The last trip of the blog, but certainly not of my life, is in Oman.

The Sultanate of Oman is in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula. It was under the influence of the Persian Empire before entering the Arab sphere of influence. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was under Portuguese control. He reached his zenith in the 18th century when his maritime empire controlled much of the coast of the Arabian peninsula, a large part of the East African coast around Zanzibar, and part of the Persian coast. Later it entered the sphere of colonial influence of the perfidious Albion.

It followed a very isolationist and reactionary policy until 1970 when Qaboos bin Said al Said, the son of the ruling sultan, carried out a bloodless coup. Since then, Oman has opened up to the outside world, while maintaining a certain moderation, as can be seen for example in the architecture which remained quite sober.

Many immigrants, especially from India and its surroundings, live in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. In the United Arab Emirates, they are even more than 80% of the population. Their working conditions and rights are often almost like slavery, a problem that recently had certain media coverage due to more than 6,500 workers dying in the construction of the stadiums for the World Cup in Qatar.

For us tourists, the only small problem to face is: no alcohol!

Before reaching Oman, I stopped for a couple of days in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
Unlike Dubai, the most famous emirate of UAE, there aren’t spectacular skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi, so in the end it’s just a sultry pouring of concrete. Worth seeing is the recently built spectacular Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

Also worth visiting is the sumptuous presidential house, Qasr Al Watan. It is used for diplomatic meetings, including the Arab League when hosted in Abu Dhabi.

My friends Giamma and Riccardo seen also in other previous posts.

A street in Muscat, the capital of Oman. In the background, the Al-Miriani fort.
There is not much to see in the cities of Oman. On the other hand, it is extremely safe and quiet. Indeed perhaps even too much, because since there is no nightlife, no alcohol, etc… it is obvious that from the tenth night you start dreaming of a London rave with drugs and scuffle, but that’s another story.

In the Mutrah district Souq

Knick-knacks.

Shop of incense, one of the main products of Oman for millennia.

After a couple of days in Muscat, we drove away with our rented car, used until that moment just to take a fine for unpaid parking. The first stop on the way was at the so-called Sinkhole, a splendid natural pool surrounded by rocks.

Giamma checks the best route between the boulders of the Wadi Shab canyon.
But it’s better to not listen to his suggestions. In fact, even if, unlike them, I didn’t have trekking shoes, I was doing quite well until when, climbing up a boulder, Giamma said: “Gianku (it’s my nickname in Malta) listen to what I’m telling you, put your foot here“. Done: foot on a thorn plant that pierced my sole. Giamma is not a prankster so I still want to believe in his good faith, but it was a moment of excruciating pain.

That night we went for a tour to Ras Al Jinz beach, where sea turtles lay their eggs. There are no photos because it was too dark and, at least in theory, flash was not allowed to not confusing the newborn turtles, who instinctively follow glitters to reach the sea in the dark night.
We saw many of them laboriously venturing towards the shoreline (despite tourists’ cellphone lights and flashlights) and, thanks to the guide, we also found a large turtle that was laying its eggs in a pit dug in the sand (I strongly suspect that it was actually a robot controlled to move its hind legs )
The stars were fully shining.

The desert dunes of Wahiba Sands.

Camel.

Kids on a camel.

Our quaint desert tour guide. A little vain, he loved to be photographed. Great driver, the tour consisted mostly of a funny duning (I guess this word has already been invented) up and down frantically on his off-road vehicle.

The wanderer shadow.

Among the ruins of Birkat Al Mouz, an abandoned village made up of mud-bricks houses and surrounded by palm trees. It was still partially inhabited until a couple of decades ago.

In Nizwa, adorned for Oman’s National Day, November 18.

Family.

People.

Mother and daughter.

Barman.

Little girls.

Inside the Nizwa fort.

Ehh, me too a little vain sometimes. Let’s admit it.

A little girl is shooting.

Inside the Jabrin Castle. Built in 1675, it was an important centre of learning for astrology, medicine and Islamic law.
The lady at the ticket office maybe is still laughing at my bold attempt at a student discount.

Back to Muscat, at the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

The amazing ceiling of the mosque.

Little girls.

Hindus in the mosque. (Don’t ask me the reason, I just shoot photos).

Girl makes the heart.

An arcade outside the mosque.

Since it is the last post, I put the map of the visited countries. They are 116 (in total, 50 narrated in this blog). And yet, as you can see, there is still a lot to visit, especially the Pacific islands, the countries of sub-Saharan West Africa, large nations such as Canada, Mongolia, etc…

Well, that’s it. It is time for me to walk away lonely in the barren desert in the search of the truth. Diabolical challenges await me but if I can overcome them I will return.
Actually, I will not come back. You don’t deserve me… I remain wandering in the desert.
Okay, now don’t panic. I know I can’t leave you alone for too long in your cold existential bewilderment. One day… I’ll be back.

First stop Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.
The tiled roof of St. Mark’s Church with the coats of arms of Zagreb and the former kingdom of Croatia-Dalmatia-Slavonia.
Like many buildings in Zagreb, it’s still uninhabitable after the 2020 earthquake.

In the center of Zagreb there is a lively nightlife.

Ljubljana, the quiet and relaxing capital of Slovenia.

The most interesting place to go in the evening is, definitely, Metelkova City Autonomous Cultural Center, a squat created inside former barracks. It’s the main meeting point for Slovenian alternative artists. They have embellished it with graffiti and works of art.
Where there is Anarchy, there is Beauty.

EZLN basket.

Lake Bled, surrounded by green hills and a castle, is one of the most pleasant places in Slovenia. In the middle there is an islet with a church.

Fisherwoman by Lake Bled. In the background, the church on the islet.

- Magic mirror on the crossroads, who’s the fairest one of all?
- For sure not you, Dekaro.
- Fuck off.

