a website, they throw their lot right in with the crowd and hope that luck and chance shake them out in front of someone who cares. And so as a marketing scheme, I think it is a poor one. It seems like a better idea to find a more creative (and being extremely creative is what fine artists are supposed to be doing anyway) way of packaging and presenting your work to the public, a way that stands out and is memorable, not that chameleons in with all the other fine art photography out there.
Because honestly, take a look around you. What does that term even mean any more? Not a whole lot. So if it means so little, why do you want to attach it to your own work? Doesn't your photography mean more to you to not label it so cheaply?
It really should. But then, this is just my opinion. Art is subjective after all, just remember to keep some perspective on hand when you can muster it.
Petroglyphs from around Mont Bégo, Mercantour.
Bronze Age - 4,800 ybp, with engraving continuing for a period of 1,500 - 2,000 years.
Top left: The petroglyph is from the Voie Sacrée and the crofter has large curling feet that might be understood as Chaplinesque (Charlie and not Geraldine). The 'V' of the legs is short and the man has his arms in the air curling around his head and taking hold of a tool currently often described as a halbard - perhaps a term with too many decorative Swiss connotations, suffice to say, the tool has one of the longest handles from the tool world and looks to be a kind of 'shepherd's staff', or pole version of a 'shepherd's axe', still known from Portugal where a metal point can provide a pivot to then lift the pole as a barrier - useful for managing animals that have strayed onto ledges, and flexible for deblocking weak summer streams and pulling down dead wood from ledges for a fire.
Top right: A humanoid. A schematic composite of two corniforms that produces a Keith Haring-esque figure. Further to the north in the Valcamonica this schematic human form can be dated as for back as the neolithic although these figures do tend to have 'feet' lines and the above image does appear as a 'coming together' of two corniforms so may simply be a correlation of form.
Lower left: A man with his arms in the air holds onto the long shaft of a speciality shepherd's crook of the type visible top left. The dashes are sheep or goats and the crofter manages the movement of this herd with his long tool.
Lower right: One man and his dog. Probably a crofter who keeps a dog on a leash rather than a man leaning on a stick with a dog posing to his side.
Some of the shots are crops from wide or from zooms, others are dedicated 50mm - thus the variety of quality. All of the lenses were Takumar for this shoot.
AJM 29.1.19
Schippersgracht 04/12/2016 18h23
Colorful letters which changes all the times from white, white and blue to multicolor like at the moment of the picture.
Amsterdam Light Festival
Amsterdam Light Festival is an annual light art festival in Amsterdam. Artists, architects and (light) designers from all over the world bring their light artworks and installations alive during the festival every winter. The artworks are placed alongside two routes. Each route has their own theme, set of artworks and visitor experience. Water Colors, the boat rout, displays big monumental objects and offers visitors the chance to experience the art from a water perspective. Illuminade, the walking route, shows interactive and innovative installations from upcoming designers in the Plantage neighborhood.
Celebrate winter, with art, light and water!
www.amsterdamlightfestival.com
Together
Artist: Luigi Console & Valentina Novembre
Location: Schippersgracht
Danger Zone. Love is contagious. Pericolo. L’amore è contagioso. Zona peligrosa. El amore es contagioso. Zone dangereuse. L’amour est contagieux. Gefahrenzone. Die Liebe ist ansteckend.
Italian artists Luigi Console and Valentina Novembre warn you for the contagiousness of love. Together is a subtle ambiguous comment on the contemporary status of love, as Amsterdam Light Festival jury member Tim Molloy states. Because what does love mean in times of individuality, loose connections, polarization and self-interest?
Console and Novembre make their statement about love in various languages, referring to the international character of Amsterdam. Both residents and visitors contribute to the city in their own way, all in their own language, creating a melting of mixed identities. Every word might have a different connotation in a different language, making this artwork open for various interpretations by people from different cultures.
Luigi Console and Valentina Novembre are both from the south of Italy. Console his work varies with different kinds of media, from screen-printing to creative coding and from offline media to digital media. Console focuses on the connections between visual communication techniques such as poster design and video mapping performance. Novembre has finished a master in Relational Design. She specializes in the application of relation dynamics in communication through speech and story telling. She produces design activities that combine digital media with community activities and innovation projects.
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
Days of Shadows - The Extreme Right In Portugal by Daniel Arrhakis (2024)
The extreme right in Portugal has Trump as his idol and is driven by Fascist and Nazi values and is one of the most extremist in the European Context whose supporters make frequent calls for Racism, Xenophobia and Violence!
Help us to peacefully combat the culture of hate and discrimination in order to combat the radicalization of society so that it continues to be free and plural, democratic, participatory, inclusive, fraternal and egalitarian.
___________________________________________________
A extrema direita em Portugal tem como seu Ídolo Trump e é movida por valores Fascistas e Do Nacional Socialismo e uma das mais extremistas no Contexto Europeu cujos apoiantes fazem apelos frequentes ao Racismo, à Xenofobia e à Violência !
Ajude-nos a combater de forma pacífica a cultura do ódio e a descriminação de modo a combater a radicalização da sociedade para que esta continue a ser livre e plural, democrática, participativa, inclusiva, fraterna e igualitária.
For Portuguese people in Portugal , if you want sign the petition we will be much grateful :
Ação de cidadãos - Queixa-crime contra André Ventura e Pedro Pinto : Petição Pública peticaopublica.com/?pi=PT122809
______________________________________________________________
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Sounds : Right Click and select "Open link in new tab"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIhca6mZuAk
Blues Connotation - Ornette Coleman
The original stone may have been a megalithic marker. The oldest depictions show a larger stone and site it at a different place to that of the cage protected current lithic marker. The outdoor rural court at the larger Birlay Stone under the shade of the Birley Tree first found Marion Lillie who was locally called either the Rigwoodie, or the Ringwoody Witch not guilty. The Rigwoody Witch was later accused again, the Rigwoody attached to her name and label of witch is from the Scots Rigwoody meaning thin, or bony. Her second recorded trial has her sent to further courts with a guilty verdict to present to them. Some suppose that she would have been found guilty there and put to death as a witch. Before the imperfect legal process was concluded Marion died and was buried in Spott Church grounds showing she was not convicted at the time of her demise.
Whether the either the process of accusation and defence were contributing factors in Marion’s death, or not the records are not present to say, yet there is a record, “Many witches burnt on Spott Loan,” this follows Marion’s death and some believe that these many were 13, maybe a number not recorded, as 13 are considered by some an ideal number for a coven and 13 has several wicked and even evil connotations for some. The records and several authors comments are visible through the links below. Some record Marion and link her to a Marion Lillie and some record her as the last witch burned in Scotland. We will never have that perspective that ran throughout the times when Europeans thought Witches were to be discovered, tortured and put to death. That perspective that allowed many to dispose of often elderly women who some saw as hanging on to what they waited too long for. Through the death of the falsely accused person others could be rid of the living obstacle by convicting them and killing them as a witch.
Before society could allow for people differing from ‘the norm’ there were many targets to haul before what passed for justice. Those times for some are not that far away and we can at times act like such victimisation is still completely acceptable. Every culture has people at risk as we seem to realise that high ideals are for art, culture and dreams and that low acceptance is still fuelling violence and inherited intolerance is still simmering ready to burn any that happen to be seen as Witch, whatever it meant back then and for whatever it means today. Witch is a word we say, for some it is used as an insult and a slander. Witches past and present are the ones victimised and victorious in reclaiming our rights to be different and to accepted, to be in need as we all are of the harmony and the balance that comes through tolerance. Witch is just one word that people have used to label and dehumanise another person to such extreme that a Witch being murdered was seen a blessing.
The links below give the history better than I have above.
This was part of a journey to other sites. Some are listed below.
© PHH Sykes 2022
phhsykes@gmail.com
The Witches Stone. Spott Community Association
www.spottvillage.org.uk/witches-stone-2/
Witches' Stone, Spott
canmore.org.uk/site/57667/witches-stone-spott
Witches' Stone, Spott
www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/6453/witches_stone.html
Witches' Stone, Spott
www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=8239
Witches' Stone, Spott
www.johngraycentre.org/collections/getrecord/ELHER_MEL1560/
Spott Church
Easter Broomhouse Standing Stone (Prehistoric)
canmore.org.uk/site/57622/easter-broomhouse
Also The Modern Antiquarian and The Megalithic Portal
Easter Broomhouse Standing Stone
www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/1492/
Easter Broomhouse Standing Stone
www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?x=368000&y=676600
Pencraig Hill Standing Stone (Prehistoric)
www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/1494/pencraig_hill_stan...
Pencraig Hill Standing Stone (Prehistoric)
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
What could be more French than ‘Renault’? (Well maybe you can think of something else but don’t ruin my opening statement.)
Louis Renault, one of the great and deservedly famous pioneers of the motor car, established Renault Freres LTD at Billancourt in Paris, France in 1898.
Early Renaults were strong contenders in the inter-city races, fashionable in the late 1800’s. Renaults came in first place in the Paris to Ostend – Paris to Bordeau – Paris to Toulouse – and the Paris to Berlin events in the early 1900’s.
The pictured car is a four cylinder, side valve Renault. The cylinders are cast in pairs in its 40 horsepower engine. It has a high tension magnito ignition system and is cooled by thermo-syphon circulation of water through its huge radiator, which is scuttled mounted behind the bonnet or hood, directly in front of the firewall. The ample water capacity radiator provided an uncommonly reliable cooling system.
Renaults such as depicted distinguished themselves in WW I (or as known by the Europeans, “The Great War”). There is a fascinating story that credits the Renault with service in the successful Battle of The Marne in World War I. The war was going badly for the French. In September of 1914, the Germans were advancing perilously close to Paris. 600 Paris Renault taxis were requisitioned to move a large contingent of the French army into a position to outflank the Germans – a successful armada which earned the Renault taxis the affectionate connotation, “Renault Taxis de la Marne”
............and finally, the insert background image is a poster Illustration by Toulouse-Lautrec for La Revue blanche (1895)
So now folks maybe you learned some things you didn’t know before. As I always say “one can never have enough useless information”.
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
History and Meaning of Yellow Roses
Primary Significance: Friendship, Joy, Get Well
Yellow roses have a shorter, albeit no less fascinating, history than other roses. It wasn't until around the 18th century that yellow roses were discovered growing naturally in parts of the Middle East. Prior to this, roses in cultivation predominantly existed in various shades of pink and to a lesser extent, white. However, once the first yellow roses were introduced, their popularity quickly spread.
During roughly this same time period, new rose cross-breeding and hybridization techniques were being innovated. These experiments would play an important role in the evolution of the yellow rose. One of the more compelling attributes of most roses is their sweet smelling fragrance. This was a trait that the first yellow roses did not share, and in fact, quite the opposite was true! In time however, as breeding and cultivation methods were refined, hybridizers were able to gradually phase in the more pleasing aroma that rose-lovers are accustomed to.
Also changed over the years were the meanings related to yellow roses. Throughout history, the color yellow has been closely associated with the sun. As the source of light and warmth, the sun is integral to life on Earth, and has been worshiped in many early societies. It should come as no surprise that the color of the sun would hold many positive connotations. In many Eastern cultures, for example, the color yellow represents joy, wisdom and power. However, in Europe at the time of the introduction of these roses, the color yellow carried much more negative overtones. Consequently, yellow roses were long used as a symbol for jealousy and dying love. As time went on, however, the more universal meanings connected with the color yellow have come to prevail and entwine themselves with the yellow rose. Today yellow roses are more commonly associated with joy and friendship.
A bouquet of yellow roses now brings to mind all of the sunny, cheerful feelings of warmth and happiness. In contrast to the romantic meanings attributed to other roses, the yellow rose is purely a symbol for friendship. This gives it a unique place in the pantheon of roses. Yellow roses can send the perfect message of appreciation and platonic love without the romantic subtext of other colors. They can represent feelings of joy and delight, and are an ideal way to brighten someone's day who may be feeling down. There is perhaps no other flower that is able to bring out a smile in quite the way that a yellow rose can.
Quo Vadis America by Daniel Arrhakis (2024)
Quo Vadis America ?
A Question That Is More Important Today Than Ever - Where are you going America?
A New Series America Omen Days - The World After T - Omens of a Fascist America
A Intriguing Disquieting dark Futuristic Retro World and the omens of a future if Fascism one day ruled America ...
______________________________________________________________
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Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
Legong is a form of Balinese dance. It is a refined dance form characterized by intricate finger movements, complicated footwork, and expressive gestures and facial expressions.
An extremely basic definition of legong is a dance traditionally performed by pre-pubescent girls in the palaces of feudal Bali.
One translation is that the word is made up of two words. Lega meaning happy and Ing wong meaning person – put them together and you get: “something that makes people happy”. Another one is oleg meaning dance and gong meaning gamelan, the music that accompanies the dance.
Legong probably originated in the 19th century as royal entertainment. Today the most common legong dance is Legong Keraton, so named by the Sultanate of Keraton Surakarta when the music and dance composer and genius I Wayan Lotring from Kuta was invited to perform in the 1920s with his Gamelan Pelegongan group in the keraton (palace) in Surakarta.
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Bali is an island and province of Indonesia. The province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan. It is located at the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. Its capital of Denpasar is located at the southern part of the island.
With a population of 3,890,757 in the 2010 census, and 4,225,000 as of January 2014, the island is home to most of Indonesia's Hindu minority. According to the 2010 Census, 83.5% of Bali's population adhered to Balinese Hinduism, followed by 13.4% Muslim, Christianity at 2.5%, and Buddhism 0.5%.
Bali is a popular tourist destination, which has seen a significant rise in numbers since the 1980s. It is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. The Indonesian International Film Festival is held every year in Bali.
Bali is part of the Coral Triangle, the area with the highest biodiversity of marine species. In this area alone over 500 reef building coral species can be found. For comparison, this is about 7 times as many as in the entire Caribbean. There is a wide range of dive sites with high quality reefs, all with their own specific attractions. Many sites can have strong currents and swell, so diving without a knowledgeable guide is inadvisable. Most recently, Bali was the host of the 2011 ASEAN Summit, 2013 APEC and Miss World 2013.
HISTORY
ANCIENT
Bali was inhabited around 2000 BC by Austronesian people who migrated originally from Southeast Asia and Oceania through Maritime Southeast Asia. Culturally and linguistically, the Balinese are closely related to the people of the Indonesian archipelago, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Oceania. Stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the island's west.
In ancient Bali, nine Hindu sects existed, namely Pasupata, Bhairawa, Siwa Shidanta, Waisnawa, Bodha, Brahma, Resi, Sora and Ganapatya. Each sect revered a specific deity as its personal Godhead.
Inscriptions from 896 and 911 don't mention a king, until 914, when Sri Kesarivarma is mentioned. They also reveal an independent Bali, with a distinct dialect, where Buddhism and Sivaism were practiced simultaneously. Mpu Sindok's great granddaughter, Mahendradatta (Gunapriyadharmapatni), married the Bali king Udayana Warmadewa (Dharmodayanavarmadeva) around 989, giving birth to Airlangga around 1001. This marriage also brought more Hinduism and Javanese culture to Bali. Princess Sakalendukirana appeared in 1098. Suradhipa reigned from 1115 to 1119, and Jayasakti from 1146 until 1150. Jayapangus appears on inscriptions between 1178 and 1181, while Adikuntiketana and his son Paramesvara in 1204.
Balinese culture was strongly influenced by Indian, Chinese, and particularly Hindu culture, beginning around the 1st century AD. The name Bali dwipa ("Bali island") has been discovered from various inscriptions, including the Blanjong pillar inscription written by Sri Kesari Warmadewa in 914 AD and mentioning "Walidwipa". It was during this time that the people developed their complex irrigation system subak to grow rice in wet-field cultivation. Some religious and cultural traditions still practised today can be traced to this period.
The Hindu Majapahit Empire (1293–1520 AD) on eastern Java founded a Balinese colony in 1343. The uncle of Hayam Wuruk is mentioned in the charters of 1384-86. A mass Javanese emigration occurred in the next century.
PORTUGUESE CONTACTS
The first known European contact with Bali is thought to have been made in 1512, when a Portuguese expedition led by Antonio Abreu and Francisco Serrão sighted its northern shores. It was the first expedition of a series of bi-annual fleets to the Moluccas, that throughout the 16th century usually traveled along the coasts of the Sunda Islands. Bali was also mapped in 1512, in the chart of Francisco Rodrigues, aboard the expedition. In 1585, a ship foundered off the Bukit Peninsula and left a few Portuguese in the service of Dewa Agung.
DUTCH EAST INDIA
In 1597 the Dutch explorer Cornelis de Houtman arrived at Bali, and the Dutch East India Company was established in 1602. The Dutch government expanded its control across the Indonesian archipelago during the second half of the 19th century (see Dutch East Indies). Dutch political and economic control over Bali began in the 1840s on the island's north coast, when the Dutch pitted various competing Balinese realms against each other. In the late 1890s, struggles between Balinese kingdoms in the island's south were exploited by the Dutch to increase their control.
In June 1860 the famous Welsh naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, travelled to Bali from Singapore, landing at Buleleng on the northcoast of the island. Wallace's trip to Bali was instrumental in helping him devise his Wallace Line theory. The Wallace Line is a faunal boundary that runs through the strait between Bali and Lombok. It has been found to be a boundary between species of Asiatic origin in the east and a mixture of Australian and Asian species to the west. In his travel memoir The Malay Archipelago, Wallace wrote of his experience in Bali:
I was both astonished and delighted; for as my visit to Java was some years later, I had never beheld so beautiful and well-cultivated a district out of Europe. A slightly undulating plain extends from the seacoast about ten or twelve miles inland, where it is bounded by a fine range of wooded and cultivated hills. Houses and villages, marked out by dense clumps of coconut palms, tamarind and other fruit trees, are dotted about in every direction; while between them extend luxurious rice-grounds, watered by an elaborate system of irrigation that would be the pride of the best cultivated parts of Europe.
The Dutch mounted large naval and ground assaults at the Sanur region in 1906 and were met by the thousands of members of the royal family and their followers who fought against the superior Dutch force in a suicidal puputan defensive assault rather than face the humiliation of surrender. Despite Dutch demands for surrender, an estimated 200 Balinese marched to their death against the invaders. In the Dutch intervention in Bali, a similar massacre occurred in the face of a Dutch assault in Klungkung.
AFTERWARD THE DUTCH GOVERNORS
exercised administrative control over the island, but local control over religion and culture generally remained intact. Dutch rule over Bali came later and was never as well established as in other parts of Indonesia such as Java and Maluku.
n the 1930s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, artists Miguel Covarrubias and Walter Spies, and musicologist Colin McPhee all spent time here. Their accounts of the island and its peoples created a western image of Bali as "an enchanted land of aesthetes at peace with themselves and nature." Western tourists began to visit the island.
Imperial Japan occupied Bali during World War II. It was not originally a target in their Netherlands East Indies Campaign, but as the airfields on Borneo were inoperative due to heavy rains, the Imperial Japanese Army decided to occupy Bali, which did not suffer from comparable weather. The island had no regular Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) troops. There was only a Native Auxiliary Corps Prajoda (Korps Prajoda) consisting of about 600 native soldiers and several Dutch KNIL officers under command of KNIL Lieutenant Colonel W.P. Roodenburg. On 19 February 1942 the Japanese forces landed near the town of Senoer [Senur]. The island was quickly captured.
During the Japanese occupation, a Balinese military officer, Gusti Ngurah Rai, formed a Balinese 'freedom army'. The harshness of war requisitions made Japanese rule more resented than Dutch rule. Following Japan's Pacific surrender in August 1945, the Dutch returned to Indonesia, including Bali, to reinstate their pre-war colonial administration. This was resisted by the Balinese rebels, who now used recovered Japanese weapons. On 20 November 1946, the Battle of Marga was fought in Tabanan in central Bali. Colonel I Gusti Ngurah Rai, by then 29 years old, finally rallied his forces in east Bali at Marga Rana, where they made a suicide attack on the heavily armed Dutch. The Balinese battalion was entirely wiped out, breaking the last thread of Balinese military resistance.
INDIPENDENCE FROM THE DUTCH
In 1946, the Dutch constituted Bali as one of the 13 administrative districts of the newly proclaimed State of East Indonesia, a rival state to the Republic of Indonesia, which was proclaimed and headed by Sukarno and Hatta. Bali was included in the "Republic of the United States of Indonesia" when the Netherlands recognised Indonesian independence on 29 December 1949.
CONTEMPORARY
The 1963 eruption of Mount Agung killed thousands, created economic havoc and forced many displaced Balinese to be transmigrated to other parts of Indonesia. Mirroring the widening of social divisions across Indonesia in the 1950s and early 1960s, Bali saw conflict between supporters of the traditional caste system, and those rejecting this system. Politically, the opposition was represented by supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI), with tensions and ill-feeling further increased by the PKI's land reform programs. An attempted coup in Jakarta was put down by forces led by General Suharto.
The army became the dominant power as it instigated a violent anti-communist purge, in which the army blamed the PKI for the coup. Most estimates suggest that at least 500,000 people were killed across Indonesia, with an estimated 80,000 killed in Bali, equivalent to 5% of the island's population. With no Islamic forces involved as in Java and Sumatra, upper-caste PNI landlords led the extermination of PKI members.
