View allAll Photos Tagged secure
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Puppet on a String
Now, if we both agree, our newly minted Mrs.D…., Parden me! Lady D. Calabash,
Agree that pistols are just rude and unnecessary …… I will just put this away this objectionable bit of melodrama, and we can continue on with My requests like reasonable adults..
Now, just nod yes with your pretty tiaraed head……
Capital ! Now might I suggest that you keep that frog in your throat from escaping, and stay mute for a bit…There, that’s the girl….
Obviously, you Milady, received our missive, and was just curious enough to come alone see what it was all on about.
But first, please allow me to force upon you apologies for intruding like this upon you day of Matrimony… but now that you are securely wed, these matters needed to be discussed with the upmost urgency…
Ahhh…I saw you glancing away towards the door, but don’t worry about holding up your wedding party Milady… interesting use of a rather rude appellation that, hold-up I mean….., for you see, your entourage is currently being, let us say, “ entertained” by my fellow friends in a manner that your absence from them will not be dwelt upon for the time being….
Ah, did I just see a shiver along your pretty physique? But as a thief yourself, you should not be aghast by my words…
Now… don’t look at me like that, We really do know your little secret….! And No!, allow me to make our position quite clear Lady C… we are not blackmailers, just simple jewel thieves.. not unlike yourself…
Ah I can see by the look in your eyes that you know we are of the same mold, so it is of no use shaking your shimmering head like that, your crafty game is up, now is it not?,
But I must say that your diamond earrings and tiara really put on a jolly nice show whilst you were nodding no!
But let us put those pretty distractions aside for now, and I will make it quick and to the point…. As I know you would prefer it to be…
You’d admit.. That you are a dirt poor lass by heritage… having only been posing as a one of wealthy elite to snag your disgustingly wealthy Intendeds affections, and that all of the jewels you have been flaunting in his and the Lord’s family’s face actually were “shall we say…borrowed” from the rather obscenely rich, family less spinsterish old lady, whose bed-ridden condition you became nurse too , after of course, you were able to convince her to discharge the au pair she was at the current time employing!
Hush, I see you want to argue the point, but that photograph you are holding,, one of several I might add, tells you that the proof is in the pudding against any defense you might try to stage!
My dear just accept the fact you have been found out, and listen quietly without further attempts at interruption and I promise it will be less painful to you all around….
Actually I am doing you a favor my pretty miss… We have already made it appear that your charges safe has been burgled while she slept , and have taken the liberty to remove the rest of her jewels you had secreted away in your chambre , really, under a mattress? Which means that all blame will fall squarely upon my lot for their sad loss.
Don’t gasp like that My pretty Lady, you knew the charade would have to end, and we are presenting to you a way to gracefully exit without being found out…Consider it our wedding gift to you….!
Now attend please, as I have stated, we are not blackmailers, we want nothing more from you after this day than information. Oh come now miss, don’t look coy, you know full well the type of information we can use… Dates of balls, dances and the house guests who will be staying with you at the Manor will suffice…. and no tipping us off to anyone, we will have eyes upon you, the same unseen eyes that have been following you for quite some time now….
Quite fetching, the way you placed your hand to your open mouth just now, That ring really does sparkle a bit, showy little gem!
So…You really had no Idea someone was on to you?
Allow me to reiterate our position then…for one year of your cooperation, the picts and negatives are yours, and we will vanish totally out of your life and let you live happily ever after with your prince, er Lord!
Ahh, I can see it now in your pretty eyes, Game set and match in my court. But do not stress all too much over it, the unpleasantness of being our snitch should last only for a year from today, providing of course we are satisfactorily compensated by your disclosures….
For trust us, for even the dimmest of police inspectors will notice a pattern eventually, and we would prefer to leave you with no ideas of spilling your story to anyone by milking information from you to the point of desperation….
Now me fine lass, Since you are rather talented at telling stories, I harbor no doubts that you will be able to put on a good show for the next year…… also when when you soon rejoin your party today. Though actually I may suggest you remain here and have them find you huddled in a corner at the shock of your loss..
What Loss your eyes appear to be asking?
Well Lady C… It will be best if it appears that you have met the same unfortunate fate as your bridal party… Now don’t balk at this point now Me fine Lady… We have come much too far along this path too to dicker over minor facets of your indiscretions !…
As the preacher said a short while ago , do you take this lady for richer or poorer, and through your husband ‘s exuberance in agreeing to it, than you should not have any qualms about handing over to me the jewels you are wearing….
Now be a dear and do it quickly, it will be painless… then just begin a new , honest , life with your Lord…for I can tell you, after crashing his bachelors party, that the clueless whelp is actually quite a bit in love with you….
Balking a bit Luv. ? … Here allow me to direct….
Start with the necklace Lady D., good, now the rest..
There that’s the ticket…. you’ve got the idea now, quick and easy, that’s a good lass.
No Now, keep the wedding ring, but slip off the other My dear Lady C.!
Is that all of it, not holding out our we? Capital!
Thank you now, quite a lot actually, And see that did not hurt so much did it?
Look! Quite a lovely handful they do make, just admire their shimmer and shine. Well, I will put these twice stolen baubles away for now, not further taunting, quite rude of me I will admit!
And now, allow me take my leave of you.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
As he turned away, Lady D. Calabash felt as if she could no longer let the cat hold her tongue…
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
“Tallie” she blurted out , her anxiety forcing her to say something, anything….
He stopped in his tracks, turned around quizzically, cocking his head in a questioning manner, but said nothing.
“Tallie” she said again without reason , lips now trembling, her whole demeanor shaking.
“The name of the au pair girl was Tallie”
But Lady C.’s words drifted off and died away as he smartly turned heel and walked off , but not before hunching his grey eyes up at her in a rather dismissive fashion at the wretched newly titled lass…..
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
He left her standing there, dazed and confused…
Slipping down a set of stairs leading to a cellar he made his way through a maze of various objects before he reached a small wooden door. Opening it, he found himself in a seldom used back alleyway.
He stole away down the cobblestone path of the darkened alley, making his way by foot back to his gang’s hideout. Said gang, he figured, should be just now finishing up with trimming a bit of the fat from the wealthy guests.
Cause and effect he marveled wryly as he allowed various thoughts to roll about in his head while he strolled calmly away, making his escape…
Amazing the chain of events that had been set off by the simple discharging of a, seemingly insignificant, au pair girl!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To see what the significance of the name Tallie may add to this narrative….
Visit the pict and story below…
“An Odyssey Less Taken “@
My camera bag is always secure!!
Flickr Lounge ~ Weekend Theme (Week 5) ~ Fastened, Fastener or Fastening ....
Stay Safe and Healthy Everyone!
Thanks to everyone who views this photo, adds a note, leaves a comment and of course BIG thanks to anyone who chooses to favourite my photo .... Thanks to you all!
Marines with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command, provide security as part of a Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel exercise at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, Jan. 25, 2016. SPMAGTF-CR-CC is ready to respond to any crisis response mission in theater to include the employment of a TRAP force.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Akeel Austin/Released)
Another oldie I had forgotten about, until somebody happened upon it and hit the Fave button. This is from 13 years ago, when I was more fascinated with all things railroad. Nice to see it again. Original title: A Firm Handshake.
SO much fun bringing Sleepy Cat back for Mardi Gras! For this year's house float, we are doing "Sleepy Cat in Space," with subtle changes!
Intagram:
@krewe_of_sleepy_cat
#krewe_of_sleepy_cat
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket carrying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-T (GOES-T), is secured on the pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Feb. 28, 2022. GOES-T will lift off atop the Atlas V from SLC-41 on March 1, 2022, at 4:38 p.m. GOES-T is the third satellite in the GOES-R series that will continue to help meteorologists observe and predict local weather events that affect public safety. GOES-T will be renamed GOES-18 once it reaches geostationary orbit. GOES-18 will go into operational service as GOES West to provide critical data for the U.S. West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, and the Pacific Ocean. The launch is managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, America’s multi-user spaceport. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
This was the highlight and reason for my Southern Arizona Adventure 2024. This is stage 8 of 9.
I was lucky to secure permits for the once monthly photography tour of Kartchner Caverns. Kartchner Caverns State Park strictly forbids any cameras or cellphones in the Caverns. Except for one trip per month for 12 to 15 photographers currently $125. I planned a 4 day 3 night road trip around Southern Arizona anchored by my Kartchner Cavern permit.
I was expecting dark conditions. The State Park turned on all the lights in the Big Room. They don't like turning on all the lights since can cause an increase in algae. This is the reason they only have one photography tour a month.
I found myself adjusting my histograms to not clip the highlights. Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome. Next time I am going to bracket my shots. I almost wish I had brought a ND filter or tried a handheld GND filter.
I don't know speleothems so I won't even try to identify. If anyone can help me with the identification, I will appreciate it.
www.nps.gov/subjects/caves/speleothems.htm#:~:text=The%20...)%20when%20needed.
The features that arouse the greatest curiosity for most cave visitors are speleothems. These stone formations exhibit bizarre patterns and other-worldly forms, which give some caves a wonderland appearance. Caves vary widely in their displays of speleothems because of differences in temperature; overall wetness; and jointing, impurities, and structures in the rocks. In general, however, one thing caves do have in common is where speleothems form. Although the formation of caves typically takes place below the water table in the zone of saturation, the deposition of speleothems is not possible until caves are above the water table in the zone of aeration. As soon as the chamber is filled with air, the stage is set for the decoration phase of cave building to begin.
The term speleothem refers to the mode of occurrence of a mineral—i.e., its morphology or how it looks—in a cave, not its composition (Hill, 1997). For example, calcite, the most common cave mineral, is not a speleothem, but a calcite stalactite is a speleothem. A stalactite may be made of other minerals, such as halite or gypsum.
