It's surprising what you see when you are not rushing to work or back again. Somehow you are able to look above street level and see things that you wouldn't normally see. It helps to be in a town that is not that familiar, and if you don't have a normal camera, you can always catch it with your mobile phone.
Here is what I snapped today with my mobile phone:
A hotel entrance, just waiting for the sun to shine. What I liked was the artificial trees with their elaborate topiary shapes (you can just see at the back) and the silly umbrella shades with green "tree" camouflage over wires.
Very delicate decorations in a shop window, made by origami. The shop was selling gold and silver jewellery.
Another shop window, or more accurately a shop door with a clock face. The shop was selling watches.
Not the best name for a shop! It sold men's clothes.
A street musician playing a home made four-stringed instrument.
Two cat signs advertising cafes. The one on the left has luminous green eyes.
Close up of a dragon (Ljubljana's symbol) from a bridge.
I wandered into a courtyard near the Grand Union Hotel and found that there had been a display of ice sculptures. Only the fishes and the sea horse were left. The rest were now a pile of slush on the floor.
Another cafe sign. It's a very thin ragamuffin.
I liked the way these chimney matched the dormer windows.
If all else fails I can requalify at the BA Tango School.
A lady practicing her weightlifting?
Not a ship in a bottle, but a very sad looking ship in an empty house.
Carnival always seems to be a strange concept to the mainly protestant English. I was surprised to find that in Somerset, carnival is held in November, and seems to have no religious background at all, being merely an excuse for dressing up and collecting money for charity.
However, wherever I have lived, there seems to be some celebration at this time of the year, whether religious or pagan.
Shrove Tuesday, (or Mardi Gras) the beginning of Lent, has a religious purpose and so one can understand a little fun goes a long way when preparing for a 40 day fast till Easter. But as always, where there is a fun pagan festival, then the Catholic Church manages to coopt it into the religious event at the same point of the calendar. The Protestants don't manage to have quite so much fun.
Pancakes racing in Britain on Shrove Tuesday Shrove Tuesday is the day you confess all your sins before Lent and get shriven by the priest. It's also a time for pancakes, to use up the flour and eggs, and other rich food which is banned in Lent. Pancake races are thought to have begun in 1445. A woman had lost track of the time on Shrove Tuesday, and was busy cooking pancakes in her kitchen. Suddenly she heard the church bell ringing to call the faithful to church for confession. The woman raced out of her house and ran all the way to church; still holding her frying pan and wearing her apron. One of the most famous pancake races is held at Olney in Buckinghamshire over a 415 yard course. The rules are strict; contestants have to toss their pancake at both the start and the finish, as well as wearing an apron and a scarf. The race is followed by a church service.
But there is also a sadder explanation of the focus on pancakes. Shroving is an English tradition that is several centuries old. It originated as the way the poor survived through the difficult time in the New Year before Spring. Little food could be found at this time of year, even the ingredients for a basic pancake was more than most could afford. There was only one way that the food needed to survive could be gathered; by begging. Not only pancakes were asked for, any donation of food and money was welcomed. Gradually, over years, this expression of the needs of the poorest developed into a more relaxed, and enjoyable, tradition, until eventually it was mainly children who took part in what had become a yearly ritual. On the early morning of Shrove Tuesday, the children would dress up, and go from house to house, singing the local version of the Shroving song, to sing for their Shrove Cakes and other treats. They would call only at the houses of the gentry and farmers, those most likely to be able to afford the ingredients necessary.
After that, one could ask whether this great fast arose out of religious fervour or economic necessity.
Uzgavenes In Lithuania The Lithuanians were the last Europeans to convert to Christianity as late as 1387. This means that today, they still keep some of their pagan traditions. For Uzgavenes the holiday consists of processions, costumes, tom foolery, games, and plays. The main parts are: receiving guests with treats; rides and races; processing the More statue and then destroying her by fire; plays with people costumed as animals, strangers and mythological beings; performing the war of Winter with Spring symbolized by the Lasininis (the bacon-being) with the Kanapinis ( the hemp-being); portraying weddings or funerals; spraying people with water; fortune-telling.