As a result of the 1965/66 upheavals, Suharto was able to manoeuvre Sukarno out of the presidency. His "New Order" government reestablished relations with western countries. The pre-War Bali as "paradise" was revived in a modern form. The resulting large growth in tourism has led to a dramatic increase in Balinese standards of living and significant foreign exchange earned for the country. A bombing in 2002 by militant Islamists in the tourist area of Kuta killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. This attack, and another in 2005, severely reduced tourism, producing much economic hardship to the island.
GEOGRAPHY
The island of Bali lies 3.2 km east of Java, and is approximately 8 degrees south of the equator. Bali and Java are separated by the Bali Strait. East to west, the island is approximately 153 km wide and spans approximately 112 km north to south; administratively it covers 5,780 km2, or 5,577 km2 without Nusa Penida District, its population density is roughly 750 people/km2.
Bali's central mountains include several peaks over 3,000 metres in elevation. The highest is Mount Agung (3,031 m), known as the "mother mountain" which is an active volcano rated as one of the world's most likely sites for a massive eruption within the next 100 years. Mountains range from centre to the eastern side, with Mount Agung the easternmost peak. Bali's volcanic nature has contributed to its exceptional fertility and its tall mountain ranges provide the high rainfall that supports the highly productive agriculture sector. South of the mountains is a broad, steadily descending area where most of Bali's large rice crop is grown. The northern side of the mountains slopes more steeply to the sea and is the main coffee producing area of the island, along with rice, vegetables and cattle. The longest river, Ayung River, flows approximately 75 km.
The island is surrounded by coral reefs. Beaches in the south tend to have white sand while those in the north and west have black sand. Bali has no major waterways, although the Ho River is navigable by small sampan boats. Black sand beaches between Pasut and Klatingdukuh are being developed for tourism, but apart from the seaside temple of Tanah Lot, they are not yet used for significant tourism.
The largest city is the provincial capital, Denpasar, near the southern coast. Its population is around 491,500 (2002). Bali's second-largest city is the old colonial capital, Singaraja, which is located on the north coast and is home to around 100,000 people. Other important cities include the beach resort, Kuta, which is practically part of Denpasar's urban area, and Ubud, situated at the north of Denpasar, is the island's cultural centre.
Three small islands lie to the immediate south east and all are administratively part of the Klungkung regency of Bali: Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan. These islands are separated from Bali by the Badung Strait.
To the east, the Lombok Strait separates Bali from Lombok and marks the biogeographical division between the fauna of the Indomalayan ecozone and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia. The transition is known as the Wallace Line, named after Alfred Russel Wallace, who first proposed a transition zone between these two major biomes. When sea levels dropped during the Pleistocene ice age, Bali was connected to Java and Sumatra and to the mainland of Asia and shared the Asian fauna, but the deep water of the Lombok Strait continued to keep Lombok Island and the Lesser Sunda archipelago isolated.
CLIMATE
Being just 8 degrees south of the equator, Bali has a fairly even climate year round.
Day time temperatures at low elevations vary between 20-33⁰ C although it can be much cooler than that in the mountains. The west monsoon is in place from approximately October to April and this can bring significant rain, particularly from December to March. Outside of the monsoon period, humidity is relatively low and any rain unlikely in lowland areas.
ECOLOGY
Bali lies just to the west of the Wallace Line, and thus has a fauna that is Asian in character, with very little Australasian influence, and has more in common with Java than with Lombok. An exception is the yellow-crested cockatoo, a member of a primarily Australasian family. There are around 280 species of birds, including the critically endangered Bali myna, which is endemic. Others Include barn swallow, black-naped oriole, black racket-tailed treepie, crested serpent-eagle, crested treeswift, dollarbird, Java sparrow, lesser adjutant, long-tailed shrike, milky stork, Pacific swallow, red-rumped swallow, sacred kingfisher, sea eagle, woodswallow, savanna nightjar, stork-billed kingfisher, yellow-vented bulbul and great egret.
Until the early 20th century, Bali was home to several large mammals: the wild banteng, leopard and the endemic Bali tiger. The banteng still occurs in its domestic form, whereas leopards are found only in neighbouring Java, and the Bali tiger is extinct. The last definite record of a tiger on Bali dates from 1937, when one was shot, though the subspecies may have survived until the 1940s or 1950s. The relatively small size of the island, conflict with humans, poaching and habitat reduction drove the Bali tiger to extinction. This was the smallest and rarest of all tiger subspecies and was never caught on film or displayed in zoos, whereas few skins or bones remain in museums around the world. Today, the largest mammals are the Javan rusa deer and the wild boar. A second, smaller species of deer, the Indian muntjac, also occurs. Saltwater crocodiles were once present on the island, but became locally extinct sometime during the last century.
Squirrels are quite commonly encountered, less often is the Asian palm civet, which is also kept in coffee farms to produce Kopi Luwak. Bats are well represented, perhaps the most famous place to encounter them remaining the Goa Lawah (Temple of the Bats) where they are worshipped by the locals and also constitute a tourist attraction. They also occur in other cave temples, for instance at Gangga Beach. Two species of monkey occur. The crab-eating macaque, known locally as "kera", is quite common around human settlements and temples, where it becomes accustomed to being fed by humans, particularly in any of the three "monkey forest" temples, such as the popular one in the Ubud area. They are also quite often kept as pets by locals. The second monkey, endemic to Java and some surrounding islands such as Bali, is far rarer and more elusive is the Javan langur, locally known as "lutung". They occur in few places apart from the Bali Barat National Park. They are born an orange colour, though by their first year they would have already changed to a more blackish colouration. In Java however, there is more of a tendency for this species to retain its juvenile orange colour into adulthood, and so you can see a mixture of black and orange monkeys together as a family. Other rarer mammals include the leopard cat, Sunda pangolin and black giant squirrel.
Snakes include the king cobra and reticulated python. The water monitor can grow to at least 1.5 m in length and 50 kg and can move quickly.
The rich coral reefs around the coast, particularly around popular diving spots such as Tulamben, Amed, Menjangan or neighbouring Nusa Penida, host a wide range of marine life, for instance hawksbill turtle, giant sunfish, giant manta ray, giant moray eel, bumphead parrotfish, hammerhead shark, reef shark, barracuda, and sea snakes. Dolphins are commonly encountered on the north coast near Singaraja and Lovina.
A team of scientists conducted a survey from 29 April 2011 to 11 May 2011 at 33 sea sites around Bali. They discovered 952 species of reef fish of which 8 were new discoveries at Pemuteran, Gilimanuk, Nusa Dua, Tulamben and Candidasa, and 393 coral species, including two new ones at Padangbai and between Padangbai and Amed. The average coverage level of healthy coral was 36% (better than in Raja Ampat and Halmahera by 29% or in Fakfak and Kaimana by 25%) with the highest coverage found in Gili Selang and Gili Mimpang in Candidasa, Karangasem regency.
Many plants have been introduced by humans within the last centuries, particularly since the 20th century, making it sometimes hard to distinguish what plants are really native.[citation needed] Among the larger trees the most common are: banyan trees, jackfruit, coconuts, bamboo species, acacia trees and also endless rows of coconuts and banana species. Numerous flowers can be seen: hibiscus, frangipani, bougainvillea, poinsettia, oleander, jasmine, water lily, lotus, roses, begonias, orchids and hydrangeas exist. On higher grounds that receive more moisture, for instance around Kintamani, certain species of fern trees, mushrooms and even pine trees thrive well. Rice comes in many varieties. Other plants with agricultural value include: salak, mangosteen, corn, kintamani orange, coffee and water spinach.
ENVIRONMENT
Some of the worst erosion has occurred in Lebih Beach, where up to 7 metres of land is lost every year. Decades ago, this beach was used for holy pilgrimages with more than 10,000 people, but they have now moved to Masceti Beach.
From ranked third in previous review, in 2010 Bali got score 99.65 of Indonesia's environmental quality index and the highest of all the 33 provinces. The score measured 3 water quality parameters: the level of total suspended solids (TSS), dissolved oxygen (DO) and chemical oxygen demand (COD).
Because of over-exploitation by the tourist industry which covers a massive land area, 200 out of 400 rivers on the island have dried up and based on research, the southern part of Bali would face a water shortage up to 2,500 litres of clean water per second by 2015. To ease the shortage, the central government plans to build a water catchment and processing facility at Petanu River in Gianyar. The 300 litres capacity of water per second will be channelled to Denpasar, Badung and Gianyar in 2013.
ECONOMY
Three decades ago, the Balinese economy was largely agriculture-based in terms of both output and employment. Tourism is now the largest single industry in terms of income, and as a result, Bali is one of Indonesia's wealthiest regions. In 2003, around 80% of Bali's economy was tourism related. By end of June 2011, non-performing loan of all banks in Bali were 2.23%, lower than the average of Indonesian banking industry non-performing loan (about 5%). The economy, however, suffered significantly as a result of the terrorist bombings 2002 and 2005. The tourism industry has since recovered from these events.
AGRICULTURE
Although tourism produces the GDP's largest output, agriculture is still the island's biggest employer; most notably rice cultivation. Crops grown in smaller amounts include fruit, vegetables, Coffea arabica and other cash and subsistence crops. Fishing also provides a significant number of jobs. Bali is also famous for its artisans who produce a vast array of handicrafts, including batik and ikat cloth and clothing, wooden carvings, stone carvings, painted art and silverware. Notably, individual villages typically adopt a single product, such as wind chimes or wooden furniture.
The Arabica coffee production region is the highland region of Kintamani near Mount Batur. Generally, Balinese coffee is processed using the wet method. This results in a sweet, soft coffee with good consistency. Typical flavours include lemon and other citrus notes. Many coffee farmers in Kintamani are members of a traditional farming system called Subak Abian, which is based on the Hindu philosophy of "Tri Hita Karana". According to this philosophy, the three causes of happiness are good relations with God, other people and the environment. The Subak Abian system is ideally suited to the production of fair trade and organic coffee production. Arabica coffee from Kintamani is the first product in Indonesia to request a Geographical Indication.
TOURISM
The tourism industry is primarily focused in the south, while significant in the other parts of the island as well. The main tourist locations are the town of Kuta (with its beach), and its outer suburbs of Legian and Seminyak (which were once independent townships), the east coast town of Sanur (once the only tourist hub), in the center of the island Ubud, to the south of the Ngurah Rai International Airport, Jimbaran, and the newer development of Nusa Dua and Pecatu.
The American government lifted its travel warnings in 2008. The Australian government issued an advice on Friday, 4 May 2012. The overall level of the advice was lowered to 'Exercise a high degree of caution'. The Swedish government issued a new warning on Sunday, 10 June 2012 because of one more tourist who was killed by methanol poisoning. Australia last issued an advice on Monday, 5 January 2015 due to new terrorist threats.
An offshoot of tourism is the growing real estate industry. Bali real estate has been rapidly developing in the main tourist areas of Kuta, Legian, Seminyak and Oberoi. Most recently, high-end 5 star projects are under development on the Bukit peninsula, on the south side of the island. Million dollar villas are being developed along the cliff sides of south Bali, commanding panoramic ocean views. Foreign and domestic (many Jakarta individuals and companies are fairly active) investment into other areas of the island also continues to grow. Land prices, despite the worldwide economic crisis, have remained stable.
In the last half of 2008, Indonesia's currency had dropped approximately 30% against the US dollar, providing many overseas visitors value for their currencies. Visitor arrivals for 2009 were forecast to drop 8% (which would be higher than 2007 levels), due to the worldwide economic crisis which has also affected the global tourist industry, but not due to any travel warnings.
Bali's tourism economy survived the terrorist bombings of 2002 and 2005, and the tourism industry has in fact slowly recovered and surpassed its pre-terrorist bombing levels; the longterm trend has been a steady increase of visitor arrivals. In 2010, Bali received 2.57 million foreign tourists, which surpassed the target of 2.0–2.3 million tourists. The average occupancy of starred hotels achieved 65%, so the island is still able to accommodate tourists for some years without any addition of new rooms/hotels, although at the peak season some of them are fully booked.
Bali received the Best Island award from Travel and Leisure in 2010. The island of Bali won because of its attractive surroundings (both mountain and coastal areas), diverse tourist attractions, excellent international and local restaurants, and the friendliness of the local people. According to BBC Travel released in 2011, Bali is one of the World's Best Islands, ranking second after Santorini, Greece.
In August 2010, the film Eat Pray Love was released in theatres. The movie was based on Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love. It took place at Ubud and Padang-Padang Beach at Bali. The 2006 book, which spent 57 weeks at the No. 1 spot on the New York Times paperback nonfiction best-seller list, had already fuelled a boom in Eat, Pray, Love-related tourism in Ubud, the hill town and cultural and tourist center that was the focus of Gilbert's quest for balance through traditional spirituality and healing that leads to love.
In January 2016, after music icon David Bowie died, it was revealed that in his will, Bowie asked for his ashes to be scattered in Bali, conforming to Buddhist rituals. He had visited and performed in a number of Southest Asian cities early in his career, including Bangkok and Singapore.
Since 2011, China has displaced Japan as the second-largest supplier of tourists to Bali, while Australia still tops the list. Chinese tourists increased by 17% from last year due to the impact of ACFTA and new direct flights to Bali. In January 2012, Chinese tourists year on year (yoy) increased by 222.18% compared to January 2011, while Japanese tourists declined by 23.54% yoy.
Bali reported that it has 2.88 million foreign tourists and 5 million domestic tourists in 2012, marginally surpassing the expectations of 2.8 million foreign tourists. Forecasts for 2013 are at 3.1 million.
Based on Bank Indonesia survey in May 2013, 34.39 percent of tourists are upper-middle class with spending between $1,286 to $5,592 and dominated by Australia, France, China, Germany and the US with some China tourists move from low spending before to higher spending currently. While 30.26 percent are middle class with spending between $662 to $1,285.
SEX TOURISM
In the twentieth century the incidence of tourism specifically for sex was regularly observed in the era of mass tourism in Indonesia In Bali, prostitution is conducted by both men and women. Bali in particular is notorious for its 'Kuta Cowboys', local gigolos targeting foreign female tourists.
Tens of thousands of single women throng the beaches of Bali in Indonesia every year. For decades, young Balinese men have taken advantage of the louche and laid-back atmosphere to find love and lucre from female tourists—Japanese, European and Australian for the most part—who by all accounts seem perfectly happy with the arrangement.
By 2013, Indonesia was reportedly the number one destination for Australian child sex tourists, mostly starting in Bali but also travelling to other parts of the country. The problem in Bali was highlighted by Luh Ketut Suryani, head of Psychiatry at Udayana University, as early as 2003. Surayani warned that a low level of awareness of paedophilia in Bali had made it the target of international paedophile organisations. On 19 February 2013, government officials announced measures to combat paedophilia in Bali.
TRANSPORTATION
The Ngurah Rai International Airport is located near Jimbaran, on the isthmus at the southernmost part of the island. Lt.Col. Wisnu Airfield is found in north-west Bali.
A coastal road circles the island, and three major two-lane arteries cross the central mountains at passes reaching to 1,750m in height (at Penelokan). The Ngurah Rai Bypass is a four-lane expressway that partly encircles Denpasar. Bali has no railway lines.
In December 2010 the Government of Indonesia invited investors to build a new Tanah Ampo Cruise Terminal at Karangasem, Bali with a projected worth of $30 million. On 17 July 2011 the first cruise ship (Sun Princess) anchored about 400 meters away from the wharf of Tanah Ampo harbour. The current pier is only 154 meters but will eventually be extended to 300–350 meters to accommodate international cruise ships. The harbour here is safer than the existing facility at Benoa and has a scenic backdrop of east Bali mountains and green rice fields. The tender for improvement was subject to delays, and as of July 2013 the situation remained unclear with cruise line operators complaining and even refusing to use the existing facility at Tanah Ampo.
A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by two ministers, Bali's Governor and Indonesian Train Company to build 565 kilometres of railway along the coast around the island. As of July 2015, no details of this proposed railways have been released.
On 16 March 2011 (Tanjung) Benoa port received the "Best Port Welcome 2010" award from London's "Dream World Cruise Destination" magazine. Government plans to expand the role of Benoa port as export-import port to boost Bali's trade and industry sector. The Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry has confirmed that 306 cruise liners are heading for Indonesia in 2013 – an increase of 43 percent compared to the previous year.
In May 2011, an integrated Areal Traffic Control System (ATCS) was implemented to reduce traffic jams at four crossing points: Ngurah Rai statue, Dewa Ruci Kuta crossing, Jimbaran crossing and Sanur crossing. ATCS is an integrated system connecting all traffic lights, CCTVs and other traffic signals with a monitoring office at the police headquarters. It has successfully been implemented in other ASEAN countries and will be implemented at other crossings in Bali.
On 21 December 2011 construction started on the Nusa Dua-Benoa-Ngurah Rai International Airport toll road which will also provide a special lane for motorcycles. This has been done by seven state-owned enterprises led by PT Jasa Marga with 60% of shares. PT Jasa Marga Bali Tol will construct the 9.91 kilometres toll road (totally 12.7 kilometres with access road). The construction is estimated to cost Rp.2.49 trillion ($273.9 million). The project goes through 2 kilometres of mangrove forest and through 2.3 kilometres of beach, both within 5.4 hectares area. The elevated toll road is built over the mangrove forest on 18,000 concrete pillars which occupied 2 hectares of mangroves forest. It compensated by new planting of 300,000 mangrove trees along the road. On 21 December 2011 the Dewa Ruci 450 meters underpass has also started on the busy Dewa Ruci junction near Bali Kuta Galeria with an estimated cost of Rp136 billion ($14.9 million) from the state budget. On 23 September 2013, the Bali Mandara Toll Road is opened and the Dewa Ruci Junction (Simpang Siur) underpass is opened before. Both are ease the heavy traffic congestion.
To solve chronic traffic problems, the province will also build a toll road connecting Serangan with Tohpati, a toll road connecting Kuta, Denpasar and Tohpati and a flyover connecting Kuta and Ngurah Rai Airport.
DEMOGRAPHICS
The population of Bali was 3,890,757 as of the 2010 Census; the latest estimate (for January 2014) is 4,225,384. There are an estimated 30,000 expatriates living in Bali.
ETHNIC ORIGINS
A DNA study in 2005 by Karafet et al. found that 12% of Balinese Y-chromosomes are of likely Indian origin, while 84% are of likely Austronesian origin, and 2% of likely Melanesian origin. The study does not correlate the DNA samples to the Balinese caste system.
CASTE SYSTEM
Bali has a caste system based on the Indian Hindu model, with four castes:
- Sudra (Shudra) – peasants constituting close to 93% of Bali's population.
- Wesia (Vaishyas) – the caste of merchants and administrative officials
- Ksatrias (Kshatriyas) – the kingly and warrior caste
- Brahmana (Bramhin) – holy men and priests
RELIGION
Unlike most of Muslim-majority Indonesia, about 83.5% of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, formed as a combination of existing local beliefs and Hindu influences from mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. Minority religions include Islam (13.3%), Christianity (1.7%), and Buddhism (0.5%). These figures do not include immigrants from other parts of Indonesia.
Balinese Hinduism is an amalgam in which gods and demigods are worshipped together with Buddhist heroes, the spirits of ancestors, indigenous agricultural deities and sacred places. Religion as it is practised in Bali is a composite belief system that embraces not only theology, philosophy, and mythology, but ancestor worship, animism and magic. It pervades nearly every aspect of traditional life. Caste is observed, though less strictly than in India. With an estimated 20,000 puras (temples) and shrines, Bali is known as the "Island of a Thousand Puras", or "Island of the Gods". This is refer to Mahabarata story that behind Bali became island of god or "pulau dewata" in Indonesian language.
Balinese Hinduism has roots in Indian Hinduism and Buddhism, and adopted the animistic traditions of the indigenous people. This influence strengthened the belief that the gods and goddesses are present in all things. Every element of nature, therefore, possesses its own power, which reflects the power of the gods. A rock, tree, dagger, or woven cloth is a potential home for spirits whose energy can be directed for good or evil. Balinese Hinduism is deeply interwoven with art and ritual. Ritualizing states of self-control are a notable feature of religious expression among the people, who for this reason have become famous for their graceful and decorous behaviour.
Apart from the majority of Balinese Hindus, there also exist Chinese immigrants whose traditions have melded with that of the locals. As a result, these Sino-Balinese not only embrace their original religion, which is a mixture of Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism and Confucianism, but also find a way to harmonise it with the local traditions. Hence, it is not uncommon to find local Sino-Balinese during the local temple's odalan. Moreover, Balinese Hindu priests are invited to perform rites alongside a Chinese priest in the event of the death of a Sino-Balinese. Nevertheless, the Sino-Balinese claim to embrace Buddhism for administrative purposes, such as their Identity Cards.
LANGUAGE
Balinese and Indonesian are the most widely spoken languages in Bali, and the vast majority of Balinese people are bilingual or trilingual. The most common spoken language around the tourist areas is Indonesian, as many people in the tourist sector are not solely Balinese, but migrants from Java, Lombok, Sumatra, and other parts of Indonesia. There are several indigenous Balinese languages, but most Balinese can also use the most widely spoken option: modern common Balinese. The usage of different Balinese languages was traditionally determined by the Balinese caste system and by clan membership, but this tradition is diminishing. Kawi and Sanskrit are also commonly used by some Hindu priests in Bali, for Hinduism literature was mostly written in Sanskrit.
