0503 MOROCCO - Fantasia or Game of Gunpowder

Fantasia is a traditional equestrian performance practiced during cultural festivals in Morocco, and occurs traditionally to close Berber wedding celebrations in Maghreb. Fantasia is an imported name (adopted probably to eliminate any military tint), the actual term used being lab el baroud (game of gunpowder). The performance is inspired from historical wartime attacks of Berber, but in nowadays it's considered a cultural art and a form of martial art. It also symbolizes the strong relationship between the man and the horse (very important in Arab countries), as well as the attachment to tradition.

0502 MALAYSIA (Sabah) - Kinabalu Park (UNESCO WHS)

A long time ago, a Chinese prince was cast away to Borneo when his ship sank, and was rescued by the natives. When he recovered, he become one of the people of the village and married a local woman. After some years, he started to feel homesick, so asked the permission from his newly family to visit his parents. In China he was very welcomed, but his parents told him that he was betrothed to a princess of a neighbouring kingdom. Having no choice, he obeyed with a heavy heart. Meanwhile, his wife waiting him with baited breath, and, because the village was situated far away from the coast, she climb to the highest mountain nearby at every sunrise, to see the ships sailing in the South China Sea. After a while, she fell ill and died waiting. The mountain's spirit, impressed by her loyalty, turned her into a stone which face the South China Sea, to could wait forever her husband's return. Also impressed, the people decided to name the mountain Kinabalu (Cina Balu means "A Chinese Widow").

0366 & 0501 AUSTRALIA - Australasian Antarctic Expedition

The summer of 1911-1912 was certainly the most dramatic and perhaps the most tragic of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, due to the race between Amundsen and Scott, concluded in favor of the Norwegian, who reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911. The British reached also to the pole, but after more than a month, on 17 January 1912, and he died on the way back. During the same period were conducted another two expeditions to the continent, Second German Antarctic Expedition, led by Wilhelm Filchner, and Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE), led by Douglas Mawson.

The only one of them with a substantial scientific program was that of Mawson, even if neither he wasn't lacked of national pride, as he will recognize in The Home of the Blizzard, book published in 1915: "For many reasons, besides the fact that it was the country of my home and Alma Mater, I was desirous that the Expedition should be maintained by Australia. It seemed to me that here was an opportunity to prove that the young men of a young country could rise to those traditions which have made the history of British Polar exploration one of triumphant endeavour as well as of tragic sacrifice. And so I was privileged to rally the sons of the younger son."

0500 ERITREA - A Kunama woman from Barentu

Located in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea exists as independent state, in its present form, since 1993, when it separated from Ethiopia, after a 30-year war. It’s a multi-ethnic country, with nine recognized ethnic groups, of which the most numerous are Tigrinya (55%) and Tigre (30%). The fourth in terms of the population is Kunama, but with only 2%, that means about 225,000 inhabitants (are also 21.000 in Sudan and 5,400 in Ethiopia). Most of them live in the isolated area between the Gash and Setit rivers (the "breadbasket of Eritrea"), near the border with Ethiopia.

0401 & 0499 ROMANIA (Mureş) - Historic Centre of Sighişoara (UNESCO WHS)

Sighişoara at the beginning of the 20th century

Posted on 01.12.2012 and completed on 07.02.2013
Because today is the National Day of Romania (Great Union Day - December 1, 1918, the Union of Transylvania with Romania) I post a postcard from Sighişoara, a city located in Transylvania. Historic Centre of Sighişoara, "a fine example of a small, fortified medieval town which played an important strategic and commercial role on the fringes of central Europe for several centuries", was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

After they settled in the Pannonian Basin at the end of 9th century, Hungarians conquered large territories in Central Europe. Defeated in the Battle of Lechfeld (955), they stopped definitively the westward expansion, concentrating eastward (Transylvania) and southward (Balkan Peninsula). So, in 1003, Stephen I established the control over Transylvania, which became a voivodeship in the Kingdom of Hungary. During the 12th century, the King of Hungary invited the Saxons (later known as Transylvanian Saxons) to settle in Transylvania and defend the frontier of his realm. A wise decision, because in the next centuries the Saxons will have a very important role in the region, not only militarily, but also economically and socially. Actually the German name of Transylvania, Siebenbürgen, means "seven fortresses", and refers to the seven Saxons' cities in the region (in parentheses are the Romanian names): Mediasch (Mediaş), Muhlenbach (Sebeş), Hermannstadt (Sibiu), Clausenburg (Cluj-Napoca), Schässburg (Sighişoara), Reussmarkt (Miercurea Sibiului) and Broos (Orăştie). To these were subsequently added two others, Bistritz (Bistriţa) and Kronstadt (Braşov)