The main foods of the holiday are pancakes, jelly-filled french-fried dumplings and a hodgepodge stew of groats, peas and meat. While driving and racing in sleds, everybody tries to tip over so that everybody rolls around in the snow. Sledding about the village(s), the sleigh-riders splash and spray anyone they meet with water.
Costumed people visit their neighbors and neighboring villages. The head of the household greets the strangers by asking "What are you, do you have your papers?" The costumed people respond with "We are poor people from a land that has been pinched away. This land lies on the other side of running water, two weeks away." In each house the entourage visits, one of the guests steals something from the household and tries to sell it to the head of the household, who buys it with food and drink
The traditional costumes are as follows. To act as crane, someone holds a pole with a beak on the end through a sleeve of a fur coat. The crane hops about and tries to pinch people and peck at them. The goat walks around making goat sounds. Children block its way, asking for milk. When someone tries to milk it, the goat kicks over the bucket. The horse tries to kick people. The Hungarian doctor tries to sell his medicine (bottled water), saying "Whoever drinks my potion will regain health with the sweep of a hand." The Death Goddess, Giltine, dressed in black with a white veil over her face, carries a sickle and tries to kill the doctor. The Gypsy carries a baby and a bottle. The Gypsy asks for alms and predicts the future, while the baby cries ceaselessly and pees (pours water) over everything. The beggars sing songs, carry bags and ask for alms. The soldiers wear straw ties as belts and carry straw swords. The wedding party consists of a small fat woman as the groom, a tall thin man as the bride, and others.
In addition to pouring water on people, the wanderers spew ashes all around, carrying them in a sock, which they hit on people's backs. One person carries around a hen's bone and tries to hang people on it. Someone constantly rattles. A group of children buzz like bees under a cloth, and others sprinkle them with water. Someone sells herring from a vat filled with water, but buyers merely get splashed. People go swinging on swings.
The holiday ends with the burning of the straw More which symbolizes the old and is made from the last sheaves from the previous year. Her burning culminates in the victory of the Kanapinis over the Lasininis.
Maslenitsa (from Wikipedia) For the Orthodox Church, preparations for Lent require a full week. The essential element of Maslenitsa celebration are bliny, Russian pancakes, popularly taken to symbolize the sun. Round and golden, they are made from the rich foods still allowed by the Orthodox traditions: butter, eggs, and milk.
Maslenitsa also includes masquerades, snowball fights, sledding, swinging on swings and plenty of sleigh rides. In some regions, each day of Maslenitsa had its traditional activity: one day for sleigh-riding, another for the sons-in-law to visit their parents-in-law, another day for visiting the godparents, etc. The mascot of the celebration is usually a brightly dressed straw effigy of Lady Maslenitsa, formerly known as Kostroma.
As the culmination of the celebration, on Sunday evening, Lady Maslenitsa is stripped of her finery, and put to the flames of a bonfire. Any remaining blintzes are also thrown on the fire. Lady Maslenitsa's ashes are buried in the snow (to fertilize the crops), all people ask for forgiveness from each other, and the Great Lent begins. This last day of Maslenitsa is also called 'Forgiveness Sunday'. To devout Orthodox Christians, it is the last day on which dairy products, fish, wine and oil may be consumed.
I seem to remember that the film Barber of Siberia has a big carnival celebration for Maslenitsa.
By now, doesn't all this burning of females sound familiar? Must be something to get rid of the old pagan female religion, and bring in the new Christianity.
Carnival in Slovenia Kurentovanje is a ten day long rite of spring and fertility, celebrated in Slovenia. The origins of Kurentovanje are not certain, but it is likely connected to Slavic paganism. The central figure of Kurentovanje are Kurents (Kurenti, singular: Kurent), who are characteristically dressed in sheep skin. They wear masks, which are richly decorated. Kurent is believed to be an ancient god of hedonism. Organized in groups, Kurents go through town, from house to house, making noise with bells and wooden sticks, symbolizing scaring off evil spirits and winter. The rite resembles a carnival and lasts for 10 days.
In fact there seem to be two sorts: the pagan variety, as at Ptuj, (which is why I want to go) and the dressing up and having a good time as in Venice, which happens in the south of Slovenia, where there is a bilingual population. In practice, they seem to get a bit mixed up.
