P is for Potelych

A picture of a different side of Ukraine, different from the terrible pictures we have been treated to in the news.  It shows a wooden church dating from 1502, the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

There are 16 of these wooden tserkvas (churches) in the area known as the Carpathian Region which stretches over Poland and Ukraine. They all have the very distinctive building style, made entirely of wood.

Seven of the churches are in Ukraine but the person who sent me the card says she has never actually seen any of them.  They tend to be in remote places and not too easy to visit.

Onze Lieve Vrouw kerk in Laken, Brussels

I studied this card carefully because I thought there must be some sort of optical illusion going on, or could there really be a road passing underneath the church?  In fact, after much searching, I found out that there is an underpass but it comes to the surface well before the church.

The church in question is Onze Lieve Vrouw in Laken, Brussels, known for the Royal Crypt and its beautiful cemetery.

Sant Climent

The churches of the Vall de Boí in Spain are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites because of their Romanesque architecture.  There are nine of them altogether and the church of Sant Climent de Taüll above is one of them, probably the best preserved.  It dates from the early 12th century.

The valley is a narrow one, high up in the Pyrenees and has a ski resort and national park as well as the Romanesque churches.

Moldovița Monastery

I have been having a major reorganisation of my cards recently, trying to anyway, and I came across this beautiful picture of the Church of the Annunciation of Moldovita Monastery in Romania.  It is one of the eight painted churches grouped together and listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.  These were all built during the 15th and 16th centuries and all have amazing frescoes on the outside walls.

The others are:
Church of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist
Church of the Assumption of the Virgin of the former Humor Monastery
Church of the Holy Rood of Pătrăuti
Church of St. Nicholas and the Catholicon of the Probota Monastery
Saint John the New Monastery of Suceava
Church of St George of the former Voronet Monastery
Church of the Resurrection Sucevita Monastery

La Sagrada Familia

I don't appear to have posted a card showing the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona before, which is surprising.  It must be one of the best known churches in Spain.

I think this is one of the most striking views I've seen, showing the fantastic spires which still aren't completely finished. There will be 18 of them when finished (2026).  However it is the Crypt and Nativity Facade of the church that are particularly mentioned as part of the seven works of Antoni Gaudi  mentioned on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

White Monuments

In 1992, UNESCO added the White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal to the list of Russian World Heritage Sites.  The group consists of eight different stone built medieval buildings.

The card at the top shows the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl.  It was built in 1165 and has had very little changed over the years.  In winter the river rises and floods which makes it look as though the church is floating on the water.

The second card shows the Cathedrals of the Assumption (or Dormition) and St Demetrius.  These too were built in the 12th century.  The Dormition Cathedral is on the left in this picture.

The city of Vladimir is in the background.  The city is considered to have been founded in 1108 although the area has been inhabited for 25,000 years.

The wooden church of St Michael the Archangel

The Church of St Michael the Archangel in the village of Uzhok, Ukraine, is an example of the wooden churches (tserkvas) found in Poland and Ukraine.  Sixteen of them are mentioned on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Uzhok is on the highest pass in this section of the Carpathians.  the church, built 1745, was originally further up the mountain but was rebuilt in this position to allow easier access.

The entrance vestibule has a double-tented roof,  while the nave is higher with three tiers.

Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery

The Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery was once the largest monastery in Russia though it started out as a cave dug by St Cyril (Kyrill) on the bank of Lake Siverskoye. It now covers 12 hectares and has 11 churches, all surrounded by a wall.

Not in my backyard (NIMBY)

The church in whose backyard there are all those cooling towers is St Edward the Confessor's Church, Brotherton in Yorkshire.  In some accounts I've found, it's described as medieval, in others as 19th century.  According to the National Archives, it has records going back to 1562.  Whichever way you look at it, it's far older than the Ferrybridge B power station which was built in the 1950s and closed in the 1990s.

The photo, taken by Eric de Maré sometime between 1960 and 1980, reminds me of the postcard I bought at Richborough Castle in Kent.  It too shows cooling towers in the background, and they too have now been demolished, though there was a very strong campaign to preserve them.

The first picture comes from a postcard set "Postcards of our Past" issued by English Heritage, the second is also published by them and on sale at the Richborough Castle site.  Maybe someone in English Heritage has a special fondness for cooling towers.  Industrial Heritage in your backyard.

This is a post for Sepia Saturday.  A click on the button will take you to the site.

Church of St Anthony of Padua, Pastavy

This building, the Catholic church of St Anthony of Padua in Pastavy, was constructed between 1898 and 1904 on the site of a former Franciscan monastery, founded in 1617.  It was severely damaged during the First World War but reconstructed in the 1920s and renovated again in 1988.  Pastavy is a town in the Vitebsk region of Belarus.

“You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can't forget. Those are your friends.” 

The Island of Reichenau

This seemed to me to be the most suitable card for Easter weekend.  It shows the Church of St George on Reichenau Island which lies in Lake Constance, in Germany but very close to the border with Switzerland.  And in the foreground I thought there was a field of flowers but they turn out on closer inspection to be cabbages.  Decorative cabbages, so maybe I wasn't too far off.