English and Chinese are the next most common languages (and the primary foreign languages) of many Balinese, owing to the requirements of the tourism industry, as well as the English-speaking community and huge Chinese-Indonesian population. Other foreign languages, such as Japanese, Korean, French, Russian or German are often used in multilingual signs for foreign tourists.
CULTURE
Bali is renowned for its diverse and sophisticated art forms, such as painting, sculpture, woodcarving, handcrafts, and performing arts. Balinese cuisine is also distinctive. Balinese percussion orchestra music, known as gamelan, is highly developed and varied. Balinese performing arts often portray stories from Hindu epics such as the Ramayana but with heavy Balinese influence. Famous Balinese dances include pendet, legong, baris, topeng, barong, gong keybar, and kecak (the monkey dance). Bali boasts one of the most diverse and innovative performing arts cultures in the world, with paid performances at thousands of temple festivals, private ceremonies, or public shows.
The Hindu New Year, Nyepi, is celebrated in the spring by a day of silence. On this day everyone stays at home and tourists are encouraged to remain in their hotels. On the day before New Year, large and colourful sculptures of ogoh-ogoh monsters are paraded and finally burned in the evening to drive away evil spirits. Other festivals throughout the year are specified by the Balinese pawukon calendrical system.
Celebrations are held for many occasions such as a tooth-filing (coming-of-age ritual), cremation or odalan (temple festival). One of the most important concepts that Balinese ceremonies have in common is that of désa kala patra, which refers to how ritual performances must be appropriate in both the specific and general social context. Many of the ceremonial art forms such as wayang kulit and topeng are highly improvisatory, providing flexibility for the performer to adapt the performance to the current situation. Many celebrations call for a loud, boisterous atmosphere with lots of activity and the resulting aesthetic, ramé, is distinctively Balinese. Often two or more gamelan ensembles will be performing well within earshot, and sometimes compete with each other to be heard. Likewise, the audience members talk amongst themselves, get up and walk around, or even cheer on the performance, which adds to the many layers of activity and the liveliness typical of ramé.
Kaja and kelod are the Balinese equivalents of North and South, which refer to ones orientation between the island's largest mountain Gunung Agung (kaja), and the sea (kelod). In addition to spatial orientation, kaja and kelod have the connotation of good and evil; gods and ancestors are believed to live on the mountain whereas demons live in the sea. Buildings such as temples and residential homes are spatially oriented by having the most sacred spaces closest to the mountain and the unclean places nearest to the sea.
Most temples have an inner courtyard and an outer courtyard which are arranged with the inner courtyard furthest kaja. These spaces serve as performance venues since most Balinese rituals are accompanied by any combination of music, dance and drama. The performances that take place in the inner courtyard are classified as wali, the most sacred rituals which are offerings exclusively for the gods, while the outer courtyard is where bebali ceremonies are held, which are intended for gods and people. Lastly, performances meant solely for the entertainment of humans take place outside the walls of the temple and are called bali-balihan. This three-tiered system of classification was standardised in 1971 by a committee of Balinese officials and artists to better protect the sanctity of the oldest and most sacred Balinese rituals from being performed for a paying audience.
Tourism, Bali's chief industry, has provided the island with a foreign audience that is eager to pay for entertainment, thus creating new performance opportunities and more demand for performers. The impact of tourism is controversial since before it became integrated into the economy, the Balinese performing arts did not exist as a capitalist venture, and were not performed for entertainment outside of their respective ritual context. Since the 1930s sacred rituals such as the barong dance have been performed both in their original contexts, as well as exclusively for paying tourists. This has led to new versions of many of these performances which have developed according to the preferences of foreign audiences; some villages have a barong mask specifically for non-ritual performances as well as an older mask which is only used for sacred performances.
Balinese society continues to revolve around each family's ancestral village, to which the cycle of life and religion is closely tied. Coercive aspects of traditional society, such as customary law sanctions imposed by traditional authorities such as village councils (including "kasepekang", or shunning) have risen in importance as a consequence of the democratisation and decentralisation of Indonesia since 1998.
WIKIPEDIA
Strolling around Bogotá testing a new camera.
Rolleiflex 6003 Pro + Zeiss Planar 80mm 1:2.8 + Kodak Portra 160VC (expired 2004).
Outside 'Poder Fotográfico,' the best photo lab I've ever encountered anywhere, a young girl offered to pose for a quick shot with my little dog; clearly, he looks rather bored as he hates having his pic taken.
© 2011 Prezioso PH
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
Cotton - 120x90 cm - Picture taken in my Art Gallery
What do we see here?
First of all: this art looks like ordinary painting done with a brush. It is not. It is a totaly different and complicate process. If you don´t know already how to make batik, please read the article below to understand the difference to our thinking about painting. The batik-artist doesn´t draw with colours, he draws with wax and the colouring is done by dipping the whole peace of cloth into the desired colour liquet. Then removing the wax in boiling water and starting new for the next colour. And this so many times as the different colours in the finished batik. This takes month o finish. And you have to think opposit: you don´t draw the painting - you draw what will not be the painting!
That´s why this thousands of years old technic is declared as a
UNESCO Heritage Of Human Art.
You can see in his Batik Paintings elements of islamic art
____________________________________________
BATIK
Batik is a technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a canting, or by printing the resist with a copper stamp called a cap. The applied wax resists dyes and therefore allows the artisan to colour selectively by soaking the cloth in one colour, removing the wax with boiling water, and repeating if multiple colours are desired.
Batik is an ancient art form of Indonesia made with wax resistant dye on fabrics. Indonesian coastal batik (batik pesisir) made in the island of Java has a history of acculturation, a mixture of native and foreign cultures. It is a newer model compared to inland batik, and it uses more colors, though the patterns are a lot less intricate. This is because inland batik used to be made by select experts living in palace areas, while coastal batik can be made by anyone.
Batik is very important to Indonesians and many people would wear it to formal or casual events. Batik is commonly used by Indonesians in various rituals, ceremonies, traditions, celebrations, and even in daily uses.
On October 2, 2009, UNESCO officially recognized the batik (written batik (batik tulis) and stamped batik (batik cap)) as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity from Indonesia, and encouraged the Indonesian people and the Indonesian government to safeguard, transmit, promote, and develop the craftsmanship of batik. Since then, Indonesia celebrates "the National Batik Day" (in Indonesian: Hari Batik Nasional) annually on October 2. Nowadays, Indonesians would wear batik in honor of this ancient tradition.
In the same year, UNESCO also recognized "Education and training in Indonesian Batik intangible cultural heritage for elementary, junior, senior, vocational school and polytechnic students, in collaboration with the Batik Museum in Pekalongan" as Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in Register of Good Safeguarding Practices List.
Batik is considered a cultural icon in modern Indonesia, where "National Batik Day" (in Indonesian: Hari Batik Nasional) is celebrated annually on October 2. Many Indonesians continue to wear batik on a daily basis for casual and formal occasions.
ETYMOLOY
The word batik is Javanese in origin. It comes from the Javanese ambatik that consist of amba means "wide" or "large", and tik or nitik means "dot" or "make a dot". The word bathikan also means "drawing" or "writing" in Javanese. When the word is absorbed to Malay (including both Indonesian and Malaysian standards), the "th-" sound is reduced to a "t-" sound more pronouncable to non-Javanese speakers.
The word batik is first recorded in English in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1880, in which it is spelled as battik. It is attested in the Indonesian Archipelago during the Dutch colonial period in various forms such as mbatik, mbatek, batik and batek. Batik known as euyeuk in Sundanese, cloth can be processed into a form of batik by a pangeyeuk (batik maker).
HISTORY
Batik is an ancient fabric wax-resist dyeing tradition of Java, Indonesia. The art of batik is most highly developed and some of the best batiks in the world still made there. In Java, all the materials for the process are readily available – cotton and beeswax and plants from which different vegetable dyes are made. Indonesian batik predates written records: G. P. Rouffaer argues that the technique might have been introduced during the 6th or 7th century from India or Sri Lanka. On the other hand, the Dutch archaeologist J.L.A. Brandes and the Indonesian archaeologist F.A. Sutjipto believe Indonesian batik is a native tradition, since several regions in Indonesia such as Toraja, Flores, and Halmahera which were not directly influenced by Hinduism, have attested batik making tradition as well.
The existence of the oldest Batik activities came from Ponorogo which was still called Wengker before the 7th century, the Kingdom in Central Java learned batik from Ponorogo. Because of this, Ponorogo batik is somewhat similar to batik circulating in Central Java, except that the batik produced by Ponorogo is generally dark black or commonly called batik irengan because it is close to magical elements. so that it was developed by the kingdoms in Central Java and Yogyakarta.
Based on the contents of the Sundanese Manuscript, Sundanese people have known about Batik since the 12th century. Based on ancient Sundanese manuscript Sanghyang Siksa Kandang Karesian written 1518 AD, it is recorded that Sundanese having batik which is identical and representative of Sundanese culture in general. Several motif are even noted in the text, based on those data sources the process of Batik Sundanese creation begins step by step.
Rouffaer reported that the gringsing pattern was already known by the 12th century in Kediri, East Java. He concluded that this delicate pattern could be created only by using the canting, an etching tool that holds a small reservoir of hot wax invented in Java around that time. The carving details of clothes worn by East Javanese Prajnaparamita statues from around the 13th century show intricate floral patterns within rounded margins, similar to today's traditional Javanese jlamprang or ceplok batik motif. The motif is thought to represent the lotus, a sacred flower in Hindu-Buddhist beliefs. This evidence suggests that intricate batik fabric patterns applied with the canting existed in 13th-century Java or even earlier. By the last quarter of the 13th century, the batik cloth from Java has been exported to Karimata islands, Siam, even as far as Mosul.
In Europe, the technique was described for the first time in the "History of Java", published in London in 1817 by Stamford Raffles, who had been a British governor of Bengkulu, Sumatra. In 1873 the Dutch merchant Van Rijckevorsel gave the pieces he collected during a trip to Indonesia to the ethnographic museum in Rotterdam. Today the Tropenmuseum houses the biggest collection of Indonesian batik in the Netherlands. The Dutch and Chinese colonists were active in developing batik, particularly coastal batik, in the late colonial era. They introduced new patterns as well as the use of the cap (copper block stamps) to mass-produce batiks. Displayed at the Exposition Universelle at Paris in 1900, the Indonesian batik impressed the public and artists.
In the 1920s, Javanese batik makers migrating to Malay Peninsula (present-day Malaysia, South Thailand, and southern tip of Myanmar) introduced the use of wax and copper blocks to its east coast.
In Subsaharan Africa, Javanese batik was introduced in the 19th century by Dutch and English traders. The local people there adapted the Javanese batik, making larger motifs with thicker lines and more colours. In the 1970s, batik was introduced to Australia, where aboriginal artists at Erna Bella have developed it as their own craft.
In Africa, it was originally practised by the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria, Soninke and Wolof in Senegal.[20] This African version, however, uses cassava starch or rice paste, or mud as a resist instead of beeswax.
TECHNIQUES
Initially, batik making techniques only used "written batik" (batik tulis) techniques. This batik tulis is known as the original batik from generation to generation from the Indonesian nation's ancestors because the process and workmanship are still very traditional and manual. Then the technique developed with the discovery of the stamped batik (batik cap) technique which made batik work faster. The batik tulis and batik cap techniques are recognized by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity from Indonesia because it still uses waxes in the making process.
WRITTEN BATIK (BATIK TULIS)
Written batik or batik tulis (Javanese script: ꦧꦠꦶꦏ꧀ꦠꦸꦭꦶꦱ꧀; Pegon: باتيق توليس) is made by writing wax liquid on the surface of the cloth with a tool called canting. Canting made of copper with a handle made of bamboo or wood. The making of hand-written batik takes approximately 1–3 months depending on the complexity and detail of batik. Because the working techniques are still traditional and manual, making hand-written batik takes longer and is more complicated than other batik techniques. In addition, the fundamental difference between written batik compared to other batik is that there are differences in each pattern, for example, a number of points or curved lines that are not the same because they are made manually by hand. This characteristic of hand-written batik makes hand-written batik more valuable and unique compared to other batiks.Written batik technique is the most complicated, smooth, and longest process to work with, so a piece of original batik tulis cloth is usually sold at a higher price. However, this is the advantage of batik with the written process, which is more exclusive because it is purely handmade. In Indonesia, premium hand-written batik clothes are usually only worn by certain people at special events, in the form of long-sleeved shirts or modern batik dresses. The batik motif in Indonesia has developed depending on its history and place of origin.
STAMPED BATIK (BATIK CAP)
Stamped batik or batik cap (Javanese script: ꦧꦠꦶꦏ꧀ꦕꦥ꧀; Pegon: باتيق چڤ) is batik whose manufacturing process uses a stamp tool. This stamp tool is made of copper plates which form a batik motif on one of its surfaces. Stamp tool or canting cap is made by people who are experts in that field. Making batik with cap works the same way as using a stamp, but using waxes, not ink. This experience process is not easy to do. To make one piece of batik cloth, the process of deepening is carried out several times depending on the number of colors desired. Cap is used to replacing the canting function so that it can shorten the manufacturing time. Batik cap is produced from the process of dyeing a tool made of copper which has been shaped in such a way on the cloth. The batik cap motif is considered to have less artistic value because all the motifs are exactly the same. The price of printed batik is cheaper than written batik because it can be made en masse. The distinctive feature of batik cap can be seen from the repeating pattern and/or ornament motif. Historically, this batik cap process was discovered and popularized by the brethren as a solution to the limited capacity of batik production if it was only processed with hand-written techniques (batik tulis). The process of making this type of batik takes approximately 2–3 days. The advantages of batik cap are easier, faster batik processing, and the most striking of which is the more neat and repetitive motifs. While the drawbacks of batik cap include the mainstream design because it usually goes into mass production, in terms of art it looks stiffer and the motifs are not too detailed, and what is certain is the possibility of having the same batik as other people is greater.
PAINTED BATIK (BATIK TULIS)
Painted batik, batik painting, or batik lukis (Javanese script: ꦧꦠꦶꦏ꧀ꦭꦸꦏꦶꦱ꧀; Pegon: باتيق لوكيس) is a technique of making batik by painting (with or without a pattern) on a white cloth using a medium or a combined medium like canting, brush, banana stalk, broomsticks, cotton, toothpicks, patchwork, or other media depending on the expression of a painter. Batik painting is the result of the development of batik art. The essence of batik painting is the process of making batik that does not use traditional motifs that are commonly found. The resulting motifs are the creation of the maker, usually producing contemporary (free) motifs or patterns with brighter, more striking colors, and more diverse color variations. The coloring in painted batik tends to be free and plays with many colors that are not often found in written batik (batik tulis). There are also gradation effects and other painting effects. The drawings are made as if painted batik is an ordinary painting poured on cloth using wax as the medium.
In principle, painted batik is almost the same way with written batik in the making process. Because of the development of classic written batik, painted batik still contains the same elements as written batik in the aspects of materials, processing, coloring, and highlighting (removing the wax). But there are also many differences due to the influence of modern painting, such as in terms of appearance, especially in motifs and colors. The most important thing in making painted batik is the combination of the batik work and coloring depending on the taste of the batik maker. Painted batik is popular because it has a very affordable price and a very creative manufacturing process. Painted batik can be used as decoration or ready-to-wear clothing (fashion). Painted batik which has human objects, landscapes, still objects, and other objects, are in high demand for display paintings.
MAKING PROCESS
The making of Indonesian batik is a labor-intensive process. The following are the stages in the process of making the original batik tulis cloth from the first steps to the last process: nyungging, njaplak, nglowong, ngiseni, nyolet, mopok, nembok, ngelir, nembok, the first nglorod, ngrentesi, nyumri, nyoja, and the second nglorod.
Firstly, a cloth is washed, soaked, and beaten with a large mallet. Patterns are drawn with pencil and later redrawn using hot wax, usually made from a mixture of paraffin or beeswax, sometimes mixed with plant resins, which functions as a dye-resist. The wax can be applied with a variety of tools. A pen-like instrument called a canting (Javanese pronunciation: [tʃantiŋ], sometimes spelled with old Dutch orthography tjanting) is the most common. A canting is made from a small copper reservoir with a spout on a wooden handle. The reservoir holds the resist which flows through the spout, creating dots and lines as it moves. For larger patterns, a stiff brush may be used. Alternatively, a copper block stamp called a cap (Javanese pronunciation: [tʃap]; old spelling tjap) is used to cover large areas more efficiently.
After the cloth is dry, the resist is removed by boiling or scraping the cloth. The areas treated with resist keep their original colour; when the resist is removed the contrast between the dyed and undyed areas forms the pattern. This process is repeated as many times as the number of colours desired.
The most traditional type of batik, called written batik (batik tulis), is drawn using only the canting. The cloth needs to be drawn on both sides and dipped in a dye bath three to four times. The whole process may take up to a year; it yields considerably finer patterns than stamped batik (batik cap).
CULTURE
Batik is an ancient cultural element that is widespread in Indonesia. Making batik, in the sense of written batik, is not only a physical activity but has a deep dimension that contains prayer, hope, and lessons. Batik motifs in ancient Javanese society have a symbolic meaning and can be used as a means of communication for ancient Javanese people. The ancient Javanese community realized that through batik motifs the social stratification of society could be identified. Basically, the use of batik should not be arbitrary for both men and women because every element in Javanese clothing, especially batik, is always full of symbols and meanings.
Many Indonesian batik patterns are symbolic. Infants are carried in batik slings decorated with symbols designed to bring the child luck, and certain batik designs are reserved for brides and bridegrooms, as well as their families. Batik garments play a central role in certain Javanese rituals, such as the ceremonial casting of royal batik into a volcano. In the Javanese naloni mitoni ceremony, the mother-to-be is wrapped in seven layers of batik, wishing her good things. Batik is also prominent in the tedak siten ceremony when a child touches the earth for the first time. Specific pattern requirement are often reserved for traditional and ceremonial contexts.
TRADITIONAL COSTUME IN THE JAVANESE ROYAL PALACE
Batik is the traditional costume of the royal and aristocratic families in Java for many centuries until now. The use of batik is still sustainable and is a mandatory traditional dress in the rules of the Javanese palaces to this day. Initially, the tradition of making batik was considered a tradition that could only be practiced in the palace and was designated as the clothes of the king, family, and their followers, thus becoming a symbol of Javanese feudalism. Because many of the king's followers lived outside the palace, this batik art was brought by them outside the palace and carried out in their respective places. The batik motifs of each social class are differentiated according to social strata and nobility in the palace. The motifs of the Parang Rusak, semen gedhe, kawung, and udan riris are the batik motifs used by the aristocrats and courtiers in garebeg ceremonies, pasowanan, and welcoming honor guests. During the colonial era, Javanese courts issued decrees that dictated certain patterns to be worn according to a person's rank and class within the society. Sultan Hamengkubuwono VII, who ruled the Yogyakarta Sultanate from 1921 to 1939, reserved several patterns such as the Parang Rusak and Semen Agung for members of the Yogyakartan royalties and restricted commoners from wearing them.
TRADITIONAL DANCE COSTUMES
Batik is used for traditional dance performances in Java. Costume is one of the main things in presenting traditional Javanese dance. Kemben is a piece of cloth worn from the chest to the waist. Tapih is used to fasten the jarit of the dancers, it is decorated with a distinctive batik motif, and fastened with a stagen belt. Sampur is used by wrapping them around the dancer's body. This cloth is also known as Kancrik Prade which is usually dominated by yellow or red. Jarit is a subordinate, uses a long batik cloth. Some examples of Javanese dances include Bedhaya, Srimpi, Golek, Beksan, wayang wong, gambyong, and so on.
BIRTH CEREMONIES
In Javanese tradition, when a mother-to-be reaches her seventh month of pregnancy, a seven-month event or a mitoni ceremony will be held. One of the things that must be done in the ceremony is that the prospective mother must try on the seven kebayas and seven batik cloths. The batik used has rules and is not just any batik. Each batik cloth has a high philosophical value which is also a strand and hope for the Almighty so that the baby who is born has a good personality.
Prospective mothers must alternate wearing 6 batik cloths and 1 striated batik cloth. This batik substitution has a rule, that the last batik to be worn is the one with a simple motif. The motif rulers include:
Wahyu tumurun motif – This motif contains the hope that the baby will have a good position.
Cakar motif – This motif is expected to make the child diligent in seeking sustenance.
Udan liris motif – It is hoped that the child will have a tough character.
Kesatrian motif – It is hoped the child has a chivalrous nature.
Sidomukti motif – It is hoped that the child's life will be good and honorable.
Babon angrem motif – Motif depicting a hatchling hen, symbolizes the mother's love for her child.
Lurik lasem motif – The simplest motif. It has a philosophy that human life should be simple. There is also another philosophy, there are two lines in lurik lasem batik, namely the vertical line indicating the relationship between humans and God and the horizontal line indicating the relationship between humans and fellow humans.
WEDDING CEREMONIES
Every motif in classical Javanese batik always has its own meaning and philosophy, including for wedding ceremonies. Because each motif attached to Javanese batik has a different story and philosophy. In Javanese wedding ceremony, certain batik designs are reserved for brides and bridegrooms, as well as their families. Such as the truntum motif (flower motif in the shape of the sun) is used for midodareni ceremony (the procession of the night before the wedding ceremony, symbolizing the last night before the child separates from parents). This motif is also used during the panggih ceremony (the procession when the bride and groom meet after being secluded) by the parents of the bride and groom. The truntum motif means a symbol of love that never ends, when used by the parents of the bride and groom, it symbolizes the love of the parents for the child that never ends.
