Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg is a major city in the central part of Russia, the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Situated on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range, it is the main industrial and cultural centre of the Urals Federal District with a population of 1,398,889 (2012) (up from 1,293,537 recorded in the 2002 Census), making it Russia's fourth-largest city. Between 1924 and 1991, the city was known as Sverdlovsk after the Bolshevik party leader Yakov Sverdlov.

Soon after the Russian Revolution, on July 17, 1918, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, and their children Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia (her death has been under dispute ever since), and Tsarevich Alexei were murdered by the Bolsheviks at the Ipatiev House in this city. Other members of the Romanov family were killed at Alapayevsk the day after. In 1977, the Ipatiev House was demolished by order of Boris Yeltsin, to prevent it from being used as a rallying location for monarchists. He later became the first President of Russia and represented the people at the funeral of the Tsar in 1998.

This card sent to me by Lisa shows photographs of some of the city’s theatre’s and museums in this well-known city. Especially the Opera House. Yekaterinburg is famous for its theaters, among which are some very popular theatre companies: the Yekaterinburg Academic Ballet and Opera Company, the Sverdlovsk Academic Theater of Musical Comedy, the Yekaterinburg Academic Dramatic Theater, the Yekaterinburg Theater for Young Spectators, the Volkhonka (a popular chamber theatre), and the Kolyada Theater (a chamber theatre founded by Russian playwright, producer and actor Nikolai Kolyada). Yekaterinburg is the centre of New Drama, a movement of the contemporary Russian playwrights Nikolai Kolyada, Vasily Sigarev, Konstantin Kostenko, the Presnyakov brothers, and Oleg Bogayev. Yekaterinburg is often called the capital of contemporary dance for a number of famous dance companies residing in the city: the Kipling, the Provincial Dances, the Tantstrest, and a special department of contemporary dance at the Yekaterinburg University of Humanities.

Famous Tall Ships

Thank you Karoly for this nice card. It’s indeed a ‘Who’s Who’ of famous Tall Ships.

The Gorch Fock I (ex Tovarishch, ex Gorch Fock) is a German three-mast barque, the first of a series built as school ships for the German Reichsmarine in 1933. She was taken as war reparations by the USSR after World War II and renamed Tovarishch. After a short period under the Ukrainian flag in the 1990s and a prolonged stay in British ports due to lack of funds for necessary repairs, the ship was acquired by sponsors and sailed to her original home port of Stralsund, where her original name of Gorch Fock was restored on November 29, 2003. She is a museum ship, and extensive repairs were carried out in 2008. The Federal German government built a replacement training ship, the Gorch Fock (1958), which is still in service.

Many regard Mir as the fastest Class A sail training ship in the world. Since 1996, she won the Tall Ship Races five times! Since 1990, up to 60 trainees of all ages are welcome on board to sail along with the Russian students of the Admiral Makarov State Maritime Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mir's full complement of sails is 26; she is sailed with a crew of 200 but can be sailed with only 30. The ship's crewmembers and cadets have acquired a lot of friends in many European and some American ports, which makes every arrival a joyful experience!

Alexander von Humboldt is a German ship originally built in 1906 by the German shipyard AG Weser at Bremen as Reserve Sonderburg. She was operated throughout the North and Baltic Seas until being retired in 1986. Subsequently she was converted into a three masted barque by the German shipyard Motorwerke Bremerhaven and was re-launched in 1988 as Alexander von Humboldt.

The STS Sedov, formerly the Magdalene Vinnen II (1921–1936) and the Kommodore Johnsen (–1948), is a 4-masted steel barque that for almost 80 years was the largest traditional sailing ship in operation. Originally built as a German cargo ship, the Sedov is today a sail training vessel, training cadets from the universities of Murmansk, Saint Petersburg and Arkhangelsk. She participates regularly in the big maritime international events as a privileged host and has also been a regular participant in the Tall Ships' Races.

Great Horror Movie Heroes

This one is for the lovers of horror movies. The fmous three featured in the three maxi cards shown here, were all masters of their craft. Hemant from the USA sent me these cards.