The central square of Koper. From here I begin to travel in Istria, going south.
In general, Istria has plenty of towns with Venetian architecture, overlooking the sea. Sometimes you can see also Roman ruins and Austro-Hungarian buildings.
A pleasant surprise is that they understand Italian more than English. As for me, I learned only one word of the abstruse Slavic languages: “pivo”. And that’s enough for me.

View of Piran.

Venetian architecture in the central square of Piran.

Church and bell tower in Izola. Like Koper, it was an island until a couple of centuries ago.

Again in Croatia, in Poreč.
A stunning Byzantine mosaic in the Euphrasian Basilica, founded as early as the 4th century.

Rovinj, one of the most beautiful cities in Istria.

Roman columns in Rovinj.

Roman triumphal arch, at the entrance to the old town of Pula.

The Roman amphitheater of Pula.

A cat walks along the cobbled streets of Krk, the main town of the same-name island.

The clock in the Krk’s square.

Rijeka, Fiume in Italian, a city famous in Italian history due to the so-called “Impresa di Fiume” (‘Endeavour of Fiume’), when a variegated group of fighters, led by the Italian poet and writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, occupied it from September 1919 to December 1920 in an attempt to annex it to Italy (it was disputed by the nascent Yugoslav state).
Even today, historians are divided on the evaluation of those 15 months, also because in the following years, fascism glorified that venture. However, if we really want to apply a political etiquette, it is perhaps the anarcho-syndicalism. In fact, the “Carta del Carnaro”, the constitution given to the city during the occupation, was drafted by the anarcho-syndicalist Alceste De Ambris and proclaimed direct democracy, decentralization of power, collective sovereignty of all citizens without distinction of sex, race, language, class and religion, hospitality for anyone wishing to live in Rijeka, and so on. Not surprising, the only foreign state that recognized the “Regency of Carnaro” was the Soviet Union.
But apart from the constitution, it was the experience lived by the citizens of Rijeka who resembles anarchism, with exceptional freedom for the time, thanks also to the large influx of young people, intellectuals and artists that reached the city.
Perhaps this was one of the main reasons that in the end, paradoxically, it was the Italian army that had the international task to ”free” the city with cannon fire.

For those my age, it’s hard to hold back tears of emotion in front of the memorabilia at the Peek & Poke Computer Museum.
In this photo, you can see the Commodore 64 with the Football video game and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum with rubbery keys. There was also the legendary VIC-20, my first computer when I was 12, and the Commodore 128, my second computer (the latter is actually also on display in my little house in Benevento, former Maleventum).

Market in Rijeka.

Cat overlooking via Medulica at night.

Night thunderstorm.
 

The Grand Canal in Trieste, Italy.
As far as I remember it’s the first time that an Italian city appears in Dekaro Diario! (it could be a symptom of senile fatigue coming. ). But let’s not exaggerate: Trieste became definitively Italian only in 1954.
Jokes apart, Trieste is a wonderful city, where you can stroll among majestic buildings of the Habsburg Empire, houses of wealthy merchants, and churches, also Orthodox.

Icon of the Madonna on a street wall.

And that is the poet and writer I mentioned before: D’Annunzio, sat next to a girl, pretending to read solemnly. He was in fact an astute womanizer.

Backlight from “Unità d’Italia” square.

Happily back to Malta, in the apartment where I live now, with an amazing sea view! In the evening, I sit on the balcony, watching the sunsets, always unique. The ideal place to have a little drink and meditate on the impermanence of existence.

In the meanwhile, Dekaro Diario turned 10! It was in fact 2012 when I started it, on the occasion of a long trip to South and Central America. Therefore, I believe that it’s time to conclude this blog. I will make one last episode at the end of the year, it will be Oman, and we say goodbye. Maybe I will do another kind of blog in the future, before the inevitable departure, but I don’t know yet. We’ll see.

The history of Cyprus is too long to be briefly summarized, having been conquered and influenced by all the great Mediterranean civilizations: Greeks, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, etc … but I want to briefly summarize the recent history that led to the division of the island in two parts.

After independence from the United Kingdom in 1960, strong tensions broke out between the Greeks and the Turkish minority (about 30%), mainly settled in the north. To limit the clashes, in 1964 the capital Nicosia was divided into two parts by a UN peacekeeping force, with a green pencil line (hence the name “Green line”) drawn on the map by an English general.
In the following years, however, a certain stabilization began to be reached, thanks to the presidency of Makarios who, although a Greek, was esteemed by the Turks, after an initial mistrust.
But in 1974 the colonels who came to power in Greece after a coup d’etat organized a coup also in Cyprus and removed Makarios (most likely instigated and financed by the United States which did not look favorably on him because of their usual paranoias… It seemed ugly not to meddle and mess up even in this small part of the globe!).
Since it was evident the intention of annexation with Greece shortly thereafter, and having been declared in the independence agreements that the annexation of Cyprus to Greece or Turkey was not allowed, Turkey felt entitled to intervene. After five days the Turkish army managed to land in the north and soon crushed the Greek army, advancing to the current borders.
The only good thing is that this humiliating military defeat against the Turks and the fear of a real war against Turkey had as consequence to bring down, after only a few days, the fascist regime of colonels that had been in power in Greece since 1967.
Once democracy was restored on the island, the Northern Turks never agreed to return to their previous status and proclaimed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey.

At the moment a solution is not in sight, but year after year the tensions are gradually diminishing. Since 2003 it is possible to pass between the two parts of the island through checkpoints and generation after generation the old grudges are gradually forgotten.

This time my travel companion is Alex, a dear friend in Malta, where we live. Like many Italian emigrants in Malta, we have both sold our souls to the devil, in fact, we work for online betting companies, but in my case I still have a clean conscience, being in the department that protects customers… but this is an argument that would go too far and anyway out of the topics of this blog.