Some of the batik motifs that can be used for weddings are the grompol motif (hopefully the bride and groom will get a blessing and a bright future), Sidho asih motif (hopefully that the bride and groom will love each other), Sidho luhur motif (hopefully that the bride will have a noble and praiseworthy character), and ceker ayam motif (hopefully the bride and groom have the spirit of being married and given prosperity).
DEATH CEREMONIES (LURUB LAYON)
In Javanese society batik cloth is also used for death ceremonies, namely as a cover for the body or what is known as the lurub layon ceremony. The batik motif that symbolizes grief is the slobok motif. This batik motif symbolizes the hope that spirits will find it easy and smooth on their way to God. The word slobog is taken from the Javanese word lobok, which means loose. This motif is a geometric triangular shape that is usually black and white. The basic color of this batik is often black or brown with a natural dye which is often called soga.
In Madurese society, one of the batik motifs used for the cloth covering the corpse from generation to generation is the biren rice tompah motif. This biren leaf motif is filled with spilled rice using natural dyes. The washing also uses natural ingredients, squeezed papaya leaves.
FORMAL AND INFORMAL DAILY DRESS
Contemporary practice often allows people to pick any batik patterns according to one's taste and preference from casual to formal situations, and Batik makers often modify, combine, or invent new iterations of well-known patterns. Besides that, now batik has become a daily dress whether it is at work, school, or formal and non-formal events in Indonesia. Many young designers have started their fashion design work by taking batik as their inspiration for making clothes designs. The creativity of these young designers has given birth to various designs of batik clothes that are very elegant and meet the demands of a modern lifestyle.
In October 2009, UNESCO designated Indonesian batik as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. As part of the acknowledgment, UNESCO insisted that Indonesia preserve its heritage. The day, 2 October 2009 has been stated by Indonesian government as National Batik Day, as also at the time the map of Indonesian batik diversity by Hokky Situngkir was opened for public for the first time by the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Technology.
Study of the geometry of Indonesian batik has shown the applicability of fractal geometry in traditional designs.
PATTERNS AND MOTIVS
The popularity of batik in Indonesia has varied. Historically, it was essential for ceremonial costumes and it was worn as part of a kebaya dress, commonly worn every day. The use of batik was already recorded in the 12th century, and the textile has become a strong source of identity for Indonesians crossing religious, racial, and cultural boundaries. It is also believed the motif made the batik famous.
KAWUNG
The kawung motif originated in the city of Yogyakarta and comes in a variety of styles. The motif has a geometrically organized pattern of spheres that resembles the kawung fruit (palm fruit). This pattern is thought to also be a representation of a lotus flower with four blooming crown petals, representing purity. The geometrically organized kawung pattern is seen as a representation of authority in Javanese society. Power is symbolized by the dot in the center of the geometrically aligned ovals. This reflects the position of rulers being the center of authority, which may now be understood as a depiction of the relationship between the people and the government. Other kawung symbolisms are connected to wisdom, such as representing the ancient Javanese philosophy of life of sedulur papat lima pancer. As a result, it is intended signify human existence, in the hopes that a person would not forget their roots. The color scheme of the kawung batik pattern, which includes a combination of dark and bright hues represents human traits. As the kawung pattern is frequently regarded as a palm tree's fruit that is thought to be extremely beneficial for people, it is believed that whomever uses this motif would have a positive influence on the environment. Furthermore, the kawung batik motif is seen as a sign of power and justice. Since the Kawung motif is frequently associated with a symbolism of authority and has many philosophical meanings, it was formerly used only by the Javanese royal family. Over time, numerous influences such as colonization have influenced its exclusivity, enabling the kawung motif to be utilized by the general public.
PARANG
The word Parang comes from the word coral or rock. The motif depicts a diagonal line descending from high to low and has a slope of 45 degrees. The basic pattern is the letter S. The meaning of the parang motif can be interpreted in two ways. Some speculate this theme is derived from the pattern of the sword worn by knights and kings when fighting. Others say Panembahan Senapati designed the pattern while watching the South Sea waves crash against the beach's rocks, with the ocean waves symbolizing the center of natural energy, or the king. The parang motif's oblique construction is also a sign of strength, greatness, authority, and speed of movement. The parang motif, like the kawung design, is a batik larang as it is exclusively worn by the monarch and his relatives. The size of the parang motif also represents the wearer's position in the royal family's hierarchy. The parang pattern has many variations, each of which has its own meaning and is allocated to a certain member of the royal family based on their rank. Barong, rusak, gendreh, and klithik are some variations of the parang motif. In general, the motif is meant to represent a person's strong will and determination. It also represents a strong relationship and bond, both in terms of efforts to improve oneself, efforts to fight for prosperity, as well as forms of family ties. Since members of the royal family are the only ones who may wear the parang motif, the parang batik is often passed down among generations.
MEGA MENDUNG
The mega mendung pattern has become a symbol of the city of its origin, Cirebon, due to its widespread popularity. The entrance of the Chinese traders is credited with the birth of the mega mendung motif. The motif is formed like a cloud, representing nirvana and the transcendental notion of divinity in Chinese culture. In another variant, the inspiration for this motif came from someone having seen a cloud reflected in a puddle of water while the weather was overcast. Mega mendung motifs must have a seven color gradations. The motif's name means "the sky will rain", and the motif's seven color gradations are supposed to represent the seven layers of the sky. The term mendung, which means "cloudy", is used in the pattern's name to represent patience. This means humans should not be quick to anger and should exercise patience even when confronted with emotional events. The cloud's structure should also be consistent, as the direction must be horizontal rather than vertical. The clouds must also be flat, as the cloud's purpose is to shield those beneath it from the scorching sun. As a result, the mega mendung design communicates that leaders must protect their people.
TUJUH RUPA
This pattern originates in Pekalongan and is the product of a fusion of Indonesian and Chinese cultures. Ceramic ornaments from China are frequently used in the Tujuh Rupa motif. However, the embellishments on these motifs sometimes include brilliantly colored ornaments of natural elements such as animals and plants. The Tujuh Rupa motifs signifies ancestral ties and to represent gentleness and compassion. The motifs portrayed frequently represent aspects of coastal people's life, such as their ability to adapt to other cultures.
TRUNTUM
The Truntum pattern was developed by Kanjeng Ratu Kencana (Queen Sunan Paku Buwana III) in the years 1749-1799 as a symbol of true, unconditional, and eternal love. It embodies a hope that as love becomes stronger, it will become more fruitful. Truntum comes from the word nuntun (guide). According to legend, Kanjeng Ratu Kencana's spouse disregarded her because he was preoccupied with his new concubine. She was inspired to design a batik with a truntum motif shaped like a star after looking up at the clear, star-studded sky. The king subsequently discovered the Queen creating the lovely pattern, and his feelings for her grew stronger with each passing day. Furthermore, the truntum pattern represents loyalty and devotion. The parents of the bride and groom usually use this motif on the wedding day. The hope is that the bride and groom would experience such steadfast love.
SOGAN
As the coloring technique of this Soga motif employs natural dyes extracted from the trunk of the soga tree, the batik motif is therefore known as Sogan. Traditional Sogan batik is a kind of batik unique to the Javanese Keraton, specifically Keraton Yogyakarta and Keraton Solo. The traditional Keraton patterns are generally followed by this Sogan motifs.The colors of Sogan Yogya and Solo are what differentiates the two Sogan motif variations from each other. Yogya sogan motifs are predominantly dark brown, black, and white, whereas Solo sogan motifs are often orange-brown and brown. The Sogan motif uses five primary colors to represent the human nature: black, red, yellow, white, and green are the five colors. The color black is used to represent worldliness, while red represents anger, yellow represents desire, and white represents righteousness. Brown, on the other hand, is a hue associated with solemnity and the distinctiveness of the Javanese culture, which places a strong emphasis on the inner self as a means of expression and impression. Furthermore, the color brown can be viewed as a symbol of modesty and humility, signifying a closeness to nature, which in turn implies a connection to the people.
LASEM
Lasem batik is a form of coastal batik that developed through a cross-cultural exchange between native Javanese batik that were influenced by the Keraton motif and the incorporation of foreign cultural aspects, particularly Chinese culture. Therefore, the Lasem Batik has a distinct look and is rich in Chinese and Javanese cultural subtleties. The Lasem motif is distinguished by its distinctive red hue, known as getih pitik or 'chicken blood'.[83] This is not to imply it is coloured with chicken blood, but in the past, the dye powder, which was generally imported from Europe, was combined with Lasem water to turn it crimson. Even if it is close to the traditional Lasem hue, the red colour is now a little different. The Lasem motif comes in many variations, but the most common is that of China's famed Hong bird. The origin of the motif started when Admiral Cheng Ho's crew member Bi Nang Un is reported to have moved to Central Java with his wife Na Li Ni, where she learnt to create batik motifs. Na Li Ni is credited as being the first to use dragon designs, hong birds, Chinese money, and the color red in batik. As a result, the Lasem patterns and colors have symbolic connotations linked to Chinese and Javanese philosophy, resulting in the motif carrying a meaning of unity and a representation of Chinese and Javanese acculturation.
SIDOMUKTI
The Sidomukti batik motif is a Surakarta, Central Java-based motif. The Sidomulyo motif has been developed into this motif, whereby Paku Buwono IV altered the backdrop of the white Sidomulyo batik motif to the ukel motif, which was eventually dubbed the Sidomukti batik motif. This batik design is a kind of Keraton batik produced using natural soga dyes. On Sidomukti batik cloth, the color of soga or brown is the traditional batik colour. The term Sidomukti comes from the word Sido, which means "to become" or "accepted", and "mukti", which means "noble", "happy", "powerful", "respected", and "prosperous". As a result, the Sidomukti motif represents the desire to achieve inner and external happiness, or for married couples, the hope of a bright and happy future for the bride and groom. The Sidomukti motifs are made up of various ornaments with different meanings and philosophies. A butterfly is the main ornament of this motif. Enlightenment, liberty, and perfection are all associated with this ornamentation. Furthermore, the butterfly represents beauty, great aspirations, and a brighter future. The Singgasana ornament, also known as the throne ornament, is the second ornament. This ornament is meant to important positions, implying that the person who wears it will ascend in rank and status. It is also envisioned that the individual would be recognized and appreciated by a large number of people. The Meru ornament, often known as mountain ornaments, is the third ornament. Meru is defined as a lofty mountain top where the gods live in Javanese Hindu tradition. Because the Meru ornament represents grandeur, magnificence, and firmness, it represents a want for the wearer to be successful. The flower ornament is the last ornament, and it is intended to represent beauty. This ornament represents the hope for something wonderful in life that is sturdy and substantial to hang on to, despite the numerous challenges that may arise.
SIDOMULYO
The Sidomulyo batik motif dates back to the Kartasura Mataram period, when Sultan Pakubuwono IV changed the pattern's base with isen-isen ukel. The Sidomulyo pattern is a type of Keraton batik, and originates from Surakarta, Central Java.[90] Sido means "to become" or "accepted" in Javanese, whereas mulyo means "noble”. During the wedding ceremony, a bride and groom generally wear a batik fabric with the Sidomulyo motif in the hope that the family would thrive in the future. Because the Sidomulyo and Sidolmukti batik motifs are essentially the same with the only difference being the minor color variations, the ornamentations and meanings of the two motifs are the same.
SEKAR JAGAD
The Sekar Jagad motif has been popular since the 18th century. The name Sekar Jagad is derived from the words kaart, meaning map in Dutch, and Jagad, meaning means world in Javanese, as the pattern resembles a map when viewed from above. As a result, Batik Sekar Jagad is intended to depict the beauty and diversity of the world's various ethnic groups. There are also others who claim that the Sekar Jagad motif is derived from the Javanese words sekar (flower) and jagad (world), as the motif could also symbolize the beauty of the flowers that are spread all over the world. The existence of curving lines matching the shape of islands that are adjacent to each other is one of the features of the Sekar Jagad motif, making it look like a map. This motif is distinct in that it is irregularly patterned, as opposed to other batik motifs that have a repeating pattern. The Sekar Jagad motif itself is also characterized by the presence of isen-isen in the island shaped lines of the motif that contains various motifs such as kawung, truntum, slopes, flora and fauna and others.
TERMINOLOGY
Batik is traditionally sold in 2.25-metre lengths used for kain panjang or sarong. It is worn by wrapping it around the hip, or made into a hat known as blangkon. The cloth can be filled continuously with a single pattern or divided into several sections.
Certain patterns are only used in certain sections of the cloth. For example, a row of isosceles triangles, forming the pasung motif, as well as diagonal floral motifs called dhlorong, are commonly used for the head. However, pasung and dhlorong are occasionally found in the body. Other motifs such as buketan (flower bouquet) and birds are commonly used in either the head or the body.
The head is a rectangular section of the cloth which is worn at the front. The head section can be at the middle of the cloth, or placed at one or both ends. The papan inside of the head can be used to determine whether the cloth is kain panjang or sarong.
The body is the main part of the cloth, and is filled with a wide variety of patterns. The body can be divided into two alternating patterns and colours called pagi-sore ('dawn-dusk'). Brighter patterns are shown during the day, while darker pattern are shown in the evening. The alternating colours give the impression of two batik sets.
Margins are often plain, but floral and lace-like patterns, as well as wavy lines described as a dragon, are common in the area beside seret.
TYPES
As each region has its own traditional pattern, batiks are commonly distinguished by the region they originated in, such as batik Solo, batik Yogyakarta, batik Pekalongan, and batik Madura. Batiks from Java can be distinguished by their general pattern and colours into batik pedalaman (inland batik) or batik pesisiran (coastal batik). Batiks which do not fall neatly into one of these two categories are only referred to by their region. A mapping of batik designs from all places in Indonesia depicts the similarities and reflects cultural assimilation within batik designs.
JAVANESE BATIK
INLAND BATIK (BATIK PEDALAMAN)
Inland batik, batik pedalaman or batik kraton (Javanese court batik) is the oldest form of batik tradition known in Java. Inland batik has earthy colour[96] such as black, indigo, brown, and sogan (brown-yellow colour made from the tree Peltophorum pterocarpum), sometimes against a white background, with symbolic patterns that are mostly free from outside influence. Certain patterns are worn and preserved by the royal courts, while others are worn on specific occasions. At a Javanese wedding for example, the bride wears specific patterns at each stage of the ceremony. Noted inland batiks are produced in Solo and Jogjakarta, cities traditionally regarded as the centre of Javanese culture. Batik Solo typically has sogan background and is preserved by the Susuhunan and Mangkunegaran Court. Batik Jogja typically has white background and is preserved by the Yogyakarta Sultanate and Pakualaman Court.
COASTAL BATIK (BATIK PESISIRAN)
Coastal batik or batik pesisiran is produced in several areas of northern Java and Madura. In contrast to inland batik, coastal batiks have vibrant colours and patterns inspired by a wide range of cultures as a consequence of maritime trading.[96] Recurring motifs include European flower bouquets, Chinese phoenix, and Persian peacocks. Noted coastal batiks are produced in Pekalongan, Cirebon, Lasem, Tuban, and Madura. Pekalongan has the most active batik industry.
A notable sub-type of coastal batik called Jawa Hokoka is not attributed to a particular region. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in early 1940, the batik industry greatly declined due to material shortages. The workshops funded by the Japanese however were able to produce extremely fine batiks called Jawa Hokokai. Common motifs of Hokokai includes Japanese cherry blossoms, butterflies, and chrysanthemums.
Another coastal batik called tiga negeri (batik of three lands) is attributed to three regions: Lasem, Pekalongan, and Solo, where the batik would be dipped in red, blue, and sogan dyes respectively. As of 1980, batik tiga negeri was only produced in one city.
BLACKSTYLE BATIK (BATIK IRENGAN)
"Black-style Batik" or "Irengan batik" is batik with an average black background, this is because Ponorogo has always had activities that are close to magical practices, so most irengan batik from Ponorogo is used as a black magic ritual, Dutch people know batik irengan this with gothic batik.
SUNDANESE BATIK
There are several types of batik that come from Sundanese land.
PARAHYANGAN BATIK
Sundanese or Parahyangan Batik is the term for batik from the Parahyangan region of West Java and Banten. Although Parahyangan batiks can use a wide range of colours, a preference for indigo is seen in some of its variants. Natural indigo dye made from Indigofera is among the oldest known dyes in Java, and its local name tarum has lent its name to the Citarum river and the Tarumanagara kingdom, which suggests that ancient West Java was once a major producer of natural indigo. Noted Parahyangan batik is produced in Ciamis, Garut, and Tasikmalaya. Other traditions include Batik Kuningan influenced by batik Cirebon, batik Banten that developed quite independently, and an older tradition of batik Baduy.
BANTENESE BATIK
Bantenese batik employs bright pastel colours and represents a revival of a lost art from the Sultanate of Banten, rediscovered through archaeological work during 2002–2004. Twelve motifs from locations such as Surosowan and several other places have been identified. It is said that tribal people used to wear it.
BADUY BATIK
Baduy batik only employs indigo colour in shades ranged from bluish black to deep blue. It is traditionally worn as iket, a type of Sundanese headress similar to Balinese udeng, by Outer Baduy people of Lebak Regency, Banten.
MALAY BATIK
Trade relations between the Melayu Kingdom in Jambi and Javanese coastal cities have thrived since the 13th century. Therefore, coastal batik from northern Java probably influenced Jambi. In 1875, Haji Mahibat from Central Java revived the declining batik industry in Jambi. The village of Mudung Laut in Pelayangan district is known for producing batik Jambi. Batik Jambi, as well as Javanese batik, influenced the Malaysian batik.
The batik from Bengkulu, a city on west coast of Sumatra, is called batik besurek, which literary means "batik with letters" as they draw inspiration from Arabic calligraphy.
MINANGKABAU BATIK
The Minangkabau people also produce batik called batiak tanah liek (clay batik), which use clay as dye for the fabric. The fabric is immersed in clay for more than one day and later designed with motifs of animal and flora.
BALINESE BATIK
Batik making in the island of Bali is relatively new, but a fast-growing industry. Many patterns are inspired by local designs, which are favoured by the local Balinese and domestic tourists. Objects from nature such as frangipani and hibiscus flowers, birds or fishes, and daily activities such as Balinese dancer and ngaben processions or religious and mythological creatures such as barong, kala and winged lion are common. Modern batik artists express themselves freely in a wide range of subjects.
Contemporary batik is not limited to traditional or ritual wearing in Bali. Some designers promote Balinese batik as an elegant fabric that can be used to make casual or formal cloth. Using high class batik, like hand made batik tulis, can show social status.
POPULARITY
The batik industry of Java flourished from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, but declined during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia. With increasing preference of western clothing, the batik industry further declined following the Indonesian independence. Batik has somewhat revived at the turn of the 21st century, through the efforts of Indonesian fashion designers to innovate batik by incorporating new colors, fabrics, and patterns. Batik has become a fashion item for many Indonesians, and may be seen on shirts, dresses, or scarves for casual wear; it is a preferred replacement for jacket-and-tie at certain receptions. Traditional batik sarongs are still used in many occasions.
After the UNESCO recognition for Indonesian batik on 2 October 2009, the Indonesian administration asked Indonesians to wear batik on Fridays, and wearing batik every Friday has been encouraged in government offices and private companies ever since. 2 October is also celebrated as National Batik Day in Indonesia. Batik had helped improve the small business local economy, batik sales in Indonesia had reached Rp 3.9 trillion (US$436.8 million) in 2010, an increase from Rp 2.5 trillion in 2006. The value of batik exports, meanwhile, increased from $14.3 million in 2006 to $22.3 million in 2010.
Batik is popular in the neighboring countries of Singapore and Malaysia. It is produced in Malaysia with similar, but not identical, methods to those used in Indonesia. Batik is featured in the national airline uniforms of the three countries, represented by batik prints worn by flight attendants of Singapore Airlines, Garuda Indonesia and Malaysian Airlines. The female uniform of Garuda Indonesia flight attendants is a modern interpretation of the Kartini style kebaya with parang gondosuli motifs.
BATIK MUSEUMS
Indonesia as the origin and paradise of batik has several museums that store various types of batik cloth that are hundreds of years old and a collection of equipment for batik that is still well preserved and maintained. Here are some museums in Indonesia that hold various types of batik collections:
MUSEUM BATIK KERATON YOGYAKARTA
Museum Batik Keraton Yogyakarta is located inside the Palace of Yogyakarta Sultanate, Yogyakarta. The museum which was inaugurated by Sultan Hamengku Buwono X on 31 October 2005 has thousands of batik collections. Some of batik collections here include kawung, semen, gringsing, nitik, cuwiri, parang, barong, grompol, and other motifs.
