MPJ

I have no sailor material in me. At all. I don't mean qualified skills that are fascinating and easily acquired through study and experience. I mean literally and physically, my body is simply not built for the navy. I realized that when I entered those 4D/5D theaters for the first (and the last) time, about dozens of years ago. I remember anxiously waiting for that sophisticated motion ride system built into movie theater seats to come to my city, and when it finally arrived, I was among the first in the tickets line... And I was first to get out of the small theater with a terrible motion sickness thundering throughout my entire body. I should have guessed what was going to happen after seeing the title of the short film had the word "rollercoaster" in it. I fully recovered more than 24 hours later. After that, I never stepped into any movie theater with more than 3D label on its front gate. Sometimes even in those I check if the chair is fixed solid.

To be honest, I knew the outcome would be like this because it has happened to me many times at sea during summer vacations, and every time I promised myself the dancing boat floors will never see my foot again. However, in my case, it's just that all those self-promises are easy to reject when new experiences and adventures knock on the front door. In that spirit, when my good friend Lasse, the head of Rackpeople, one of the leading IT company in Copenhagen, asked me to join the cruise around Saronic Islands this May in Greece, without thinking I said yes. How could I say no to seeing all the wonders of the Saronic Gulf, it's crystal blue waters, the amazing history of Ancient Greece and the place where Themistocles' outmatched fleet defeated the forces of King Xerxes and drove the Persian army back to Asia never to try again to conquer the Greek mainland.


The cruise started on the island of Hydra. I boarded a catamaran yacht, medium sized but impressive in every way. Fortunately for me, the first two days of the cruise passed with extremely calm seas and enjoyable spring weather, which is usual for Saronic Gulf in this time of the year. As for the island itself, two things immediately caught my eye. The residential area is so compact that there is simply no room for any type of motor vehicles, and by law, cars and motorcycles are not allowed (except for garbage trucks). To travel outside the port town, the only means are horses, mules, donkeys and water taxis. The second site was bastions on the port entrance with lots of cannons still pointing toward the sea. They originated from the 18th century in order to protect the island from assault by the Ottoman fleet and pirates during the Greek war for independence.

At first, I thought that the island's name is connected to the legendary myth of Lernaean Hydra, the multi headed water monster who was slayed by Heracles in his second labor, but unfortunately, very little is known about ancient times of the island. The name in Greek is simply derived from the word "water" (ὕδρα). Although, in classical Greece, Lerna was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, which is close to the island of Hydra, just across the strait and in ancient myths represented as one of the entrances to the Underworld.


The next destination and where we spent the first night was the well known tourist destination, the island of Poros. It lies on the other side of Argolis, the eastern part of the region of Peloponnese, where it acts as a Saronic Gulf's southern arm. The Poros' main port is separated from the Peloponnese only by a 200m wide sea channel, and my main impression in the morning was that poor little ferry, which is breaking the perfect silence connecting Poros with the town of Galatas across the strait every half an hour. Sometimes carrying only couple of people across. I'm sure a future bridge would be something worth building.

Fortunately, and I mean it when I say it out loud, we had ex-Royal Danish Navy sailors at the helm of every boat. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have running exercises in the morning, and if we hadn't had a morning run, we wouldn't have passed through the phenomenal narrow streets of the small town that stretches through the entire hillside by the marina. Running (and sometimes walking while catching our breath) down and up the small streets and countless stairs from the harbor to the famous clock tower, made me think and better understand the life in such small towns where you can feel the ease of living life to the fullest.


The next day was absolutely the best one on the cruise. It started with the sailing competition between the two boats. In the best spirit of the teambuilding activity we competed in sailing between Poros marine and the Moni island, the strange islet in the middle of Saronic Gulf, that absolutely hates humans, but lets get back to that later. One would think shutting the engines down and sail to speed of, in some occasions less than one nautical mile per hour and sail only by using maps, compass and wind arrow is ridiculous but it is complete opposite. It requires full team effort and cooperation, just like in tech companies and it was one amazing experience. From the navigation part, through speed and time tracking, steering the ship and hard work with two sails, everything had to be synchronized and precise and when inexperienced IT people do it, the result is exceptional and filled with all possible sailing phases, from challenges in understanding the basics of sailing and navigation to all the comical moments we went through but also all those proud moments when you realize you've done something right.

As for the Moni island, half of it is rocky and barren, but what was most interesting was its other half. The only inhabitants of that part are a family of wild peacocks, deer, wild goats including Cretan Ibexes and of course many squirrels. Humans are limited to the only seasonal beach accessed only by sea, included us that day. The animals are not afraid of humans and wandered free even on the skirts of the forests where ruins of human's tryouts to inhabit the Moni are visible all over. The old men of Aegina island across the bay tells various stories about the history of the island that always include curses, inexplicable destructions, three fires, and an ongoing struggle between the divine forces and human stubbornness. Telling in whisper, they say that always when people tried to inhabit the island, no matter if that was in Byzantine period when they tried to turn the island into a dairy farm or during the 1970s, when the island served as an organized camping spot, it always ended in large fires that devastated the little isle to the full.