At Paphos airport, we rented a Japanese automatic car with abstruse gear controls (prone to suck swearwords even to a quiet person like me) and we went to Nicosia, along the road that runs by the south sea. On the way, we stopped a few minutes on the “Aphrodite’s Rock” beach.

According to the legend recognized also outside Cyprus, it is here that, emerging from the foam of the waters, was born Aphrodite, the goddess of Love and Beauty.

Elderly people in Nicosia, on the Greek side.

Cyprus is full of clubs of all kinds. However, many were closed or completely empty due to the mix of Covid and low season. Here we are in a pub in the Greek part of Nicosia. It was very punk aesthetically… a pity that the prices were like Grand Hotel.

A military vehicle in Kyrenia, in the Northern Cyprus.
This photo, however, is misleading because in reality also the north is very quiet, it was perhaps a military parade. In fact, just before it, four F-16s had passed about 50 meters above our heads, with a frightening roar! Soon later we saw that it was an exhibition.
Kyrenia doesn’t differ much from cities in the south, apart from many flags of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus all around, and much lower prices. Unfortunately, little of the historical part remains, everything replaced by modern clubs, discos, casinos, and commercial chains.

The ceiling of the recent great Hala Sultan mosque in Haspolat, built with generous Turkish funds.

Back in the Greek part, in the mountains of Troodos, for one of the most pleasant experiences of the trip: the wine ​tasting in the cellars. The production of wine in Cyprus dates back to about 6000 years ago and according to some historians, it was the first place in the world to produce it.
During the tasting we were offered various types of wine, gradually increasing in gradation. Some were really good.
If the police had stopped us for the alcohol test, our driving license would have been suspended until 3485.

Hidden into the Troodos mountains there are Orthodox churches that are very humble on the outside but which hide splendid frescoes inside. In this case, it is the church of the Archangel Michael, in the village of Pedoulas. It was built and painted in 1474.

The archangel Michael.

Autumn.

A cobbled street with plants and flowers in Laneia, a scenic little town in the Troodos’ mountains.
Yes, once again Alex can be just glimpsed from behind, but don’t worry, you won’t miss anything extraordinary, I mean, he is not a George Clooney, to use a euphemism.

Food stall by the road.

Cyprus is full of cats. A joy for all lovers of this cute feline. At the moment, the first proved friendship in the world between man and cat was discovered here, in a tomb dating 9500 years ago in which a cat was found buried next to the deceased.
Later there were also specific reasons that brought the cats to the island. For example, the story of the “Holy Monastery of St. Nicholas of the Cats” tells of how, during its construction in the thirteenth century, ships full of cats were brought from Egypt and Palestine to fight the poisonous snakes in the area.
Now the snakes have been defeated and the cats have successfully completed their task. They can therefore stay all the time lazing around and eating food kindly offered by Cypriots and tourists

A “perfectly balanced” cat!

We keep drinking excellent Cypriot wine. Here we are in Limassol, a big and ancient city on the south coast. Here too, however, as in all the Cypriot cities I have visited, very little remains of the past.

After the fourth day Alex returned to Malta (there was a compromise with his girlfriend, Ciapparina, who at first did not want to send him, but in the end allowed a maximum of 4 days) and in the remaining three days I visited some suggestive archaeological sites.
These are the ruins of the archaeological area of Neo-Paphos, founded in the 4th century BC. At the time it was the “new” city in the area. In fact, the city-state of Paphos is so ancient that is even mentioned in the Odyssey.

The site is also famous for the extraordinary mosaics on the floors of some Roman villas from the early centuries AD. Unfortunately though, perhaps because it was low season, they were covered to be preserved, except this one and another which depicted the birth of Achilles.
This mosaic depicts the mythical fight between Theseus and the Minotaur within the labyrinth of Crete. In the upper left there is Ariadne, in the upper right an impersonated Crete and in the lower left the labyrinth itself impersonated.

A little north of the archaeological area of Paphos there is a necropolis called “Tombs of the Kings”, dating back to the 4th century BC. There are no kings buried, it was actually used by the local aristocracy.
This tomb has a colonnaded atrium with niches around.

A cargo vessel that ran aground in 2011 in Peyia, 10k north of Paphos.

Another very ancient city is Kourion, near Limassol. This theater was actually almost completely rebuilt on the site of the original one. Kourion was an important city-state of Mycenaean colonizers who settled here in the 13th century BC.

Also in Kourion there are mosaics on the floors of the villas from the Roman period. This is inside the so-called “House of the gladiators” due to two mosaics depicting gladiators. It was probably a gymnasium.

And once again the rainbow comes out on the road to greet me… a positive way to see the fact that it’s always raining!

Well, I was already planning another trip but the whole world is turning Covid-red again. Ok, patience. As someone wrote on Facebook: “Live each variant of your life as if it were last”

Map of the visited places:

Me and Riccardo, now a regular guest of Dekaro Diario, arrived in Durres by ferry from Bari. We rented a car and went down to Butrint. From there we went up towards Lake Orhid and entered North Macedonia. Then up to Pristina in Kosovo and from there back to the south, returning in Albania until Tirana.

On the road again! The rainbow greets us for this new journey.

Albania has made extraordinary progress since the collapse of the isolationist communist dictatorship, in 1991, and year after year it is opening more to tourism, thanks also to new infrastructures, especially the roads.
Today it is a country with great energy and a very hospitable young population with great optimism towards the future. But, of course, not all that glitters is gold. Systematic corruption, unemployment, severe inequalities, organized crime, financial mafia, and all the other disasters that accompany capitalist liberalism are the new challenges that the country now faces.

Rainbow over the mountains.

Riccardo and some Albanian guys.