These batik collections come from different eras, from the era of Sultan Hamengkubuwono VIII to Sultan Hamengkubuwono X. The batik collections come from gifts from sultans, batik entrepreneurs, and batik collectors. Not only batik, visitors can also see equipment for making batik, raw materials for dyes, irons, sculptures, paintings, and batik masks. Unlike other museums in the Yogyakarta Palace complex, the Batik Museum management does not allow visitors to bring in cameras. This is in order to protect the batik from being photographed by irresponsible people, to then imitate the motive. This museum is part of a tour package offered by the Yogyakarta Palace. Open every day from 08.00–13.30 WIB, on Fridays at 08.00–13.00 WIB, and closes at the palace ceremony day.
MUSEUM BATIK YOGYAKARTA
Museum Batik Yogyakarta is located at Jalan Dr. Sutomo 13A, Bausasran, Yogyakarta. This museum is managed by the married couple Hadi and Dewi Nugroho. On 12 May 1977, this museum was inaugurated by the Yogyakarta Special Region Regional Office of P&K. This museum occupies an area of 400 m2 and is also used as the owner's residence. In 2000, this museum received an award from MURI for the work 'The Biggest Embroidery', batik measuring 90 x 400 cm2. Then in 2001, this museum received another award from MURI as the initiator of the establishment of the first Embroidery Museum in Indonesia. This museum holds more than 1,200 batik collections consisting of 500 pieces of written batik, 560 stamped batik, 124 canting (batik tools), and 35 pans and coloring materials, including wax. Its excellent collection consists of various batik fabrics from the 18th to early 19th centuries in the form of long cloths and sarongs. Other collections include batik by Van Zuylen and Oey Soe Tjoen, as well as batik made in the 1700s. Yogyakarta Batik Museum also provides batik training for visitors who want to learn to make batik, which results can be taken home. The museum is open every Monday to Saturday at 09.00–15.00.
MUSEUM BATIK PEKALONGAN
Museum Batik Pekalongan is located at Jalan Jetayu No.1, Pekalongan, Central Java. This museum has 1.149 batik collections, including batik cloth, hundreds of years old of batik wayang beber, and traditional weaving tools. Museum Batik Pekalongan maintains a large collection of old to modern batik, both those from coastal areas, inland areas, other areas of Java, and batik from various regions in Nusantara such as from Sumatra, Kalimantan, Papua, and batik technique type fabrics from abroad.
Not only displaying batik collections, but Museum Batik Pekalongan is also a batik training center and a batik learning center. Students and general visitors can learn to make batik or do research on batik culture. The museum opens every day from 08.00 to 15.00.
Museum Batik Danar Hadi is located on Jalan Slamet Riyadi, Solo City (Surakarta), Central Java. The museum, which was founded in 1967, offers the best quality batik collections from various regions such as the original Javanese Batik Keraton, Javanese Hokokai batik (batik influenced by Japanese culture), coastal batik (Kudus, Lasem, and Pekalongan), Sumatran batik, and various types of batik. This museum has a collection of batik cloth reaching 1000 pieces and has been recognized by MURI (Indonesian Record Museum) as the museum with the largest collection of batik. Visitors can see the process of making batik and can even take part in batik making workshop in person. Museum Batik Danar Hadi is open every day from 09:00 WIB in the morning to 16:30 WIB in the afternoon.
MUSEUM BATIK INDONESIA
Museum Batik Indonesia which is located in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII), Cipayung, Jakarta is divided into six areas, namely the area of introduction, treasures, batik techniques, forms, and types of decoration, development of the batik world and the gallery of fame. Visitors can also enjoy the hundreds of batik motifs available in this place. The museum opens every day at 07.00 AM–10.00 PM.
MUSEUM TEKSTIL JAKARTA
Museum Tekstil Jakarta is located on Jalan KS Tubun No. 4, Petamburan, West Jakarta. On June 28, 1976, this building was inaugurated as a textile museum by Mrs. Tien Soeharto (First Lady at that time) witnessed by Mr. Ali Sadikin as the Governor of DKI Jakarta. The initial collections collected at the Textile Museum were obtained from donations from Wastraprema (about 500 collections), then further increased through purchases by the Museum and History Service, as well as donations from the community, both individually and in groups. Until now, the Textile Museum's collection was recorded at 1.914 collections.
The batik gallery is designed to showcase a number of ancient batik and batik developments (contemporary) from time to time. The batik gallery itself is the embryo of the National Batik Museum which is managed by the Indonesian Batik Foundation and the Jakarta Textile Museum. The museum opens on Tuesday–Sunday at 09.00–15.00.
Batik outside Indonesia
MALAYSIA
The origin of batik production in Malaysia it is known trade relations between the Melayu Kingdom in Jambi and Javanese coastal cities have thrived since the 13th century, the northern coastal batik producing areas of Java (Cirebon, Lasem, Tuban, and Madura) has influenced Jambi batik. This Jambi (Sumatran) batik, as well as Javanese batik, has influenced the batik craft in the Malay peninsula.
Dr. Fiona Kerlogue of the Horniman museum argued that the Malaysian printed wax textiles, made for about a century, are a different tradition from traditional Indonesian batik. The method of producing Malaysian batik is different, as the patterns are larger and simpler with only occasional use of the canting for intricate patterns. It relies heavily on brush painting to apply colours to fabrics. The colours also tend to be lighter and more vibrant than deep coloured Javanese batik. The most popular motifs are leaves and flowers. Malaysian batik often displays plants and flowers to avoid the interpretation of human and animal images as idolatry, in accordance with local Islamic doctrine.
INDIA
Indians are known to use resist method of printing designs on cotton fabrics, which can be traced back 2,000 years.[when?][citation needed] Initially, wax and even rice starch were used for printing on fabrics. Until recently batik was made only for dresses and tailored garments, but modern batik is applied in numerous items, such as murals, wall hangings, paintings, household linen, and scarves, with livelier and brighter patterns. Contemporary batik making in India is also done by the Deaf women of Delhi, these women are fluent in Indian Sign Language and also work in other vocational programs.
SRI LANKA
Over the past century, batik making in Sri Lanka has become firmly established. The batik industry in Sri Lanka is a small scale industry which can employ individual design talent and mainly deals with foreign customers for profit. It is now the most visible of the island's crafts with galleries and factories, large and small, having sprung up in many tourist areas. Rows of small stalls selling batiks can be found all along Hikkaduwa's Galle Road strip. Mahawewa, on the other hand, is famous for its batik factories.
CHINA
Batik is done by the ethnic people in the South-West of China. The Miao, Bouyei and Gejia people use a dye resist method for their traditional costumes. The traditional costumes are made up of decorative fabrics, which they achieve by pattern weaving and wax resist. Almost all the Miao decorate hemp and cotton by applying hot wax then dipping the cloth in an indigo dye. The cloth is then used for skirts, panels on jackets, aprons and baby carriers. Like the Javanese, their traditional patterns also contain symbolism, the patterns include the dragon, phoenix, and flowers.
AFRICA
Although modern history would suggest that the batik was introduced to Africa by the Dutch (especially in South Africa), the batik making process has been practiced in Africa long before the arrival of the colonial powers.[citation needed] One of the earlier sightings are to be found in Egypt, where batik-like material used in the embalming of mummies. The most developed resist-dyeing skills are to be found in Nigeria where the Yoruba make adire cloths. Two methods of resist are used: adire eleso which involves tied and stitched designs and adire eleko that uses starch paste. The paste is most often made from cassava starch, rice, and other ingredients boiled together to produce a smooth thick paste. The Yoruba of West Africa use cassava paste as a resist while the Soninke and Wolof people in Senegal uses rice paste. The Bamana people of Mali use mud as a resist. Batik was worn as a symbol of status, ethnic origin, marriage, cultural events, etc.
The African wax prints (Dutch wax prints) was introduced during the colonial era, through Dutch's textile industry's effort to imitate the batik making process. The imitation was not successful in Europe, but experienced a strong reception in Africa instead. Nowadays batik is produced in many parts of Africa and it is worn by many Africans as one of the symbols of culture.
Nelson Mandela was a noted wearer of batik during his lifetime. Mandela regularly wore patterned loose-fitting shirt to many business and political meetings during 1994–1999 and after his tenure as President of South Africa, subsequently dubbed as a Madiba shirt based on Mandela's Xhosa clan name. There are many who claim the Madiba shirt's invention. But in fact, according to Yusuf Surtee, a clothing-store owner who supplied Mandela with outfits for decades, said the Madiba design is based on Mandela's request for a shirt similar to Indonesian president Suharto's batik attire.
WIKIPEDIA
The Phenomenology Woman.
Contradictions views spiritualis imperet that analyze,
et detractiones quae substantialis sansculottism alienated abstract betwuxfæc,
pronouncements enunciare coscienziosità theologus census becomes,
conceptual points αποφάσεις σύνθεσης εξωτερικεύσεις subjected to empiricists notions,
правительственная толковании парадигматическое историю coincidences of deductions feorh,
absurdité ambiguë traduit exhaustive undertaking connotations,
individualistic lækkanir noumenal höfuðstóll intuiting thoughts,
transmuted exemplifications universelle oppgivelse anslag arise,
propositions engaging secundus placitum speculationes powers,
φιλοσοφικές μέσα συμπληρώνονται dialectic justifications practiced,
objective depths consummations sýningin mismunandi freedoms,
conscious immediatio oppositionem certum in communi recognizes habban,
entraver limites de péréquation stubborn confessing όντα της συνέχειας,
dissemblance implicit moralità impulsi così peculiari felicità understands,
absoluteness framkvæmd reikningar indivisible antithesis tilung,
equilibrium erliegt ethische unabhängigkeit transformationen activity andefen,
verdwijnende uitspraken dryhtenbealu ramblings back,
her realization inquietum perturbatio is her essential ways.
Vikomt.d.Hammenggor.
5 words for my future self
When I talk to someone I sometimes ask if a person can describe his close friend using only 5 adjectives. That puzzles sometimes as one tries extremely hard to find only positive connotations in characterization of the others in order not to sound rude. I like asking it simply because I like to see how people analyze the behavior of the others. It is surprising to see that the things I find positive, others find negative and vise a versa.
It is one thing to characterize others and completely another to characterize yourself. The procedure of characterization should be taking very seriously. No favors. To be true to oneself is rather difficult. We usually try to find excuses for our actions and behavior.
There are some certain traits of my character on which I want to work. Almost a year ago I have chosen 5 words that perfectly characterize what I want my future self to be. The words portray whom I want to be. Here they are:
1. Kind. I want to become kinder to people. Although I dare to admit that I remember two episodes in my life I wished somebody something bad. Paying no attention to the fact that the deeds towards me were truly terrible and disgusting, I understand that there is no way to hatred. I believe that a person should not hide his offences or else they will choke him one day. The key note to the world is in kindness and forgiveness.
2. Caring. I pay a lot attention to my family and close friends. I want them to feel secure and happy. For those people I am ready and available at any time.
3. Inspired. I think that inspiration rules the world. If someone has no passion for something than I doubt if he is alive. I get inspired by people, cinema, imagination, nature and simply life as it is.
4. Holistic. A holistic person is one living in harmony, one who is ready to take decisions and bear responsibility. I have no problem with taking responsibility and risks, but I have a problem in taking too much of responsibilities (sometimes the responsibility of others) so that one can comfortably sit on my neck. I try hard on that point to change the situation.
5. Calm. I find this point the most important. I used to be hot-tempered. Now I consider myself to be much more balanced. But I still have to deal with needless nervousness. I think that the problem taken with calmness is a half way to its solution.
The list of these 5 words is kept on my working space. I look at the list every day and see the progress I made. A lot has to be done, but I feel that I am on the right way.
Now tell me, dear friends, what are your 5 words?
Model: Dasha Egorowa
| blog
Haridwar (also spelled Hardwar) is an ancient city in Uttarakhand, India and regarded as one of the seven holiest places to Hindus.
The two names of the town has its own connotation. Haridwar (Hari means "Lord Vishnu" and Dwara means "gateway") stands for "The Gateway to Lord Vishnu" - the famous Vishnu temple at Badrinath. Whereas, Hardwar (Hara means "Lord Shiva") has been a place to start a pilgrim's journey to Kedarnath, the famous temple dedicated to Shiva.
The River Ganga enters the Indo-Gangetic Plains for the first time at Haridwar, which also gave the city its ancient name, Gangadwára.
Images of India
I think this is a female Robin. I liked her proud pose and felt to capture it, despite the negative connotations photographs of dead animals generate.
The station is a standard pylon-trivault, that was built in the flamboyance of the 1950s. Architect Igor Rozhin (who would then design the Luzhniki Stadium) applied a classic sport recreational theme to match the connotation with the ancient-Greek inspired transfer station. This includes large and imposing pylons faced with grey marble that came directly from Georgia. The floor is laid with black and grey granite tiles imitating a carpet. The walls are faced with white marble and labrodite. Decoratively the station contains 26 circular bas-reliefs by Iosif Rabinovich which depict sporting and other leisure activities of the Soviet youth.
Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-G3
Lens: Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14/4
Processing: Adobe Lightroom
Montage: HDR Efex Pro
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament, is the seat of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The Palace lies on the north bank of the River Thames[note 1] in the London borough of the City of Westminster, close to the government buildings of Whitehall.
The palace contains around 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases and 5 kilometres (3 mi) of corridors. Although the building mainly dates from the 19th century, remaining elements of the original historic buildings include Westminster Hall, used today for major public ceremonial events such as lyings in state, and the Jewel Tower.
Control of the Palace of Westminster and its precincts was for centuries exercised by the Queen's representative, the Lord Great Chamberlain. By agreement with the Crown, control passed to the two Houses in 1965. Certain ceremonial rooms continue to be controlled by the Lord Great Chamberlain.
After a fire in 1834, the present Houses of Parliament were built over the next 30 years. They were the work of the architect Sir Charles Barry (1795–1860) and his assistant Augustus Welby Pugin (1812–52). The design incorporated Westminster Hall and the remains of St Stephen's Chapel.
The Old Palace
The Palace of Westminster site was strategically important during the Middle Ages, as it was located on the banks of the River Thames. Buildings have occupied the site since at least Saxon times.[citation needed] Known in medieval times as Thorney Island, the site may have been first-used for a royal residence by Canute the Great (reigned 1016–35). St Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Saxon monarch of England, built a royal palace on Thorney Island just west of the City of London at about the same time as he built Westminster Abbey (1045–50). Thorney Island and the surrounding area soon became known as Westminster (a contraction of the words West Minster). After the Norman Conquest in 1066, King William I established himself at the Tower of London, but later moved to Westminster.[citation needed] Neither the buildings used by the Saxons nor those used by William I survive. The oldest existing part of the Palace (Westminster Hall) dates from the reign of William I's successor, King William II.
The Palace of Westminster was the monarch's principal residence in the late Medieval period. The predecessor of Parliament, the Curia Regis (Royal Council), met in Westminster Hall (although it followed the King when he moved to other palaces). The Model Parliament, the first official Parliament of England, met in the Palace in 1295;[1] almost all subsequent Parliaments have met there.
The Jewel Tower was built approximately in 1365 to house the treasures of King Edward III.[2]
Westminster remained the monarch's chief London residence until a fire destroyed part of the complex in 1512.[citation needed] In 1530, King Henry VIII acquired York Palace from Thomas Cardinal Wolsey,[3] a powerful minister who had lost the King's favour. Renaming it the Palace of Whitehall, Henry used it as his principal residence. Although Westminster officially remained a royal palace, it was used by the two Houses of Parliament and as a law court.
Because it was originally a royal residence, the Palace included no purpose-built chambers for the two Houses. Important state ceremonies were held in the Painted Chamber. The House of Lords originally met in the Queen's Chamber, a modest Medieval hall at the south end of the complex. In later years the Upper House met in the larger White Chamber, which had formerly housed the Court of Requests; the expansion of the Peerage by King George III during the 18th century necessitated the move as the original chamber could not accommodate the increased number of peers.
The House of Commons, which did not have a chamber of its own, sometimes held its debates in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. The Commons acquired a permanent home at the Palace in the form of St Stephen's Chapel during the reign of Edward VI. The Chantries Act 1547 (passed as a part of the Protestant Reformation) dissolved the religious order of the Canons of St Stephen's,[citation needed] among other institutions; thus, the building became available for the Commons' use. Alterations were made to St Stephen's Chapel for the convenience of the Lower House. Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to carry out major work on the chapel in the late 17th century. During these works the chapel's clerestory was removed and its Gothic interiors concealed behind oak panelling. More seating was added over the years to accommodate the new MPs created by the Acts of Union with Scotland (1707) and Ireland (1800), including an upper-level gallery.
The palace complex was substantially remodelled by Sir John Soane during the early 19th century. The medieval House of Lords chamber, which had been the target of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, was demolished as part of this work in order to create a new ceremonial entrance at the southern end of the palace. The original undercroft where Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding the barrels of gunpowder was also lost during the reconstruction. Soane's work at the palace included new law courts adjoining Westminster Hall and a new Members' entrance to St. Stephen's Chapel.
Fire and reconstruction
J. M. W. Turner watched the fire of 1834 and painted several canvases depicting it, including The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835).
On 16 October 1834, a fire broke out in the Palace[1] after a stove used to destroy the Exchequer's stockpile of tally sticks ignited panelling in the Lords Chamber. In the resulting conflagration both houses of Parliament were destroyed along with most of the other buildings in the palace complex. Westminster Hall was saved largely due to heroic firefighting efforts. The Jewel Tower, the crypt of St Stephen's Chapel and the cloisters were the only other parts of the palace to survive.
At one stage, King William IV considered converting Buckingham Palace, which was being renovated at the time, into the new Houses of Parliament.[4]
A Royal Commission was appointed to study the rebuilding of the Palace and a heated public debate over the proposed styles ensued. The neo-Classical design, similar to that of the White House and the federal Capitol in the United States, was popular at the time, but had connotations of revolution and republicanism, whereas Gothic design embodied conservative values. The Commission announced in June 1835 that "the style of the buildings would be either Gothic or Elizabethan".[5]
In 1836, after studying 97 rival proposals, the Royal Commission chose Charles Barry's plan for a Gothic-style palace. The foundation stone was laid in 1840;[6] the Lords Chamber was completed in 1847, and the Commons Chamber in 1852 (at which point Barry received a knighthood). Although most of the work had been carried out by 1860, construction was not finished until a decade afterwards. Barry (whose own architectural style was more classical than Gothic) relied heavily on Augustus Pugin for the sumptuous and distinctive Gothic interiors, including wallpapers, carvings, stained glass and furnishings, like the royal thrones and canopies.
During the Second World War, the Palace of Westminster was hit fourteen times by bombs (see The Blitz). The worst of these was on 10 May 1941, when the Commons Chamber was destroyed and three people were killed.[7] The chamber was re-built under the architect Giles Gilbert Scott in a similar but more austere style; the work was completed in 1950.[1]
As the need for office space in the Palace increased, Parliament acquired office space in the nearby Norman Shaw Building in 1975,[8] and more recently in the custom-built Portcullis House, completed in 2000. This increase has now allowed all MPs to have their own office facilities.[1]
Exterior
Sir Charles Barry's collaborative design for the Palace of Westminster uses the Perpendicular Gothic style, which was popular during the 15th century and returned during the Gothic revival of the 19th century. Barry was a classical architect, but he was aided by the Gothic architect Augustus Pugin. Westminster Hall, which was built in the 11th century and survived the fire of 1834, was incorporated in Barry's design. Pugin was displeased with the result of the work, especially with the symmetrical layout designed by Barry; he famously remarked, "All Grecian, sir; Tudor details on a classic body".[9]
Stonework
The stonework of the building was originally Anston, a sand-coloured magnesian limestone quarried in the village of Anston in South Yorkshire.[10] The stone, however, soon began to decay due to pollution and the poor quality of some of the stone used. Although such defects were clear as early as 1849, nothing was done for the remainder of the 19th century. During the 1910s, however, it became clear that some of the stonework had to be replaced.
In 1928 it was deemed necessary to use Clipsham Stone, a honey-coloured limestone from Rutland, to replace the decayed Anston. The project began in the 1930s but was halted due to the Second World War, and completed only during the 1950s. By the 1960s pollution had once again begun to take its toll. A stone conservation and restoration programme to the external elevations and towers began in 1981, and ended in 1994.[11] The House Authorities have since been undertaking the external restoration of the many inner courtyards, a task due to continue until approximately 2010.
Towers
Sir Charles Barry's Palace of Westminster includes several towers. The tallest is the 98.5-metre (323 ft)[10] Victoria Tower, a square tower at the south-western end of the Palace. It was named after the reigning monarch at the time of the reconstruction of the Palace, Queen Victoria; today, it is home to the Parliamentary Archives. Atop the Victoria Tower is an iron flagstaff, from which either the Royal Standard (if the Sovereign is present in the Palace) or the Union Flag is flown. At the base of the tower is the Sovereign's Entrance to the Palace, used by the monarch whenever entering the Palace of Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament or for any other official ceremony.
Over the middle of the Palace, immediately above the Central Lobby, stands the octagonal Central Tower. At 91.4 metres (300 ft),[10] it is the shortest of the Palace's three principal towers. Unlike the other towers, the Central Tower culminates in a spire, and was designed as a high-level air intake.