This is the pagan variety at Ptuj. As well as these hairy fellows with long snouts, there were also cows, (as in pantomime horses) which could also spray you with water from their rear end. All of them had belts with bells on, so it was a noisy procession. Cracking whips also made a lot of noise. There are plenty more official photos here.
When we arrived on Saturday, there was a short procession with these characters, but also with groups of pirates, local farmers, girls not unrelated to American cheerleaders, and local traditional dress and bands. Many of the audience were also in fancy costumes, especially the children.
My photos were taken by a mobile phone over people's heads, as you can see.
But down in Koper (Capodistria), the TV was showing a full scale carnival with everybody in very elaborate costumes. Unfortunately the Koper municipality website has a lot of broken links so I couldn't find any photographs.
Here is what it says about Rijeka and Carnival on the Rijeka (Croatia, but you get the picture) Municipal website:
International Rijeka Carnival City of Rijeka is known for its carnival festivities since the Middle Ages. Carnival customs of Rijeka are a particular blend of European middle-class carnivals, foremost Venetian and Austrian carnivals with elements of old Slavic folklore and mythology. Carnival events traditionally take place in squares and streets of the City regardless the weather conditions.
When in 1982 three masked groups paraded through the main street of Rijeka, Korzo nobody could imagine that in course of some years the Carnival would reach the present day proportions and become well known as the International Traditional Rijeka Carnival. In 1990 the masked parade on Korzo was seen by about 80.000 people and in 1994 there was a truly spectacular masked procession with about 100.000 spectators and 4.000 masks from the country and from abroad, which allowed Rijeka to become a member of the Federation of European Carnival Cities (FECC) in 1995. At Rijeka Carnival 2001 there were 72 children carnival groups with 4.200 participants and 144 carnival groups of adults with 10.000 participants from 12 countries, watched by about 110.000 spectators. Thus, the International Rijeka Carnival has been established as one of the biggest in Europe.
Note the "middle class"!
Conclusion So is the end of winter a cause for celebration or just survival? Is the fast of Lent making a virtue out of necessity, or good for your soul (and cholesterol)? Has the old female religion not yet died out? And don't the traditional costumes look like those that are involved in traditional shamanism?
Or as the days lengthen again, do we just need something to cheer us up, suffering from SAD? Especially if we are middle class?
The trip to Venice has been deferred due to rain and dragging on flu/asthma/bronchitis/cough. I'm tempted to flee to escape the herbal remedies I have to drink. Current dosage is a special concoction of sugar turned into caramel, with sage leaves brewed into tea. It apparently smells and tastes foul, but since I have no smell normally, and not much taste at the moment, the caramel makes it palatable. Seemed to work well on the bronchitis but not on the cough.
Funny how underemployment gives you time to be ill. No wonder the unemployed have more illnesses than those in work, even allowing for being poorer, worse fed, depressed, more stressed etc. They simply have more time as well.
Actually it's all probably due to the hot dry atmosphere in the flat. Temperatures in flats in Eastern Europe are always higher than in the UK, partly due to the cold climate, but also due to the fact that these days they are not drafty. I have finally got adjusted to living in a cold damp climate, (both inside and outside), and now I have to change again.
People often claim they can't find the answers they want using Google. Actually, I don't find it's so big a problem. But then I am sure that answers to some of my questions probably don't exist.
But recent queries which landed on my blog were:
rory stuart dhl office
alan rickman's family tree
tattoo germanic tribes (rather popular this one)
how does wuwei correct life (I'm not sure how to respond to this one)
how many children go to the doctors in greece
that animal park on tv near ikea not the one in london we went to 2 milton keynes
the killing pit photograph russia
did alan rickman cheat on rima (not as far as I knew, when she lived in my house, in the 80s)
I don't think my blog contains anything like the answers to those questions.
I've been here for two weeks now. During that time we have trained the cat. Perhaps that should read, the cat and I have trained my sister.
She was not known especially as a cat lover and was rather dubious when I dumped Nibbles, the well-travelled cat, on her, while her (Nibbles) rabies injection matured. However, when Nibbles went home (you can read about that saga here), she felt something was missing from her life.