Classifying speleothems is tricky because no two speleothems are exactly alike. Nevertheless, speleologists have taken three basic approaches: classification by morphology, classification by origin, and classification by crystallography. All three of these approaches have their problems (Hill, 1997), so cavers often take a more practical approach that primarily uses morphology (e.g., cave pearls) but includes whatever is known about origin (e.g., geysermites) and crystallography (e.g., spar) when needed.
nocache.azcentral.com/travel/arizona/southern/articles/20...
The Kartchner Caverns, rated one of the world's 10 most beautiful caves, is an eerie wonderland of stalactites and stalagmites still growing beneath the Whetstone Mountains 40 miles southeast of Tucson.
The limestone cave has 13,000 feet of passages and hundreds of formations built over the past 200,000 years, including some that are unique and world-renowned. It's a "living cave," with intricate formations that continue to grow as water seeps, drips and flows from the walls and slowly deposits the mineral calcium carbonate.
The caverns were discovered by amateur spelunkers Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen in 1974 on land owned by the Kartchner family. They kept the cave a secret until 1988, when the Kartchners sold it to the state to become a state park.
The highlights of the Big Room tour are a stretch of strawberry flowstone, which has been colored red by iron oxide (rust) in the water, and a maternity ward for 1,800 female cave myotis bats, with black grime on the ceiling where the bats hang and piles of guano on the floor. Visitors who look closely will see a bat's body embedded in one of the cave's formations.
Though not all are available on the tours, the caverns' unique features include a 21-foot, 2-inch soda straw that's one the world's largest (Throne Room), the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk (Big Room), the first reported occurrence of "turnip" shields (Big Room), the first cave occurrence of "birdsnest" needle quartz formations (Big Room) and the remains of a Shasta ground sloth from the Pleistocene Age (Big Room).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartchner_Caverns_State_Park
Kartchner Caverns State Park is a state park of Arizona, United States, featuring a show cave with 2.4 miles (3.9 km) of passages.[1] The park is located 9 miles (14 km) south of the town of Benson and west of the north-flowing San Pedro River. Long hidden from view, the caverns were discovered in 1974 by local cavers, assisted by state biologist Erick Campbell who helped in its preservation.
The park encompasses most of a down-dropped block of Palaeozoic rocks on the east flank of the Whetstone Mountains.
The caverns are carved out of limestone and filled with spectacular speleothems which have been growing for 50,000 years or longer, and are still growing. Careful and technical cave state park development and maintenance, initially established by founder Dr. Bruce Randall "Randy" Tufts, geologist, were designed to protect and preserve the cave system throughout the park's development, and for perpetuity.[3]
The two major features of the caverns accessible to the public are the Throne Room and the Big Room. The Throne Room contains one of the world's longest (21 ft 2 in (6.45 m))[5] soda straw stalactites and a 58-foot (18 m) high column called Kubla Khan, after the poem. The Big Room contains the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk. Big Room cave tours are closed during the summer for several months (April 15 to October 15) each year because it is a nursery roost for cave bats, however the Throne Room tours remain open year-round.[8]
Other features publicly accessible within the caverns include Mud Flats, Rotunda Room, Strawberry Room, and Cul-de-sac Passage. Approximately 60% of the cave system is not open to the public.[9]
Many different cave formations can be found within the caves and the surrounding park. These include cave bacon, helictites, soda straws, stalactites, stalagmites and others.[12] Cave formations like the stalactites and stalagmites grow approximately a 16th of an inch every 100 years.[13]
Haiku thoughts:
Beneath earth's cool veil,
Stalactites in silence grow,
Whispers of stone deep.
Kartchner
Southern Arizona Adventure 2024
New Zealand's native Blue Duck on the water at the Salmon farm. This distinctive blue colour is created by glacial flour, the extremely finely ground rock particles from the glaciers.
On our journey home May 3, 2016 at Mt. Cook Alpine Salmon farm Tekapo, Pukaki Hydro Canal, Twizel, in the South Island of New Zealand. We stopped and brought some Salmon for dinner.
The blue duck is one of a handful of torrent duck species worldwide. It is a river specialist which inhabits clean, fast flowing streams in the forested upper catchments of New Zealand rivers. They are endemic to New Zealand so are found nowhere else in the world.
Their Māori name is whio in the North Island or ko whio whio in the South Island which depicts the call of the male bird. They are a taonga (treasured) species. Māori have a strong cultural, spiritual, and historic connection with whio.
Whio are believed to have appeared at a very early stage in evolutionary history, an ancient species of waterfowl. Their isolation in New Zealand has resulted in unique anatomical and behavioural features. They have evolved over thousands of years to live without threats of mammalian predators. This means whio have a very trusting nature and not wary, allowing close interaction with people in their natural environment.
Whio nest along the riverbanks. They are flightless during the moult period which makes them extremely vulnerable to attacks from stoats, cats, ferrets, and dogs. Their persistence can not be secured on off shore islands like many of endangered species. They are rarer than some species of kiwi.
The sight and sound of whio and the image of New Zealand's back-country waterways have been synonymous for a long time. Today the whio is acknowledged by New Zealand's back-country users as an iconic species.
Whio are an indicator of healthy rivers and streams, an icon of New Zealand's waterways and feature on our $10 note.
For More Info:http://www.doc.govt.nz/whio
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.
Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.
As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.
In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.
The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.
While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.
In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.
In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.
The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.
The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.
Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.
The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.
World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.
In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.
The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.
Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.
On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.
On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.
A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.
The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.
Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.
Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.
A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.
With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.
The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.
Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.
With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.
Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.
Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.
The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.
On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.
Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.
At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.
Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.
Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.
The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.
Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.
On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.
By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.
Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.
Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.
By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.
In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.
Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.
Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.
On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.
From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.
Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.
As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.
An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.
Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".
On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.
The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.
Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.
Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.
On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.
Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.
The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.
The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.
Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.
However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.
Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.
In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.
The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.
Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.
Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.
Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).
Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.
On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.
The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.
Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.
Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.
In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.
We now own Green Farm, ( Worcestershire Wildlife Trust) 59 acres of old farm pasture, this will slowly be reverted into wildflower meadows and an orchard is planned. On the right is Monkwood, mentioned as far back as the 10th century, owned by the church and later by the Harris Brush Company. On the left are hedges that are also around a thousand years old. I have been a photographer for the trust about 15 years now and I will continue to document this special place as long as it takes.
Also of interest is the sign of ridge and furrow ploughing in this large meadow.
One of UK Specialist Ambulance Serivce's lovely Renault Trafic Secure Transfer Vehicles is seen here at their base in Rainham. My thanks go to the company for allowing a visit for photos and for moving and lighting the vehicles up. Plates blanked on request of the company.
20th May 2015
© Copyright IOW 999 Pics - No Unauthorized Use.
Do you need a COVID-19 secure scissor lift?
There's one waiting for you to get your grubby hands on.
Accepted by MOF 2013 (Mersin Olba Photographic Association, Turkey).
I have to say, the worst International Salon ever! You don't get told what mark you got. You don't get an email with a report card, you just have to keep looking at the website then trawl through to find your name and see whether you got an acceptance or not.
I must say though, they are very loyal to their own people! Haha!
As soon as I secured my historic shot I dashed over the footbridge & positioned myself at the front drop light for a singularly unique event-departing my home town behind a Tractor. 37093 gets into it's stride passing Leicester North Box & the impressive array of signals with the 1ZXX 0815 Hinckley-Whitby 'Merrymaker' adex on Sunday 3rd July 1983. The sheer volume of mechanical signalling hardware on the ground is staggering. Over on the right Leicester MPD hosts another relatively rare English Electric product in the shape of a Class 40.
Securely Decaying - The entrance of an old home in south-central Phoenix is still secure but… Grant Park neighborhood.
++++++ FROM WIKIPEDIA ++++++
Kathmandu (/ˌkætmænˈduː/;[2] Nepali: काठमाडौँ, Nepali pronunciation: [ˈkaʈʰmaɳɖu]) is the capital and largest city of Nepal, with a population of around 1 million. Also known as the city of temples, the city stands at an elevation of approximately 1,400 metres (4,600 feet) above sea level in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu valley in central Nepal. The valley was historically called the "Nepal Mandala" and has been the home of the Newar people, a cosmopolitan urban civilization in the Himalayan foothills. The city was the royal capital of the Kingdom of Nepal and hosts palaces, mansions and gardens of the Nepalese aristocracy. It has been home to the headquarters of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) since 1985. Today, it is the seat of government of the Nepalese republic, established in 2008, and is part of the Bagmati Province.
Kathmandu is and has been for many years the centre of Nepal's history, art, culture, and economy. It has a multi-ethnic population within a Hindu and Buddhist majority. Religious and cultural festivities form a major part of the lives of people residing in Kathmandu. Tourism is an important part of the economy in the city. In 2013, Kathmandu was ranked third among the top ten upcoming travel destinations in the world by TripAdvisor, and ranked first in Asia. The city is considered the gateway to the Nepalese Himalayas and is home to several world heritage sites: the Durbar Square, Swayambhunath, Boudhanath and Pashupatinath. Kathmandu valley is growing at 4 percentange per year according to the World Bank in 2010, making it one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in South Asia, and the first region in Nepal to face the unprecedented challenges of rapid urbanization and modernization at a metropolitan scale.
Historic areas of Kathmandu were severely damaged by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in April 2015. Some of the buildings have been restored while some remain in the process of reconstruction.
Etymology
The indigenous Newari term for Kathmandu valley is Yen. The Nepali name Kathmandu comes from Kasthamandap, which stood in the Durbar Square. In Sanskrit, Kāṣṭha (Sanskrit: काष्ठ) means "Wood" and Maṇḍapa (Sanskrit: मण्डप) means "Pavilion". This public pavilion, also known as Maru Satta in Newari, was rebuilt in 1596 by Biseth in the period of King Laxmi Narsingh Malla. The three-storey structure was made entirely of wood and used no iron nails nor supports. According to legends, all the timber used to build the pagoda was obtained from a single tree.[4] The structure collapsed during a major earthquake in April 2015.