Berat, the first city visited. It was founded in the 6th century BC. by the Illyrians, from whom the Albanians descend. It is nicknamed the “city of a thousand windows” because of these white Ottoman houses that climb the hill towards the castle.

Tension and concentration in this chess endgame in a Berat’s park.
 

Across the Osum River is Gorica, the Catholic neighborhood of Berat.

The coastline, going south. During that journey, we also visited the ruins of Apollonia, an ancient city of Illyria and later an important Roman city, and Valona, a large tourist city.

To the far south are the splendid ruins of Butrint, a Greek and later Roman city located on a peninsula.

The crystalline waters, blue and green, of “Blue Eye”, formed from a spring that flows from under the river. The colors remind me the painting ‘Ophelia’.

Ottoman-style houses in the center of Gjirokastra.

Traditional dance in the streets of Gjirokastra.

Cat waiting hopefully on the pier in Ohrid, a charming Macedonian town on the same name Lake Ohrid.
North Macedonia (please remember to specify ‘North’ otherwise the Greeks get very upset) was formed as a province within Yugoslavia after the First World War. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, it was the only country to have achieved independence without suffering even a day of the war.
Macedonia as a historical region includes also part of Greece (which, as I said, is very touchy about it), Bulgaria, and small parts of Albania, Kosovo, and Serbia.

One of the most photogenic places on the trip: the Orthodox Church of Saint John at Kaneo overlooking Lake Ohrid.

It was built in the 13th century.

Orthodox monk walks thoughtfully in a world of futility.

“Warrior on a Horse” statue in the main Skopje square.
But is it not by any chance Alexander the Great!? Don’t say it!!… you would unleash the fury of the Greeks who have imposed this statue to be called “Warrior on a horse”, without mentioning him. They look like kindergarten children, it’s mine… no it’s mine…
Even the name “North Macedonia” instead of simply Macedonia has been imposed by Greece after an international campaign of political and economic boycott carried out with surprising stubbornness.

About the statue, a free tour guide told us that it cost a disproportionate amount, around 10 million euros and that there is a real mania to build statues everywhere in Skopje, probably, apart from chauvinism, a way to steal public funds.
The new buildings in the center of Skopje are mostly white, with colonnades and statues around, usually quite kitsch. A trend that I had already noticed in the new buildings of the capitals of the Central Asia countries, even if to less extent.

The most beautiful area of Skopje is the old bazaar, one of the few areas to have survived the terrible earthquake of 1963 which destroyed almost completely the city.

A street of the bazaar.

The “Newborn” monument in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. This monument was inaugurated on the day of Kosovo’s self-proclamation of independence, February 17, 2008. Still today, many countries don’t recognize the Republic of Kosovo, beginning with Serbia which considers it as its own province.
It has a very young population and there is optimism for the future but even here, perhaps even more than in Albania, all that glitters is certainly not gold. Suffice it to say that last year the president Hashim Thaci, one of the main political figures of the last twenty years, had to resign on the obvious accusations of war crimes, international drug trafficking, torture, killings on commission, and even organ trafficking of Serbian prisoners. So, you can imagine where are flowing the international investments into this land which is, in the end, one of the last conquests of the Western countries’ wars.
Pristina is a very modern city, full of cafes, shops, and clubs, even if seems one of those places made with the mould of globalization, with the exact same chains of shops and restaurants.

Prizren, the second largest city of Kosovo and historical capital. On the left you can see the Sinan Pasha Mosque, on the right the Old bridge.
Its demographic composition, with continuous repopulation and escapes between the Albanian and Serbian ethnic groups, reflects the troubled history of the centuries-old tensions between these populations in Kosovo, with continuous atrocities and attempts at ethnic cleansing from both sides. A shameful campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs was one of the main causes of the outbreak of the Kosovo war in 1998. During the war almost all Albanians were forced to flee this city. After the war, it was the Serbs who suffered violence and reprisals and were forced to flee. At the moment only about twenty Serbs live in Prizren and only 5% of the population of the whole of Kosovo is Serbian, the rest almost all Albanian.

Girls crossing the main square of Prizren.

Back in Albania, we took a journey of about 3 hours on a ferry from Fierze to Koman (in the map above it’s the stretch between points ‘A’ and ‘B’). It’s a spectacular route inside a dam surrounded by overhanging rocks.
Unfortunately, the sky that day was cloudy and did not enhance the colors.

Panorama near Koman.

An elegant street in Shkoder. It had several dominations. The Venetian one probably influenced the style of some parts of the city.

Museum built inside the Kruje castle in honour of Skanderbeg, who from here defended Albania from countless invasions by the Ottomans. Only after his death from malaria, the Ottomans managed to conquer Albania in 1478, remaining until independence in 1912.
He is considered one of the greatest commanders in history and his statues are ubiquitous in Albania and Kosovo.

A building in the center of Tirana. The whole downtown area is full of lively clubs, cafes, bars, and restaurants. A very pleasant place.

The disquieting tunnel that leads to Bunk’art, a formerly secret underground bunker, built in the seventies and now converted into a place for art exhibitions and a museum of the recent history of Albania, with particular attention to the abuses of the dictatorship. Some rooms, as for example those reserved for important politicians of the time, have been left as they were.
At the end of this tunnel, there is a hill under which was dug the several floors bunker.
The dictator Enver Hoxha had developed a kind of paranoia and believed that the invasion of Albania was imminent. Bunkers are scattered throughout Albania, most of them very small, which can still be seen today.

I made a video that makes better understood the place, also because part of the atmosphere is created by the music and sounds inside the rooms.

This was the room reserved for Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu.

An exhibition.

Well, it was a great pleasure to meet you again, and let’s hope we don’t need to wait two more years now! Actually, I reveal you that I’m already planning a short trip very soon… as fast as possible, before the arrival of the next variant! I’ll let you know soon!