It seems that the settlement was founded in 1178, and a document of 1280 records a town built on the site of a Roman fort as Castrum Sex. By 1337 it became a royal center for the kings, who awarded the settlement urban status in 1367 as the Civitas de Segusvar. The first document listing the city's Romanian name, Sighişoara, was issued in 1431 by the Wallachian prince Vlad Dracul (father of Vlad the Impaler), who lived in exile in the town. The city played an important strategic and commercial role at the edges of Central Europe for several centuries. The German artisans and craftsmen dominated the urban economy, being estimated that during the 16th and the 17th centuries Sighişoara had as many as 15 guilds and 20 handicraft branches. The most important guilds built a specific area of the 930 m of the wall of the city, raising one defense tower: Clock Tower (Turnul cu ceas), Blacksmiths' Tower (Turnul Fierarilor), Butchers' Tower (Turnul Măcelarilor), Cobblers' Tower (Turnul Cizmarilor), Furriers' Tower (Turnul Cojocarilor), Ropemakers' Tower (Turnul Frânghierilor), Tailors' Tower (Turnul Croitorilor), Tanners' Tower (Turnul Tăbăcarilor) and Tinsmiths' Tower (Turnul Cositorilor).

Sighişoara at the middle of the 18th century

In nowadays Sighişoara is considered to be the most beautiful and well preserved inhabited citadel in Europe, with an authentic medieval architecture. In Eastern Europe, Sighişoara is one of the few fortified towns which are still inhabited. The houses inside Sighişoara Citadel show the main features of a craftsmen's town. However, there are some houses which belonged to the former patriciate, like the Venetian House and the House with Antlers.

0498 MEXICO (Coahuila) - The Cathedral in Saltillo

Founded in 1577 by Spanish colonists, Saltillo is the oldest post-conquest settlement in northern Mexico. In 1824, the city was made the capital of the State of Coahuila y Tejas and included the area which is now the US State of Texas, and now is the capital of the Mexican state of Coahuila. It received various nicknames throughout the years, among which Las Atenas de Mexico (the Athens of Mexico), due to the great thinkers that it has given to the country, La Ciudad del Clima Ideal (The City of Perfect Climate), and La Tierra del Sarape (the Land of the Serape), since the Serape, one of the most representative and well-known articles of clothing from Mexico, originated here.

0009, 0496 AUSTRIA (Vienna) - Historic Centre of Vienna (UNESCO WHS)

Founded by the Celts 2,500 years ago, on the Danube river, Vienna was, in turn, municipium (Vindobona) and headquarters of the Legion X Gemina under Romans, capital of the Babenberg dynasty, of the Habsburg dynasty and of the Austrian Empire (became Austria-Hungary in 1867), because after WWI to become the capital of the new republic Österreich (with a break between 1938 and 1945, when Austria was occupied by the Germans). In 2001, Historic Centre of Vienna was designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Currently Vienna has about 1.7 million inhabitants and is considered, according to Economist Intelligence Unit, the city first (in a tie with Vancouver, Canada) for quality of life, but also for the culture of innovation. All EIU rated it, in 2011, as the second best city in which to live. Impressive, what to say. The postcard 0009 contains six buildings:

0067 & 0495 CROATIA (Primorje-Gorski Kotar) - Opatija, a destination for crowned heads

Posted on 11.12.2011 and completed on 04.02.2013
I always liked the story that says that during the Argonauts, the Danube ramify at a time, one arm emptying, as in nowdays, into the Black Sea, and the other into the Adriatic Sea, near the actual city Trieste. Unfortunately, theory has no other support than the folktales, the fact that to the mouth where the Danube flows into the Black Sea there was a Greek city called Histria, just like the peninsula located on the Adriatic seashore, plus the Istro-Romanians (who still live in this peninsula), very close relatives of the Romanians who live on the north of Danube. Too bad, because it was a nice story.