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (20 October 1882 – 16 August 1956), commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played and achieved cinematic immortality as the world’s most famous vampire - Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his career.

William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor. Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). His popularity following Frankenstein was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or "Karloff the Uncanny." His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch, as well as the narrator, in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). As Frankenstein’s monster, Boris Karloff was able to convey an impressive range of emotions without speaking.

Lon Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor during the age of silent films. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and his groundbreaking artistry with makeup. Chaney is known for his starring roles in such silent horror films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. His ability to transform himself using makeup techniques he developed earned him the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Faces." As the horribly disfigured Eric, who lived below the Paris Opera House, Lon Chaney terrified audiences everywhere.

Kimon the Athenian

Further to my post on this famous Athenian on 15.11.2011, Merja sent me another nice card from Larnaca in Cyprus, showing the bust of Kimon the Athenian. Kimon was an Athenian general and statesman, a member of the distinguished Philaid family and the son of the great Miltiades, the victorious general at Marathon. He helped defeat the Persians at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. He cleared the Persians from the eastern Mediterranean and died in Cyprus in 449 BC leading a naval expedition against Persia.

Aleksis Kivi

Pia gave we this maxicard commemorating Aleksis Kivi, originally Alexis Stenvall, (1834-1872), was a Finnish national author and poet, creator of modern Finnish literature. His major novel, Seitsemän veljestä "The seven brothers" (1870), the classic of Finnish culture, has been translated into several languages. Aleksis Kivi was born in Nurmijärvi on the 10th of October 1834 to a rather poor family with three sons. His father Eerik Johan Stenvall was a tailor but a relatively educated man, his mother Annastiina, came from a smith's family. In 1846 Kivi went to Helsinki to continue his education and studied Swedish, which was a necessity for matriculation and for further studies.

In the house where Kivi was living, the master had a wide library and soon Kivi got to know works from authors such as Shakespeare, Cervantes and Byron. Kivi fell in love with his masters daughter Albina Palmquist, who later moved to Denmark. This relationship probably gave influence to Kivi's female characters in several of his plays. Kivi finished his secondary school in 1857 and was admitted to the University of Helsinki in 1859. The classics of literature and theatre were his interests. The same year he made his first play, Kullervo, which was based on the Kalevala, The Finnish National Epic.

In Helsinki, Kivi made friends with leading Finnish speaking personalities such as J.V. Snellman, Elias Lönnrot, Fredrik Cygnaeus and Emil Nervander, who were also his supporters, Snellman also economically. Kivi wasn't very keen on studying, and spent more time writing and drinking than in university. After winning a competition held by the Finnish Literature Society, for his play Kullervo (1859), he had enough money to continue writing in Nurmijärvi and in Siuntio. Charlotta Lönnqvist, who is considered his biggest supporter, helped him along and during that period he published 12 plays, a collection of poems and a play Nummisuutarit "The Heath Cobblers", which won the State prize in 1865. Kivi's friend and supporter, theatre director Kaarlo Bergbom, made many of his plays known to the public.

This epoch-making period, which started in 1863, dedicated Kivi to his mission in life as an author. The novel Seitsemän veljestä "Seven brothers" published in 1870, received scathing criticism from the Finnish professor August Ahlqvist, who characterized the book as a blot on the name of Finnish literature, from its realism, humor and language, which he found too offending and vulgar. With this critic and disparagement, Ahlqvist totally blackened his reputation, and became a symbolic example of oppressiveness against artistic freedom. For Kivi's susceptible nature, this critic was a prime cause for his mental collapse later on.

The last years of his life, apart from his constant financial difficulties and breakdown, Kivi also suffered from schizophrenia, and received treatment in the mental hospital of Lapinlahti in Helsinki. Aleksis Kivi died at the young age of 38 on December 31st, 1872 in Tuusula, where his brother had taken him to spend his last months. The statue of Aleksis Kivi is erected in front of the Finnish National Theatre in Helsinki, next to the railway station.

On the stamp issued on 10.10.1984 has been printed “The Song of My Heart”, a poem by Alexis Kivi.