The colophons of ancient manuscripts, dated as late as the 20th century, refer to Kathmandu as Kāṣṭhamaṇḍap Mahānagar in Nepal Mandala. Mahānagar means "great city". The city is called Kāṣṭhamaṇḍap in a vow that Buddhist priests still recite to this day. Thus, Kathmandu is also known as Kāṣṭhamaṇḍap. During medieval times, the city was sometimes called Kāntipur (Sanskrit: कान्तिपुर). This name is derived from two Sanskrit words – Kānti and Pur. Kānti is a word that stands for "beauty" and is mostly associated with light and Pur means place, thus giving it the meaning, "City of light".
Among the indigenous Newar people, Kathmandu is known as Yeṃ Deśa (Nepal Bhasa: येँ देश), and Patan and Bhaktapur are known as Yala Deśa (Nepal Bhasa: यल देश) and Khwopa Deśa (Nepal Bhasa: ख्वप देश) respectively.[5] "Yen" is the shorter form of Yambu (Nepal Bhasa: यम्बु), which originally referred to the northern half of Kathmandu. The older northern settlements were referred to as Yambi while the southern settlement was known as Yangala.[6][7]
The spelling "Katmandu" was often used in older English-language text. More recently, however, the spelling "Kathmandu" has become more common in English.
History
Archaeological excavations in parts of Kathmandu have found evidence of ancient civilizations. The oldest of these findings is a statue, found in Maligaon, that was dated at 185 AD.[9] The excavation of Dhando Chaitya uncovered a brick with an inscription in Brahmi script. Archaeologists believe it is two thousand years old.[9] Stone inscriptions are a ubiquitous element at heritage sites and are key sources for the history of Nepal.
The earliest Western reference to Kathmandu appears in an account of Jesuit Fathers the Portuguese Jesuit, Fr. Joao Cabral who passed through the Kathmandu Valley in the spring of 1628 [10]and was received graciously by the king of that time, probably King Lakshminarasimha Malla of Kathmandu on their way from Tibet to India,[11] and reported that they reached "Cadmendu", the capital of Nepal kingdom.[12]
Ancient history
The ancient history of Kathmandu is described in its traditional myths and legends. According to Swayambhu Purana, present-day Kathmandu was once a huge and deep lake named "Nagdaha", as it was full of snakes. The lake was cut drained by Bodhisatwa Manjushree with his sword, and the water was evacuated out from there. He then established a city called Manjupattan, and made Dharmakar the ruler of the valley land. After some time, a demon named Banasur closed the outlet, and the valley again turned into a lake. Then Lord Krishna came to Nepal, killed Banasur, and again drained out the water. He brought some Gopals along with him and made Bhuktaman the king of Nepal.[13][14][15]
Kotirudra Samhita of Shiva Purana, Chapter 11, Shloka 18 refers to the place as Nayapala city, which was famous for its Pashupati Shivalinga. The name Nepal probably originates from this city Nayapala.
Very few historical records exists of the period before medieval Licchavi rulers. According to Gopalraj Vansawali, a genealogy of Nepali monarchy, the rulers of Kathmandu Valley before the Licchavis were Gopalas, Mahispalas, Aabhirs, Kiratas, and Somavanshi.[15][16] The Kirata dynasty was established by Yalamber. During the Kirata era, a settlement called Yambu existed in the northern half of old Kathmandu. In some of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Kathmandu is still called Yambu. Another smaller settlement called Yengal was present in the southern half of old Kathmandu, near Manjupattan. During the reign of the seventh Kirata ruler, Jitedasti, Buddhist monks entered Kathmandu valley and established a forest monastery at Sankhu.
Map of Kathmandu, 1802
Licchavi era
The Licchavis from the Indo-Gangetic plain migrated north and defeated the Kiratas, establishing the Licchavi dynasty, circa 400 AD. During this era, following the genocide of Shakyas in Lumbini by Virudhaka, the survivors migrated north and entered the forest monastery lora masquerading as Koliyas. From Sankhu, they migrated to Yambu and Yengal (Lanjagwal and Manjupattan) and established the first permanent Buddhist monasteries of Kathmandu. This created the basis of Newar Buddhism, which is the only surviving Sanskrit-based Buddhist tradition in the world.[17] With their migration, Yambu was called Koligram and Yengal was called Dakshin Koligram[18] during most of the Licchavi era.[19]
Eventually, the Licchavi ruler Gunakamadeva merged Koligram and Dakshin Koligram, founding the city of Kathmandu.[19] The city was designed in the shape of Chandrahrasa, the sword of Manjushri. The city was surrounded by eight barracks guarded by Ajimas. One of these barracks is still in use at Bhadrakali (in front of Singha Durbar). The city served as an important transit point in the trade between India and Tibet, leading to tremendous growth in architecture. Descriptions of buildings such as Managriha, Kailaskut Bhawan, and Bhadradiwas Bhawan have been found in the surviving journals of travellers and monks who lived during this era. For example, the famous 7th-century Chinese traveller Xuanzang described Kailaskut Bhawan, the palace of the Licchavi king Amshuverma.[20] The trade route also led to cultural exchange as well. The artistry of the Newar people—the indigenous inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley—became highly sought after during this era, both within the Valley and throughout the greater Himalayas. Newar artists travelled extensively throughout Asia, creating religious art for their neighbours. For example, Araniko led a group of his compatriot artists through Tibet and China. Bhrikuti, the princess of Nepal who married Tibetan monarch Songtsän Gampo, was instrumental in introducing Buddhism to Tibet.
Skyline of Kathmandu, circa 1793
Malla era
The Licchavi era was followed by the Malla era. Rulers from Tirhut, upon being attacked by Muslims, fled north to the Kathmandu valley. They intermarried with Nepali royalty, and this led to the Malla era. The early years of the Malla era were turbulent, with raids and attacks from Khas and Turk Muslims. There was also a devastating earthquake which claimed the lives of a third of Kathmandu's population, including the king Abhaya Malla. These disasters led to the destruction of most of the architecture of the Licchavi era (such as Mangriha and Kailashkut Bhawan), and the loss of literature collected in various monasteries within the city. Despite the initial hardships, Kathmandu rose to prominence again and, during most of the Malla era, dominated the trade between India and Tibet. Nepali currency became the standard currency in trans-Himalayan trade.
During the later part of the Malla era, Kathmandu Valley comprised four fortified cities: Kantipur, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, and Kirtipur. These served as the capitals of the Malla confederation of Nepal. These states competed with each other in the arts, architecture, esthetics, and trade, resulting in tremendous development. The kings of this period directly influenced or involved themselves in the construction of public buildings, squares, and temples, as well as the development of waterspouts, the institutionalisation of trusts (called guthis), the codification of laws, the writing of dramas, and the performance of plays in city squares. Evidence of an influx of ideas from India, Tibet, China, Persia, and Europe among other places can be found in a stone inscription from the time of king Pratap Malla. Books have been found from this era that describe their tantric tradition (e.g. Tantrakhyan), medicine (e.g. Haramekhala), religion (e.g. Mooldevshashidev), law, morals, and history. Amarkosh, a Sanskrit-Nepal Bhasa dictionary from 1381 AD, was also found. Architecturally notable buildings from this era include Kathmandu Durbar Square, Patan Durbar Square, Bhaktapur Durbar Square, the former durbar of Kirtipur, Nyatapola, Kumbheshwar, the Krishna temple, and others.
Medieval era
The Gorkha Kingdom ended the Malla confederation after the Battle of Kathmandu in 1768. This marked the beginning of the modern era in Kathmandu. The Battle of Kirtipur was the start of the Gorkha conquest of the Kathmandu Valley. Kathmandu was adopted as the capital of the Gorkha empire, and the empire itself was dubbed Nepal. During the early part of this era, Kathmandu maintained its distinctive culture. Buildings with characteristic Nepali architecture, such as the nine-story tower of Basantapur, were built during this era. However, trade declined because of continual war with neighbouring nations. Bhimsen Thapa supported France against Great Britain; this led to the development of modern military structures, such as modern barracks in Kathmandu. The nine-storey tower Dharahara was originally built during this era.
Rana rule
Rana rule over Nepal started with the Kot Massacre of 1846, which occurred near Hanuman Dhoka Durbar. During this massacre, most of Nepal's high-ranking officials were massacred by Jung Bahadur Rana and his supporters. Another massacre, the Bhandarkhal Massacre, was also conducted by Kunwar and his supporters in Kathmandu. During the Rana regime, Kathmandu's alliance shifted from anti-British to pro-British; this led to the construction of the first buildings in the style of Western European architecture. The most well-known of these buildings include Singha Durbar, Garden of Dreams, Shital Niwas, and the old Narayanhiti palace. The first modern commercial road in the Kathmandu Valley, the New Road, was also built during this era. Trichandra College (the first college of Nepal), Durbar High School (the first modern school of Nepal), and Bir Hospital (the first hospital of Nepal) were built in Kathmandu during this era. Education was only accessible to the privileged class. Rana rule was marked by despotism, economic exploitation and religious persecution.
Geography
Kathmandu is in the northwestern part of the Kathmandu Valley to the north of the Bagmati river and covers an area of 50.7 km2 (19.6 sq mi). The average elevation is 1,400 metres (4,600 ft) above sea level.[23] The city is bounded by several other municipalities of the Kathmandu valley: south of the Bagmati by Lalitpur Metropolitan City (Patan), with which it forms one urban area surrounded by a ring road, to the southwest by Kirtipur and to the east by Madyapur Thimi. To the north the urban area extends into several municipalities; Nagarjun, Tarakeshwor, Tokha, Budhanilkantha, Gokarneshwor and Kageshwori Manohara. However, the urban agglomeration extends well beyond the neighbouring municipalities, e.g. to Bhaktapur, and nearly covers the entire Kathmandu valley.
