sandr020

In the 1780s a St Petersburg nobleman serving Empress Cat­h­erine the Great retired from the Royal Household and moved to Moscow. There he decided to build a house and invited architects from Italy. Well-versed in Russian taste and with a keenly honed feeling for Mus­covite architectural style, Italian architects built a baronial Bar­oque man­sion a la russe . Baroque details run throughout the interiors of the building. The house passed to a German aristocrat in the mid C19th as part of his future wife’s dowry. Front entrance, Tverskoy Boulevard tripadvisor Financial ruin forced the new owner to open a pharmacy in the building, successfully. Downstairs, the customers waiting for their medicines to be prepared could drink restorative drinks, teas, coffee, or hot chocolate while waiting for their medicines to be prepared.  At the same time, a library full of reference books was installed on the upper & mezzanine floors. The library collection grew to 3,000+ volumes. At ...

Britain’s Channel Islands (pop 160,000) are self-governing crown depend­en­cies, off the French coast of Normandy. They comp­rise two separate self-governing bailiwicks: Guernsey and Jersey. In 1940 a German in­vas­ion of Britain was possible, but an invasion of the Channel Islands was inevitable. The Germans had to protect their expansion into France from its western flank. And since de­fending the Channel Islands was was "impossible", the Brit­ish Government made evac­uat­ion plans, sending ships to the islands  in June 1940. German soldiers who invaded the Channel Islands in June 1940 and took them over until May 1945. The Germans invested a fortune into these four small, sparsely pop­ul­ated islands because they were half way bet­ween Britain and Fran­ce. In June 1940, German bombers over the Islands bombed the harbours, killing dozens of islanders. Two days later Ger­man planes landed in Guernsey and met no resis­t­ance. Thus began the only wartime occup­at­ion of the B...

Independence came at the end of WWI when the Austro-Hungarian Emp­ire fell apart. It marked the first time since the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 that Bohemia was not under foreign rule. The First Republic was declared on 28th Oct 1918 when a Czech novelist read the independence proclamation of the sovereign state of Czech­osl­ovakia in the St Wenceslas Square. So the reading in the square was seen as the official start of the new country. During the cele­brations in Nov 1918, a mob tore down a Victory Column on Old Town Square. It had been there since 1650 and celebrated a battle that occurred on Charles Bridge at the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Some said the column glorified the Hapsburg domination of the country. This year locals and tourists are invited to comm­em­orate the est­ablishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, following the end of WWI. To mark the 100th anniversary, hundreds of cul­t­ural, social and sport­ing events will take place throughout 2018 that high­light the ...

I like Grace Cossington Smith ’s art very much, but was surprised to see a historical scene, rather than her more usual images of contemporary life. More about her later. Soon after the first load of convicts arrived at Sydney Cove in 1788, Gov Phillip travelled to the headwaters of Port Jackson. Finding good soil and fresh water there, he formed a settlement at Rose Hill and mapped out a town plan along the creek: Parramatta . There were soon 1000 people living in the district, minist­ered by the Rev Richard Johnstone once a fortnight.  A temporary church, formed out of two old huts, was opened at Parr­amatta in 1796. Services were first performed in it in Apr 1803, making this church is the oldest in the colony. In Mar 1794 the Rev Samuel Marsden arrived from Britain and was appointed assistant to Rev Richard Johnson , stationed at Parram­at­ta. It was an import­ant centre in the colony and Marsden remained there for some years. He was promised the position of senior chap­lain...

The first Martello Tower I ever saw was on a tour of Saint John in Canada, as we will see. But I have relied on LW Cowie for more detailed information. These curved forts first spread across Europe, inspired by the Genovese defence system at Mortella Point in Corsica . Built from 1565 on, Corsican coastal towers were built to protect the villages from brutal Barbary-coast pirates. The towers and their watchmen were paid for by local villagers, and whenever a pirate threat was seen, watchmen alerted the locals by lighting a fire on the tower’s roof. Later the Genovese built another generation of circular towers, used against other foreign invasions. Although close to the French coast, the island of Jersey wanted to remain British and thus constantly feared French invasion via the coastal bays. In 1779 there was an unsuccessful French attack in St Ouen’s Bay and in 1781, hundreds of French troops landed and marched on the capital, St Helier. Strengthening coastal defences became a pri...

The 1400s was the peak of the Ottoman–Hungarian Wars , when Wal­lachia in Southern Romania was one of Hungary's strongest rivals. Sit­uated between Christian Europe and the Muslim lands of the Ottoman Empire, Transylvania and Wallachia  (see map) were often the scene of bloody battles. The Ottoman forces pushed west­ward into Europe, and Christian Crusaders marched eastward toward the Holy Land. Vlad the Impaler Tepes (1431-1476) was born in Trans­yl­vania in 1431, son of the famous war lord Vlad II and the Princess of Moldavia. He had two older half-brothers and a young­er full broth­er. In his birth year Vlad's father trav­elled to Nuremberg where he was honour­ed with the Order of the Drag­on, and was grant­ed the sur­name Dracul after his induction into the Christian Military Order of the Dragon. In 1436, Vlad II Dracul ascended the Wallach­ian throne. When Vlad II was called to a diplomatic meeting in 1442 with Sultan Murad II, he brought his young sons along. But the me...

The Canton Museum of Art in Ohio began as the Little Civic Art Gal­lery above Canton's Carnegie Library in 1935. In time the gall­ery brought 3 works into its permanent collection, includ­ing their first watercolour, by Clyde Singer . Although the collection would grow in different ways in the coming decades, this selection antic­ipated the eventual collection focus of the Canton Museum of Art. In 1971, Ralph Wilson began donating works from his consider­able art collection to the museum. His first donation included water­colours by Charles Demuth, Lyonel Feininger, John Marin, Maurice Prendergast and Alfred Maurer . Ralph Wilson continued to donate his own works to the museum until he died in 1979. By then, Wilson had donated 40+ quality works on paper by American artists, eventually becoming the heart of Cant­on’s coll­ection. Further growth of the Coll­ect­ion came with more fine watercolours by Andrew and Jamie Wyeth . Canton’s permanent collection already had masters like E...

I had enjoyed Australian holiday camps every summer throughout high school and university. Wonderful memories and activities!! But 1971 was my first year in Europe and Britain, so I was very keen to visit Butlins for the first time. In the 1920s, young Billy Butlin (1899-1990) was staying at a Bed & Breakfast in Barry Island, Wales. Everyone knew that guests would be locked out of their accommodation after breakfast and only let back in when the prop­rietor opened the door for tea. But But­lin hated the boredom, and decided to create a new kind of holiday de­st­ination, one where residents wouldn’t be subject to the relentless rain outside.  Butlin, the son of fairground owners, decided to develop a holiday facility where on-site entertainment would be provided for the guests during the day. Having arrived in Skegness at the height of the foreshore development with his hoopla stall, Butlin went on to build and operate a new amusement park. In fact he opened a perm­an­­ent fai...