At the north end of the Palace is the most famous of the towers, the Clock Tower, commonly known as Big Ben after its main bell. The Clock Tower is 96.3 metres (316 ft)[10] tall. Pugin's drawings for the tower were the last work he did for Barry. The Clock Tower houses a large, four-faced clock—the Great Clock of Westminster—also designed by Pugin. The tower also houses five bells, which strike the Westminster Chimes every quarter hour. The largest and most famous of the bells is Big Ben (officially The Great Bell of Westminster), which strikes the hour. This is the third-heaviest bell in England, weighing 13.8 tonnes (13.6 long tons).[10] Although Big Ben properly refers only to the bell, it is colloquially applied to the whole tower. A light, called the Ayrton Light, is located at the top of the Clock Tower. The Ayrton Light is lit when either the House of Commons or the House of Lords is sitting after dark. The light takes its name from Thomas Ayrton, the first Commissioner of Works who installed a gas lamp in the tower soon after it was built in 1885. It was installed at the request of Queen Victoria, so she could see from Buckingham Palace whether the members were "at work".
A small tower, St. Stephen's Tower, is positioned at the front of the Palace, between Westminster Hall and Old Palace Yard, and contains the main entrance to the House of Commons at its base, known as St. Stephen's Entrance.[12] Other towers include Speaker's and Chancellor's Towers, at the north and south ends of the building's river front respectively.[13] They are named after the presiding officers of the two Houses of Parliament at the time of the Palace's reconstruction, the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord High Chancellor.
Grounds
There are a number of small gardens surrounding the Palace of Westminster. Victoria Tower Gardens is open as a public park along the side of the river south of the palace. Black Rod's Garden (named after the office of Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod) is closed to the public and is used as a private entrance. Old Palace Yard, in front of the Palace, is paved over and covered in concrete security blocks (see security below). Cromwell Green (also on the frontage, and in 2006 enclosed by hoardings for the construction of a new visitor centre), New Palace Yard (on the north side) and Speaker's Green (directly north of the Palace) are all private and closed to the public. College Green, opposite the House of Lords, is a small triangular green commonly used for television interviews with politicians.
Interior
The Palace of Westminster includes over 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases and 4.8 kilometres (3 mi) of passageways.[10] The building includes four floors; the ground floor includes offices, dining rooms and bars. The "first floor" (known as the principal floor) houses the main rooms of the Palace, including the Chambers, the lobbies and the libraries. The Robing Room, the Royal Gallery, the Prince's Chamber, the Lords Chamber, the Peers' Lobby, the Central Lobby, the Members' Lobby and the Commons Chamber all lie in a straight line on this floor, from south to north, in the order noted. (Westminster Hall lies to a side at the Commons end of the Palace.) The top-two floors are used for committee rooms and offices.
Formerly, the Palace was controlled by the Lord Great Chamberlain,[citation needed] as it was (and formally remains) a royal residence. In 1965, however, it was decided that each House should control its own rooms;[citation needed] the Speakers now exercise control on behalf of their respective Houses. The Lord Great Chamberlain retains custody of certain ceremonial rooms.
Lords Chamber
The Chamber of the House of Lords is located in the southern part of the Palace of Westminster. The lavishly decorated room measures 13.7 by 24.4 metres (45 by 80 ft).[10] The benches in the Chamber, as well as other furnishings in the Lords' side of the Palace, are coloured red. The upper part of the Chamber is decorated by stained glass windows and by six allegorical frescoes representing religion, chivalry and law.
At the south end of the Chamber are the ornate gold Canopy and Throne; although the Sovereign may theoretically occupy the Throne during any sitting, he or she attends only the State Opening of Parliament. Other members of the Royal Family who attend the State Opening use Chairs of State next to the Throne. In front of the Throne is the Woolsack, a backless and armless red cushion stuffed with wool, representing the historical importance of the wool trade. The Woolsack is used by the officer presiding over the House (the Lord Speaker since 2006, but historically the Lord Chancellor or a deputy). The House's mace, which represents royal authority, is placed on the back of the Woolsack. In front of the Woolsack are the Judges' Woolsack, a larger red cushion occupied by the Law Lords during the State Opening, and the Table of the House, at which the clerks sit.
Members of the House occupy red benches on three sides of the Chamber. The benches on the Lord Speaker's right form the Spiritual Side and those to his left form the Temporal Side. The Lords Spiritual (archbishops and bishops of the established Church of England) all occupy the Spiritual Side. The Lords Temporal (nobles) sit according to party affiliation: members of the Government party sit on the Spiritual Side, while those of the Opposition sit on the Temporal Side. Some peers, who have no party affiliation, sit on the benches in the middle of the House opposite the Woolsack; they are accordingly known as cross-benchers.
The Lords Chamber is the site of important ceremonies, the most important of which is the State Opening of Parliament, which occurs at the beginning of each annual parliamentary session. The Sovereign, seated on the Throne, delivers the Speech from the Throne, outlining the Government's legislative agenda for the forthcoming parliamentary session. The Commons do not enter the Lords' debating floor; instead, they watch the proceedings from beyond the Bar of the House, just inside the door. A similar ceremony is held at the end of a parliamentary session; the Sovereign, however, does not normally attend, and is instead represented by a group of Lords Commissioners.
Commons Chamber
The Chamber of the House of Commons is at the northern end of the Palace of Westminster; it was opened in 1950 after the Victorian chamber had been destroyed in 1941 and re-built under the architect Giles Gilbert Scott. The Chamber measures 14 by 20.7 metres (46 by 68 ft)[10] and is far more austere than the Lords Chamber; the benches, as well as other furnishings in the Commons side of the Palace, are coloured green. Members of the public are forbidden to sit on the red benches, which are reserved for members of the House of Lords. Other parliaments in Commonwealth nations, including those of India, Canada and Australia, have copied the colour scheme under which the Lower House is associated with green, and the Upper House with red.
At the north end of the Chamber is the Speaker's Chair, a present to Parliament from the Commonwealth of Australia. The current British Speaker's Chair is an exact copy of the Speaker's Chair given to Australia, by the House of Commons, on the celebration of Australia's Parliamentary opening. In front of the Speaker's Chair is the Table of the House, at which the clerks sit, and on which is placed the Commons' ceremonial mace. The dispatch boxes, which front-bench Members of Parliament (MPs) often lean on or rest notes on during Questions and speeches, are a gift from New Zealand. There are green benches on either side of the House; members of the Government party occupy benches on the Speaker's right, while those of the Opposition occupy benches on the Speaker's left. There are no cross-benches as in the House of Lords. The Chamber is relatively small, and can accommodate only 427 of the 646 Members of Parliament[14]—during Prime Minister's Questions and in major debates MPs stand at either end of the House.
By tradition, the British Sovereign does not enter the Chamber of the House of Commons. The last monarch to do so was King Charles I, in 1642. The King sought to arrest five Members of Parliament on charges of high treason, but when he asked the Speaker, William Lenthall, if he had any knowledge of the whereabouts of these individuals, Lenthall famously replied: "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."[15]
The two red lines on the floor of the House of Commons are 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in)[10] apart, which, by (probably apocryphal) tradition, is intended to be just over two sword-lengths. Protocol dictates that MPs may not cross these lines when speaking. Historically, this was to prevent disputes in the House from devolving into duels. If a Member of Parliament steps over this line while giving a speech he or she will be lambasted by opposition Members. This is a possible origin for the expression "to toe the line".
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall, the oldest existing part of the Palace of Westminster, was erected in 1097,[16] at which point it was the largest hall in Europe, though it was subsequently overtaken by the Palais de la Cité in Paris (1301-6) and a hall in Padua of similar date.[17] The roof was probably originally supported by pillars, giving three aisles, but during the reign of King Richard II, this was replaced by a hammerbeam roof by the royal carpenter Hugh Herland, "the greatest creation of medieval timber architecture", which allowed the original three aisles to be replaced with a single huge open space, with a dais at the end. Richard's architect Henry Yevele left the original dimensions, refacing the walls, with fifteen life-size statues of kings placed in niches.[18] The rebuilding had been begun by Henry III in 1245, but had by Richard's time been dormant for over a century.
Westminster Hall has the largest clearspan medieval roof in England, measuring 20.7 by 73.2 metres (68 by 240 ft).[10] Despite an Essex legend that the oak timber came from woods in Thundersley, Essex, it is known that the original roof was constructed with Irish black oak from County Galway and the chestnut roof timberwork was framed in 1395 at Farnham in Surrey, 56 kilometres (35 mi) south-west of London.[19] Accounts record the large number of wagons and barges which delivered the jointed timbers to Westminster for assembly.[20]
Westminster Hall has served numerous functions. It was primarily used for judicial purposes, housing three of the most important courts in the land: the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of Chancery. In 1875, these courts were amalgamated into the High Court of Justice,[21] which continued to meet in Westminster Hall until it moved to the Royal Courts of Justice in 1882.[22] In addition to regular courts, Westminster Hall also housed important trials, including impeachment trials and the state trials of King Charles I at the end of the English Civil War, Sir William Wallace, Sir Thomas More, John Cardinal Fisher, Guy Fawkes, the Earl of Strafford, the rebel Scottish Lords of the 1715 and 1745 uprisings, and Warren Hastings.
Westminster Hall has also served ceremonial functions. From the twelfth century to the nineteenth, coronation banquets honouring new monarchs were held here. The last coronation banquet was that of King George IV, held in 1821;[23] his successor, William IV, abandoned the idea because he deemed it too expensive. The Hall has been used for lyings-in-state during state and ceremonial funerals. Such an honour is usually reserved for the Sovereign and for their consorts; the only non-royals to receive it in the twentieth century were Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts (1914) and Sir Winston Churchill (1965). The most recent lying-in-state was that of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in 2002.
The two Houses have presented ceremonial Addresses to the Crown in Westminster Hall on important public occasions. For example, Addresses were presented at Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee (1977) and Golden Jubilee (2002), the 300th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution (1988), and the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War (1995).
Under reforms made in 1999, the House of Commons uses the Grand Committee Room next to Westminster Hall as an additional debating chamber. (Although it is not part of the main hall, the room is usually spoken of as such.) The room is shaped like an elongated horseshoe; it stands in contrast with the main Chamber, in which the benches are placed opposite each other. This pattern is meant to reflect the non-partisan nature of the debates held in Westminster Hall. Westminster Hall sittings occur thrice each week; controversial matters are not usually discussed.
Other Rooms
There are several other important rooms that lie on the first floor of the Palace. At the extreme southern end of the Palace is the Robing Room, the room in which the Sovereign prepares for the State Opening of Parliament by donning official robes and wearing the Imperial State Crown. Paintings by William Dyce in the Robing Room depict scenes from the legend of King Arthur. Immediately next to the Robing Room is the Royal Gallery, which is sometimes used by foreign dignitaries who wish to address both Houses. The walls are decorated by two enormous paintings by Daniel Maclise: "The Death of Nelson" (depicting Lord Nelson's demise at the Battle of Trafalgar) and "The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher" (showing the Duke of Wellington meeting Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo).
To the immediate south of the Lords Chamber is the Prince's Chamber, a small anteroom used by members of the Lords. The Prince's Chamber is decorated with paintings of members of the Tudor dynasty by Richard Burchett and his pupils, and features a marble statue of Queen Victoria. To the immediate north of the Lords Chamber is the Peers' Lobby, where Lords informally discuss or negotiate matters during sittings of the House.
The centrepiece of the Palace of Westminster is the octagonal Central Lobby, which lies immediately beyond the Peers' Lobby. The lobby, which lies directly below the Central Tower, is adorned with statues of statesmen and with mosaics representing the United Kingdom's constituent nations' patron saints: St George for England, St Andrew for Scotland, St David for Wales and St Patrick for Ireland.[note 2] Constituents may meet their Members of Parliament in the Central Lobby. Beyond the Central Lobby, next to the Commons Chamber, lies the Members' Lobby, in which Members of Parliament hold discussions or negotiations. The Members' Lobby contains statues of several former Prime Ministers, including David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher.
There are two suites of libraries on the Principal Floor, overlooking the river, for the House of Lords Library and House of Commons Library.
The Palace of Westminster also includes state apartments for the presiding officers of the two Houses. The official residence of the Speaker stands at the northern end of the Palace; the Lord Chancellor's apartments are at the southern end. Each day, the Speaker and Lord Speaker take part in formal processions from their apartments to their respective Chambers.[24][25]
There are 19 bars and restaurants in the Palace of Westminster,[26] many of which never close while the House is sitting. There is also a gymnasium, and even a hair salon; the rifle range closed in the 1990s.[27] Parliament also has a souvenirs shop, where items on sale range from House of Commons key-rings and china to House of Commons Champagne.
Security
The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod oversees security for the House of Lords, and the Serjeant at Arms does the same for the House of Commons. These officers, however, have primarily ceremonial roles outside the actual chambers of their respective Houses. Security is the responsibility of the Palace of Westminster Division of the Metropolitan Police, the police force for the Greater London area. Tradition still dictates that only the Serjeant at Arms may enter the Commons chamber armed.
With rising concern about the possibility of a lorry full of explosives being driven into the building, a series of concrete blocks was placed in the roadway in 2003.[28] On the river, an exclusion zone extending 70 metres (77 yd) from the bank exists, which no vessels are allowed to enter.[29]
Despite recent security breaches, members of the public continue to have access to the Strangers' Gallery (public gallery) in the House of Commons. Visitors pass through metal detectors and their possessions are scanned. Police from the Palace of Westminster Division of the Metropolitan Police, supported by some armed police from the Diplomatic Protection Group, are always on duty in and around the Palace.
Under a provision of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, it has been illegal since 1 August 2005 to hold a protest, without the prior permission of the Metropolitan Police, within a designated area extending approximately one kilometre (0.6 mi) around the Palace.[30]
Eating, drinking and smoking
The Palace has accumulated many rules and traditions over the centuries. Smoking has not been allowed in the chambers of the House of Lords and the Commons since the 17th century.[38] As a result, Members may take snuff instead and the doorkeepers still keep a snuff-box for this purpose. Despite persistent media rumours, it has not been possible to smoke anywhere inside the Palace since 2005.[39] Members may not eat or drink in the chamber; the exception to this rule is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who may have an alcoholic drink while delivering the Budget statement.[40]
Dress code
Hats must not be worn (although they formerly were when a point of order was being raised),[41] and Members may not wear military decorations or insignia. Members are not allowed to have their hands in their pockets—Andrew Robathan was heckled by opposing MPs for doing this on 19 December 1994.[42] Swords may not be worn in the Palace, and each MP has a loop of ribbon in the cloakroom for storing weapons.
Forms of address
Members may not refer to each other by name and use either "my honourable friend" (if a member of the same party) or "the honourable lady/gentleman" (for members from other parties); alternatively, "the honourable member for [the constituency]" is used. Members of the Privy Council are referred to as "the right honourable". Barrister MPs are entitled to be styled "my learned friend" or "the learned lady/gentleman".
In the House of Lords, members are referred to as "the noble lord/lady", or "my noble friend".
Other traditions
No animals may enter the Palace of Westminster, with the exception of guide dogs for the blind;[38] sniffer dogs and police horses are also allowed on the grounds.[43]
Speeches may not be read out during debate, although notes may be referred to. Similarly, the reading of newspapers is not allowed. Visual aids are discouraged in the chamber.[44]
Applause is not normally allowed in the Lords and Commons. Some notable exceptions to this were when Robin Cook gave his resignation speech in 2003,[45], when Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared for the last time at Prime Minister's Questions and when Speaker Michael Martin gave his leaving speech on 17 June 2009.[46]
It is a convention that MPs do not discuss the Sovereign nor use the name of the monarch as a point of debate without prior permission from the Speaker. This comes from 19th-century constitutionalist Erskine May, who said, "the irregular use of the Queen's name to influence a decision of the House is unconstitutional in principle and inconsistent with the independence of Parliament ... Any attempt to use her name in debate to influence the judgement of Parliament is immediately checked and censured." Vincent Cable was reprimanded for breaking this convention during a session of Prime Minister's Questions in 2008.[47]
The nearest London Underground station is Westminster on the District, Circle and Jubilee Lines.
Sérguiev Posad (Rusia) - Sergiyev Posad (Russia) - Се́ргиев Поса́д (Россия)
Sérguiev Posad (en ruso: Се́ргиев Поса́д), entre 1930 y 1991 llamada Zagorsk, es una ciudad rusa, al nordeste de Moscú. Contaba con 109.252 habitantes en el censo de 2008. Posee un importante conjunto monumental, el monasterio de la Trinidad y de San Sergio (siglos XV-XVIII), declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sérguiev_Posad
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anillo_de_Oro_de_Rusia
Sergiyev Posad (Russian: Се́ргиев Поса́д) is a city and the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: 111,179 (2010 Census); 113,581 (2002 Census); 114,696 (1989 Census).
It was previously known as Sergiyev Posad (until 1919), Sergiyev (until 1930), Zagorsk (until 1991).
Sergiyev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, still (as of 2015) one of the largest monasteries in Russia. Town status was granted to Sergiyev Posad in 1742. The town's name, alluding to St. Sergius, has strong religious connotations. Soviet authorities changed it first to just Sergiyev in 1919, and then to Zagorsk in 1930, in memory of the revolutionary Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky
The original name was restored in 1991.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Sergiyev Posad serves as the administrative center of Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-six rural localities, incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky District as the City of Sergiyev Posad. As a municipal division, the City of Sergiyev Posad is incorporated within Sergiyevo-Posadsky Municipal District as Sergiyev Posad Urban Settlement.
Tourism associated with the Golden Ring plays a role in the regional economy. There is also an important toy factory.
The Moscow–Yaroslavl railway and highway pass through the town. Sergiyev Posad Bus Terminal is located in the city.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiyev_Posad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring_of_Russia
El monasterio de la Trinidad y San Sergio (en ruso Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра; o Tróitse-Sérguieva Lavra) en la ciudad de Sérguiev Posad (antiguo Zagorsk) es un importante monasterio ruso y centro espiritual de la iglesia ortodoxa rusa. Sérguiev Posad se encuentra a unos 70 kilómetros al noreste de Moscú en la carretera que va a Yaroslavl. Actualmente alberga a unos 300 monjes. Según la Unesco, que lo declaró Patrimonio de la Humanidad en 1993, se trata de «un buen ejemplo de monasterio ortodoxo en funcionamiento, con rasgos militares típicos de los siglos XV al XVIII, período durante el que se desarrolló.»
La iglesia principal de la Laura (monasterio), la catedral de la Asunción, recuerda la homónima catedral del Kremlin y alberga las tumbas de los Godunov.
Siendo monje de la Laura, Andréi Rubliov pintó, para el iconostasio de la catedral, su más célebre icono La Trinidad que actualmente se expone en la Galería Tretiakov de Moscú.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_la_Trinidad_y_San_Sergio
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Russian: Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks.
The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, who built a wooden church in honour of the Holy Trinity on Makovets Hill. Early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples.
In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of auxiliary buildings, such as refectory, kitchen, and bakery. This charter was a model for Sergius' numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky, Kirillov, and Simonov monasteries.
St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars and sent two of his monks, Peresvet and Oslyabya, to participate in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). At the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408.
St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422. The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo. The relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes. Traditionally, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here.
In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit. This graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration. In the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius' disciples were interred.
It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559. The cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin. The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakov's masterpiece, the icon of Last Supper. Interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs.
As the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cleared and a village (or posad) sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the modern town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a notable centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. Just opposite the monastery walls St. Paraskeva's Convent was established, among whose buildings St. Paraskeva's Church (1547), Introduction Church (1547), and a 17th-century chapel over St. Paraskeva's well are still visible.
In 1550s, a wooden palisade surrounding the cloister was replaced with 1.5 km-long stone walls, featuring twelve towers, which helped the monastery to withstand a celebrated 16-month Polish-Lithuanian siege in 1608–1610. A shell-hole in the cathedral gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IV's abortive siege in 1618.
By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies, numerous buildings had been added. These include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design. The refectory of St. Sergius, covering 510 square meters and also painted in dazzling checkerboard design, used to be the largest hall in Russia. The five-domed Church of John the Baptist's Nativity (1693–1699) was commissioned by the Stroganovs and built over one of the gates. Other 17th-century structures include the monks' cells, a hospital topped with a tented church, and a chapel built over a holy well discovered in 1644.
In 1744, Empress Elizabeth conferred on the cloister the dignity of a Lavra. The metropolitan of Moscow was henceforth also the Archimandrite of the Lavra. Elizabeth particularly favoured the Trinity and annually proceeded afoot from Moscow to the cloister. Her secret spouse Alexey Razumovsky accompanied her on such journeys and commissioned a baroque church to the Virgin of Smolensk, the last major shrine to be erected in the Lavra. Another pledge of Elizabeth's affection for the monastery is a white-and-blue baroque belltower, which, at 88 meters, was one of the tallest structures built in Russia up to that date. Its architects were Ivan Michurin and Dmitry Ukhtomsky.
Throughout the 19th century, the Lavra maintained its status as the richest Russian monastery. A seminary founded in 1742 was replaced by an ecclesiastical academy in 1814. The monastery boasted a supreme collection of manuscripts and books. Medieval collections of the Lavra sacristy attracted thousands of visitors. In Sergiyev Posad, the monastery maintained several sketes, one of which is a place of burial for the conservative philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections.
In 1945, following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946 divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime centre of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List.
The Lavra has a number of representative churches (podvorie or metochia) in its vicinity and throughout Russia. The Lavra's hieromonks have manned a number of sketes at remote locations (such as the Anzer Island in the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea), as well as the Trinity Church on the King George Island in the Antarctic.