Kathmandu is dissected by eight rivers, the main river of the valley, the Bagmati and its tributaries, of which the Bishnumati, Dhobi Khola, Manohara Khola, Hanumante Khola, and Tukucha Khola are predominant. The mountains from where these rivers originate are in the elevation range of 1,500–3,000 metres (4,900–9,800 ft), and have passes which provide access to and from Kathmandu and its valley.[24][25][26] An ancient canal once flowed from Nagarjuna hill through Balaju to Kathmandu; this canal is now extinct.
The city of Kathmandu and the surrounding valley are in the Deciduous Monsoon Forest Zone (altitude range of 1,200–2,100 metres (3,900–6,900 ft)), one of five vegetation zones defined for Nepal. The dominant tree species in this zone are oak, elm, beech, maple and others, with coniferous trees at higher altitude.[27]
Urban expansion in Kathmandu, 2015.
The green, vegetated slopes that surround the Kathmandu metro area (light grey, image centre) include both forest reserves and national parks
Araniko Highway connects Kathmandu to Bhaktapur and onwards to the Chinese border.
Northeastern Kathmandu with Gaurishankar in background.
Kathmandu administration
Kathmandu and adjacent cities are composed of neighbourhoods, which are utilized quite extensively and more familiar among locals. However, administratively the city is divided into 32 wards, numbered from 1 to 32. Earlier, there were 35 wards which made it the metropolitan city with the largest number of the wards.[28]
Kathmandu agglomeration
There is no officially defined agglomeration of Kathmandu. The urban area of the Kathmandu valley is split among three different districts (second level of administrative divisions within a province), which extend very little beyond the valley fringe, except towards the southern ranges, which have a comparatively small population.[29] They have the three highest population densities in the country. These 3 districts are administered by 21 local level bodies; 2 metropolitan cities (Kathmandu and Lalitpur), 16 municipalities and 3 rural municipalities. Imperial conversion
Five major climatic regions are found in Nepal. Of these, Kathmandu Valley is in the Warm Temperate Zone (elevation ranging from 1,200 to 2,300 metres (3,900 to 7,500 ft)), where the climate is fairly temperate, atypical for the region. This zone is followed by the Cool Temperate Zone with elevation varying between 2,100 and 3,300 metres (6,900 and 10,800 ft). Under Köppen's climate classification, portions of the city with lower elevations have a humid subtropical climate (Cwa), while portions of the city with higher elevations generally have a subtropical highland climate (Cwb). In the Kathmandu Valley, which is representative of its valley's climate, the average summer temperature varies from 28 to 30 °C (82 to 86 °F). The average winter temperature is 10.1 °C (50.2 °F).
The city generally has a climate with warm days followed by cool nights and mornings. Unpredictable weather is expected, given that temperatures can drop to 1 °C (34 °F) or less during the winter. During a 2013 cold front, the winter temperatures of Kathmandu dropped to −4 °C (25 °F), and the lowest temperature was recorded on 10 January 2013, at −9.2 °C (15.4 °F). Rainfall is mostly monsoon-based (about 65% of the total concentrated during the monsoon months of June to September), and decreases substantially (100 to 200 cm (39 to 79 in)) from eastern Nepal to western Nepal. Rainfall has been recorded at about 1,400 millimetres (55.1 in) for the Kathmandu valley, and averages 1,407 millimetres (55.4 in) for the city of Kathmandu. On average humidity is 75%.[24][30][31] The chart below is based on data from the Nepal Bureau of Standards & Meteorology, Weather Meteorology for 2005. The chart provides minimum and maximum temperatures during each month. The annual amount of precipitation was 1,124 millimetres (44.3 in) for 2005, as per monthly data included in the table above.[31] The decade of 2000–2010 saw highly variable and unprecedented precipitation anomalies in Kathmandu. This was mostly due to the annual variation of the southwest monsoon.[citation needed] For example, 2001 recorded only 356 mm (14 in) of precipitation due to an extraordinarily weak monsoon season. In contrast, 2003 was the wettest year ever in Kathmandu, totaling over 2,900 mm (114 in) of precipitation due to an exceptionally strong monsoon season.
Air quality
Air pollution is a major issue in the Kathmandu Valley.[36][37][38] According to the 2016 World Health Organization's Ambient Air Pollution Database,[39] the annual average PM2.5 (particulate matter) concentration in 2013 was 49 μg/m3, which is 4.9 times higher than recommended by the World Health Organization.[40][41] Starting in early 2017, the Government of Nepal and the Embassy of the United States in Kathmandu have monitored and publicly share real-time air quality data. In Nepal and Kathmandu, the annual premature deaths due to air pollution reached 37,399 and 9,943 respectively, according to a Republica news report published on 23 November, 2019. This indicates, around a quarter of the total deaths due to air pollution in Nepal are in Kathmandu.
Government and public services
Kathmandu Municipal Corporation (KMC) is the chief nodal agency for the administration of Kathmandu. The Municipality of Kathmandu was upgraded to a metropolitan city in 1995.
Metropolitan Kathmandu is divided into five sectors: the Central Sector, the East Sector, the North Sector, the City Core and the West Sector. For civic administration, the city is further divided into 35 administrative wards. The Council administers the Metropolitan area of Kathmandu city through its 177 elected representatives and 20 nominated members. It holds biannual meetings to review, process and approve the annual budget and make major policy decisions.[24][44] The ward's profile documents for the 35 wards prepared by the Kathmandu Metropolitan Council is detailed and provides information for each ward on population, the structure and condition of houses, the type of roads, educational, health and financial institutions, entertainment facilities, parking space, security provisions, etc. It also includes lists of development projects completed, on-going and planned, along with informative data about the cultural heritage, festivals, historical sites and the local inhabitants. Ward 16 is the largest, with an area of 437.4 ha; ward 26 is the smallest, with an area of 4 ha.[45]
Kathmandu is the headquarters of the surrounding Kathmandu district. The city of Kathmandu forms this district along with 10 other municipalities, namely Budanilkantha, Chandragiri, Dakshinkali, Gokarneshwar, Kageshwari Manohara, Kirtipur, Nagarjun, Shankharapur, Tarakeshwar and Tokha.
Law and order
The Metropolitan Police is the main law enforcement agency in the city. It is headed by a commissioner of police. The Metropolitan Police is a division of the Nepal Police, and the administrative control lies with the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Consulate of the Netherlands. Kathmandu hosts 28 diplomatic missions
Fire service
The fire service, known as the Barun Yantra Karyalaya (Nepali: वारुण यन्त्र कार्यालय), opened its first station in Kathmandu in 1937 with a single-vehicle.[46] An iron tower was erected to monitor the city and watch for a fire. As a precautionary measure, firemen were sent to the areas which were designated as accident-prone areas.[46] In 1944, the fire service was extended to the neighbouring cities of Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. In 1966, a fire service was established in Kathmandu central airport.[46] In 1975, a West German government donation added seven fire engines to Kathmandu's fire service.[46] The fire service in the city is also overlooked by an international non-governmental organization, the Firefighters Volunteer Association of Nepal (FAN), which was established in 2000 with the purpose of raising public awareness about fire and improving safety.[46]
Electricity and water supply
Public baths, Kathmandu. 1979
Electricity in Kathmandu is regulated and distributed by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). Water supply and sanitation facilities are provided by the Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL). There is a severe shortage of water for household purposes such as drinking, bathing, cooking and washing and irrigation. People have been using bottled mineral water, water from tank trucks and from the ancient dhunge dharas (Nepali: ढुङ्गे धारा) for all the purposes related to water. The city water shortage should be solved by the completion of the much plagued Melamchi Water Supply Project by the end of 2019.[47][48]
Waste management
Waste management may be through composting in municipal waste management units, and at houses with home composting units. Both systems are common and established in India and neighbouring countries.[49]
Demographics
Kathmandu's urban cosmopolitan character has made it the most populous city in Nepal, recording a population of 671,846 residents living in 235,387 households in the metropolitan area, according to the 2001 census.[50] According to the National Population Census of 2011, the total population of Kathmandu city was 975,543 with an annual growth rate of 6.12% with respect to the population figure of 2001. 70% of the total population residing in Kathmandu are aged between 15 and 59.
Over the years the city has been home to people of various ethnicities, resulting in a range of different traditions and cultural practices. In one decade, the population increased from 427,045 in 1991 to 671,805 in 2001. The population was projected to reach 915,071 in 2011 and 1,319,597 by 2021. To keep up this population growth, the KMC-controlled area of 5,076.6 hectares (12,545 acres) has expanded to 8,214 hectares (20,300 acres) in 2001. With this new area, the population density which was 85 in 1991 remained 85 in 2001; it is likely to jump to 111 in 2011 and 161 in 2021.[51]
Currently based on various data Kathmandu population is 1,442,300 with population density of 29,166.835 per sq.km making it as 6th densely populated city in the world.