Anyway, let’s see them.

In a coffee. Behind the window, the Kazan Cathedral. Saint Petersburg is a majestic city, with broad avenues and huge buildings.
Founded in 1703 in a marshy and inhospitable area, as a military and commercial outpost on the Baltic Sea, it expanded in a few years at the request of the tsar Peter the Great, who for its construction brought together serfs and workers from all over Russia. At least 30,000 workers died in those years due to terrible working conditions.
The city took on a European, modern, imperial aspect, and the Russian aristocracy soon began to prefer it to old Moscow. Already in 1712 it became the new capital. It will remain until 1918.
In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, the name was changed to Petrograd, because St. Petersburg sounded too German. In 1924, a few days after Lenin’s death, the name was changed again, this time to Leningrad. In 1991, following a referendum, it took back the old name, St. Petersburg.

Inside the cathedral in the fortress of Peter and Paul, the place of the first settlement. Almost all of the tsars following the founding of the city are buried in this cathedral.

Little sailors.

Some metro stations are so deep that seems like a descent into the underworld. They are very elegant.

Mosaics on the ceiling of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, so called because it was founded in the place where, in 1881, the tsar Alexander II was assassinated by the revolutionary group, of anarchist and socialist tendencies, “Narodnaja Volja” (“People’s Will”). From the nineteenth century to the 1917 revolution, St. Petersburg was a crossroads of fervent philosophical and political disquisitions, as evidenced for example by Dostoevsky’s novels, which contributed to the flourishing of countless revolutionary groups.

Autumn trees stand out behind one of the city’s 340 bridges.

An old woman greets me from a bridge under which our boat was passing. But after she spat! (I’m joking )

The crusier Aurora. One of those cannons fired the blank shot as signal to the various Bolshevik groups scattered around the city to start the October revolution.

One of the few locals that has remained as it was from Soviet times, when workers used to come to drink a few glasses of vodka. On the wall, there are still portraits of Lenin and Marx.

At dusk. As I said, it is a very spacious city, with wide avenues.

St. Isaac’s Cathedral, one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world.

Inside the Hermitage, one of the largest and most extraordinary museums in the world, perhaps the most elegant. It is located in the Winter Palace complex, the former palace of the tsars, among splendid rooms like this. Its name comes from the fact that paradoxically at the beginning it was born as a small place in which Catherine II wanted to stay sometimes by herself, in peace from the court pomp and just surrounded by some work of art. Year after year the art collection expanded immensely, until including all the greatest European artists.

Photo taken with the mobile, because as I said, the camera stopped working from now on.

And as you can see there is also Dekaro exposed at the Hermitage! On the left, instead, a modest sculpture by Michelangelo, moreover unfinished.

On a frigid and stormy morning we took the train to Helsinki from a station that is famous because there, in April 1917, returned from Europe Lenin, after 10 years since the last time he had fled.
He was welcomed by many people, testifying to the fact that the small faction of the Bolsheviks was gaining more and more support among the population. A few days later Lenin exposed the “April Theses”, with the famous “all power to the soviets”, in which he proposed the definitive break with the bourgeois, capitalist, aristocratic and reactionary forces of the current provisional government born of the revolution of February (the soviets were the workers’ councils, later including also peasants and soldiers, and were part of the provisional government). He asked also for the immediate exit from the “predatory imperialist war”. The further worsening of the Russian situation in the following months due to the absurd First World War brought most of the popular consensus towards the Bolsheviks who in October felt ready to take power.
For the full story of the revolution, I suggest to see one the great masterpieces of Eisenstein: October.

I did instead the reverse path. From St. Petersburg I arrived in Helsinki, where I exposed the “October Theses”, in which, synthesizing, I say: capitalism won, let’s give up and let’s watch football in tv. Ehhhhh … I’m kidding !! Nothing could be more false, indeed. Despite what they want us to believe, I see around more and more a great desire to fight against this disgusting system in a constructive way, especially since now is at stake the survival of the entire planet. And in fact, as I write right now, rebellions are igniting the streets of Chile, Ecuador, Catalonia, Lebanon, Hong Kong, etc. … etc …
The point is to converge our heterogeneous forces against the true common enemy: capitalism, especially in its most blood-sucker form: the international finance.

And here we are! You saw already Giamma in a couple of posts. About Riccardo, is now a regular guest of Dekaro Diary.
We were in Lapland, in northern Finland, on the parallel that marks the Arctic Circle, on a tour where we hoped to see the Northern Lights. But unfortunately we didn’t see them because, although it seems there was activity, the sky was covered with clouds.

I took this photo with a camera and a tripod kindly lent by the tour organizers, over a bridge where we stopped to take pictures. Even if appears a light in the background, we were completely in the dark.

Again with mobile’s camera, an autumn road in Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland. The city is also known for stealing the birthplace of Santa Claus, who instead is, as we know, Turkish.

And in the end Helsinki, capital and largest city of Finland, with 650,000 inhabitants of the approximately 5.5 million Finns.

Internal staircase of the splendid Helsinki public library. As you see, it’s not really necessary to have expansive cameras to take interesting photos. It is just necessary that bit of intuition, artistic glance, creativity, aesthetic sense and experience.

Lastly, a group selfie where there is also Antonino, a Sicilian friend who was working in Malta and now has moved to Helsinki with the Finnish girlfriend, in this eternal precarious diaspora of us young, and not anymore young, Italians.

All power to the soviets!

As I said previously, I had a 1250 euro voucher for flights to waste, so I had a lot of them.