But, the sightseeing of the Moni, after the cruise competition wasn't the end of the day. It continued with one amazing lecture given by Erik, the second ship captain about leadership, relations between competence and confidence among team members and all the connections between tech companies and sailing. The epilogue of the competition itself was unclear and ultimately not important, what was matter the most is great spirit and team building closure which ended in singing popular songs led by the first ship captain Lasse, who surprised us all with his musical talent which was not left unrewarded even by the people on the neighboring yachts with thunderous applause.

Unfortunately, in the spirit of the Moni island hatred for people, that night came really nasty weather from nowhere. In the morning it turned into small windy rollercoaster that woke me up with the first sunshine. I came on deck to find a spot where I could pass it as best I could but soon it was the 4D movie theater all over again. Only this time it lasted several hours and I sadly realized that the cruise for me is over as I knew I would need more than a day to recover. After couple of hours of 'pros and cons' measuring, with great regret I opted out myself from the remaining of the trip. After all, being on the boat is all about being part of it, otherwise is something else entirely.


At the next marina, a taxi took me to the nearby port town of Methana where I missed the last ferry by an hour, so I went strait to the first hotel where I took the night to recover. There, I witnessed a worm hospitality by the hotel owner, something only in Greece I felt before, especially in my childhood when we were visiting the country frequently on family vacations. Serbia and Greece have this unusual friendship between two countries from the time immemorial. There was no part in the history of two countries with any animosities between the two, let alone any conflicts or wars. So it was always a pleasant joy seeing a sincere welcome and smile on people when I say from where I am coming from. Anyhow, when she heard I am Serbian, with the warmest smile she said 'I will give you the best Seaview in Methana'. And the best it was.

It turned out Methana is not an island at all. The best I could describe, it is a 'wannabe island' peninsula. It has an island shape but connected to Peloponnese with a narrow land bridge. Methana is entirely of active volcanic origin with the last eruption occurred in 3rd century BC. Due to the pressure of the plate of North Africa, which slid under the Asia and European plates, there were active tectonic movements on the line of the Aegean islands of which are Methana, Milos, Santorini and Nisyros. As it seems, the future of volcanism in Greece is not yet written, and Methana is one of the volcanoes that unfortunately has not yet said its last word. The last great eruption in Greece was Minoan super-volcanic catastrophe that reshaped the island of Thera in the middle of the second millennium BC and devastated entire Mediterranean for years.


As a central island of the Saronic Gulf, Aegina shared rich history of ancient Greece with other independent states. It was inhabited since the Neolithic and was at the peak of power around the 7th century BC and after, due to its strategic position. Aegina economy was strong and competed with Athena with silver coins as a currency recognized in other states. They were rivalries for many years and Aegina even made a close collaboration with Persia until the battle of Salamis (480 BC) when the island ultimately sided with Themistocles. The rest of the history of Aegina's independence was full of turmoil but it's glory at the end faded out through numerous invaders and occupations in the face of Macedon, Romans, Venice and Ottomans. Today it is a holiday and weekend resort for Athenians and tourists worldwide. Just next to it, Agistri, a small pine-clad island, with pristine beaches and crystal-clear waters, shared the history of neighboring Aegina Island and considered being part of its statehood. It was unfortunately not a part of the cruise. Perhaps in the years to follow.

Finally and historically the most famous island is Salamina, where already mentioned battle of Salamis took place two millenniums ago. It is the largest Greek island in the Saronic Gulf and due to its close proximity to Piraeus it is not the best choice for a vacation time. If we add the fact that the northern part of island is a home for the largest naval base of the Hellenic Navy it is clear that the island is not as popular a tourist destination as the other islands, but it is far from lacking destinations worth attention. If I happen to visit it in the future, on the top of my list would be monuments dedicated to Salamis' ancient battle and the Cave of Euripides where the playwright Euripides came to write his tragedies. The man was described as a misanthrope who avoided society by lurking in that cave but even so his 19 plays that survived the time since then are still performed and studied today over the distance of more than two millenniums.


If I were to try to sum up the past week and describe my first cruise longer than a day in three words, it would definitely be "an extraordinary experience". Especially the part about learning new things about sailing and trying to be part of a team in close cooperation with colleagues. Being in Greece for the umpteenth time is also special to me and having opportunity to talk to locals is another dimension of the travel. Spending most of the time at sea limits that part of the experience, but in this case it was intentional and focused on teambuilding which is perfectly fine. I am sure there are many methods to achieve this and sailing is definitely among the top five.