Ethnic groups
The largest ethnic groups residing in Kathmandu Metropolitan City consists of primarily various caste groups of the Newar community at 25%, Hill Janajati/Adivisis like Tamang, Kirat, Gurung, Magar, Sherpa, etc. making~20%, Khas Brahmin at 24%, Khas Chhetri at 20%, and 7% Terai groups including Madhesi castes and Terai Janajatis/Adivasis like Tharus.[52] More recently, other hill ethnic groups and caste groups from Terai have come to represent a substantial proportion of the city's population. The major languages are Nepali and Nepal Bhasa, while English is understood by many, particularly in the service industry. According to data from 2011, the major religions in Kathmandu city are Hinduism 81.3%, Buddhism 9%, Islam 4.4% and other 5.2%.[53]
The linguistic profile of Kathmandu underwent drastic changes during the Shah dynasty's rule because of its strong bias towards the Hindu culture. Sanskrit language therefore was preferred and people were encouraged to learn it even by attending Sanskrit learning centres in Terai. Sanskrit schools were specially set up in Kathmandu and in the Terai region to inculcate traditional Hindu culture and practices originated from Nepal.[54]
Architecture and cityscape
The ancient trade route between India and Tibet that passed through Kathmandu enabled a fusion of artistic and architectural traditions from other cultures to be amalgamated with local art and architecture.[56] The monuments of Kathmandu City have been influenced over the centuries by Hindu and Buddhist religious practices. The architectural treasure of the Kathmandu valley has been categorized under the well-known seven groups of heritage monuments and buildings. In 2006 UNESCO declared these seven groups of monuments as a World Heritage Site (WHS). The seven monuments zones cover an area of 189 hectares (470 acres), with the buffer zone extending to 2,394 hectares (5,920 acres). The Seven Monument Zones inscribed originally in 1979 and with a minor modification in 2006 are the Durbar squares of Hanuman Dhoka, Patan and Bhaktapur, the Hindu temples of Pashupatinath and Changunarayan, the Buddhist stupas of Swayambhunath and Boudhanath.[57][58]
Durbar Squares
Main articles: Kathmandu Durbar Square and Hanuman Dhoka
The literal meaning of Durbar Square is a "place of palaces." There are three preserved Durbar Squares in Kathmandu valley and one unpreserved in Kirtipur. The Durbar Square of Kathmandu is in the old city and has heritage buildings representing four kingdoms (Kantipur, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kirtipur); the earliest being the Licchavi dynasty. The complex has 50 temples and is distributed in two quadrangles of the Durbar Square. The outer quadrangle has the Kasthamandap, Kumari Ghar, and Shiva-Parvati Temple; the inner quadrangle has the Hanuman Dhoka palace. The squares were severely damaged in the April 2015 earthquake.
Hanuman Dhoka is a complex of structures with the royal palace of the Malla kings and of the Shah dynasty. It is spread over five acres. The eastern wing, with ten courtyards, is the oldest part, dating to the mid-16th century. It was expanded by King Pratap Malla in the 17th century with many temples. The royal family lived in this palace until 1886 when they moved to Narayanhiti Palace. The stone inscription outside is in fifteen languages.
Kumari Ghar is a palace in the centre of the Kathmandu city, next to the Durbar square where a royal Kumari selected from several Kumaris resides. Kumari, or Kumari Devi, is the tradition of worshipping young pre-pubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy or devi in South Asian countries. In Nepal the selection process is very rigorous. Previously, during the time of the monarchy, the queen and the priests used to appoint the proposed Kumari with delicate process of astrological examination and physical examination of 32 'gunas'. The china (Nepali: चिना), an ancient Hindu astrological report, of the Kumari and the reigning king, was ought to be similar. The Kumari is believed to be a bodily incarnation of the goddess Taleju (the Nepali name for Durga) until she menstruates, after which it is believed that the goddess vacates her body. Serious illness or a major loss of blood from an injury also causes her to revert to common status. The current Kumari, Trishna Shakya, age three at the time of appointment, was installed in September 2017 succeeding Matina Shakya who was the first Kumari of Kathmandu after the end of the monarchy.[59]
Kasthamandap is a three-storeyed temple enshrining an image of Gorakhnath. It was built in the 16th century in pagoda style. The name of Kathmandu is a derivative of the word Kasthamandap. It was built under the reign of King Laxmi Narsingha Malla. Kasthamandap stands at the intersection of two ancient trade routes linking India and Tibet at Maru square. It was originally built as a rest house for travellers.
Pashupatinath temple
Main article: Pashupatinath Temple
Panorama of the Pashupatinath Temple from the other bank of Bagmati river
Pashupatinath as seen from the banks of the Bagmati river
The Pashupatinath Temple (Nepali: पशुपतिनाथ मन्दिर) is a famous 5th century Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. Located on the banks of the Bagmati river, the Pashupatinath Temple is the oldest Hindu temple in Kathmandu.[60] It served as the seat of national deity, Lord Pashupatinath, until Nepal was secularized. However, a significant part of the temple was destroyed by Mughal invaders in the 14th century and little or nothing remains of the original 5th-century temple exterior. The temple as it stands today was built in the 19th century, although the image of the bull and the black four-headed image of Pashupati are at least 300 years old.[61] The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[61][62] Shivaratri, or the night of Lord Shiva, is the most important festival that takes place here, attracting thousands of devotees and sadhus.[citation needed]
Believers in Pashupatinath (mainly Hindus) are allowed to enter the temple premises, but non-Hindu visitors are allowed to view the temple only from the across the Bagmati River.[61] The priests who perform the services at this temple have been Brahmins from Karnataka in southern India since the time of Malla king Yaksha Malla.[63] This tradition is believed to have been started at the request of Adi Shankaracharya who sought to unify the states of Bharatam, a region in south Asia believed to be ruled by a mythological king Bharat, by encouraging cultural exchange. This procedure is followed in other temples around India, which were sanctified by Adi Shankaracharya.
The temple is built in the pagoda style of architecture, with cubic constructions and carved wooden rafters (tundal) on which they rest, and two-level roofs made of copper and gold.
Boudhanath
Boudhanath (Nepali: बौद्ध स्तुप; also written as Bouddhanath, Bodhnath, Baudhanath or the Khāsa Chaitya), is one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Nepal, along with the Swayambhunath. It is a very popular tourist site. Boudhanath is known as Khāsti by Newars and as Bauddha or Bodhnāth by speakers of Nepali.[64] About 11 km (7 mi) from the centre and northeastern outskirts of Kathmandu, the stupa's massive mandala makes it one of the largest spherical stupas in Nepal.[65] Boudhanath became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.
The base of the stupa has 108 small depictions of the Dhyani Buddha Amitabha. It is surrounded with a brick wall with 147 niches, each with four or five prayer wheels engraved with the mantra, om mani padme hum.[66] At the northern entrance where visitors must pass is a shrine dedicated to Ajima, the goddess of smallpox.[66] Every year the stupa attracts many Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims who perform full body prostrations in the inner lower enclosure, walk around the stupa with prayer wheels, chant, and pray.[66] Thousands of prayer flags are hoisted up from the top of the stupa downwards and dot the perimeter of the complex. The influx of many Tibetan refugees from China has seen the construction of over 50 Tibetan gompas (monasteries) around Boudhanath.
Swayambhu
Main article: Swayambhunath
Swayambhunath (Nepali: स्वयम्भू स्तूप) is a Buddhist stupa atop a hillock at the northwestern part of the city. This is among the oldest religious sites in Nepal. Although the site is considered Buddhist, it is revered by both Buddhists and Hindus. The stupa consists of a dome at the base; above the dome, there is a cubic structure with the eyes of Buddha looking in all four directions.[clarification needed] There are pentagonal toran above each of the four sides, with statues engraved on them. Behind and above the torana there are thirteen tiers. Above all the tiers, there is a small space above which lies a gajur.
Rani Pokhari
Main article: Ranipokhari
Ranipokhari (Nepali: रानी पोखरी, lit. 'Queen's Pond') is a historic artificial pond nestled in the heart of Kathmandu. It was built by king Pratap Malla in 1670 AD for his beloved queen after she lost her son and could not recover from her loss.[67] A large stone statue of an elephant in the south signifies the image of Pratap Malla and his two sons. Balgopaleshwor Temple stands still inside the temple above the pond. Rani Pokhari is opened once a year during the final day of Tihar i.e. Bhai Tika and Chhath festival. The world's largest Chhath takes place every year in Ranipokhari. The pond is one of Kathmandu's most famous landmarks and is known for its religious and aesthetic significance.
Culture
Main article: Culture of Kathmandu
Arts
Stone carvings, called Chaityas, seen in street corners and courtyards
Kathmandu valley is described as "an enormous treasure house of art and sculptures", which are made of wood, stone, metal, and terracotta, and found in profusion in temples, shrines, stupas, gompas, chaityasm and palaces. The art objects are also seen in street corners, lanes, private courtyards and in open ground. Most art is in the form of icons of gods and goddesses. Kathmandu valley has had this art treasure for a very long time, but received worldwide recognition only after the country opened to the outside world in 1950.[54]
The religious art of Nepal and Kathmandu in particular consists of an iconic symbolism of the Mother Goddesses such as: Bhavani, Durga, Gaja-Lakshmi, Hariti-Sitala, Mahsishamardini, Saptamatrika (seven mother goddesses), and Sri-Lakshmi (wealth-goddess). From the 3rd century BCE, apart from the Hindu gods and goddesses, Buddhist monuments from the Ashokan period (it is said that Ashoka visited Nepal in 250 BC) have embellished Nepal in general and the valley in particular. These art and architectural edifices encompass three major periods of evolution: the Licchavi or classical period (500 to 900 AD), the post-classical period (1000 to 1400 AD), with strong influence of the Palla art form; the Malla period (1400 onwards) that exhibited explicitly tantric influences coupled with the art of Tibetan Demonology.[68]
A broad typology has been ascribed to the decorative designs and carvings created by the people of Nepal. These artists have maintained a blend of Hinduism and Buddhism. The typology, based on the type of material used are: stone art, metal art, wood art, terracotta art, and painting.[69]
Museums
Kathmandu is home to a number of museums and art galleries, including the National Museum of Nepal and the Natural History Museum of Nepal. Nepal's art and architecture is an amalgamation of two ancient religions, Hinduism and Buddhism. These are amply reflected in the many temples, shrines, stupas, monasteries, and palaces in the seven well-defined Monument Zones of the Kathmandu valley are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This amalgamation is also reflected in the planning and exhibitions in museums and art galleries throughout Kathmandu and its sister cities of Patan and Bhaktapur. The museums display unique artefacts and paintings from the 5th century CE to the present day, including archaeological exportation.[70]
Museums and art galleries in Kathmandu include:[70]
The National Museum
The Natural History Museum
Hanuman Dhoka Palace Complex
The Kaiser Library
The National Art Gallery
The NEF-ART (Nepal Fine Art) Gallery
The Nepal Art Council Gallery
Narayanhiti Palace Museum
The Taragaon Museum
National Museum of Nepal
The National Museum is in the western part of Kathmandu, near the Swayambhunath stupa in a historical building constructed in the early 19th century by General Bhimsen Thapa. It is the most important museum in the country, housing an extensive collection of weapons, art and antiquities of historic and cultural importance. The museum was established in 1928 as a collection house of war trophies and weapons, and the initial name of this museum was Chhauni Silkhana, meaning "the stone house of arms and ammunition". Given its focus, the museum contains many weapons, including locally made firearms used in wars, leather cannons from the 18th–19th century, and medieval and modern works in wood, bronze, stone and paintings.[71]
The Natural History Museum is in the southern foothills of Swayambhunath hill and has a sizeable collection of different species of animals, butterflies, and plants. The museum is noted for its display of species, from prehistoric shells to stuffed animals.[71]
The Tribhuvan Museum contains artifacts related to King Tribhuvan (1906–1955). It has a variety of pieces including his personal belongings, letters, and papers, memorabilia related to events he was involved in and a rare collection of photos and paintings of Royal family members. The Mahendra Museum is dedicated to the King Mahendra (1920–1972). Like the Tribhuvan Museum, it includes his personal belongings such as decorations, stamps, coins and personal notes and manuscripts, but it also has structural reconstructions of his cabinet room and office chamber. The Hanumandhoka Palace, a lavish medieval palace complex in the Durbar, contains three separate museums of historic importance. These museums include the Birendra museum, which contains items related to the second-last monarch, King Birendra.[71]
The enclosed compound of the Narayanhiti Palace Museum is in the north-central part of Kathmandu. "Narayanhiti" (Nepali: नारायणहिटी) comes from Narayana (Nepali: नारायण), a form of the Hindu god Lord Vishnu, and Hiti (Nepali: हिटी), meaning "water spout" (the temple of lord Vishnu is opposite to the palace, and the water spout is east of the main entrance to the precinct). The current palace building was built in 1970 in front of the old palace, built in 1915, in the form of a contemporary pagoda. It was built on the occasion of the marriage of the then crown prince and heir apparent to the throne, Birendra. The southern gate of the palace is at the crossing of Prithvipath and Durbar Marg roads. The palace area covers 30 hectares (74 acres) and is fully secured with gates on all sides.[72][73][74] This palace was the scene of the Nepali royal massacre. After the fall of the monarchy, it has been converted into a museum.