Just before I arrived, she acquired a young neutered black female cat from a cat refuge, provenance not well-known, and named her Bella. By the time I had arrived, she had been renamed Beastie, as in Beastie did this, Beastie did that, all bad things. The relationship was not going well. She was muttering about Beastie going back to the refuge. Add to that, the fact that black cats are considered unlucky in Slovenia.
As you can see from the photo, Beastie is not a small delicate cat like Nibbles (half Burmese). She has a build politely described as stocky, or perhaps even Amazonian. She believes that the night time is for chasing up and down, jumping around, generally enjoying herself. This usually involves your bed, and also encounters with anything fragile that can be knocked over.
Not having any children herself, my sister still believes she is entitled to sleep without disturbance, and has not developed that mother's ability to wake up at the slightest noise, identify a probable cause and go straight back to sleep if it is usual. To me, the noise of a Nibbles at night is normal, even if it consisted of galloping down the hall with her mum, reaching top speed of 100mph and then screeching to a halt. It was a very long hall, and cats have excellent acceleration. I was trained by this to sleep through most cat noises.
However, my sister also believed that a cat sleeping on the bed was one of the benefits of having a cat. She felt the cat needed to feel reassurance in its new home at first, and allowed it to follow her round the flat. This meant it could not be shut in the living room at night, limiting the night time gambolling, and giving her a good night's sleep. I became the focus of her bad temper after insufficient sleep. The cat spent most of the night scratching at the door of whichever bedroom she was shut out of.
Something had to give. Now the cat still rampages at night, but shut in the living room. She is encouraged to tire herself out by playing football. We have a good night's sleep shut in our rooms. In the morning we clear up the mess of the plants knocked over by the football. It's worse than having a toddler, because you have to put everything breakable out of reach, not just up to a particular height.
And the cat sleeps all day. My sister believes she can take the cat for walks like a dog, so the cat sleeps better at night. Wait for further progress on this.
After Christmas in my IT splurge, I joined meetup, a website which "organises" meetings for like-minded people, or helps people to find out what's going on when they move to a new place.
I thought it might help me find some like-minded people in Oxford. On that count, ViolainVilnius is doing better for me, as she finds me like-minded Oxford people while she is in Rwanda. But then, she knows what like-minded means in my case.
Now I get a list of meetings within 80 miles of me, which includes London. Meetings in London are quite feasible anyway (it takes an hour or so on the bus, and there are special cheap tickets to encourage you to go for the evening).
So here is a selection of what is on offer currently (108 meetups nearby, says the headline), based presumably on what I said I was interested in (I forget what I actually put):
as you might expect:
the Aylesbury Elvis event group
Leamington Mums Meetup Group
The Oxford Herbalists Group (I almost feel qualified to join this as I have been fed such a large mixture of herbal and natural remedies here in Ljubljana for my cough)
The London Vampire February Meetup (well London is big enough to include any number of weirdos, so not unexpected)
expat/language groups for Greek, French, Portuguese, Canadians, Chinese, Taiwanese, Italians
French film societies
not what you might expect:
Guildford Dansk Sprog Mødegruppe (based on my non-existent Danish, I guessed this might be a mother and "sprog" group but it seems that it is for students)
Boardgames: Voulez-vous jouer avec moi, ce soir? (Good thing it mentioned the board games)
13 meetings to play poker in the next week
Witches: The Troubadours of Albion London Witchcraft Group
The Walthamstow Bookcrossing Meetup Group (why Walthamstow?)
Photography: The Bath Photography February Meetup (for non-Brits, there is a place called Bath, but that wasn't how I read it first)
2 meetings of the "London Web Communications Group" (Is this the first time nerds actually want to socialise in person?)
The London Populist Society
Anyway, it's a shame I can't attend any of them, as I'm in Ljubljana.
Slovenia is so small it only takes an hour and a half down a motorway to Italy. So after meeting some friends of my sister's in Sezana for lunch and talking to an estate agent about properties in the Karst, off we went across the border.
I realised I had only been to Italy twice. Once on a day trip from an island in Croatia, where we arrived in Venice in time for lunch and left again soon after. The other time I went for a conference in Rome, stayed in the usual business concrete block, usefully situated in a roundabout, and managed a morning of personal sightseeing on top of the quick evening tour provided by the hosts.