Before the start of the Great War, the prevailing sentiment in most, if not all, European countries was that victory in any major military conflict was guaranteed only if it was fought with a large, durable, well trained and modern army. The dawn of the 20th century established the environment in which countries entered the race to mobilize the largest part of the qualified population, to create faster motorized transport for troops and logistics, to use state of the art communications and the greatest range of artillery as well as to use various new drugs in medical treatments like morphine and even a cocaine to boost the troops and fuel their fighting mood. Comparing to 19th century wars, new warfare was revolutionized and upped to the next level. By June 1914, the stage was set and only a spark was needed to fire off the conflict.

But was it really inevitable? Was the military race alone enough to cause the conflict in which 20 million died and many more wounded? Or did it need a plot to be played in just a specific order that would lead to the unavoidable horror? Did it need at least one party to actually want the war to happen? To honestly believe that a war on that scale could be won?


When asked if the Great War could have been avoided, Ronald Spector, professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University said that ’if Sir Edward Grey hadn't been the foreign secretary in Britain, then Britain might not have necessarily entered the conflict. Furthermore, if German Kaiser Wilhelm II hadn't been the flaky person he was, then the Germans may have made different decisions, and in the end if Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who at the time was the head of the faction that wanted to avoid war, had not been killed, the outcome might have been different’. According to professor Spector and many others, the real trigger for the first world war was indeed only a combination of these unfortunate coincidences that took place in the summer of 1914 - military preparations, the alliances, the people in power - all of those steps that built one after another created the Great War.

In the aftermath, the war did happen and to many, including me, the question was not who won it four years after, but rather what stage it created in following years. It ended the Austro-Hungarian empire, the German empire lost a lot of territory, the Turkish empire ceased to exist. On the other end new statehoods arose along with new wave of nationalism as many felt they hadn't achieved enough for their sacrifices and loses. History books at the end of the war never really recognized the winner or the looser. It officially ended in the Compiègne railway car on November 11, 1918, and the final document was signed as an armistice.

It was commonly believed that ancient hunter-gatherers, both Humans and Neanderthals, had a simple lifestyle in which most or all of their food was obtained by gathering from local sources or by hunting animals from their environment. We simply assumed that beside the meat they hunted, their diet consisted of only raw foods such as wild plants, edible insects, mushrooms, honey, or pretty much anything that was safe to eat. Well, according to the recent study performed by Ceren Kabukcu* and her team from the archaeobotanical department of the University of Liverpool, we couldn't be more wrong.

It is hard to pinpoint the exact period in human history when religiosity we are all familiar today emerged and started to form itself with all of the colorful myths, supernatural stories, vivid deities and numerous super powered entities. It happened probably at some point around 10.000 BC in the same period of time when humans slowly progressed from being pure hunters and gatherers into next stage of civilization and started to build modern settlements with domesticated animals and cultivated plants. No doubt, religiosity, superstition and spiritualism existed all the way from the beginning in the history when our ancestors started to paint cave walls but only Neolithic revolution and invention of agriculture gave us enough free time to start daydreaming and to think outside pure survival. If we compare all previous beliefs with vignettes, we can safely say that the evolution of religiosity after Neolithic revolution began to fill volumes of graphic novels.


According to the theory, slowly after the beginning of the Holocene period, the first large prehistoric population of Eurasia that spoke Proto-Indo-European languages was formed. They were the ancestor of Indo-European languages and the source of Proto-Indo-European mythology from which all pagan religions arose in different areas of Europe and Asia. This is why we can easily compare different deities and see all the similarities they inherited from the proto times. Take for example gods of lightning, thunder and weather in general. The deity of these properties emerged in all different mythologies and Norse Thor, Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter, Slavic Perun, Hindu Indra, Hurrian Tar and Hittite Tarḫunna and many others were no doubt based on Proto-Indo-European deity called Perkwunos.

The similarities do not end with the deities but also with other colorful characters from old myths. Last week I stumbled to one amazing piece of art in Churchill Park at Kastellet citadel in Copenhagen. It was 114 years old sculpture of Valkyrie by famous Norwegian artist Stephan Sinding. It was probably the best 3d/live action street art I have ever seen before. It reflects everything about what Valkyrie really is in old Norse mythology. The word literally means "chooser of the slain" and it is portraying a female figure guiding the souls of deceased Nordic soldiers either to Fólkvangr, Freyja's afterlife, or to Valhalla, Odin's immortality hall. Old Norse literature describes valkyries either as purely supernatural or human maidens with certain supernatural powers. Both types of beings were associated with honesty, splendor and gold, but also with bloodshed and brutality in battle.