The Taragaon Museum presents the modern history of the Kathmandu valley.[75] It seeks to document 50 years of research and cultural heritage conservation of the Kathmandu Valley, documenting what artists, photographers, architects, and anthropologists from abroad had contributed in the second half of the 20th century. The actual structure of the museum showcases restoration and rehabilitation efforts to preserve the built heritage of Kathmandu. It was designed by Carl Pruscha (master-planner of the Kathmandu Valley)[76] in 1970 and constructed in 1971.[77] Restoration works began in 2010 to rehabilitate the Taragaon hostel into the Taragaon Museum. The design uses local brick along with modern architectural design elements, as well as the use of circle, triangles and squares.[76] The museum is within a short walk from the Boudhanath stupa, which itself can be seen from the museum tower.
Art galleries
A Buddhist statue display in Kathmandu
Kathmandu is a centre for art in Nepal, displaying the work of contemporary artists in the country and also collections of historical artists. Patan in particular is an ancient city noted for its fine arts and crafts. Art in Kathmandu is vibrant, demonstrating a fusion of traditionalism and modern art, derived from a great number of national, Asian, and global influences. Nepali art is commonly divided into two areas: the idealistic traditional painting known as Paubhas in Nepal and perhaps more commonly known as Thangkas in Tibet, closely linked to the country's religious history and on the other hand the contemporary western-style painting, including nature-based compositions or abstract artwork based on Tantric elements and social themes of which painters in Nepal are well noted for.[71] Internationally, the British-based charity, the Kathmandu Contemporary Art Centre is involved with promoting arts in Kathmandu.[78]
Kathmandu houses many notable art galleries. The NAFA Gallery, operated by the Arts and crafts Department of the Nepal Academy is housed in Sita Bhavan, a neo-classical old Rana palace.[71]
The Srijana Contemporary Art Gallery, inside the Bhrikutimandap Exhibition grounds, hosts the work of contemporary painters and sculptors, and regularly organizes exhibitions. It also runs morning and evening classes in the schools of art. Also of note is the Moti Azima Gallery, in a three-storied building in Bhimsenthan which contains an impressive collection of traditional utensils and handmade dolls and items typical of a medieval Newar house, giving an important insight into Nepali history. The J Art Gallery near the former royal palace in Durbarmarg displays the artwork of eminent, established Nepali painters. The Nepal Art Council Gallery, in the Babar Mahal, on the way to Tribhuvan International Airport contains artwork of both national and international artists and extensive halls regularly used for art exhibitions.[71]
Literature
The National Library of Nepal is located in Patan. It is the largest library in the country with more than 70,000 books in English, Nepali, Sanskrit, Hindi, and Nepal Bhasa. The library is in possession of rare scholarly books in Sanskrit and English dating from the 17th century AD. Kathmandu also contains the Kaiser Library, in the Kaiser Mahal on the ground floor of the Ministry of Education building. This collection of around 45,000 books is derived from a personal collection of Kaiser Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana. It covers a wide range of subjects including history, law, art, religion, and philosophy, as well as a Sanskrit manual of Tantra, which is believed to be over 1,000 years old.[71] The 2015 earthquake caused severe damage to the Ministry of Education building, and the contents of the Kaiser Library have been temporarily relocated.
Asa Archives
The Asa Archives are also noteworthy. They specialize in medieval history and religious traditions of the Kathmandu valley. The archives, in Kulambhulu, have a collection of some 6,000 loose-leaf handwritten books and 1,000 palm-leaf manuscripts (mostly in Sanskrit or Nepal Bhasa) and a manuscript dated to 1464.[71]
Cinema and theatre
Kathmandu is home to Nepali cinema and theatres. The city contains several theatres, including the National Dance Theatre in Kanti Path, the Ganga Theatre, the Himalayan Theatre and the Aarohan Theater Group founded in 1982. The M. Art Theater is based in the city. The Gurukul School of Theatre organizes the Kathmandu International Theater Festival, attracting artists from all over the world.[79] A mini theatre has been opened at the Hanumandhoka Durbar Square, established by the Durbar Conservation and Promotion Committee.
Kathmandu has a number of cinemas (old single screen establishments and some new multiplexes) showing Nepali, Bollywood and Hollywood films. Some old establishments include Vishwajyoti Cinema Hall, Jai Nepal Hall, Kumari Cinema Hall, Gopi Krishna Cinema Hall and Guna Cinema Hall. Kathmandu also houses some international standard cinema theatres and multiplexes, such as QFX Cinemas, Cine De Chef, Fcube Cinemas, Q's Cinemas, Big Movies, BSR Movies and many more.
Music
Traditional Buddhist musical performance during Gunla
Kathmandu is the center of music and dance in Nepal, and these art forms are integral to understanding the city. Musical performances are organized in cultural venues. Music is a part of the traditional aspect of Kathmandu. Gunla is the traditional music festival according to Nepal Sambat. Newar music originated in Kathmandu. Furthermore, music from all over Nepal can be found in Kathmandu.
A number of hippies visited Kathmandu during the 1970s and introduced rock and roll, rock, and jazz to the city. Kathmandu is noted internationally for its jazz festival, popularly known as Jazzmandu. It is the only jazz festival in the Himalayan region and was established in March 2002. The festival attracts musicians from countries worldwide, such as Australia, Denmark, United States, Benin, and India.[80]
The city has been referenced in numerous songs, including works by Cat Stevens ('Katmandu', Mona Bone Jakon (1970)), Bob Seger ('Katmandu', Beautiful Loser (1975)), Rush ('A Passage to Bangkok', Pulling into Kathmandu; 2112, 1976), Krematorij ('Kathmandu', Three Springs (2000)), Fito Páez (Tráfico por Katmandú – "Traffic through Kathmandu") and Cavalcade ('Kathmandu Kid') 2019.
Cuisine
One of the typical Nepali meals Dal bhat in Kathmandu
The staple food of most people in Kathmandu is dal bhat. This consists of rice and lentil soup, generally served with vegetable curries, achar and sometimes Chutney. Momo, a type of Nepali version of Tibetan dumpling, has become prominent in Nepal with many street vendors and restaurants selling it. It is one of the most popular fast foods in Kathmandu. Various Nepali variants of momo including buff (i.e. buffalo) momo, chicken momo, and vegetarian momo are famous in Kathmandu.
Most of the cuisines found in Kathmandu are non-vegetarian. However, the practice of vegetarianism is not uncommon, and vegetarian cuisines can be found throughout the city. Consumption of beef is very uncommon and considered taboo in many places. Buff (meat of water buffalo) is very common. There is a strong tradition of buff consumption in Kathmandu, especially among Newars, which is not found in other parts of Nepal. Consumption of pork was considered taboo until a few decades ago. Due to the intermixing with Kirat cuisine from eastern Nepal, pork has found a place in Kathmandu dishes. A fringe population of devout Hindus and Muslims consider it taboo. The Muslims forbid eating buff as from Quran while Hindus eat all varieties except beef as they consider cow to be a goddess and symbol of purity. The chief lunch/snack for locals and visitors is mostly Momo or Chowmein.