The small Istria peninsula, as actually the whole large Balkan Peninsula of which it belongs, was ceded, conquered, exploited, taken over, splited, controlled, disputed along the history (in a somewhat chronological order) by Romans, Goths, Avars, Byzantines, Croats, Lombards, Franks, Bavarians, Venetian, Serbs, Austrians, French, Hungarian, Italians and Croats again. Panslavist ideas awakened among the South Slavs in the 19th century haven't fructified until after WWI, together with the creation of the state to be called then Yugoslavia, because the divergent interests of the powers that made the games in the area (respectively Austro-Hungary, Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, with France, England and Germany in the second plan). But Istria belonged to Italy between 1920 and 1947, when it was incorporated into Yugoslavia, and after its dissolution in 1991 the peninsula became part of Croatia.

Opatija, geographically belonging to Istrian peninsula, is a town of about 8,000 inhabitants, situated in the Kvarner Gulf, at 13 km southwest from Rijeka (former Fiume under the italians), right under Mount Učka (one of the nature parks of Croatia). In 1844, Iginio Scarpa, a rich merchant from Rijeka, founded Villa Angiolina, which houses in nowadays the Croatian Museum of Tourism. First hotel ever on the Adriatic (Grand Hotel Kvarner) was built in 1884 and soon after, 12 km long promenade Lungomare was built along coast of Volosko, Opatija and Lovran.

Surrounded by beautiful woods of bay laurel, and with a sea-coast rocky and picturesque, Opatija became in the second half of the 19th century and in the beginning of the next a fashionable destination for the Austrian imperial family and Austrian nobility, emperor Franz Joseph I used to spend several months here during the winter. Also the town was visited by the then most prominent personalities: Princess Louise von Saxe-Coburg, the Romanian King Carol I, the Swedish-Norwegian King Oscar, Count Franz Graf von Meran and celebrities like Isadora Duncan and her lovers or composer Gustav Mahler.

0494 BULGARIA (Stara Zagora) - Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak (UNESCO WHS)

I don't think that I wrong if I say that people in wide world know much fewer things about Thracians than about Greeks, Romans, Celts or Germanic tribes, although Herodotus wrote about them in the Fifth Book of his Histories (called Terpsichore) that "the Thracian race is the most numerous, except the Indians, in all the world: and if it should come to be ruled over by one man, or to agree together in one, it would be irresistible in fight and the strongest by far of all nations, in my opinion."

0493 ROMANIA - The administrative map of Transylvania in 1886

In this postcard is shown the administrative map of Transylvania in 1886, as stated on it in Hungarian, German and English. If the etymology of the name Transylvania is clear (the Latin terra ultra silva - land beyond the forest), as also the German Siebenbürgen (Seven fortresses - after the seven Transylvanian Saxons cities in the region), that of Erdély (in Hungarian) / Ardeal (in Romanian) is not fully elucidated. The two main theories supporting one a pathway based on the Hungarian erdő elv (erdő elő) - Erdeuelu - Erdély - Ardeliu - Ardeal, and the other one the Indo-European root Ard - Ardeliu - Erdély. Anyway, even since the Middle Ages prevailed the name Transylvania, primarily because Latin was the language of chancery.

0492 NETHERLANDS (Netherlands / Overijssel) - The Foal from Museum Buurt Spoorweg

In a previous post I wrote about the Museum Buurt Spoorweg (MBS), a railway museum located in Haaksbergen. The locomotive in the picture (named simply Locomotive 2) is also hosted in this museum and was manufactured in 1926 by Société pour l'Exploitation des Etablissements John Cockerill, based in Seraing, in the region of Liege.

0491 HUNGARY - A hussar and his wife

The first mention of the Hussarones (in latin) was in documents dating from 1432 in Southern Hungary. According to Webster's, the word hussar stems from the Hungarian huszár, which originates from the Serbian and Croatian husar (pirate), from the Medieval Latin cursarius. According to another theory, the word is derived from the Hungarian húsz (twenty), signifying that 'one in twenty' was selected for service. The hussars originated in bands of mostly Serbian warriors crossing into southern Hungary after the Turkish invasion of Serbia at the end of the 14th century. The Governor of Hungary, the Walachian Iancu de Hunedoara, created mounted units inspired by the Ottomans. His son, Matthias Corvinus, later king of Hungary, is unanimously accepted as the creator of these troops, the first Hussar regiments being the light cavalry of the Black Army of Hungary.