As a result, I had no idea what the north Italian countryside would be like, as we drove on our motorway through. In fact it was rather industrial, not pretty as I was hoping. It was a bit like Belgium. However, we got to Udine which was a small town with nice shops.
It was a fairly rainy day, but we managed to explore the squares and courtyards. It was too soon to expect to sit with our coffee and cake outside. Then we drove back to Ljubljana.
The next day we set off again to look at three houses in the Karst, and to explore the amenities. The amenities seemed to consist largely of war memorials for the Second World War when the Italians and later the Germans had fought the partisans. The region had always been poor, but previous views of vineyards and "wine trails", plus guide books saying it had a shortage tourist accommodation had convinced us that it might be a reasonable place for a summer house. However, trying to find some lunch in the only village with an inn settled it for us. When we entered the inn, they could only offer us pizza. We dithered, as it was a gloomy place but finally decided to stay. Within five minutes, I found myself feeling like it was the end of the world and horribly depressed, a mood that seemed to come from nowhere. After our lunch, we both were glad to escape, and Linda said she had felt the same. The locals seemed quite unaffected. We decided that something nasty must have happened there during the war, leaving the vibes to be felt by those who can.
None of the houses were any good, nor cheap. The last was in a valley beyond Trieste, where the plumes of smoke from a chemical plant billowed over the mountain, defeating the hope for good clean air. The village had lost its petrol pump and supermarket, as the Italian border was only 5 minutes away. After some arguments whether it would only be open to locals with special passes, we decided to give it a try. It was more like a level crossing on a railway than a border. No problem at all.
Then we went down the motorway to Trieste. We had both read Jan Morris's book about Trieste, so knew its history. She writes about it being built originally to provide Austro-Hungary with a port. And very busy it was in the early years of its life, shipping Jews to Israel and importing coffee. James Joyce and Rainer Maria Rilke spent time there. But after the First World it stayed with Slovenia in Yugoslavia, and no longer had such a purpose. When it was eventually handed to Italy after the Second World War, it had little use as a port, and has declined into decay.
After the long spiral down the cliffs to the port, I was curious to see what a Hapsburg town which is also a port looked like. The buildings are just as grandiose as Vienna but somehow nothing has been made of the sea.
All there was was a broad rather bleak pier with no pavilions. Like Jan Morris said, rather sad and like everybody left.
It was going dark as we arrived so the photos are also rather dull for that reason. It seems the kids were already practicing for the carnival in their costumes.
Not doing very well on either the blog or reading. A bit lacking in energy due either to mild bronchitis or heavy asthma, not sure which, but hardly matters. But at least it isn't stopping me travelling. Went to Ptuj for the local carnival and Maribor this week and found an excellent bookshop in Ljubljana. Hence even more books to read and reviews to write. Hope to more details in the week.
Tromsø, Norway has a small Islamic community. Ramadan is edging ever closer to the longer summer days. This year it starts in mid-September, and next year it will commence about a fortnight earlier. Doubtless the faithful at the world's most northerly mosque have some special arrangement when it comes to agreeing the times of sunrise and sunset once Ramadan slips forward into that summer season when the sun never sets in northern Norway.
That Tromsø has a flourishing Muslim community is explained in part by its status as a university town. A bit out in the wilderness perhaps for a centre of learning, but a little like Llanbedr Pont Steffan (Lampeter) in mid-Wales which has, for almost two centuries, been home to one of Europe's smallest university colleges. Created in the eighteen-twenties to offer a university education to trainee clergy, Lampeter's founding fathers would probably be surprised to find that nowadays their university campus is home to what must surely be Britain's remotest mosque. It is the student population which has brought Islam to the banks of the River Teifi, abetted no doubt by the fact that the university's well respected theology department hosts a research centre in Islamic studies. The Lampeter masjid is a modest affair, housed in a simple building on the edge of campus. No golden domes, no lavish tile work, but nonetheless a spot held in great affection by the Muslim staff and students who live and work in a valley more noted for its male voice choirs than for the recitation of the shahadah.