From Uzbekistan I came to Baku , the capital of Azerbaijan, where my friend Riccardo joined me.
In this photo we can see the various phases of Baku’s history. In the foreground you can see part of the palace where the rulers of the Shirvanshahs dynasty resided since the 15th century. In the middle buildings from the Soviet period and the usual radio tower. Behind, the modern Baku, with spectacular skyscrapers.
The history of Baku is closely linked to the oil fields around it, exploited since the end of the nineteenth century, which have brought great wealth but also wars to conquer them. Besides oil, Azerbaijan is also rich in gas.

Baku by night. The three skyscrapers are called “Flame Towers”, and at night their external LED display the movement of a red and yellow fire, plus other animations.
Like almost all the capitals visited since I arrived in Central Asia (such as Dushanbe, Tashkent and later Yerevan) it is a very modern and clean city, where it is very pleasant to walk among the parks and the new buildings.

Around Baku there are mud volcanoes.

Inside the Bibi-Heybat Mosque, rebuilt in 1990 on the site of a previous mosque destroyed by the Soviets.

A petroglyph in the Gobustan National Park, where about 6,000 drawings were found in the rocks, some of which date back to around 30,000 years ago.

From Baku we went to Sheki. This is a room of the the 18th century winter palace “Shaki Khans”.

Elders playing Dominoes.

Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
In the foreground you can see part of the old city. At the top right, the majestic and recent Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. A modern bridge comes close to two strange large tubes that have never been used for anything.
The most beautiful part is the old city, with narrow streets full of bars and taverns. The culture of wine is very strong in Georgia (also for religious reasons) and the vine plant is among the national symbols.
The photo was taken from the fortress overlooking the city.

A guy does acrobatics on the fortress.

A woman confesses to an Orthodox priest. Religious sentiment is very strong among Georgians.

Mtskheta, the ancient capital of Georgia.

Riccardo, with the cathedral of Mtskheta in the background.

In Gori, the city where Stalin was born. He lived with his poor parents in the rented apartment on the left. Behind the house there is an interesting and controversial museum dedicated to him, left as it was in Soviet times. There is also the wagon he used for his train journeys.
After the recent war against the Russians of 2008, which lasted luckily only 9 days and in which Gori was bombed and occupied because near the border with the disputed South Ossetia, it was decided to permanently remove the museum but later also this decision was revoked.
Probably the inhabitants of Gori themselves have an ambivalent feeling in front of that fellow citizen that became one of the most important figures in contemporary world history.

Mountains.

The archaeological site of Uplistsikhe, an ancient city carved into the rock, founded around 3000 years ago and inhabited until the 13th century.

The mountains around the village of Gergeti.

Mountain path.

Children playing in one of the many fountains of Yerevan, the beautiful capital of Armenia.

Since the early Middle Ages, Armenia has a tradition of “khachkar”, stones carved with religious motifs. Still today there are craftsmen producing them.

In Armenia we rented a car.

The Sevan lake.

The Mount Ararat, over 5,000 meters high and where, according to biblical legend, Noah’s ark landed. Although located in Turkey, its two peaks are a permanent view in Armenia when looking towards the southwest.

The monastery of Khor Virap, with Mount Ararat in the background. Next to where the monastery now stands, under a deep ditch, there is the cell where Gregory the Illuminator, the main architect of the Christian conversion of Armenia, was imprisoned for 13 years.
The conversion happened already in 301, so Armenia was the first nation to have adopted Christianity as the state religion. His Church is unique, having been aligned neither with Catholics nor with the Orthodox over the centuries.
The religious belief is very strong among the Armenians and was the main reason for the genocide suffered by the Turks during the First World War, which caused about one and a half million Armenian deaths. Genocide that Turkey continues to deny shamelessly, despite there are innumerable evidences and proofs.

The medieval monastery Geghard, whose first foundation, destroyed in the 9th century by the Arabs, dates back to the 4th century.

The 13th century monastery Noravank.
The monastery is located above a long and spectacular canyon. At the beginning of the canyon, in the village Areni, there is an archaeological site inside a cave where, among various finds, were found tools for wine production dating back to 6000 years ago! What other good thing has humanity created since then? Nothing.

A Counter-Dekaro made by Riccardo.

Now I’im in Maleventum, the place where I was born. The day after tomorrow I will return to Malta to work. But there is nothing wrong with this, you can’t be always on the road and in life everyone needs to work. It is right like that. That said, when in a few days you will hear about Kamikazdekaro blowing himself up in his office, remember that I have always loved you. Obviously I will try to maximize the damage. It won’t be a vain sacrifice.

From Tajikistan I arrived in Uzbekistan in the mythical Samarkand, a magic name that perhaps most of all recalls the Silk Road. Dead and risen many times, already in 329 bC enchanted Alexander the Great who praised its incredible beauty. Destroyed almost completely by Genghis Khan in 1120, it rises again in full splendor a century and a half later under Timur as the capital of his empire. The last “resurrection” takes place under the Soviet Union with the restoration in great style (and perhaps a little arbitrary) of mosques and madrasas.

This is the center of Samarkand, called Registan. On the sides there are three medressas (Islamic schools). The one on the left is from the fifteenth century, the other two from the seventeenth century.

The splendid tile decorations of the central medressa, Tilla Kari.

Interior of the Sher-Dor madrasa. Most of the former student rooms, here as in the other medressas, are now souvenir shops.

One of the new tourist streets with the Bibi-Khanym mosque in the background.
A legend tells that it was built by a wife of Timur as a surprise for her husband during a military campaign. But the architect fell in love with her and asked for a kiss in return. When Timur came back was delighted with the gift but noticed the kiss mark on the architect’s cheek and understood. He then executed him and imposed the veil on the women of his empire to avoid to tempt men anymore.