In South Slavic mythology, a similar being vila represents a female supernatural being who is sympathetic to people, but she could also be vengeful and brutal. She is depicted as an extremely beautiful girl with golden hair, dressed in long, flowing robes and armed usually with bow and arrows. She exists on a luminal plane between nature and culture, between gods and humans constantly travelling between one realm and the other to interact with the heroes and villains of the epics. Even though both valkyries and vilas developed in different religious environments it is hard not to spot various similarities between the two. The whiteness and glowing quality of the vilas is mirrored in the description of the valkyries and both figures are to be found in the sky in most of their depictions with connection to lightning and thunder.*

The warrior aspects of the valkyrie are unquestionable, they are "vowed to war" and their role is primarily on the battlefield. The mythical vile are similarly portrayed and often described as wearing armor, with bows and arrows and envisioned as powerful, supernatural warriors. There are convincing resemblance in regards to the connection between vile and valkyries and heroes in the epics. Most often this relationship is a warrior bond, but this relationship can become both sexual and malicious. Just as a vila can manipulate heroes or villains to murder those of her choosing, so too the valkyries are reputed to play deadly games with the heroes with whom they associate.*


Although the nature of the valkyries' flight is portrayed as a magical ride on horseback whereas the vile most often fly unmounted with the use of bird wings, it is not uncommon for the vile to ride horses or deer. Both, viles and valkyries are often described to gather in groups within the epics and refer to each other as sisters. It is fair to suggest that the valkyrie and the vila are rooted in the same figure, their differences lies only within cultural difference between the Slavs and the Germanic peoples. Perhaps the most likely attestable age of the two figures lies back to the 6th century CE when the south Slavic tribes were still located in the North of Europe.*

From there, we could push the date back even further to the time of Proto-Indo-European times, especially if we extend this comparison to apsarā, beings with similar traits from Indian religion and mythology. Тhe various trios of birth-fate-death-associated women in Greek and Roman folklore also appear to origin from the same source. The direct ancestor of valkyries are most likely Proto-Germanic walakuzjǭ which stands for walaz (battle wound) +‎ kuzą (choice, decision).


Historical origins of vilas include the various traditions especially Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore. The word 'vilenski' was used as an adjective, meaning "enchanted", but also became a generic term for various enchanted creatures during the late Middle English period. Nevertheless, the proto origin is no doubt the same as the valkyrie's, and south Slavic version, especially in middle age Serbia survived even the Christianizing the old beliefs and ended in colorful epics and poems of 14th century and later. Although, to be perfectly fair and precise, the mythological vila from the oldest myths and tales and folklorized one in epics and poems are somewhat different in a way that folklore is centered to human affairs, heroes, battles and supernatural beings only serve as a side story, so to speak.

Always, when I am reading or writing about old myths and tales I can't help but wonder how would one comparison be of a typical religious person from the old times and today. It seems to me that old stories were much colorful and picturesque than the ones from the religious beliefs of a singular god. Even a small things like simple walk through the woods would be different for somebody in BC times for a simple fact that from all they knew, not only natural plants and animals could be found there. For many, the forest behind the house could also be a magical gateway to the supernatural world and even the smallest unexplained event of natural behavior (like methane leak or weird animal demeanor) could be immediately linked to the supernatural. But this sounds like a nice topic for another story.

Image refs:
https://vrallart.com/artworks/milos-marko_i_vila/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Dadd...Yellow_Sands.jpg
https://www.saatchiart.com/...The-Valkyries

* A Treatise on the South Slavic Vila by Dorian Jurić 
https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/9407/1/fulltext.pdf
This article contains quotes/paraphrases from Dorian's theses

Goddess Zhiva (MPJ story):
https://www.mpj.one/2018/08/goddess-zhiva.html

Serbian Vampires (MPJ story):
https://www.mpj.one/2020/10/serbian-vampires.html

Fairies of Naissus (MPJ story):
https://www.mpj.one/2015/11/fairies-of-naissus.html

Refs
https://templeilluminatus.com/forum/topics/valkyrie?groupUrl=the-triple-goddess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie
https://www.worldhistory.org/Valkyrie/
http://www.mcurtis.net/legend-of-keres
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vila_(fairy)
https://slavicmythologyandtales.wordpress.com/2020/08/15/vile-and-rusalki-part-2/
https://sr.m.wikipedia.org/sr-ec/ВилаРавијојла

Among all religious beliefs, the Greek pantheon of colorful gods is perhaps the best described in the history of all human religiosity. There is literally no piece of Greek land or portion of the sea or the tiniest island that has no origin in radiant old mythology. The island of Corfu is no exception as well. Apparently in the mythological history, it was one of those unnamed islands in the region of Scheria where the mighty Poseidon spent a portion of his eternity with fresh water nymph Korkyra. Their descendants, the Phaeacians as described by Homer in Odysseus' adventures inherited the island and named it to the Poseidon's lover. The final shape of the island owns the appearance to Poseidon as well when he separated Paxos from Corfu with his trident in order to create a love nest for him and his wife Amphitrite (sea nymph this time). I don't blame him, both Korkyra and Paxos are beautiful and colorful islands and he obviously knew his craft well. I understand his affection to nymphs as well, he was the sea god after all and in the aftermath of the mythological creation, he alone is most likely responsible for the origin of the human race on a total of 227 Greek islands including Atlantis, but that's different story.