The town’s name was Penance. A truly pitiful thing, strewn across the most desolate region of what had come to be called the Red Desert, in the land not yet the state of Wyoming. An unusual place. Unforgiving like you could not fathom, though tranquil, at times, to such a degree that even the most sorrowful being should forget all else that this country had endured. I know as much.
It was explained to me, during my sojourn therein, that ownership of all twelve buildings had exchanged hands as many times as months had gone by since its completion. No one wanted it. Penance was no destination, merely a place to rest one’s head on the way to one. So, in truth, everyone was a stranger in Penance. The strangest of them, in this humble narrator’s opinion, was to arrive the final day of October, in the year of our Lord, 1871.
He was astride a grey horse. He wore a grey coat—yes, that grey coat—over his shoulders in such a way, it seemed the weight of gold. His grey hat, as incriminating as the coat, did not hide his face as well as, I suspect, any soul would have preferred it to.
Leaving his mare on the stoop without a rope to hold her, he wordlessly joined our congregation in Penance’s saloon. Before his boots passed the swinging doors, we each of us had seen only the beast on which our new companion rode. The second, that being a grey wolf, with a head as large as a cauldron, plodded along at the man’s spurs. It sank mildly to its belly at the threshold, still managing to give us all a good fright. Eli gripped my hand where it lay on the table.
And yes, as this type of story goes, the drab outsider walked to the unoccupied bar, nary a glance at a single one of us to repay our gawking. Better that way, as I do believe a child or another woman would have fainted to be caught by his right eye, yellowed and lidless as it was. A gruesome window in the cheek of the same side displayed his teeth. His worn cuffs rested upon the counter, ever so lightly. Penance’s temporary bartender was no braver than any one of us, but he approached the patron anyway.
The bartender extended an ordinary “friend” to the disfigured man, where the word may have easily been taken for a question rather than a greeting. The stranger’s response was no less ambiguous, as the slight tip of his hat looked to be indicative of the man’s goodwill, as much as it did his weariness. Whatever the case, I could sense the room had thankfully begun to breathe again.
“I hope that you, sir, can sympathize- that is, understand our situation here, and that I can afford you only one drink,” our bartender decreed, in a tone delicate like cobwebs.
“I’ll thank you kindly for water. Any that ain’t bein’ drunk.”
The bartender was unsettled by this. “Pardon me for saying, but a man who found his way here with not but a horse and the… clothes on his back, might could do with something stronger.”
“Water,” the man reassured him, “will be jist dandy.”
He was given his request by a shaky hand not a minute later. Us gathered folks were back to finding it a genuine task to draw air. The man sipped from the glass with his neck crooked so that he did not lose any through his wound. It was then that he did at last acknowledge the rest of our being there. As I had worried, one of our women gasped and indeed fell on her husband’s shoulder when she met the horrible gaze. Our tormentor cleared his throat.
“I was thinkin’ to myself, how nice it was to ride into a town without the starin’. I see now that was on account of all the prairie dogs hunkerin’ down in their hole.”
The young cowboy, with which Eli and I had shared a stagecoach to this point, was none too pleased by the teasing. A guardian angel must have stayed his hand from reaching his gun, though the boiling emotions on his face were left unchecked. A number of our men had guns, but were not so keen nor impatient to employ them.
The stranger troubled the bartender once more. “’TIS a mite crowded in here, wouldn’t you reckon?”
“Yes sir?”
“Well now it ain’t picnic weather out, but I also ain’t seen so many bodies lookin’ to be under one roof, less’n there was a storm comin’, or festivities. Well… I behold a clear sky and long faces.”
Another group’s coachman—an older but not yet frail man—spoke for us. “We’re ALL in here; every one of us, in Penance. Seven days here, it’s been, for my party.”
“What keeps you, the lively atmosphere?” the stranger mocked, propping himself up with his elbows on the bar.
“It’s like this,” the coachman informed gravely. “There is presence, a… manifestation, on the range that leads westward away from here, and it has allowed no man or woman safe passage.”
“Them first words sound to me like fancy oratin’ for ‘ghost.’”
The man’s insinuation elicited a harsh murmur that washed over our assemblage. It was not a thought that had escaped us, but the actual vocalization of such a notion was all the more taboo. Eli rose from his chair, still clutching my hand.
“We are not simple, sir. These here folks know what they saw,” he berated the man, who just glared. I stood with Eli, now with both hands on his. He never did have tolerance for being made smaller. I would like to think I was good for him in that way, guiding him away from intemperate actions. I had lived with the denigration a greater deal of time than he, and despite it all, learned to keep living.
“Three groups have made for the ridge,” the coachman continued. “My own, and the second, we lost one of our number each before we turned back. The last that tried… lost all except one.” He placed a hand on the shoulder of the boy sat beside him: no more than fourteen years old, wheat-colored hair and, as I understood the world, faces only ever got to be so pale if they had been within an arm’s length of Death.
“We’ve stopped everyone else who’s come along,” the coachman concluded.
“It were me younger brother it took!” a middle-aged woman with red hair wailed, her husband and children huddled close.
“My littlest one. My only girl,” a father whispered from the other end of the room. For the three days Eli and I had been here, he had confided in no one and no thing, save for his glass.
“It had wings. Like a raven’s, but bigger. Didn’t it, boys?” said a rancher, who had ridden with the childless father. His partners concurred with somber mumbling.
“It had lots of voices,” was what the Irish woman’s girl had to contribute, before being shushed.
“The wind up and quits blowin’ when it’s near, that’s how you kin tell w-“
“You weren’t one of the ones what went there Zed, shut yer mouth!”
“So,” the stranger finally cut in, having not let up for a moment with watching my Eli. “You ain’t been there for yourself.”
“These people have no cause to lie,” Eli rationalized sternly. “No grounds to embellish such awful loss! Shame on you, insinuating they’re spreading falsehoods about the departed!”
I could have struck him for his rashness, but against all expectations, the stranger did not appear to take offense.
“Jist gittin’ the facts, son. I believe in ghosts myself. My issue was with givin’ it some highfalutin name that don’t do ‘em justice,” he clarified, prompting the coachman to furrow his brow and look down at his table. The man pushed off from the counter, glass in hand, of which he had drank very little.
“I aim to see to my horse. Then I aim to be crossin’ that mountain pass by sundown. Anyone who rides with me will have my protection, I can guarantee.”
Dead silence was the travelers’ answer to him. Without so much as a nod, he started for the door. It was I who let my voice be heard next.
“We two,” I announced, Eli at my side. “We will join you.”
“Don’t go with him!”
With his outburst, the young cowboy Eli and I had kept company with immediately stole away the critical eyes (the stranger’s included) that had shifted to me when I spoke.
“Don’t go with him,” the lad again advised. “I know him. I… I know you, mister. Now I was raised to let every man say his piece, but your word is not to be trusted.”
When the stranger remained quiet, the cowboy yelled for all the town to hear. “If that there uniform didn’t already suade all you’uns, maybe knowin’ him by his name will! This man is Jonah Hex.”
The title was of no significance to me, but a few of us (chiefly the men of Jonah Hex’s own age) looked, all at once, a sight more vengeful. I could tell then that Eli was making to move between me and the brewing contention, so I held him firmly in place.
“I never socialized with you,” Hex calmly asserted to the incendiary.
“I know you, even so. I heard you done plenty of killin’ for the rebels,” the cowboy accused. His thumb fidgeted at the hem of his coat.
“You keep that hand off’n your belt, friend,” Hex warned.
“I heard you defected, soon as you knew the rebels was losin’, just so you could do more killin’ for the other side.”
“Y’don’t hear so good then. I ain’t stirrin’ up any hostilities, now or later.”
The cowboy briefly regarded Eli and me out the corner of his eye. There was a fire within it. He returned his attention to Hex.
“… You sometimes forget what color you’re wearin’, mister?”
“No. I do not.”
“Smug bastard,” the cowboy fumed. “Smug son of-“
The grey wolf was suddenly there in our midst, having been acutely aware of the mounting tension. It had clamped its fangs onto the young firebrand’s right wrist before the hand there attached could fully draw and aim its weapon. By some miracle, the pistol did not discharge in the process of clattering across the floorboards, at my shoes. Hex observed peaceably the great creature’s escorting of the cowboy in a complete circle with short, violent yanks. Every other person was still as a stone. When the cowboy attempted to box the wolf in the ear, it let go of the one arm in exchange for the left, and the lad took to hollering something terrible.
“Hex!” was the only whole, intelligible word I could tell you was uttered.
The grin Hex gave the cowboy was somehow more fiendish than the wolf’s own. “I can’t rightly guess what you’d appreciate me doin’.”
“Call off the dog, for… GAH! In the name of God!”
“Fool thing jist follows me around. I ain’t very well taught it to ‘drop’.”
The cowboy’s whimpering had become difficult to stomach. “Then… then leave, please! Make it follow you!”
Hex did not directly oblige. He ambled up to Eli and me, picking up the gun that had been cast aside. To say the least, it took me by surprise when the intimidating man, still facing us, holstered the weapon safely back into the boy’s belt. Hex growled (in a tribal language I did not know) what was presumably a command for the wolf. It’s eyes and jowls slackened, but it did not budge. Hex repeated the phrase more coarsely, and the beast unhooked itself from the cowboy’s poor arm right away, bounding back out the saloon, all aggression purged from its behavior.
Hex then tendered what was barely discernible as an apology to the cowboy. “He weren’t so interested in listenin’. He don’t take to bein’ called ‘dog.’”
The cowboy shook, in his ignominy, and in noting the wolf’s response. “Lyin’… you lyin’ snake-“
“Clean them bites. I ain’t had him looked at by one of them… veteran-Aryans, they call ‘em.”
My laugh at Hex’s unknowing was rude, I knew, but it could not have been helped. He peered at me, and I composed myself; a gesture born of respect, mind you, not fear. I was certain of that then. I thought Eli too, in that instance, had begun to reevaluate just who this man was.
“You say you two are goin’ over that ridge with me…”
It was the faintest I had heard him speak. His question—the one yet unsaid—hung in the air as plainly as if he had finished; the question of why I, of all the people in Penance, was accepting of his offer. I replied with no insincerity.
“I should not be glad to see you go alone.”
I must have confused him immensely. He did not call me a fool, nor feel the need to remind Eli of his woman’s rightful place. It was but the most minute bow I earned, as the bartender had received earlier.
Just then the posse of ranchers was collecting their belongings and heading out to their coach. The one who had previously chipped in now addressed Hex.
“We’ll be going too. We won’t be having that thing take any more of us,” he affirmed.
A stout yet meek-looking man seated by a window got up, hat in hand. “They sent word from Oregon that my mother is ill. I… I can’t wait here, not another day.”
The pale boy that had been orphaned not a week prior ran to where Hex was standing, abandoning the elderly coachman that had taken the child under his wing. The driver pleaded for him, to no avail.
“I won’t stay!” the boy shouted defiantly. “My father was Brom Cavender, and he was not a coward or a nobody! I am Hadley Cavender, and neither shall I be a coward or a nobody!”
The coachman’s defeat was in his eyes when he, next, reasoned with Hex. “He came back from the mountain by himself. All covered in blood he was. The boy has no more family he knows of, anywhere, and you see, I… have a duty to stay with the family I set out with. … See to it that Hadley settles in a decent town, where he will be cared for.”
“That I will,” was Hex’s pledge.
All appeared to be resolved with the details of our venture, and so Eli and I were prepared to make our way to our coach, with or without our cowboy associate who now carried a considerable grudge. Jonah Hex impeded us, however, with a gently raised glove and an astonishingly penitent expression.
“Seems as though I won’t be a’tall lonesome. Aught to set yourselves down here, see if some soldiers don’t pass through and hep you better’n I can.”
“No,” Eli cleared up with haste. “We’ll go, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Well then,” Hex muttered quite vacuously, apparently unaccustomed to denial delivered in such a non-confrontational manner. Likewise, contrasting his bullying of the cowboy, he sounded apologetic, properly so; on what basis, I could only speculate. I did not think the courtesy towards me necessary.
A sporting lady (perhaps the only one living and working in Penance at the time) emerged from the back of the room, draped herself about a post supporting the ceiling and sang after Hex, who was no nearer to exiting, past all the delays.
“There’s no sense in rushin’ off just yet,” she beamed. “Why not leave in the morning?”
“Can’t, missy. I already have a lady to attend,” Hex dismissed, waving his water beyond the saloon’s entrance, suggesting he had some intention to quench his horse straight from the glass itself. “I wouldn’t be unfaithful. She’s a woman I know I can lean on. ‘sides that, she has a finer rump than you.”
As I said, he was undoubtedly the strangest stranger that ever there was.
***
True to our words, those of us claiming the audacity to weather whatever devilry had beset the westward hills did just that. We withdrew from Penance as the sky grew tired and Mr. Hex grew more surly, suffering the impediments of some of us reviewing our luggage twice, or bidding the town a farewell lengthier than a blink.
Twenty minutes on, from the start of our excursion, left Penance nothing but a candlelight in the sea of sand and grass at our backs. The ridge there that our sights were set on taunted us for every step our horses took. I conjured, that night, the irrational belief that the ever-growing mountain was, in no uncertain terms, eager to blot out what precious sunlight we had remaining; it is a conviction I hold to this day, for no scripture or trust in a Savior has since quelled the concern in me that the earth, on that particular evening, in that particular place, was itself evil.
We had, as our convoy, fewer than a dozen ranchers; some, atop their own steeds, and others at the reins of the three stagecoaches. Eli and I rode in a fourth. Our young cowboy had elected to stay behind, with his pride so bruised, even when Eli had promised to him that there would be no incentive to answer to Mr. Hex, in any capacity, for the journey’s duration. Thusly, the lead rancher (whose named we learned was Amos) was our new courier. Same as the two other couples on this trip, Eli and I were instructed not to leave our compartment for any occasion, as we were perceived to be most ill-equipped for the dangers the hardened riders knew to be lying ahead. I alone knew Eli owned a firearm, and could cleanly hit his mark from a respectable distance.
Hadley, the boy, shared our cab. He did not fill the air with endearing contemplations that I might have assumed all children his age had in abundance. Neither did he show overt grief, in returning to the site of his family’s tragic and senseless murder. Instead he was intensely fixated on Hex’s revolvers, swinging at the veteran’s hips as his horse kept pace with us. Hex caught wind of the goggling shortly thereafter, and cast a scowl at the boy.
“My father could shoot,” was Hadley’s defense.
“Hell of a lot of men could. That’s why so damn many of ‘em ain’t around to shoot,” Hex droned, unimpressed.
By this time, the mere hours in which I had had dealings with Jonah Hex told me there was no requisite of inuring myself to him. Elsewhere, the entirety of my life, there had been in effect an ordinance for me to hold my tongue.
“You need not be crass with him.”
Upon reproving Hex’s methods, the most unreservedly gratifying thing occurred: A man, older and more seasoned than I, listened to my words.
That Southern cavalryman, with his burns and cuts, looking as mean as a cornered bear, simply surveyed for several moments the last sliver of sun which shone over the crags and drifts of our mountainous obstruction. He had an air of rumination about him, and took a long breath before responding.
“The way I seen it, boys grow up to die young, if’n y’don’t teach ‘em how things are.”
Eli tugged at my sleeve discreetly, wanting no trouble to arise.
“There is a time for compassion, also, Mr. Hex. When a boy could benefit from a little understanding, rather than further indelicacy. Both are rudimentary to a child’s upbringing,” I declared.
Hadley and Eli were silent. Hex wrung the leather reins in his hands and squinted (more than he did by nature), but eventually relaxed in his saddle; a concession of having been bested.
“You speak real finely, miss.”
“And you do not, sir.”
Mr. Hex let out an amused grunt.
“What do I call you other’n ‘miss’ then?” he inquired, misconstruing my objections to his conduct.
I smiled. “‘Euryale’ is my name.”
Hex tried unsuccessfully to interpret the pronunciation. “… ‘My eye’s a’ what, now?”
“‘Eu-rya-le’,” Eli annunciated, fondly. “It means she will ‘roam far.’”
“Strange,” decided Hex, hardly the one to comment on such things.
I expounded. “Its origins lie in a very old story; a Greek narrative, that my father came across, and passed on to me.”
“And your father, he could read,” Hex inferred. He said it cautiously, not disbelieving-like.
“My father was smarter than most cared to notice. Yes, he did read. Texts and poems, journals… anything that he knew the master of our plantation would not recognize as being misplaced, in the time we required to finish them.”
Eli seized my hand again, when realizing the memories had upset me. I found inside myself the will to disclose, “He only took the stories for my siblings and me. We begged for them, not knowing what he risked.”
“Your master let you keep that name?” Hadley redirected, skeptical.
He was so very young, and I could not be cross with him. “The plantation’s owner and his family had their own name for me, but it was not mine. … Would you like to hear the story that my name comes from?”
Hadley seemed invested.
“Euryale was not the hero of the tale, nor the focus, for that matter. Her sister, Medusa, was wronged by a being she could never hope to have authority over. The story says that he was a deity, but he was wicked, instead of benevolent like our God. For the infraction she did not commit, Medusa was blamed by others of the false idol’s kind. A sorceress among them cursed Medusa to be a loathsome monster, never to have another commiserate her; to but look at her face, then, would turn one to stone.”
There, I paused, to enjoy Hadley’s rapture, Eli’s warmth… Hex, even, leaned suspiciously on his mount, intrigued. His wolf, trotting dutifully near his stirrup for the past hour, stared at him with its giant orange eyes. And while it was a simple animal, Hex became ill at ease, conscious of himself, and he sneered at the creature.
“As fate would have it, Medusa would find consolation in her sisters: Stheno and Euryale. Though they were gifted with remarkable longevity, and though they were free of the guilt that the corrupt rulers had ascribed to Medusa, the sisters chose to stand with her, and bear the same undue punishment. … And so, you see, there is dignity to be found in those demonized by history. I cherish my name, for this reason.”
Hadley frowned at the conclusion. “But… no one saved them? What did the monsters look like?”
“You’ve neglected what younger ears gather from stories,” Eli chaffed quietly.
“Boys’ ears, perhaps,” I retorted, turning my nose up at him.
It had all been in good humor. Eli smirked and apprised Hadley. “Listen here then, Hadley. These sisters grew tusks, like those elephants you may’ve seen at the circus have. And their hair, it was replaced by snakes, bigger than rattlers…”
I adored Eli so, for his gift of preoccupying small ones; Hadley was soon lost in his regaling of heroes and quests from across oceans, and I, paying no mind to the menace of hills before us, discovered there was solace to be had. I composed a silent prayer for those safeguarding our expedition, as well as those of us being transported with bated breath and far less steely resolve.
Jonah Hex watched me do so. He had adopted a curiously approving countenance.
“It’s a fittin’ name… miss.”
***
Palpable, suffocating darkness was now the usher of our caravan. No more was Penance a beacon to us. With our riders’ torches revealing the primitive trail only a yard or so around us, and the discontinuity of stars alone defining land from sky, it was hard to guess the span of wilderness that we had yet to brave, if we were to reach the ridge’s summit.
Our climb was steady. Hadley had fallen asleep between Eli and me, exhausted by stories and the monotonous trek. Some ranchers endeavored to establish if we had already passed the rise on which they had, a week ago, faced their malicious spirit; the fretting and deliberating proved to excite the husband and wife riding in the coach behind us, and it necessitated a scolding from Amos for them all to keep their heads. He then called to us from his perch in the driver’s box; he did so in a gravelly timbre, so as to not again ignite any alarm.
“We’re twenty minutes from the peak, y’hear? … You both seem sensible, so I should tell you, this is about where my company saw… it, when first we rode. But, you rest easy now; we heard weird things then, long before it finally took the Rainer girl. This time, I haven’t seen OR heard anything.”
“Neither’ve I,” came Hex’s drawl, his mare’s gait matching Amos’ position. “But it don’t make me ‘rest easy.’ There ain’t no critters anywhere in these hills, ‘part from us.”
Amos tossed the reins and jutted his chin out at the animals there harnessed. “Horses look at peace. No better judges of surroundings than them, I’ve learned.”
“I think,” Eli proposed, “… we would feel it also, if something unholy walked this region, this day. Our souls, not our worldly perceptions, would warn us.”
I drew Eli’s eyes to mine. “You say you do NOT feel anything now? Then I envy you, and pray my own intuitions are misguided.”
Eli pondered this. I hugged Hadley’s bobbing head to my dress’ collar. “… I pray there are better lives waiting for us all, past this mountain.”
“What got you both hightailin’ west, trouble? You findin’ one of your families?” Hex pressed.
“We heard tell of the river,” Eli shared. “A grand one, just over this range. You’re right, sir; we are seeking Euryale’s family. They may be there.”
“They surely may be,” mused Hex. “Railroad made it to that town some years back, can’t recall how many. Good a place as any to settle, when you’re fixin’ to git hitched-“
“Mr. Hex!” Eli and I drowned him out in unison; we were boisterous enough to rouse poor Hadley. Hex’s forthright ways could fluster most anyone, and I do not mind saying that I, who welcomed his candor in many aspects, was no exception.
Unsure of who else had been attentive to Hex’s maundering, namely Amos, Eli readied to mend the conversation. “… You know same as all of us, Mr. Hex, a boy and a girl like us wouldn’t… even if there weren’t laws, it would not be correct for-“
“Why in tarnation not? What laws?!” Hex’s puzzlement was earnest.
