Crazy Funeral of Nepal

In Nepal, like in India, the dead are to be burnt and the ashes to be scattered over the holy river. Such holy river is the river Bagmati that flows into the Gang.

Cremation is not a thing to shock you, right? But when cremation is made people live and do ordinary things right there, in the same water. See yourself...

On the embankment special sites are arranged to hold a ritual burning.

People sift the sand mixed with ashes trying to find some values remained from the dead: some gold teeth or rings...

Cremation goes non-stop 24 hours a day. They have no opportunity to store the dead for long, so they hurry to burn corpses as soon as possible. On the place of the fire that has gone out they put a new woodpile... 

and...

The smell is relevant.

Gold-diggers

Hardly you can see any sorrow on their faces, relatives do not cry, more often they eat.

High caste representatives farewell with their relative. Before cremation legs of the dead should be washed in the holy river.

Look some guy has come right near them and threw his garbage in the river.

Men making meat dumplings right here on the stairs...

Where to get water for cooking? .. Right!

Soon the place will be vacant

Easier to sift with a shoe

Such kind of business - gathering logs to resell them to those who can't afford good ones.

It's strange how the garbage still lets the water flow...

Two rituals at the same time.

Children bathe right here

No matter what happens life is going on...

Production of Syrian Saucepans

Central streets in Damascus are like big markets: crowds of people buy or sell something, or just bargain with each other. Practically all goods sold here are made no far away. Let's visit one workshop where ordinary men make ordinary saucepans. All the more everyone has an opportunity to peep in such workshops.

The work lasts almost all the day and almost without rest.

First of all the process of pans shaping.

Then making holes for handles.

After all the most unlucky men in the group hammers rivets in these holes. 

These guys also produce furniture!

The place where pool tables are born.

Kibera Slum – Worst Place to Live in Africa

Kibera is the biggest slum in Kenya only 5 kilometres from the Nairobi city centre and second largest slum in Africa. Kibera houses almost 1 million of people. They occupying just 6% of the land of Nairobi but representing 60% of the city population. The average size of shack is 12ft x 12ft built with mud walls, screened with concrete, a corrugated tin roof, dirt or concrete floor. One side of Kibera parallels the railroad tracks, the other is bordered by stores in corrugated metal, barrels pounded flat.

Telephone History Museum: Call Me In So Many Ways!

The main precondition for this museum became a private collection of General Director of one Moscow telecommunication company. Today the museum is closed for detached visitors and welcomes only mass-media and some special guests. Only the collection of telephones is exposed today, but everything now is being done to make a comprehensive museum of it. In summer 2011 they promise to open the doors of the museum in St. Petersburg for all who want to visit it.

Well, let us look at the phones themselves.

1984, ATEA

Trunk for the phone

PABX

Another one

Telephones from granny...

1895, L. M. Ericsson

This one seems to have been designed by those who made "Singer" machines, looks so alike! 

1910, S. H. Couch Company, the USA

Look at these faces...

Closer a bit...

1914, Magnavox, the USA

This one was used at the battleship "Potyomkin", the phone of the Kolbasyev system. It helped to talk to a diver!

The loudspeaker that the diver had.

Cute French pipes. 1900s, Pherophon, France

1910, Milde, France

A set that was used in field conditions in the same way we use portable radio transmitters. 

Also used in field conditions but more modern one. Looks a bit like an iron, quite convenient - ironing and calling at the same time ..

1890s, Siemens & Halske, Germany

1929, the Leningrad Telephone Factory "Krasnaya Zarya", the USSR

1950s, Signal Corp., the USA, an American phone always looks like an American one...

Incredibly beautiful «Ericsson», 1885, Sweden

Though a Soviet phone always looks like a Soviet one too... 1964, the USSR

Heavy ones, 1970, Germany

Telephone used in trains

Telegraph apparatus

Universal telephones - on the left the German pay telephone, on the right - 1909, "Ericsson", Sweden

A Beautiful Spot in the Endless Desert

Uluru (or Ayers) Rock is located in the central part of Australia. Its height is 348 m, width - 3 km, length - 3.6 km. Depending on the position of the sun, this red sandstone formation changes its coloring from dark purple to gold. 