Kathmandu had only one western-style restaurant in 1955.[81] A large number of restaurants in Kathmandu have since opened, catering Nepali cuisine, Tibetan cuisine, Chinese cuisine and Indian cuisine in particular. Many other restaurants have opened to accommodate locals, expatriates, and tourists. The growth of tourism in Kathmandu has led to culinary creativity and the development of hybrid foods to accommodate for tourists such as American chop suey, which is a sweet-and-sour sauce with crispy noodles with a fried egg commonly added on top and other westernized adaptations of traditional cuisine.[81] Continental cuisine can be found in selected places. International chain restaurants are rare, but some outlets of Pizza Hut and KFC have recently opened there. It also has several outlets of the international ice-cream chain Baskin-Robbins.[82]
Kathmandu has a larger proportion of tea drinkers than coffee drinkers. Tea is widely served but is extremely weak by western standards. It is richer and contains tea leaves boiled with milk, sugar, and spices. Alcohol is widely drunk, and there are numerous local variants of alcoholic beverages. Drinking and driving is illegal, and authorities have a zero-tolerance policy.[83] Ailaa and thwon (alcohol made from rice) are the alcoholic beverages of Kathmandu, found in all the local bhattis (alcohol serving eateries). Chhyaang, tongba (fermented millet or barley) and raksi are alcoholic beverages from other parts of Nepal which are found in Kathmandu. However, shops and bars in Kathmandu widely sell western and Nepali beers.
President of Nepal Dr. Ram Baran Yadav observing the street festival of Yenya, which literally means "festival of Kathmandu"
Festivals
Samyak, a Buddhist festival during which statues of Buddhas from the ancient monasteries are displayed together. Note the statue of Hanuman next to the Buddhas in the picture, a common example of religious harmony in Kathmandu.
Most of the fairs and festivals in Kathmandu originated in the Malla period or earlier. Traditionally, these festivals were celebrated by Newars. In recent years, these festivals have found wider participation from other Kathmanduites as well. As the capital of the Nepal, various national festivals are celebrated in Kathmandu. With mass migration to the city, the cultures of Khas from the west, Kirats from the east, Bon/Tibetan from the north, and Mithila from the south meet in the capital and mingle harmoniously. The festivities such as the Ghode (horse) Jatra, Indra Jatra, Dashain Durga Puja festivals, Shivratri and many more are observed by all Hindu and Buddhist communities of Kathmandu with devotional fervor and enthusiasm. Social regulation in the codes enacted incorporates Hindu traditions and ethics. These were followed by the Shah kings and previous kings, as devout Hindus and protectors of the Buddhist religion.
Nepali Lakhe dancer
Cultural continuity has been maintained for centuries in the exclusive worship of goddesses and deities in Kathmandu and the rest of the country. These deities include the Ajima,[84] Taleju (or Tulja Bhavani or Taleju Bhawani)[85][86] and her other forms : Digu Taleju (or Degu Taleju)[87] and Kumari (the living goddess).[88] The artistic edifices have now become places of worship in the everyday life of the people, therefore a roster is maintained to observe annual festivals. There are 133 festivals held in the year.[89]
Some of the traditional festivals observed in Kathmandu, apart from those previously mentioned, are Bada Dashain, Tihar, Chhath, Maghe Sankranti, Nag Panchami, Janai Purnima, Pancha Dan, Teej/Rishi Panchami, Pahan Charhe, Jana Baha Dyah Jatra (White Machchhendranath Jatra), and Matatirtha Aunsi.[56]
Religions
Hinduism
Kathmandu valley as seen from Halchowk during Deepawali, 2013
Assumedly, together with the kingdom of Licchhavi (c. 400 to 750), Hinduism and the endogam social stratification of the caste was established in Kathmandu Valley. The Pashupatinath Temple, Changu Narayan Temple, and the Kasthamandap are of particular importance to Hindus. Other notable Hindu temples in Kathmandu and the surrounding valley include Bajrayogini Temple, Dakshinkali Temple, Guhyeshwari Temple, and the Shobha Bhagawati shrine.
The Bagmati river which flows through Kathmandu is considered a holy river both by Hindus and Buddhists, and many Hindu temples are on the banks of this river. The importance of the Bagmati also lies in the fact that Hindus are cremated on its banks, and Kirants are buried in the hills by its side. According to the Nepali Hindu tradition, the dead body must be dipped three times into the Bagmati before cremation. The chief mourner (usually the first son) who lights the funeral pyre must take a holy riverwater bath immediately after cremation. Many relatives who join the funeral procession also take bath in the Bagmati or sprinkle the holy water on their bodies at the end of cremation as the Bagmati is believed to purify people spiritually.
Buddhism
Buddhism was brought into Kathmandu with the arrival of Buddhist monks during the time of Buddha (c. 563 – 483 BCE[90]). They established a forest monastery in Sankhu. This monastery was renovated by Shakyas after they fled genocide from Virudhaka (r. 491–461 BCE).
During the Hindu Lichchavi era (c. 400 to 750), various monasteries and orders were created which successively led to the formation of Newar Buddhism, which is still practiced in the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Sanskrit.
Legendary Princess Bhrikuti (7th-century) and artist Araniko (1245–1306 CE) from that tradition of Kathmandu valley played a significant role in spreading Buddhism in Tibet and China. There are over 108 traditional monasteries (Bahals and Baháʼís) in Kathmandu based on Newar Buddhism. Since the 1960s, the permanent Tibetan Buddhist population of Kathmandu has risen significantly so that there are now over fifty Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the area. Also, with the modernization of Newar Buddhism, various Theravada Bihars have been established.
Islam
Jama Masjid, Ghantaghar
Muslims in Kathmandu pray to Allah on Friday (the day of Namaj) often going to the Jame Masjid in Ghantaghar, near Ratnapark.
Kirat Mundhum
Kirant Mundhum is one of the indigenous animistic practices of Nepal. It is practiced by the Kirat people. Some animistic aspects of Kirant beliefs, such as ancestor worship (worship of Ajima) are also found in Newars of Kirant origin. Ancient religious sites believed to be worshipped by ancient Kirats, such as Pashupatinath, Wanga Akash Bhairabh (Yalambar) and Ajima are now worshipped by people of all Dharmic religions in Kathmandu. Kirats who have migrated from other parts of Nepal to Kathmandu practice Mundhum in the city.[91]
Other religions
Sikhism is practiced primarily in Gurudwara at Kupundole. An earlier temple of Sikhism is also present in Kathmandu which is now defunct.
Jainism is practiced by a small community. A Jain temple is present in Gyaneshwar, where Jains practice their faith.
According to the records of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of Nepal, there are approximately 300 followers of the Baháʼí Faith in Kathmandu valley. They have a national office in Shantinagar, Baneshwor. The Baháʼís also have classes for children at the National Centre and other localities in Kathmandu.
Islam is practiced in Kathmandu but Muslims are a minority, accounting for about 4.4% of the population of Nepal.[92]
It is said that in Kathmandu alone there are 170 Christian churches. Christian missionary hospitals, welfare organizations, and schools are also operating. Nepali citizens who served as soldiers in Indian and British armies, who had converted to Christianity while in service, on return to Nepal continue to practice their religion. They have contributed to the spread of Christianity and the building of churches in Nepal and in Kathmandu, in particular.[93][94]
Education
The oldest modern school in Nepal, the Durbar High School, and the oldest college, the Tri-Chandra College, are both in Kathmandu. The largest (according to number of students and colleges), the oldest and most distinguished university in Nepal the Tribhuvan University, located in Kirtipur. The second largest university, Kathmandu University (KU), is in Dhulikhel, Kavre on the outskirts of Kathmandu. It is the second oldest university in Nepal, established in November 1991.[95] Not surprisingly the best schools and colleges of Nepal are located in Kathmandu and its adjoining cities. Every year thousands of students from all over Nepal arrive at Kathmandu to get admission in the various schools and colleges. One of the key concerns of educationists and concerned citizens is the massive outflux of students from Nepal to outside Nepal for studies. Every year thousands of students apply for No Objection Certificates for studying abroad. Consultancy firms specializing in preparing students to go abroad can be found in all prominent locations. The reason for such an outflux range from perceived low quality of education, political instability, fewer opportunities in the job market, opportunities for earning while learning abroad and better job prospects with an international degree.
Healthcare
Healthcare in Kathmandu is the most developed in Nepal, and the city and surrounding valley is home to some of the best hospitals and clinics in the country. Bir Hospital is the oldest, established in July 1889 by Bir Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana. Notable hospitals include Bir Hospital, Nepal Medical College and Teaching Hospital (Jorpati), Tribhuvan University Institute of Medicine (Teaching Hospital), Patan Hospital, Kathmandu Model Hospital, Scheer Memorial Hospital, Om Hospital, Norvic Hospital, Grande International Hospital, Nobel Hospital and many more.
The city is supported by specialist hospitals/clinics such as Shahid Shukraraj Tropical Hospital, Shahid Gangalal Foundation, Kathmandu Veterinary Hospital, Nepal Eye Hospital, Kanti Children's Hospital, Nepal International Clinic (Travel and Mountain Medicine Center), Neuro Center, Spinal Rehabilitation center and Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital. Most of the general hospitals are in the city center, although several clinics are elsewhere in Kathmandu district.
Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology is an Ophthalmological hospital in Kathmandu. It pioneered the production of low cost intraocular lenses (IOLs), which are used in cataract surgery.[96] The team of Dr. Sanduk Ruit in Tilganga pioneered sutureless small-incision cataract surgery (SICS),[97][98] a technique which has been used to treat 4 million of the world's 20 million people with cataract blindness.