However, the reality and history of Corfu is much different and much less idyllic. Being in the cross worlds in the middle ages between Ottoman empire and western civilization, the history of Corfu was turbulent to say the least. The island managed to survive and keep its Greek identity after numerous raids by barbarians and conquests by Europeans during the medieval period. The origin of first people on the island is not much known. According to Homer, they had some relationship with the Mycenaeans (Dorians) but it is not scientifically proved true. Furthermore, there was no ancient ruins dedicated to Poseidon at all. There are two ruins excavated so far, one of a temple dedicated to Hera and the other, the most significant temple built in around 580 BC dedicated to goddess Artemis which was monumental in dimensions for the time. In the above picture is its full, around 20 meters long, pediment portraying a living Gorgon (mythical creatures with hair made of living, venomous snakes, most likely Medusa or one of her sisters).


After the ancient times, the island was ruled by Romans first and then went under Byzantine empire. After the Byzantine period ended (around 1267 AD), Corfu was vulnerable to the constant pirate attacks and raids by its neighbors and crusaders and stabilizes only when Venetians occupied the island in 1386. These olive trees from the picture above are seeded by Venetians and considered to be more than 500 years old. The Venetians ruled more than 400 years and ended their rule in 1797. The most of the Venetian domination left a big remark in todays island architecture, including the large fortress. After that, the island was occupied by French followed by strange alliance of Russians and Turks, then British and finally on 21 May 1864 after the London treaty, Corfu and all Ionian islands united with Greece.


The most important milestone in the history of Corfu happened during the Turkish siege of 1716 when Venetians managed to defend the island and stopped the Turks in their advances toward Europe. Fighting alongside Corfiot’s were Venetians, Germans, Italians, Maltese ships, Papal galleys, galleys from Genoa and Tuscan, Spanish galleys, and even Portuguese forces. The Turkish failure in Corfu was a historical event of enormous importance - who knows what would happened if the result of the battle went otherwise. However, the other parts of Greece and their southern islands weren't that lucky and went under Ottoman occupation causing large number of refugees and migration toward Corfu. In the following centuries, more immigrants arrived from Illyria, Sicily, Crete, Mycenae, and the Aegean islands. Of course in this small blog story, I didn't mean to go much into historical events but I always like to learn a bit more about places we travel to. If you want to know more, reference links below are good point to start googling.


This summer, we visited Corfu and it's picturesque village of Messonghi. In the same point of history, the small village along with neighboring Moraitika were established by Cretans and Peloponnesians. With it's interesting feature of Messonghi river, small and nice beach, crystal clear waters and amazing people, this village was our host for 11 days of our vacation and we fully recommend the stay. Beside archaeological museum we also visited Serbian House dedicated to the Great War events and one nice museum called "Casa Parlante", dedicated to the ordinary life of one British aristocrat family from British rule in the middle of 19th century. The most impact on me personally was the traditional Corfu dishes called Sofrito and Pastitsada and their recipes dated back 200 years in the past. The last but not least our big thanks goes to Spyros, his family and their fine Georgina Apartments where we staid the entire time.

Refs:
https://atcorfu.com/corfu-history/
https://greeking.me/blog/visit-corfu/item/207-corfu-the-island-of-the-phaeacians
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu

Part of Serbia lands below Danube river is pretty mountainous, with complex geology especially in eastern parts where Carpathian and Balkan mountains collided and over eons formed Serbian Carpathians with total of 14 independent mountain ranges in existence today. These rocks date back to the Proterozoic Eon (2.5 billion - 541 million years ago) with limestones and dolomites mainly formed from late Jurassic to early Cretaceous, around 100 million years ago. There are dozens of large caves within these mountains and many with tourist paths built to visit and admire their beauty and history. Two of them we visited last week and they both gave us extraordinary experience and impressions. 


However, the first cave in this blog story belongs to the one formed in the foothill of an ancient volcano of the nowadays mountain of Bukulja in western Serbia, although the recent paper posted a theory that the mountain is much younger (15 million year ago) and instead formed in tectonic processes. Whatever the case, the Risovača cave is definitely unique in the Balkans and probably on several occasions hosted families of Neanderthals during the Late Pleistocene era. Numerous tools from this period similar to those found within other Neanderthal sites across Europe are found here and preserved for display in local museum. Like with other groups and due to small numbers overall, Neanderthals most likely went extinct due to assimilation with modern humans in process called "bred into extinction". More about it I wrote in Neanderthals, Humans and Shared Caves.

During the same time, the cave hosted various dominant animals from the same period like cave lion, hyena and bear. This image is from the local museum of Arandjelovac and it's special space is occupied by the cave bear fully assembled from the bones found in the cave. The bones belonged to more than one animal, formed a skeleton up to three meters high which was approximately the average height for the cave bears. Those behemoths could go up to 1 ton in mass and 3.5 meters in height.


In the Balkans, during the last couple of millenniums of coexisting of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, our ancestors lived mainly along the rivers, especially Danube to the north while Neanderthals occupied more inland territories, no doubt in vicinity of caves like this one. There are strong evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead and most likely not in the caves themselves which is the main reason for the lack of the human remains excavated to date.