China Town in Singapore

Singapore's Chinatown is the traditional Chinese quarters of town, and while the entire city is largely Chinese these days the area does retain some of its own charm. The area is also known as Niu Che Shui in Chinese and Kreta Ayer in Malay, both names meaning "bullock cart water", a reference to the carts that used to haul in drinking water.

The area between Pagoda Street and Smith Street has been tarted up considerably for tourists, but workaday Chinatown continues south and east, merging seamlessly into the Central Business District. Tanjong Pagar is the unofficial home of Singapore's gay community, with many watering holes in restored shop houses, while Club Street caters more to the expat and yuppie crowd with small, intimate eateries offering excellent (if pricey) Western fare.

. Chinatown's primary attraction is the town itself, composed as it is of restored shop houses full of strange little shops selling everything from plastic Buddha’s to dried seahorses. Wander at random and see what you can find! As an old Chinese told me, “IF you haven’t seen China town, you haven’t seen Singapore”. And that my friends are absolutely true.

• Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Towering above southern Chinatown, this four-story temple was completed only in 2007. The imposing main hall hosts a 27-foot statue of Maitreya Buddha, and the scared relic itself, reputedly one of Buddha Shakyamuni's teeth,
• Chinatown Heritage Centre, 48 Pagoda St, An excellent museum chronicling how Chinatown came to be and the privation suffered by early migrants.
• Jamae Mosque. One of Singapore's oldest mosques, built in the 1830s by Tamil Muslims in an Indian style. Note the stepped minarets outside.
• Pinnacle@Duxton Skybridge, Singapore's tallest public housing project has a 50th story viewing deck that offers some of the best city views around at a fraction of the cost of the Singapore Flyer.
• Red Dot Design Museum,
• Singapore Coin and Notes Museum, Tiny little museum tucked away across the Chinatown Heritage Centre. Managed by the Singapore Mint, it features local currency, commerative coins, a history of coinage, and the coin-making process. Not exactly a must-see, but a nice little distraction if you're in the area.
• Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore's oldest and most important Hindu temple and worth a visit for the intricately carved gopuram (statuary above the entrance), which gave adjacent "Pagoda Street" its name. This is an active temple, so take off your shoes and don't disturb the worshippers. The Thimithi fire-walking festival is held here one week before Deepavali, usually Oct/Nov.
• Thian Hock Keng Temple, The oldest Hokkien temple in Singapore, dating back to 1821, although the structure was thoroughly refurbished in 2000. The brightly colored, elaborate facade was constructed with ironwork from Scotland, tiles from England and the Netherlands, and dragon-ornamented granite pillars from China.
• Singapore City Gallery (URA Gallery), 3-storey visitor gallery with large scaled models of the entire country (ground floor) as well as the city centre (incredibly life-like), which provide good orientation of the country for first-timers. The gallery tells the history of Singapore's urban planning, various planning, design, and conservation strategies adopted to create a good living environment, sustainable development, and many others. Learn the story of Singapore's transformation from 3rd to 1st world, play games on land planning, and the expanse of land reclamation done on the island country. There are also wonderful images of old-new Singapore to browse, free walking maps to unique districts like Joo Chiat to pick up.

House of Aion

The mosaics of the House of Aion date back to the fourth century A.D and lie close to the mosaics of Dionysus and Theseus. Five mythological scenes worth seeing are "The bath of Dionysus", "Leda and the Swan", "The beauty contest between Cassiopeia and the Nereids", "Apollo and Marsyas", and the "Triumphant procession of Dionysus". The House of Aion is located in the Paphos Archaeological Park and is close to all the other attractions, such as the Paphos lighthouse and the Odeon. So far only a small part of the building has been excavated by the Polish Archaeological mission of the university of Warsaw.

House of Aion is the smallest house, discovered in 1983, which basically contains one large mosaic showing five scenes. At the top left is Leda and the swan (Zeus is disguised as the swan). In the top right corner is a picture of baby nymphs with the baby Dionysos. The middle picture shows sea nymphs in a beauty contest, being judged by Aion. In the bottom row Dionysos appears again in a triumphal procession, and the final picture shows Apollo punishing the loser of a musical duel. This lovely card was given to me by Merja.