The East - The Parnassian (Page 25)

The East · Books · Nature

When you are old, Kala Nag, some rich Rajah will buy you from the Government for your height and good manners, and then you will have nothing to do; you will only wear golden earrings in your ears, a golden howdah (a kind of saddle) on your back and cloth

When you are old, Kala Nag, some rich Rajah will buy you from the Government for your height and good manners, and then you will have nothing to do; you will only wear golden earrings in your ears, a golden howdah (a kind of saddle) on your back and cloth

NB! · The East · Monarchies · Moscow · Mores · People

Empress Masako of Japan has visited the Moscow kindergarten she attended as a child, having lived in the city from the age of two because her father, Hisashi Owada, was a diplomat posted to the Soviet Union

The East · Art · Monarchies · Museums

The Sword of the Hospodar of the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, the First Ruler of United Romania, Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza

Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza forwarded arms from Russia to the Serbian government, needed to withstand the West and the Ottoman Empire. Despite the encroachments of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, backed by Austria and England, Cuza did not allow the convoy to be stopped. In recognition of Alexandru Cuza&

Architecture · The East · Monarchies · Heritage · Society

A cannonball fired by Ottoman troops during the siege of Nice in 1543 is still embedded in the wall of a residential building in the city

A cannonball fired by Ottoman troops during the siege of Nice in 1543 is still embedded in the wall of a residential building in the city. How did it come to be there? The Turkish siege of Nice was one of many operations of the Franco-Ottoman military alliance against

Archive · The East · Geography · Heritage

The Obelisk of Theodosius in Constantinople in 1855 and in 2024

The inscription on the pedestal, in several languages, tells the story of the obelisk raised under Theodosius the Great, Emperor of the Roman Empire, in 390: "This is a four-sided column that lay upon the ground, whose weight Emperor Theodosius alone dared to raise again. Proclus was summoned

Four bearded men in bright robes with a spear, shield and bow stand by a stone relief of figures on a throne. Sandy hills rise behind them.

NB! · Archive · The East · Monarchies · Heritage · Society

Four men in ancient Persian costumes before a relief of an enthroned figure

Architecture · The East · Geography · Heritage

This column of green marble in the corner of the stone wall of the Şehzade Mosque in Istanbul is mentioned in the text of the famous seventeenth-century Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi. Çelebi writes that the architect Sinan set it up before building the

This column of green marble in the corner of the stone wall of the Şehzade Mosque in Istanbul is mentioned in the text of the famous seventeenth-century Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi. Çelebi writes that the architect Sinan set it up before building the mosque exactly in the centre of

The East · Art · Museums · Observations

A Painting by Vladimir Fyodorovich Stozharov, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Arts, at Arter, the Istanbul Museum of Contemporary Art

It must be admitted that the display at the museum is rather peculiar: on the neighbouring wall, a couple of metres from Stozharov, hangs Dürer's rhinoceros, and a little further on, Bill Viola.

The East · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Mores

The Tortoise Trainer

The tortoise trainer. Strange as it may seem, such a post really did exist at the court of the Ottoman Sultan. Tortoises are trained by sound, so the trainer's instruments are musical: in this case a pipe and a drum, while nowadays a little bell is used. The

Archaeology · The East · Geography · Cinema · Books · People

In 1934 the French writer André Malraux decided to fly around Arabia and Africa by aeroplane

In 1934 the French writer André Malraux decided to fly around Arabia and Africa by aeroplane. Malraux is the author of the masterly novel about the eve of the Chinese revolution, "Man's Fate", from which Bertolucci made "The Last Emperor". Malraux did not fly

NB! · Faith · The East · Art · Museums

A Crystal Reliquary in the Shape of a Fish on Legs, for the Relics of Mary Magdalene: Egyptian Work of the Sixteenth Century

The East · Books · Monarchies · Humour

A rather amusing episode concerning Donald Trump's meeting with the Japanese Emperor Akihito, described in Harry Hurt's book "Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump"

The author tells of Trump's business visit to Japan in 1990. If the book is to be believed, the visit began with a dreadful embarrassment: while Trump was in the air, someone spread a rumour that, for some unknown reason, Michael Jackson was accompanying him, and when Trump