Compared to the Risovača, two other two caves, Ravništarka - named after the nearby village and Lazar's cave, after a rebel man who found shelter there in the time of Ottoman empire, stand out with their natural beauty rich in cave jewelry and mineral formations.   


Ravništarka cave is pretty long and one of those river caves with the small stream flowing it's entire length. The water dug the whole canal of around 500 meters and the mountain minerals did the rest. Numerous stalactites and stalagmites decorated the tourist path, like the one in this image in shape of a flying horse. Dozens of other pareidolia decorating wall formations are made of glittering calcite which under the LED lights give the amazing feeling of surreality. 

Lazar's cave on the other end, with it's large entrance is probably hiding more history than it is currently known. For its wide space within, it was always center of human activity ever since the copper age. During the bronze age, Lazar's Cave played the role of a hunting station, and in the iron age it became a center of metallurgy. Even in the recent history the cave attracted people for multiple reasons. Numerous legends are circulating around with one claiming that lots of Serbian soldiers hid inside after surviving the battle of Kosovo and the defeat by the invading army of the Ottoman Empire on June 15, 1389. 


Even though, the caves could be crowded with tourists, we had luck that all three were free of public at the opening hours and browsing the mysterious caverns alone added extra feeling afterwards. Somehow it felt like we traveled back in time and all the sites inside caves seen in pristine condition looked unearthly beautiful and alien.

Following photos and videos are the best we could do with modest smartphones in dark light conditions, but some of them turned out really phenomenal.

Risovača cave:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ienEnC1xypJBdNut7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwEWXtFiKhE
https://www.nmar.rs/en/risovaca-cave/

The start of the second world war in the Balkans was known as the "April War" that lasted no more than 10 days in the operation called "Führer Directive No. 25". The swift conflict ended on April 14th in armistice based on unconditional surrender of Yugoslav military forces. My grandfather was a 22 years old corporal in the former Yugoslav army when he was transferred to a war camp in Germany in mid-April 1941, along with other 30,000 surrendered soldiers. He spent next four years in Nazi military camp leaving behind his young wife and 2-year-old son.

I am sure it was not easy for him to cope the entire time of imprisonment and captivity, especially in the beginning, but considering all the horrors of the most cruel encampments of Nazi Germany, unconditional surrender of the entire Yugoslav Army came with negotiated terms and agreement of fair treatment of all the prisoners during captivity in various labor camps in the following years. Perhaps the main trauma for all the former soldiers came in the second part of 1945, after the fall of Hitler's Third Reich, when all of them along with more than 7 million of displaced people ended for several months in the chaos of the immediate post war traumatic experience of trying to find their way home. After his return to Serbia under completely new regime, the life treated him pretty well and the post-war time is perhaps the best described with his own words "Although I was not a member of the communist party, I think I was respected in society, I became a councilor of the municipality of Nis and a member of the council of the electronic industry. Above all I was proud of my family and 50 years of marriage."


Doing a hard labor in the fields and machine workshop helped him to pass through the war relatively undisturbed and, if we exclude the short April war in the beginning, I am sure the bullet holes in the car he used to maintain was his only reminder of all the horrors of the war. He was pretty quiet about all what happened to him for years, until one of our family gatherings about thirty years ago when he opened his soul and told us the most of what happened in those four years and especially couple of those last months in 1945 when he headed back home on foot. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire 

It was early December of a remarkably warm autumn in Alexandria. The year of 185 was going to expire soon and Hero felt that the next one would be the most challenging in his entire life. He turned 15 today and was at the very end of his first master class in the Great Library. Hero was fluent in several languages even before he entered his teenage years and he knew that Alexandria had to be his next stop a day after he read Ptolemaîos' Almagest, the scroll he had lucky to stumble with in Antioch's atheneum.

Today and after two years in the campus he knew that he was at the crossroads. Earlier this morning Hero realized the passion he shared toward the imperial history and the stories from the past was taking the toll with every passing day and the time has come for the next step. Here, laying on the small carpet just outside southern city walls and watching the starry sky he made a definite decision. As soon as his course is finished he would start traveling the world with his own papyrus and quill. The Rome first. All roads lead there anyway.

"Here's our birthday boy!" - He heard Cassius' hulking baritone from the dune next to his. Hero waved him back little embarrassingly. He didn't try to avoid his best friend tonight - just needed couple of hours alone time to summarize the past year on his own.

"What's wrong with the Pharos promenade? Everybody went there tonight. The Greeks have a new play at the beach theater, you know.. Come on Hero, it's your day today! There is nothing wrong with a little fun, once in a while." - Cassius and Lucia appeared behind him with a bottle of wine and three cups.

"The fire is too bright. I can't see Mars from the beach." - Hero said and moved to make room for the couple. He was the youngest pupil in the class and Cassius was nearly seven years older but their minds were almost the same age with the same interests and plans for going to Rome next year. Lucia was probably the smartest girl in the class and Hero was always little envious of Cassius for dating her.