0490 SERBIA (Belgrade) - Saint Mark's Church in Belgrade

Because of the growth of the city, it became necessary by the beginning of the 20th century to build a bigger church in the Belgrade quarter of Palilula, but the wars didn't allow this until 1930, when Petar and Branko Krstić designed the plans for a new church dedicated to Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark. This was built between 1931 and 1940, but was consecrated and opened for divine service only in 1948. The church was built in the spirit of Serbian medieval buildings, using as a model the endowment of King Milutin, Gračanica Monastery, located near Priština, one of the four churches and monasteries included in 2004 on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Site under the name Medieval Monuments in Kosovo. The external walls are in two colors of natural materials in the Serbian-Byzantine building method. It has 62m long and 45m wide, and the height of the main cupola to the base of the cross is 60m.

0489 TURKEY (Marmara Region) - Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge

If I'm not mistaken, in present there are only three bridges linking two continents: Suez Canal Bridge (which cross the Suez Canal at El Qantara, in Egypt, so link Africa and Asia), Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge (which cross  the Bosphorus strait at Istanbul, in Turkey, so link Europe and Asia). In this postcard is the last one, also known as the Second Bosphorus Bridge, which was, when was completed (in 1988), the 6th longest suspension bridge span in the world.

0488 PORTUGAL - The flag of the country

The portuguese flag, adopted on 30 June 1911, is a 2:3 rectangle divided vertically into green at the hoist (2/5 of the flag’s length) and red at the fly (3/5). Centered in this partition is a coat of arms consisting on an armillary sphere charged with the traditional portuguese shield. The use of green represented a radical republican-inspired change that broke the bond with the former religious monarchical flag. Actually, red and green had been established as the colours of the Portuguese Republican Party. The symbolism was added later, green being associated with the hope of the nation, and red with the blood of those who died defending it.

0487 SOUTH AFRICA - A condensing steam locomotive, Class 25 4-8-4

Of all the 487 postcards that I posted so far on this blog, this one gave me the most problems of documentation. Ado said that she found it among his father's things, a trains enthusiast who has worked in this area in the 1950's in Rhodesia. On the other hand, the stamp, showing Victoria Falls from the air, was issued by Northern Rhodesia, and on the postcard writes Zuid Afrikaanse Spoorwegen (South African Railways). All these may be a starting point.

0486 MOROCCO - The map and the flag of the country

Commonly named by the arabs al-Mamlakat al-Maghribiyyah, which means The Western Kingdom (because is the most westerly of the Maghreb countries), Morocco is an islamic country and a constitutional monarchy. Its political capital is Rabat, although the largest city is Casablanca. Morocco administers also most of the disputed region of the Western Sahara as the Southern Provinces. The geography of Morocco spans from the Atlantic Ocean to the mountainous areas and to the Sahara Desert, a large part being mountainous.  Its rich culture is a blend of Arab, Berber, European and African influences.

0485 AUSTRALIA (New South Wales) - Greater Blue Mountains Area (UNESCO WHS)

Bordering Sydney's metropolitan area, in New South Wales, the Blue Mountains consists mainly of a rugged sandstone plateau, dissected by gorges up to 760m deep and having as the highest point the Mount Werong (1,215m). Its name is derived from the blue tinge the range takes on when viewed from a distance, caused by mie scattering which occurs when incoming ultraviolet radiation is scattered by particles within the atmosphere. The area is renowned for its majestic scenery of a unique kind, for its cultural attractions and for its relatively tranquil, alternative mode of life.

0484 TRANSNISTRIA - Fortress of Tighina (Bender)

The first traces of a settlement on the site of the present city Tighina (Bender) dates from 1st-2nd centuries AD, during the Dacians. Subsequently, mentions about a city appear in the early Middle Ages, the shoal from Tighina being protected by a fortress from the 9th-11th centuries. During Cuman domination (11th-13th centuries), the city is already named Tighina (in Cuman language means "pass"). The city was first mentioned as an important customs post in a commerce grant issued by the Moldavian voivode Alexandru cel Bun to the merchants of Lviv in 1408. Later, Ştefan cel Mare builts a fortress of earth and wood (a palanca), conquered by the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1538. The Ottomans rename the city Bender, meaning "transient enhanced", and build here, within a year, under the supervision of the architect Koji Mimar Sinan, a fortress of stone.

0483 JAPAN (Chūgoku) - Itsukushima Shinto Shrine (UNESCO WHS)

From the misty beginnings of Japanese history, Miyajima Island (official known as Itsukushima Island), located in the northwest of Hiroshima Bay, in the Inland Sea of Japan, has been classified as one of the most scenic places in Japan. Out of respect for the Miyajima Gods, no one dared to live there, for more than a thousand years visitors, who were mainly fishermen, leaving the Island at the end of each day. Even today there are no hospitals or cemeteries on Miyajima Island.