Russian mosques
One of Russia's remotest mosques is in Norilsk, a nickel mining town way up in the Arctic (though Tromsø is actually a tad closer to the North Pole). The mosque at Norilsk is a fabulous building, painted in a vibrant blue colour, and features as it happens in the next issue of hidden europe magazine, when we report on the environmental catastrophe that is Norilsk. It is a desperately polluted place where the mosque is one of the few bright spots in town.
Plans are afoot to build a mosque in another northern outpost at Murmansk, Russia's busy port on the Barents Sea. Touted wrongly by some news agencies (who clearly haven't heard of Tromsø or Norilsk) as being the first mosque in the Arctic Circle, the Murmansk mosque, if ever it comes to pass, will sport a tower that will dwarf the city's Russian Orthodox churches and its famous war memorial, an armed watchman nicknamed Alyosha. "I am sure that the residents of our multi-ethnic city will support the idea of building a mosque,“ Murmansk mayor Mikhail Savchenko told journalists last autumn. Others in Murmansk are less certain. Already there are mutterings about the height of that tower, and seven years ago, when earlier plans for a Murmansk mosque were aired, there was a firestorm of protests from the city's famously conservative populace.
and mosques into Cathedrals
There is plenty of talk about cathedrals turned into mosques, the prime example being in Istanbul. However it seems that the reverse is also possible. Again from Hidden Europe:
Catholic authorities seem to be peculiarly oblivious to the history of the Mezquita, once the grandest of the Moorish mosques but now housing a Catholic cathedral. The ceremonial focus of the Mezquita is the fabulous mihrab. No simple prayer niche this, but an exquisite bejewelled arch. Requests that Muslims might be permitted to pray at the mihrab have found little favour from the local bishop.
The Córdoba Mezquita was once the largest mosque in Europe, a world apart from the tiny masajid at out of the way spots like Tromsø and Lampeter.
To christen (or whatever atheists do) the new dvd player, my sister borrowed some dvds from the British Council.
So we ended up watching "A Taste Of Honey", with Dora Bryan and Rita Tushingham. It is a film adapted in 1961 from a stage play which began in 1957. I remember seeing it on television at my friend's house when I was a teenager. I think her mother must have been out otherwise I can't imagine how we could have been allowed to watch this film. It was clearly one of the first "kitchen sink dramas" of the 60s and predated Coronation St, (which must be one of the last).
In it, a teenage girl shown in school uniform lives with her floozy mother and survives a moonlight flit to a new part of town. There the mother meets a younger man. When they want to go to Blackpool for a day out they have to take the daughter with them. As a typical teenager, she behaves as badly as she can so that eventually the boyfriend asks the mother to choose between them. The daughter gets some money and is told to go home on her own.
Soon the mother gets married again and moves in with the husband, leaving her daughter, without any means of support. She has to get a job and find her own accommodation. Somehow she does this, and manages also to get pregnant by her sailor boyfriend who of course sails off with his ship. Her job is selling shoes in a shop and she manages to sell shoes to a young gay man who follows her home. She then invites him to share her attic, as it turns out he has been kicked out of his lodgings for being gay. They live happily platonically together, with the gay guy looking forward to the baby coming (rather more than the girl) and he cooks and keeps house for her.
However, the mother turns up again (she has been kicked out by the new husband) and she ruins everything by in turn kicking out the gay guy, despite the girl's wishes.
The whole film is shot in black and white in Salford, Manchester with the background of dereliction and the Manchester Ship Canal. Some of the shots are recollections of Eisenstein with hero figures shot against the sky or industrial landscapes in good social realist tradition.
It's interesting that the girl seems to know more about gay guys than she does about how you get pregnant. I found that surprising, given my own knowledge at that age. I don't remember anything at all about a gay guy, so perhaps I was too innocent.
After decades of Coronation St and East Enders, it's hard to remember that plays and films rarely portrayed anything about ordinary life, (or if you prefer, working class life). Not that the average working class life had pregnant teenagers or gay men, any more than it does now.
Certainly, the film was shocking in the way that the school girl was left to her own devices by her mother. But I guess, at that time, working class girls were considered more or less grown up at 16 and expected to get unskilled jobs and/or get married early and have babies.
And the question is, has anything changed? Bee complains about the lack of career advice at school, and/or ambitions in some of her classmates.