Lucia poured the wine, mixed it with warm water and salted with pinch of sea salt each. "It's Cass' grandfather's." - she said. "The best wine you can try anywhere in Bithynia and all eastern Mediterraneum."

Cassius raised the wine, touched Hero's shoulder and with an initial cough said: "To the Herodian of Antioch, future citizen of Rome and the youngest public servant in the history of the empire. May the ink he always carries in his left pocket never dries!"

"Thank you Cass." Hero said with boyish smile. "I know I wouldn't be here without your support. I owe you big time. To our friendship!" He raised his cup and sipped a long gulp. The wine was sweet and had a delicious taste but he knew well enough what more than one cup of this could do to him. After all he entered his manhood only yesterday, so to speak. He glimpsed the southern Alexandrian walls. "It's difficult to leave this place. It's amazing that this city even exists. I know there's no such extraordinary place like this anywhere in the world and I mean people more than anything else."

They emptied their cups and sat on Hero's carpet facing south toward the invisible horizon. The darkness was not complete, spoiled by faint city lights and grand lighthouse fire on the north but enough to provide the full greatness of the active heavens above their heads.

"So you are here because of Mars?" Lucia needed only second to find the bright reddish dot just dozen of angles titled to the left. "What's so special about Mars tonight Hero?"

Hero produced a piece of papyrus showing complex curve with his observation of the planet. Every dot he sketched accompanied the date of the observation. "I come here once a week in the past two years trying to understand the motion. It's amazing.. It's almost like Mars is determined to reach the horizon this year. Look. She was here two months ago, then took little retrograde motion to the back and then furiously returned to the initial path. It's like... I don't know.. She did that exact motion two years ago but not last year. Her path was completely different last December. I am trying to understand what's causing her to..."

"Her?" Cassius interrupted. "You know that this particular planet is named after the god of war himself?" He chuckled strangely. "There is nothing feminine and gentle in that bloody wandering star of yours. Just hints of future wars.. Mars was always a bad portent. The scrolls are full of it."

"Cassius, you know you're an idiot sometimes, don't you?" Lucia looked at him in the way many teachers from the astronomy class addressed superstition and myths. "Even centurions don't believe that anymore."

"Yes they do." He replied and gazed a long look up. It was obvious he was not entirely conformable about the religious folk tales and legends but his scholar mind couldn't push the mystery behind. "So you think Mars is headed for the horizon? Where exactly?"

Hero consulted his sketch for a second and pointed. "Right about th..."

In that same moment when his finger pointed the sky, a faint dot on the horizon started rapidly to glow and in less than a second became twice as big as Venus and much brighter, twinkling and shining in different colors but mostly orange and white.

Lucia screamed.

They stood up slowly and for a long moment were frozen in time. In the absence of the Moon that particular night the night sky was surreal. It seemed like the newcomer stole the sky from the rest of the stars standing right there ominously waiting.

Apparently with Mars silently heading toward it.

A light breeze came out of nowhere and they all felt the chill. Cassius was first to react.

"You still don't believe in bad omens?"

It doesn't happen often that after reading a book you can compare most of the places and some of the portrayed characters with real sites and buildings along with real protagonists from the historical story. Actually, this never happened to me before and after I've reached the last cover of 'Beneath a Scarlet Sky', a novel written by Mark Sullivan, published in 2017 I saw the rare opportunity of visiting the city where it all happened and where all the sites still stand today. Not much later and after my entire family read the novel or at least got familiar with the story, we packed our backpacks and hit the road. In the aftermath, the result is this blog post along with embedded video story as a documentary of the half a day walking tour of Milan in Italy where everything happened more than 70 years ago. In the spirit of a fair warning I advise you to read the book first before watching the video since it might spoil the reading for you or to wait for upcoming series or movie with Tom Holland in the lead role.


The novel is based on a true story of an Italian teenager Pino Lella, who lived in Milan during the second world war and within the last two years until the very end of the WW2, helped many Jewish people to escape to Switzerland over the Alps and in the final year to act as a spy for freedom fighters while being a personal driver for general Hans Leyers, Adolf Hitler’s left hand in northern Italy. Pino survived all the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation and deeply fell in love with Anna, a girl he met on the streets of Milan on the day of the first bombing of the city. He constantly dreamed about the future they would one day share.

This book tour would not be possible at all without fantastic Valeria Andreoli from BellaMilano who guided us throughout Milan beautifully almost five full hours! It was amazing to mix the real streets, all the buildings, the castle and the cathedral, hotels, the train station and even the monumental cemetery with our vividly built images of all the places we already formed from the book and Mark Sullivan's amazing narrative.


Undoubtedly, spending three days in Milan for us provided lots of more opportunities for visiting the history back to the time all the way to Leonardo da Vinci. Around the year of 1482, he moved to Milan to work for the duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza as an engineer, sculptor, painter and architect. Until 1499 when Milan was invaded by the French he left behind the 'Last Supper', a famous mural painting of Jesus and twelve apostles, many paintings including 'The Virgin of the Rocks', Milan's Narvigly, the system of navigable canals to ferry people and merchandise in and out of the city, 'Leonardo`s horse', uncompleted equestrian sculpture and many more.