There are many ancient tales, especially Persian, which recall Samarkand. At the end of my previous post I mentioned one. It is about the first adviser of the caliph (there are various versions, in some is a soldier with his own general, in others a servant with his own merchant and in others the city is not Samarkand but Samarra, in Iraq) who returns from the market terrified saying that there was there Lady Death, dressed in a black cloak, who came for him. He then asks the caliph for the fastest horse to escape from her with the intention of arriving in the evening up to Samarkand. After the first adviser run away the caliph goes personally to the market and once there finds the lady with the black cloak. He confronts her saying how she dared to scare his first advisor. And Lady Death answers “I didn’t want to scare him. I looked at him with curiosity because I didn’t understand how he could be here since we have an appointment this evening in Samarkand”.

In my case, instead, as you can see I managed at lest for now to escape Her, and even in this Dekaro proved to be a bit special.

Ladies at the market.

From Samarkand I came to another beautiful and ancient city: Bukhara (or Buxoro). In the IX and X centuries it became one of the greatest cultural centers of the known world, a “pillar of Islam” that rivaled Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba. At its peak it counted as many as 113 medressas, in which some of the greatest philosophers, poets, intellectuals and doctors of the Islamic world were formed.

Chess players.

The Ark, a fortified town within the city. Built in the 5th century, it became the residence of the emirs until 1920 when it was bombed and conquered by the Red Army.

Inside the ark the rooms have been converted in museums. This is a manuscript of the Koran of the nineteenth century.

The Kalon minaret by night. It was built in 1127 and was probably the tallest building in Central Asia at that time. Even Genghis Khan that we saw was certainly not a great lover of the artistic heritage (at least until the next usual historical review that maybe will turn everything upside down and will show us a refined and art-loving Genghis Khan) was so impressed that ordered to spare it while his troops destroyed the rest of the city.

The third of the ancient and extraordinary cities on the Silk Road is Khiva (or Xiva). The fortified city inside the walls, called Ichon-Qala, is perfectly preserved.
Khiva was also famous for having an infamous large slave market until the end of the nineteenth century. The slaves were captured mainly among the nomadic tribes of the steppes around and among Russian soldiers.

The Kalta Minor minaret, one of the symbols of the city. The reason it looks a bit chubby is due to the fact that it was designed to be much taller, perhaps the tallest in the world. Begun in 1852, the works were interrupted a few years later following the death of the khan.

People.

The extraordinary ceiling of the mausoleum of Pahlavon Mahmud, an unbeatable wrestler of the fourteenth century who was also a poet and philosopher and is considered the patron saint of the city. This is one of his poems:
It’s easy for me to smash 300 mountains “Kuhi Kof”
It’s easy for me to paint the sky with blood from my heart
It’s easy for me to be in prison 100 years
But it’s difficult for me to spend a moment with the stupid man!

In my case, however, all four are difficult.

The minaret of the Juma mosque.

The northern area of the city. On the left is the Islom Hoja madrasa and its minaret. Built in 1910, they are among the most recent monuments. The dome that on the right is the mausoleum of Pahlavon Mahmud, with around many khan tombs in the shape of a small dome.
The photo was taken from above the minaret of the previous photo.

The Mohammed Rakhim Khan medressa.

One of the fortresses of Elliq-Qala, a chain of fortified cities in the desert, some over 2000 years old. In this case, as you can see, the base has been rebuilt.
Elliq-Qala means “fifty fortresses”. At the moment there are about twenty of them, so it is possible that there are others still hidden in the desert sand.
These ruins are located in Karakalpakstan which is an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan.

Wizard in the fortress.

Another fortress, in this case the ruins of Toprak Qala, the main complex of ancient Khorezm during the 3rd and 4th centuries. It was abandoned in the sixth century.

The white on the desert behind the ruins is salt. The wind carries it from the bed of the Aral Sea, a salt lake which is located a few hundred kilometers to the north and was the fourth largest lake in the world. An absurd decision of the Soviet Union to divert the rivers that flowed into its waters to irrigate the desert has led to almost total drainage in a few decades, causing an environmental and also economic catastrophe. Cities by the sea that lived on fishing are now in the middle of the desert and have been almost all abandoned.

And finally Tashkent, the capital. Even Tashkent is an ancient city on the Silk Road, but the little that survived previous destructions was definitively destroyed by an earthquake in 1966.
It is however a very pleasant city. There are many parks, wide and clean streets with beautiful modern buildings and those that were once futuristic Soviet buildings like this, the famous Hotel Uzbekistan.

Some of the old buildings are decorated.

Books for sale in a park.

One of the many examples of a poor Soviet building stormed by capitalism.

Many metro stations are richly decorated with thematic motifs. This is the Kosmonavtlar station, dedicated to cosmonauts and astronomers.

And together you with the cosmonaut I also greet you. See you in about three weeks for the last part of this journey.

These states, whose names are not familiar to us because they were created by the Soviet Union when they were already incorporated into it, were previously inhabited largely by nomadic or semi-nomadic populations that had no real borders.
At the collapse of the Soviet Union they became independent and since then their history is quite similar. Excluding Kyrgyzstan, they have all been led for decades by some already well-known leader of the local communist party, who has changed the name of the party and promoted a cult of personality that in the case of Turkmenistan has reached the ridiculous, with golden statues of the mother of Niyazov dictator scattered everywhere.
Almost everywhere, any political opposition has been silenced with fierce repression, torture and murder, and almost everywhere ethnic and religious conflicts have exploded (in Tajikistan shortly after independence there was even a civil war that caused over 60,000 dead, in Kyrgyzstan in 1990, already before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and then in 2010 there were ethnic clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that caused at least a thousand deaths, especially among the Uzbeks).
Repression and violations of human rights have sometimes reached chilling levels, such as the Andijon massacre in Uzbekistan on May 13, 2005, when a largely peaceful demonstration was smothered in blood, leaving almost 1000 civilians dead.
This news usually does not have much space in the Western media because don’t match with the story of the states of the former Soviet Union finally free, happy, prosperous and democratic, and also because the United States had always preferred to turn a blind eye to these continuous violations of human rights in exchange for logistical and strategic support for the war in Afghanistan, plus the usual economic interests.