Amazing views of Uluru Rock no doubt will impress you.  

The desert that was once the bottom of an ancient sea stretches from horizon to horizon in the very heart of Australia. And in the middle of that desert there suddenly appears a rock. Out of nowhere, like an island.

This lump of sandstone of more than 300 m tall with an area of 2 square kilometers is the peak of the mountain destroyed by erosion. It probably stretches underground for more than 6 km.

Debris washed from the rock are accumulated at its foot, and the rock turns out to be deeper and deeper under the ground. You may notice that the layers of sandstone lie vertically when in fact they are supposed to lie horizontally. The point is that 300 million years ago there was a powerful earthquake that lifted up the bottom of the ocean and resulted in formation of vertical layers.

At first glance it seems that the rock is lifeless, but later you understand that it's kind of an oasis in the desert. Many plants around it are fed by water flowing from the rock during desert storms.

At the foot of the rock there is a source where the native people have always been hunting. Kangaroos and other animals come to the source to drink and enjoy the fruits and seeds of plants.

As you already know, the rock has two names: Uluru and Evers. These two names represent two very different world views. Researchers have found this rock and called it in honor of then Governor of South Australia, Henry Eevers. And though the rock has never belonged to this man, the name remained.

Aborigines called this rock Uluru. They are tightly linked with their land. 

Australians call this dry region the dead heart of Australia. But for the Aborigins both Uluru and everything that surrounds it are alive. 

The desert can boast of its various flora and fauna: shrubs, kangaroos, prickly lizards, and many other interesting species of wildlife. 

To see Uluru at different times of a day means to enjoy the fine play of light and shadow.

Uluru reminds the native people and all people around of the time of dreams and oral traditions - the foundation of cultural heritage.

Over the 10.000 years the native people come to Uluru to perform their rites and tell their legends about the birth of the world.

The entry to the place where rites are performed is strictly closed.

And the place is under UNESCO protection.

Canyons of Ihlara Valley: The Place To Touch the Ancient Past

Ihlara Valley and its canyons may be seen in Cappadoccia, Turkey. Camping travelling in such a place will be something you'll never forget.

You may rent a car but remember that fuel is very expensive in Turkey (about 2,5 dollars).

We will go to Ihlara valley through the salty lake of Tuz. Due to evaporation the lake loses most part of its water in summer and on the dried bottom there forms a layer of salt 30cm thick. In winter it dissolves again in fresh water that the lake get from rain and flows from the ground. 

High water in the lake, it's quite shallow in fact.

Shore of the lake

Landscapes not far from the lake

Near Selim village

This place is hard to miss - here is only one road, and on the right is a burial of the monarch.

You will have to buy a ticket to visit this national park, however is it honest to pay for seeing forests and mountains?

However this place is definitely worth seeing: it's unique, beautiful and rather unusual.

Building of churches started here in the IV century. They were decorated with plain and low-paint frescos of the Syrian origin (beginning of the IX century). All in all there were built 105 churches in the valley till XIV century.

Temples are something to impress here - dark, destroyed but with frescos remained. When you see or touch them it seems you touch the past...

Dimensions of the temples are impressive too, hard to imagine how they could build something like this...

Incredible that they still exist!

Preserved frescos. Probably few people go this far to this part of the valley cause the images of Christian saints are not restored here.

The temples outside

And it's the very national park. It is 15 km long and stretches from the north to the south.

The north part of the park (usually tourists are taken to the south).

Over the canyon

Near Ihlara village. This valley is often jokingly called "a little Grand Canyon"

Sunsets are fantastic here!

Modern Berlin: Reminding of the Past

Berlin is not only the capital of Germany but a huge city with a great history. Its eastern and western parts greatly differ from each other. So let's explore both of them.

This is eastern Berlin.

It has been in the ideological, economical and cultural dependence on the Soviet Union for almost the entire second half of the 20th century. That resulted in its architecture.