I grabbed the coach’s door and pulled my head outside. “Mr. Hex, PLEASE. This is not to be discussed at these volumes.”
This conciliated Hex, though he was still none the wiser to the realities that Eli and I withstood regularly.
“I’d like it not to be left open-ended; Euryale and myself wouldn’t dream of carrying out an ambition so… outlandish,” Eli fibbed. It was intended to appease Amos, should he have been attuned to the subject.
The rancher’s acknowledgement drifted in our cab’s window with plumes of dust being kicked up by the horses. “Needn’t be afraid of what I think. I’m a simple farmhand, born and raised. Never had big ideas, like them congressmen, ‘bout what men can and can’t do.”
Amos freed a hand from his steering and patted our roof comfortingly. “I’ll keep your secret. But tell me, son.. you really couldn’t find a filly more like you?”
Our driver cackled at his own joke, unaware Eli felt equally insulted as I.
“I shouldn’t need find a woman more like me,” Eli maintained, reaching over Hadley and brushing a lock of hair from my temple. “I’d just a’soon find the one I love.”
Hadley wrinkled his nose, swiftly coaxing us away from our seriousness. Hex bent in alongside the coach, grimly preparing his next words.
“You don’t have kin in Green River, then.”
“She has no kin to speak of, now,” Eli confessed. “Mine… I disowned. Being that they couldn’t see the war was over. Or that a war was had at all.”
As Eli had come to my aid many a time when I evoked my past, so did I come to his. I knew he must have been remembering his brother, when his blood ran cold in my grip on his arm. He swallowed, then faced Hex, who waited patiently.
“Euryale and I, we crossed paths a year after the fighting. And maybe it won’t be in Green River, but we’re going to make a home for ourselves, in one town or the next,” Eli vowed with determination.
“See that you don’t run outta country,” Hex bade us heavily.
“HOLD! WHOA, WHOA!”
At the foremost rider’s cry, our progress was halted. Hex jolted out of his repose, startling me with just how quickly the enmity and dogged constitution could return to him. From my seat, I saw our scout wrestling with his horse, which stamped nervously to and fro, bellowing, and frothing through its halter bit. The man swung her about, and jerked towards two other ranchers. Their rallying devolved into frenzied hisses and jeers, keeping us others in suspense.
“What is it?” Amos barked.
“Euryale?”
Hadley stammered my name, pawing at my arm. “I won’t tell anyone you want to marry Eli.”
“Thank you Hadley, that is kind,” I validated, hoping he would be heartened. He jumped from our seat and joined Eli by the right-side door. They craned their necks to deduce the hinderance ahead.
Amos’ already fragile tact was waning. “Well?! What’d he see?”
“He says, ‘a man!’” one rifleman reported.
Hex’s wolf sniffed the night breeze; docile, though alert. Its owner noticed I had become chilled, and, remiss in his deed, Hex began to offer me his coat.
I eyed the article, unable to gracefully put into words his oversight. My speechlessness led Hex to comprehending just as well.
He donned the coat, frustrated. “I weren’t thinkin’.”
“No, please,” I interrupted, “ … I cannot accept the thought of wearing those colors, but know that I do not think of you, and their connotations, as inseparable.”
Hex emoted not at all.
“You do not… represent that side of history,” I rephrased.
Amos continuously interrogated his fellow ranchers; the account, growing no more coherent.
“You say the man didn’t walk, now how is it that he’s in a different place than where you spotted him?”
“It… DIDn’t walk, it moved without walkin’, I try to tell yeh!”
I looked at Hex ardently. “You do not wear them because you are proud; you wear them because you are not.”
…
“I think it is a merciless thing, what retribution you have placed upon yourself.”
“Do you now?”
“Do you not imagine your judgement should be left to more righteous hands?” I implored further.
“No ma’am.”
“Why is that?”
“God weren’t there… that day.”
I was to unearth no more of Hex’s background, for at that moment, an unannounced, malign rush of dread overcame us all. It was not at all comparable to wind, no; the air was venomous. I saw that the sensation was not all my own when Eli took on a pallor so chalky that it could have been distinguished with or without the assistance of a lamp. From behind and beyond our cab, disturbed yelps from men and women alike rang out. Hex’s horse reared, and his wolf skulked at the coach’s wheel, no longer the formidable predator we beheld in Penance.
A shot punctuated the tumult, and then more followed. I hauled Hadley to the floor instinctively.
“In the brush! Kill it!”
“Where?!”
“Hold your fire!”
“It’s circlin’ behind us!”
Eli had not drawn his gun. “Mr. Hex! Can you see it?”
I lay prone. Shielding Hadley’s face, I tipped the nearest door slightly ajar. Hex had momentarily restrained his frantic mare by grasping her bridle itself and running a hand down her cheek. Had he been a second faster, he may have evaded another horse—this one, having succeeded in throwing its rider—which bucked madly and collided with the pair. Hex’s leg was pinned by the beasts’ flanks, while the bronco viciously bit his mare’s shoulder. She shrieked in an appallingly human way, and all three thrashed on the ground.
The righthand window of our coach was splintered by an unseen force. Eli thrust Hadley and I out of the transport as we were showered in debris. Impacting the cool dirt blurred my vision, but, for the rest of my days I shall remember, with absolute lucidity, the sight of our horses engulfed in a fire that burst forth from below their hooves, and the coach upending; hurled, like a toy. Amos was propelled along with it.
Hadley was not in my arms. I crawled through the billowing haze, and spied Hex wrenching his heel from the saddle cinch as his mare righted herself, and galloped away, utterly crazed. She corrected her flight too late, tumbling over a fatally-steep slope. There was distant whinnying, and then nothing at all. The abstruse battle had dissolved.
I now ask of all those immersed in this tale to grant their credence generously. For the gossiping and prating surrounding this mountain range, and that which had circulated Penance, was far from unfounded. It was our luckless host’s lot to encounter, on that thirty-first day of October, the horror that Hadley, Amos and the other men had once survived, and all that remains to be read, here, is a documentation of stark savagery, and of woe.
Over the crest of the ridge stood what one might have mistook for a man. I should say, moreover, one might have mistook it for standing. It in fact was not.
It was faintly silhouetted against the inky sky, but my eyes were acclimated well enough to the environment by that time that I may now soundly state that a body, brittle and decaying, hung there by a noose lashed around its throat. Light zephyrs traversing the hills made the cadaver oscillate, and the toes of its boots traced the sand lazily. Its twisting rope stretched on and on into the cavernous black above, as though it were puppeteered by some cruel divinity.
Eli, Hex and all the rest were forgotten for an instant. I could not move of my own volition. The aura of our enemy was crushing, relentless, nearly insurmountable. In our company was some unearthly thing not accounted for by the confines of sanity, and only by the grace of God was I able to bring myself to renounce the consuming void.
Our coach, and one other, were irreparable, scorched masses, scattered like seeds. A third, I saw speeding down the mountain, with those left behind given up for dead. The fourth was overturned, and I recognized, scrambling out of it, the man who sought to reach Oregon. He sobbed and held a palm out at the phantom; it had neared, without my realizing it.
Tears streamed from underneath the stout man’s spectacles. “Please Ma… I’m coming home now. I know I was away, but I-I… there was the war. We stopped the rebs. I’m coming home now. You can’t go. You ain’t s-seen the medal your son got yet.”
Like a diseased marionette, the apparition dangled a shadowed arm out to the man at its feet. The son, and former soldier, was reduced to a tortured child before my eyes. His audible anguish stabbed at the still of the night.
“Back, devil!”
Recovered from his ridicule, and with bandaged forearms, it was our young cowboy: racing up the path on horseback, taking aim at the foul wraith. Two bullets were fired; one buried itself in the soil, while the other punched neatly through the desired target’s lapel. It absorbed the projectile like the lifeless husk it was.
The cowboy was forty yards off and closing in, lining up his third shot. A gleam was visible in his eyes, even from this distance. “Fire and brimstone unto you, you-“
Flame from the nearby wreckage swelled, licking the cowboy’s face; it had done so with undeniably hostile intent directing it, shifting not as a natural blaze should. The lad writhed and slipped off his mount, brutally coming to rest in a shallow ditch.
I screamed for Mr. Hex. He had been dragged so carelessly by his mare that he was recuperating with great toil. He coughed, and laboriously rolled onto his stomach. I knew there would be no time for Hex to intervene.
The cowboy pointed his gun, using his one intact arm, and he drew a bead on his foe, using his one unimpaired eye. The hanged thing performed a stiff, swiping motion, and the nails, harnesses and varied metal objects littering the ground rose as one, contorting and melting into one another to form a long, pitted stave. It leveled with the cowboy’s skull. He cocked his pistol’s hammer.
The spear darted at its victim, but I watched as Hex’s wolf, battered and singed, leapt into view and foiled the lethal blow, which glanced off the canine’s haunch. A howl died in the animal’s lungs, and it crashed to the earth at the cowboy’s side. The cowboy’s chest heaved, then the beast’s. They were alive.
Our attacker made no effort to try again. It lingered in subdued obstinacy; swaying, and crackling with rot all the while.
The ashes and planks of our coach buckled, and Eli appeared beneath them, partially pulling himself loose. Relief flooded my soul. He choked my name, but neither he nor I dared to run to the other to embrace; the ghost had glided, on its macabre leash, squarely between us. It then spun in my direction.
“No! Euryale!” Eli rummaged for his weapon, but his hip and holster were still trapped under much of the coach’s remnants.
I waved him off, recalling the cowboy. “Don’t shoot at it!”
I was prepared to die, but not ready to. The dark shape was two body’s lengths away, obscuring Eli. I kept my head high; were this the Devil, it would be in his nature to savor one’s groveling, and I would permit him no such satisfaction. By now, I was hearing its “breathing,” were that the unbroken, low whistle issuing from behind its drooping brim. This was when Hadley stepped out of the clouds of smoke corralling the scene of our impasse. The boy was, with hands atremble, wielding one of Hex’s revolvers, which had been mislaid during the horses’ skirmish.
“Don’t, Hadley! Get away from it!” Eli exhorted.
I tried to be resilient, for Hadley; he was disconcerted enough as he was. “Go to Eli!”
Hex was on one knee, rasping, clenching his ribs like they might fall away without his care. His eyes widened, once seeing Hadley and his objective, and the man opened his mouth to prevent the impending threat; a deep, thick red spilled out instead.
Three of Hadley’s fingers encircled the trigger. “I can kill it…” the boy grimaced.
“Hadley, stop!”
The ghost’s knotted neck rotated to where the child had boldly planted himself. Hadley seized up, and all the world hesitated with him. The flames may have frozen, too; I could not be sure. Quaking, Hadley slowly repositioned his shot.
The barrel was trained on me.
Hex staggered upright.
Eli panicked. “EURYALE!”
“What’re you doin’, son…” said Hex, hauntingly.
Hadley’s lip quivered. “It’s them.”
“Speak up,” Hex told him sharply.
“My father w-wasn’t a liar.”
“… We ain’t of any such opinion-”
“It’s them,” Hadley seethed, in a voice that both was and was not his own. His hold on his weapon tightened. “They betrayed us, our good work and our food. They left with the Yankees. And the land came to death. They ruined us.”
“You’re not shootin’ my gun. You hearin’ me?”
“DAMN THIS-“ Eli failed again to lever the boards from his back. “EURYALE!”
“Let Hadley go,” I demanded of the suspended body. It creaked and danced, in an abrupt gale that ate through to my core. The thing tricked no one, playing dead.
Hadley straightened with a shudder. “They have no right. No rights.”
“NO!” Eli roared.
Hex had been thirty paces from Hadley, but had crept up to twenty. The man’s good eye narrowed. “Ain’t none of us have a right to be here. We jist are.”
“My father didn’t lie to me.”
“SHOOT IT, HEX!”
“I forgive him, Lord,” I whispered. “It is not his doing.”
Something akin to words seeped out of the ghost:
“indulge me…
indulge in me”
This was heeded not by Hex. “Put my gun down.”
“They’re not human.”
“You’re not shootin’ anybody.”
“My father doesn’t have a coward for a son.”
The muzzle of Hadley’s gun twitched. Its mechanism ticked.
There was a pop.
Hex had drawn.
Hadley was sprawled in the dirt.
I forgot any need to be wary in the presence of the hanging reaper; caring little if I were snatched up by its malevolent thrall, I threw myself to Hadley. I desperately checked his heartbeat. My despair was like no other I have harbored in my lifetime; a maroon badge pooled on his breast.
Hex dropped his revolver. Eli was unresponsive, gazing at our dismal spectacle.
I cradled Hadley, staining my clothes. “What have you done, Jonah Hex?”
“Hey you,” the gunslinger rumbled.
I was shaken to see him studying me, and my mournful burden. Hate was etched into him, every inch. I understood, though, that it was not a hatred for us; perhaps, not even for the entity taunting Hex from over his shoulder. Not all of it, anyhow.
Hex turned to the dormant oblivion. His bearing was soft; pacifying, even. It made his acid tone considerably more disquieting.
“I’m supposin’, if I were to shoot you, you wouldn’t be so accommodatin’ as to die.”
The morbid pendulum rocked a stride closer.
“’t’sa shame. That arrangement sounds mighty agreeable to me.”
Amos stumbled forward, dazed, and coated in soot. One proper look at our spectral nemesis coerced the rancher into groping for his gun, but I, supporting Hadley, mouthed “no” and shook my head vehemently. Amos reluctantly eased, gave a melancholic glance to the body I carried, and then proceeded to Eli to release him from his prison; beyond their chore, they were transfixed, as I was, by Hex advancing on the anomalous evil.
“See, you jist killed my horse, and you made me shoot a boy who weren’t responsible for hisself. And I’m findin’ no excuses whatsoever not to take you by that big fuckin’ necktie of yours and haul your chickenshit hide back to hell. Not-a-one.”
A dull groan escaped his opponent.
“Real ornery feller. But you’re a small feller also, ain’t you?”
The ghost’s rope strained, deafeningly so. I gathered Hex had infuriated whatever sinister will manipulated it. The space between the two of them wavered, rippling like a pond. The effect swept over Hex, but no unfavorable consequences came of this; he continued his serene walk.
“Filth,” Hex spat. “What you think you can show me I don’t already see every day?”
The air stirred a second time.
“Jeb don’t blame me for Fort Charlotte. He’s wrong not to, but he don’t blame me.”
A third time, the villain unleashed its witchcraft, whose impurity found its way to me as it did Hex. Flashes of my family invaded my mind. They never experienced a life outside of the plantation.
I fled without them.
left them to die…
No.
I did.
I did not.
“White Fawn done what she done. I couldn’ta stopped her. She were too free a spirit,” snarled Hex. “You’re nothin’. You have nothin’. I know what you really are.”
Eli was at last freed, and he hastened to me, aware of my disorientation. I saw truth and decency again when he enfolded me. We held Hadley, together.
Jonah Hex was a single step from it, now. Another jet of fire, wreathing with sentience, erupted from the earth and almost slashed through his torso, but it fell short. Hex deliberately plunged his arm into it, as a demonstration of contempt. He sustained sparse injuries, for the flame recoiled at his touch.
“It’s not a war when it’s one side that’s fightin’.”
The corpse’s dried bones clacked beneath its garb, and it crooned to Hex in a horrid, pealing chant, not unlike it was spoken from inside a hollowed-out tree:
“it comes ever naturally to your ilk…
your trivial desires…
your infantile bickering, clawing…
you and all my cousins’ bastard creations, affronts…
you will always be so good at it…
for me”
Its withered fingers extended, but Hex nabbed the wrists, forcing them apart. I could swear to you now, even by the paltry light of Amos’ lantern and what little help the moon was providing through the canopy of fog, that the figure wore the Union Army’s blue on one sleeve, and grey on the other, like Hex himself bore. The cavalryman pulled the hanging atrocity toe-to-toe with himself.
“Best be gittin’, now. It’s the dead stayin’ dead, what scares me.”
Thunderous percussions—similar to those of drums, and not of a storm—sounded over the land. The sky bowed and fluctuated about the astral tether belonging to Hex’s captive, and, as equivocally as it had surfaced, the blight then receded into thin air. The man who had vanquished it was left there: fists empty, panting, with twice as many lesions and contusions as he had before sunset.
I wish I could tell you there was an ambiance of resolution to accompany the victory, but this was not so. Embers, and the fetor of burnt horses’ flesh, stung our senses. The night was dense. A downcast Amos relieved me of Hadley, after trying and failing to express his condolences. I initially resisted surrendering my charge, until Eli persuaded me to with a shivering hand cupped on mine. The stout man had collected himself, and gotten our cowboy to his unsteady feet; over and over (but expecting no reply), they both questioned in manic tones what we had all witnessed still living, lurking, feeding, here in the vast frontier of America.
Jonah Hex trod to the cliff where his mare had met her end; on his way, he stooped but once to retrieve the weapon he had used that evening. Eli and I trailed him.
“Mr. Hex…” Eli disturbed his grieving. “We’d like you to know… we know what you done for us, and I thank-“
Hex’s revolver snapped to Eli’s brow. We were in shock; immobilized, and struck dumb by the act.
“You ever ended a life, son?”
Eli was unflinching. “No sir, I haven’t.”
Hex moved close to Eli’s face. Marring the man’s features, in addition to those terrible abrasions, was the same outrage he had fostered before. His triumph over the demon had not soothed his conscience in the least.
“Don’t you thank me for what I done. Don’t you ever thank a man for killin’ for you. You can’t know what they gave up.”
He was broken, a thousand times over. I was sorry for him, truly; therefore I was taken aback by my own immodesty, which ensued once Hex lowered his gun. My memory of this night is vague only here, and though I know I am accountable, I wish it were true that I was scarcely in control of the regrettable words that passed my lips.
“I would not thank you,” I swore fiercely. “Not in all the years I have left will I thank you, for choosing my life over another. He was a boy, Jonah Hex!”
I refused Eli’s arm shepherding me away, pushing it aside.
“My life was payed for by the blood of One other… and you have made it so my life has been payed for by the blood of two. I would have died in Hadley’s stead, but you are selfish, and arrogant and you dispense death on a whim. No, you will not have my gratitude or forgiveness.”
I fear I must have hit him, or chastised him with more profane language than I can admit to using, myself. Hex justified himself in no way, standing as a statue would.
Amos had rounded up a spooked horse and mounted, with Hadley enclosed securely in front of him.
“I’ll ride back to Penance, and tell everyone… tell everyone the way is clear.”
“And we’ll stay here. If that monster shows itself again, we know how to fight it,” the stout man ensured. The young cowboy nodded.
Hex’s wolf limped to him. He stroked its ear, then worked up the nerve to look at Eli and me.
“I’ll be takin’ you to Green River,” he croaked.
And so he did.
***
We did not speak to our scarred stranger for all the remainder of the journey. He led our horses to town. Without us asking, he gruffly convinced the local hostelry to provide Eli and me with rooms. Then he rode west; a wolf in tow, and a heavy coat on his back.
Eli and I would find lasting sanctuary in a mission, in the heart of Arizona territory. It was 1882 by then. Our son Hadley would come to us in the summertime of 1883.
I pray as I have prayed in these many years since, that Mr. Jonah Hex did cease to be that man all in grey, that never did let another tend to his wounds.
I had a comment a couple of images back about how I knew that these were old "men". It's a good question. I don't know. Or maybe I should say that the use of the word men is not to associate a human gender to something that is not human, and is meant in a more generic fashion. I thought about titling this series as "old souls" instead of "men", but obviously I did not. Something about the sound and flow of the words. Even though I like the connotation of soul better than men, I like the way the latter reads better. I also thought about titling some of the images as old women and some as old men, but then I did not want to draw too much attention (or distract too much attention) toward the pursuit of trying to see the distinctions between one group and another by my audience.
Titling is a tricky business.
Of course, I could also fall back to no title at all, but chose not to do that either. It is usually my last resort. A title well chose can add so much to an image, it can set a mood and secure a certain frame of mind in your audience. Along those lines I even thought of titling all these images after various Greek and Roman mythologies, but tossed that out as too heavy-handed and ultimately not in the direction I wanted to go.
The current title works well enough, but is a work in progress. I myself am still feeling out just how to express what I mean about this series. Part of me is still trying to figure out just what the series means to me. On some instinctual level I know what it is, but the more rational and logical parts of my brain are struggling to grasp what those more reactionary parts are feeling.
If that makes sense.
Of course, you are also free to just look at the incredibly lush, dense and verdant forest scenes.
Apologies for the poor shot here. This older Toyota Avensis from Lithuania, was driving passed the Hull Marina. I presume this car was owned by someone who lives/works in Hull. The 'CCP' is kinda an interesting combination, especially given its connotations with the former Soviet Union.
Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom
Not curtains. But what? No hints but if you guess correctly I will post a comment confirming that you are correct. Ok, one hint: it's an ordinary object not something rare that would be impossible to guess.
Thanks to those of you who hazarded a guess. It's a picture of part of a clear glass fruit bowl that has some interesting contours. When I placed some red paper behind the bowl and used a narrow depth of field some of the contours of the bowl started to look like smooth pleats of fabric. It was then a lot of trial and error with focus, paper, and light to develop the concept of a split curtain, which I thought had an interesting Scriptural connotation.
Much better viewed on black...