In contrast, however, the atmosphere is very quiet and the people very hospitable. The only real problem for travelers is that few people speak English and therefore to move around is a bit difficult. For vegetarians (like me) it is sometimes a bit complicated to order something to eat in the Cyrillic menus, especially since the local cuisine makes great use of meat.

I put the photos and I tell you in the meanwhile.

From Delhi I flew to Almaty in Kazakhstan. The flight had to last only 3 hours, but lasted more than 7 hours due to the blockage of the airspace with Pakistan for the usual skirmishes regarding the Kashmir. The plane had to make a very wide circle all around.
Kazakhstan is a very vast nation, famous especially for being the pseudo-homeland of Borat. In reality at least Almaty is very different from the descriptions of Borat. It is a modern and lively city. New buildings are replacing the Soviet ones and the main streets are full of bars and clubs. Although it is no longer the capital since 1997 it remains the main economic and cultural center. It is the only city I visited in Kazakhstan.

Inside an orthodox church, next to the Ascension Cathedral. The majority of the population in Kazakhstan is Muslim while about a quarter are Orthodox Christians because of the Russian community.

A war monument with the Ascension Orthodox cathedral in the background. During the Second World War much of the war production was moved to these regions, far from the front. Here were quickly and secretly built many of the tanks that will after carry out the counteroffensive that will free Europe from the Nazi domination.

From Almaty I arrived by land in Kyrgyzstan, which is located just to the south. The Kyrgyzstan is a largely mountainous country and when traveling you often encounter spectacular scenery, snowy mountain ranges, rivers and lakes.

A cemetery.

After visiting the capital, Bishkek, where there is not much to see, I did a three-day horseback tour to reach Lake Song Kul. Besides me there was an American man, the girl who organized the tour and the guide. On the first night we stopped in a farmers’ house.

Inside the house. Their economy is very essential. The cooking stove also serves to heat the house. Most of what they eat is produced directly by them.

(Video)
The second day of the tour was very hard, especially for the cold. Actually I had read that in April it is still too cold for that tour but the girl who organized it had assured me. If at least she had told me the truth I would have been better prepared. Instead, I found myself at 3400 meters without even gloves and scarf. The most dramatic moment was when, as we passed on a ridge, the organizer’s horse stopped walking and sat on his legs and the guide decided it was too dangerous to continue riding in that point because we were next to the precipice. So we continued on foot and because it had snowed a lot in some places the snow reached my knees. I was wearing sneakers and jeans, which of course got soaked. That dorsal seemed never ending, I was really on the edge of strength, a little more and I would have saw a yeti. But even after I got back on the horse it was not easy because the snow sometimes reached its belly and therefore it had difficulty on walking, often slipped, jumped and it was a stressful situation.

Finally we arrived at the Lake Song-Kul, which is just over 3,000 meters and was still completely frozen. The weather was a little warmer and there was no longer that icy wind.

Home Sweet Home! The yurt, the typical house in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Here we slept the second night. Yurts are usually made up of a single tent. In this case the central tent served as a kitchen and living room and the other two as bedrooms.

The scenery around.

Another yurt.

The night before I had a sore throat and I had chills, I think because of the fever since the yurt was very hot inside. Since we had to go through the ridge again at 3400 meters I was worried about getting there in those conditions, especially if it would have been again very cold. But luckily the next day I was already well and it was a relatively warm day. This is part of the ridge of the day before, the snow was much lower.

Landscape.

A distinguished old man on horseback.

Men playing chess at the market of Osh, the second largest city in Krygistan. This market has been here for over 2000 years and was one of the major markets of the Silk Road, the network of commercial paths from China to Rome, with branches up to India, Arabia, East Africa and Southeast Asia, of which this region was the heart.

People at the market. I guess you have noticed the typical hat of this place.

People pray on the path that runs alongside the Sulaiman-Too, a mountain that overlooks the city and is considered sacred since unmemorable time. It is also according to many historians the “Stone Tower” which marked the central point of the Silk Road.
In this photo people was praying in front of a small low cave. Women went in and out the cave almost crawling because they believe brings good luck for the motherhood. At another point of the route, people was slipping on a smooth rock hoping for a good health.

Scattered in the caves of the Sulayman mountain are petroglyphs that date back to the Bronze Age. This is located just inside the Sulaiman-Too museum, created by digging a cave inside the rock.

Mother and daughter.

From Kyrgyzstan I went by land to Khujand in Tajikistan, the poorest and smallest of the five nations. It is a very mountainous country, on average above 3000 meters. The man in the picture is the current president since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But let’s not say that there is no democracy. It is difficult to do 200 meters in a street without finding a picture of him.

From Khujand I arrived to the capital Dushanbe, with a collective taxi (the vehicle I am using most often in these parts) through a mountain road as spectacular as dangerous.
This is the National Library. In the last 10 years many buildings have been built on the main street of the city and in the park around. Although sometimes a bit kitsch, they are in general beautiful and it is very pleasant and relaxing to walk around its center.
All the Central Asia countries are having an economic recovery in these years, after the collapse suffered in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. They are starting to exploit the various natural resources of which they are rich. In the case of Tajikistan it is mainly the water.

Women making bread.

Hisor, a town that was an important landmark on the Silk Road.

Dushanbe market colors.

At the market a Lady looked at me in a strange way. But I know who she is. She is the Death and she came for me. Now I take the fastest horse (mhm, not so sure about that) and run away from her to…
I don’t know if you have understood which story I am referring to, but I will talk about it in the next post. In the meantime I do some superstitious gestures because I don’t want to bring bad luck to myself.