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My Trip to Scandinavia/Eastern Europe
Scandinavia&Eastern Europe
Benbest2004-03-28 15:27:30
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especially the Grand Palace.
John (Jan) Huss was an early historical figure who had contributed to protestant anti-Catholic sentiment before being burned at the stake for heresy. It was Huss who added the diacritics to the Czech alphabet. To counter the influence of Huss's martyrdom, the Catholic Church created a myth of a Catholic martyr who supposedly lived at the same time as Huss. Confusedly, this martyr is represented by human remains in two sites in churches near the Grand Palace. At one site, the remains are buried under a ton of silver. At the other site is a collection of human bones behind a glass case. This is the most tastefully arranged skeleton I have ever seen. The skull is placed in the centre, surrounded by the ribcage. The bones of the limbs are on each side in a very tidy and symmetrical pattern.
The Jewish cemetery in Prague has a certain renown because bodies had been buried on top of other bodies for many decades. The gravestones, however, were allowed to stand -- resulting in a very dense thickets of gravestones.
My guidebook said that the National Museum at the top of Wenceslas Square wasn't worth wasting time in, but I personally found the taxidermy superior to any I have ever seen -- partly because most of the figures were close together, were at ground level, and weren't in glass cases. I have never before stood so close to a stuffed rhinoceros, swordfish, do-do bird, etc. -- and the effect was very impressive.
In an attempt to get another viewpoint on Prague, I rode the subway to the end of the line, to the Prague suburbs. What I saw is typical throughout cities of Eastern Europe (and even moreso in the former Soviet Union), namely: forests of huge and identical-looking apartment buildings. The only houses in or near cities are those that pre-date communist rule. In this sense, life in the communist countries of Eastern Europe was collectivized and quite uniform.
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See photographs from:
Sweden Gallery
,
Russia Gallery
,
Poland Gallery
,
Norway Gallery
,
Lithuania Gallery
,
Latvia Gallery
,
Germany Gallery
,
Estonia Gallery
,
Denmark Gallery
,
Czech Republic Gallery