We were especially interested in Leonardo's engineering projects and his machines, models and sketches displayed in 'Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia - Leonardo da Vinci' and within new exhibition dedicated to this amazing man called 'Leonardo3' stationed in 'Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II', another Milan's landmark from 19th century. This second video log of Viktor's shows a glimpse of what we managed to visit and learn.


(Un)expectedly, at the end of our first visit to this great city, we have left with many more footage from what we initially planned to make with Pino Lella's and Leonardo's stories. All these are now packed in this third video embedded above and if you like to see more of Valeria and stories hidden behind Leonardo's paintings, especially the ones he did in the Sforza castle, if you want to learn what you need to do if you are in search for a good luck charm during your first visit to the legendary 19th century shopping mall or if you are eager to check out one great Italian restaurant along with couple of more places we managed to visit, this is the video definitely worth clicking to.

As for us, I am more than sure that Milan definitely didn't see us wandering its streets for the last time. The rest of Italy too.

The book references:
https://bellamilanotours.com/footsteps-pino-lella/
https://marksullivanbooks.com/

Beneath a Scarlet Sky:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32487617-beneath-a-scarlet-sky (en)
https://www.newtoncompton.com/libro/lultimo-eroe-sopravvissuto (it)
https://www.knjizare-vulkan.rs/istorijski-roman/44294-pod-grimiznim-nebom (srb)

Museums:
https://www.museoscienza.org/en
http://www.leonardo3.net/en/

In the history of humanity, complexity of solving riddles of big crimes, ordinary felonies and even simple misdemeanors in growing western society has become more difficult with the fast development of large cities of 19th century. This was the time when first detective agencies have been founded, initially in Paris by Eugène François Vidocq, convicted criminal who in his inspirational life switched the side of the law and turned into criminalist career, followed by 'Bow Street Runners', the very first police detective force in London and first detective units in Boston and Chicago with Allan Pinkerton, famous owner of the most memorable private detective agency in the history of United States.


There is no doubt that many actual events from western criminology from the early 19th century heavily influenced first modern detective stories from the time. The very first one in this genre is widely attributed to Edgar Allan Poe and his short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" with first appearance of famous fictitious detective C. Auguste Dupin staged in early 19th century in Paris, France. It was real unique experience for me to read Poe's writing style with long, educative and well resourced magazine-influenced narratives from both author and his characters. Here, within this particular story and two more with Dupin reappearance in following years, it is more than noticeable the birth of the new genre and new wave of readers who would with every new page try to solve the riddle before the last page turned.

However, Poe never went to the length of the novel size in his career and even though Dupin's three short stories left the large birthmark in the genre, the real crown goes almost three decades later to Wilkie Collins and his jewel in the detective fiction, amazing 'The Moonstone', a story considered to be the very first modern detective novel in all aspects we could ask for such a book.


'The Moonstone' is written in epistolary fashion as a series of written journals and documents by characters in the story and I genuinely enjoyed every single page of it. The 19th style of writing, narratives, humor, dialogues, picturesque scenes, astonishing characters and of course the plot that even the best of the fictitious detectives of the time in the face of Sergeant Cuff could not solve that easily, left the strong feeling in me after reading. Not to mention that even though I had many thoughts about the riddle and solution themselves, the final outcome eluded me almost to the very end of the book.

Historically and in every way considered, what was hinted by Poe and established by Collins, it was surely coined by Arthur Conan Doyle and his famous consulting detective. Strongly inspired by Poe's Dupin and about two decades after Sergeant Cuff, Sherlock Holmes was born in Doyle's initial novel 'A Study in Scarlet' with the background of everything in other books explained and by that I mean his friendship with Dr. Watson, the Baker street, Mrs. Hudson...


'A Study in Scarlet' is a remarkable piece of work but it belongs to those realm of detective stories with author almost immediately describing the background of the case in separate thread. Even though it serves great in transforming the novel into motion pictures it leaves little room for reader's little grey cells 'to operate in higher gear' while reading. Still I liked it a lot and unlike Poe and Collins, the writing style was way ahead of the time when it was written and it didn't require some old Victorian fluency of the first half of the 19th century to cope with.

Classics like these for me had an effect of pure refreshment in my reading habits full of 21st century titles and I am really looking forward for more waves of classic novel downloads into my reader. Not to mention that many of those great books come today with price of zero dollars and with same satisfaction.

Image refs:
https://www.bigfishgames.com/.../dark-tales-edgar-allan-poes/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0824cbr
https://geotourist.com/discover-the-sherlock-holmes-tour-at-geotourist/

Books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Auguste_Dupin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moonstone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Scarlet

Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective
http://www.word-detective.com/2009/11/detective/