Medical colleges
Institute of Medicine, the central college of Tribhuvan University is the first medical college of Nepal and is in Maharajgunj, Kathmandu. It was established in 1972 and started to impart medical education from 1978. Other major institutions include Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Kathmandu Medical College, Nepal Medical College, KIST Medical College, Nepal Army Institute of Health Sciences, National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS) and Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (KUSMS), are also in or around Kathmandu.[99]
Economy
Central Bank of Nepal
The location and terrain of Kathmandu have played a significant role in the development of a stable economy which spans millennia. The city is in an ancient lake basin, with fertile soil and flat terrain. This geography helped form a society based on agriculture. This, combined with its location between India and China, helped establish Kathmandu as an important trading centre over the centuries. Kathmandu's trade is an ancient profession that flourished along an offshoot of the Silk Road which linked India and Tibet. From centuries past, Lhasa Newar merchants of Kathmandu have conducted trade across the Himalaya and contributed to spreading art styles and Buddhism across Central Asia.[100] Other traditional occupations are farming, metal casting, woodcarving, painting, weaving, and pottery.[101]
Kathmandu is the most important industrial and commercial centre in Nepal. The Nepal Stock Exchange, the head office of the national bank, the chamber of commerce, as well as head offices of national and international banks, telecommunication companies, the electricity authority, and various other national and international organizations are in Kathmandu. The major economic hubs are the New Road, Durbar Marg, Ason and Putalisadak.[101]
The economic output of the metropolitan area of around Rs. 550 billion approximately per year alone is worth more than one third of national GDP (nominal), while the per capita income of $2200 is approximately three times the national average.[102] Kathmandu exports handicrafts, artworks, garments, carpets, pashmina, paper; trade accounts for 21% of its revenues.[101][102] Manufacturing is also important and accounts for 19% of the revenue that Kathmandu generates. Garments and woolen carpets are the most notable manufactured products.[102] Other economic sectors in Kathmandu include agriculture (9%), education (6%), transport (6%), and hotels and restaurants (5%).[102] Kathmandu is famous for lokta paper and pashmina shawls.
Tourism
Hotel Shanker is one of the city's popular heritage hotels
Tourism is considered another important industry in Nepal. This industry started around 1950, as the country's political makeup changed and ended the country's isolation from the rest of the world. In 1956, air transportation was established and the Tribhuvan Highway, between Kathmandu and Raxaul (at India's border), was started. Separate organizations were created in Kathmandu to promote this activity; some of these include the Tourism Development Board, the Department of Tourism and the Civil Aviation Department. Furthermore, Nepal became a member of several international tourist associations. Establishing diplomatic relations with other nations further accentuated this activity. The hotel industry, travel agencies, training of tourist guides, and targeted publicity campaigns are the chief reasons for the remarkable growth of this industry in Nepal, and in Kathmandu in particular.[103] Since then, tourism in Nepal has thrived. It is the country's most important industry.[104] Tourism is a major source of income for most of the people in the city, with several hundred thousand visitors annually. Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims from all over the world visit Kathmandu's religious sites such as Pashupatinath, Swayambhunath, Boudhanath, Changunarayan and Budhanilkantha. From a mere 6,179 tourists in 1961/62, the number increased to 491,504 in 1999/2000. In economic terms, the foreign exchange registered 3.8% of the GDP in 1995/96 but then started declining. Following the end of the Maoist insurgency, there was a significant rise in the number of tourist arrivals, with 509,956 tourists recorded in 2009. Since then, tourism has improved as the country transitioned into a republic. The high level of tourism is attributed to the natural grandeur of the Himalayas and the rich cultural heritage of the country.[103]
Hyatt Regency, Kathmandu
The neighbourhood of Thamel is Kathmandu's primary "traveller's ghetto", packed with guest houses, restaurants, shops, and bookstores, catering to tourists. Another neighbourhood of growing popularity is Jhamel, a name for Jhamsikhel that was coined to rhyme with Thamel.[105] Jhochhen Tol, also known as Freak Street, is Kathmandu's original traveller's haunt, made popular by the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s; it remains a popular alternative to Thamel. Ason is a bazaar and ceremonial square on the old trade route to Tibet, and provides a fine example of a traditional neighbourhood.
With the opening of the tourist industry after the change in the political scenario of Nepal in 1950, the hotel industry drastically improved.[106] Now Kathmandu boasts several luxuries such as the Hyatt Regency, Dwarika's, Hotel Yak & Yeti, The Everest Hotel, Hotel Radisson, Hotel De L'Annapurna, The Malla Hotel, Shangri-La Hotel (not operated by the Shangri-La Hotel Group) and Hotel Shanker. There are several four-star hotels such as Akama Hotel, Hotel Vaishali, Hotel Narayani, The Blue Star and Grand Hotel. The Garden Hotel, Hotel Ambassador, and Aloha Inn are among the three-star hotels in Kathmandu. Hotels like Hyatt Regency, De L'Annapurna, and Yak & Yeti are among the five-star hotels with casinos as well.[107]
Transport
Arch bridges over the Dhobi Khola river in Baneshwor, Kathmandu
Road
The total length of roads in Nepal is recorded to be 17,182 km (10,676 mi), as of 2003–04. This fairly large network has helped the economic development of the country, particularly in the fields of agriculture, horticulture, vegetable farming, industry and also tourism.[108] In view of the hilly terrain, transportation takes place in Kathmandu are mainly by road and air. Kathmandu is connected by the Tribhuvan Highway to the south connecting India, Prithvi Highway to the west and Araniko Highway to the north connecting China. The BP Highway connects Kathmandu to the eastern part of Nepal through Sindhuli.[109] The fast-track is under construction which will be the shortest route to connect Terai with the valley.[110]
Sajha Yatayat provides regular bus services throughout Kathmandu and the surrounding valley. Other bus companies including micro-bus companies operate several unscheduled routes. Trolleybusses used to operate on the route between Tripureshwor and Suryabinayak on a 13-kilometer route.
Air
The main international airport serving Kathmandu valley is the Tribhuvan International Airport, about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the city centre and is operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.[111] It has two terminals, one domestic and one international. At present, it connects 30 cities around the globe in Europe, Asia and the Middle East such as Istanbul, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Dhaka, Paro, Lhasa, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.[111] Since 2013, Turkish Airlines connects Istanbul to Kathmandu.[112] Oman Air also connects Muscat to Kathmandu since 2010.[113] Nepal Airlines started flying to Tokyo-Narita from March 2, 2020.[114] Regionally, several Nepali airlines operate from the city, inc
Taken by a Pentax K1 with a Tokina 28mm f2.8 (M42) lens.
Day 21 in Pentax Forum's Daily in February 2017 Challenge.
July 19, 2018
9:00 am - 10:00 am
Doerr-Hosier Center
Kirstjen Nielsen, Peter Alexander
Property of the Aspen Institute / Photo Credit: Dan Bayer
Julia has made several comments about being nervous about her upcoming ballet, jazz and tap recital -- which is in April. Despite the reassurances and the extra lessons to catch her up with her classmates who have been dancing together since they were 3 or 4, she has continued to express worry over remembering the routine... the steps... the turns...
Today, the class invited the parents in to watch the jazz routine. Julia was so focused on her routine that she seemed to barely notice all the adults in the room. The girls did great but I don't think any were as excited while simultaneously being relieved as Julia was.
She looked as if she had been dancing with these girls all along. The look of satisfaction in her face lets me know that she is secure in at least one of the dance routines coming up in April. We have plenty of time to practice and learn the others.
This image was taken on my trip to Yellowstone National Park. This bull moose was outside and south of Yellowstone in Grand Teton National Park. You can see part of the Snake River behind the Moose.
++ ++ ++ ++ ++
It was a frosty morning, the sky was bright with morning light. Autumn color alive: vibrant and intense. We were off the highway as reports of a moose sighting diverted us. Ahead a few cars were pulled up along the side of the road. We stopped also.
There along the far edge of the field with the tall grasses frost covered and right next to a stand of brightly colored trees was this magnificent male moose: Alces alces - bull.
What a magnificent rack. My first view of palmate antlers attached to a living creature.
Yes - to photograph - to record this great beast. Like the hunter it required getting close but not so close as to disturb the subject lest it flee or even worse, attack.
The "big lens" was required and a tripod to steady it. I had both but even with it I had to move physically closer. And I did.
But not as close as a couple photogs who field walked in for their shot. Their lenses were rather short compared to some of us. I wondered how close was too close. An irritated Moose is a formidable foe - though a real heavy weight at half a ton, it can move surprisingly quickly. With it's poor eyesight and low irritability quotient it is best not to disturb one.
The tripod firmly planted and secure, I rechecked the settings, focused in, took a breath, held it and squeezed the shutter. Again and again. Moved somewhat and repeated the process.
I changed perspective as the Big Boy stayed around moving slowly browsing on select and must be tasty twigs and leaves. Click & click again.
Oh yes - the thrill of the hunt and the reward of the photo kill.
George who remembers
and writes from the front room
remembering is a curse and a blessing - a characteristic of being human
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bull Moose - The moose (Alces alces) is the largest member of the deer family with mature bulls weighing more than 1,000 pounds. The bull moose produce large palmate antlers which are shed annually. Although cow moose do not have antlers, both bulls and cows do have a bell which is a growth of skin and hair that hangs down from the throat. Calves are born in the spring and remain with the cow for a year. Cow moose will aggressively protect their young from any perceived threat.
Moose browse on twigs and leaves. Willows are an important food source, and moose also feed on submerged aquatic plants. Moose are dark in color ranging from brown to black. The moose also has long legs which are an adaptation to the thick marshes where it feeds and to a habitat that is covered by deep snow much of the year.
The moose is normally a reclusive animal. You are most likely to see one in the streams, marshes, and willow thickets along the road between Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris. Moose may also be observed in the Fishing Bridge/Yellowstone Lake area, the Lamar Valley meadows, Hayden Valley, and along the east entrance road. Occasionally, they can be observed feeding or resting while partially submerged in water.
Yellowstone visitors should remember to never approach a moose. Though sluggish in appearance, they are fast. A cow moose protecting its young can be a very dangerous animal. www.nationalparktravel.com/moose.htm
Locator: GTY_4351
image by Photo George
copyright: ©2010 GCheatle
all rights reserved
Faith Easdale (who called Hope For Paws about Grayson), joined us along with Linda Drott, and helped us build a fence all around the trailer... just to secure the area and prevent him from running away.
Secured time är mitt bidrag till temat "Säkerhet" för Fotosöndag.
Vill du veta hur jag tänkt runt bilden och temat får du gärna besöka min blogg.
My photoassignment for the group Photosunday on theme "Safety" is a safety chain for my pocketwatch!
Please visit my photoblog: www.bildligttalat.se
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/jetuma