Reichenau Island has been designated a World heritage Site by UNESCO because of the Benedictine monastery there, founded in the 8th century.  There are three churches, St George, St Mary and Marcus, and St Peter and St Paul, all built between the 9th and 11th centuries.

Nowadays the island is known for its vegetable farms, hence the cabbages I suppose.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted on Beth Niquette's blog, The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

Minsk, Belarus

Nemiga Street or Nyamiha Street (as it says on the card) in Minsk showing the yellow Church of Saint Peter and Paul hemmed in by what at least one person (Bezjak) describes as "monstrosities of postwar modernism".  Actually, I quite like them though it's a shame the church is dwarfed like that.

Some Polish history

I thought I would be struggling this week but along came this postcard from Poland just in time.  The card shows a detail from a painting by Canaletto, though this is the nephew of the Canaletto who painted so many pictures of Venice.  He is also known as Bernardo Bellotto and was court painter to King Stanislaw from 1764.  The building to the left of the church is used today for university classes.

The person who sent me the card pointed out the stamp and suggested I googled "Poland Isfahan" which I duly did otherwise I would have had no idea.  I also put "Isfahan - miasto dzieci polskich" through the translator and came up with Isfahan - city of Polish children.

And this is the story of the stamp: During the Second World War, Iran hosted 150,000 Polish refugees and Isfahan housed thousands of children, so leading to the name "City of Polish children".

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Zaslawye or Val

This church, the Church of the Saviour's Transfiguration, stands in what remains of the ancient castle of Zaslawye or Zaslavl in Minsk, Belarus.  The castle was built during the late 11th to 12th century, and changed and developed over the following centuries.

Only the church survived intact.  It was once a Calvinist Protestant church  built in the 16th century but is now a Russian Orthodox church, having been a Franciscan Catholic church too along the way.  The grassy banks surrounding the church mark the remains of the ramparts.

Wooden churches of Romania

Typical wooden churches similar to this one here are found in the Maramureş region of Romania, in the north of the country.  There are about 100 of them and some eight are listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.  They are very distinctive in appearance, with a tall tower and steeply pitched roof.

From the back of the card:

Insights into the Romanian soul 

So much toil and such deep faith shine
So much sorrow under this church's shrine
Under the grassy earth is buried the horde
That awaits a holy sign from the Lord. 

The older, historic region called Maramureş includes a part of western Ukraine.  It is a valley completely surrounded by mountains and not easily accessible.  As a result the area is relatively unspoilt and several protected natural parks have been set up.

Thank you Dan, from World, Come to my Home!

Russian heritage sites

Nine-in-one!  All these beautiful buildings are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.  There are many others of course, fifteen cultural and nine natural sites already listed and probably about the same number again in the tentative list, but these ones are beautiful.  It makes me want to try to find postcards of the individual places:

I have only four (so far)
Church on Spilt Blood
St Basil's Cathedral, Moscow
Kizhi Pogost
The Kremlin, Moscow

Prague

A card that does justice to the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic.  It shows Tyn Church or Týnský Chrám, and the Town Hall with its astronomical clock in the Town Hall Square.  The twin spires of Tyn Church are not identical, a characteristic of the architecture of the time - 14th century.  The Town Hall dates from the same time, the clock from the 15th century, though the lower dial with the signs of the zodiac is a later addition in the 19th century.

It's well worth the climb up to the top of the tower, though I seem to remember there is a lift at least part of the way.  Either way, there is a magnificent view over the entire square and beyond.

St Thomas' Church, Portsmouth

Looking for old cards with trees, I found plenty of views but none had much of a story to tell until I came across this one showing St. Thomas' Church in Portsmouth on the south coast of England. The card dates from somewhere between 1902 and 1909 because it allows "for INLAND communication" only. that regulation applied in the UK from 1902 but not in the rest of the world for a few years, France followed in 1904, Germany in 1905, with 1907 for the USA.

I didn't recognise the church at all and assumed that it had been destroyed, like so much of Portsmouth, during World War II.  A little investigation made me realise that I had missed an opportunity to visit it because it is now, greatly extended, Portsmouth Cathedral.

The original church dates all the way back to the early 12th century and was dedicated to Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury assassinated by Henry II in Canterbury Cathedral.  It was attacked by the French in 1337; it was closed for a time when the whole town of Portsmouth was excommunicated after the Bishop of Chichester was murdered in Portsmouth; it was damaged by cannon fire during the Civil War 1642–1651. The cupola on top was added in 1702.

It wasn't until 1927 that the church was chosen to be the cathedral for the newly created diocese of Portsmouth.  It obviously had to be enlarged but the work was suspended at the outbreak of war in 1939.

It survived the Blitz but the building works remained incomplete until 1991. 

I used to live in Hampshire and while there I did take this photo of the cathedral.  It's very different now, as you can see, but I like to think the large tree on the right could possibly be at least related to the one shown on the card.

Apparently Ronald Reagan once said, "A tree's a tree.  How many more do you want to look at?".  You can find out how many more there may be at Sepia Saturday.

Cobh

Cobh was the embarkation point for America during the famine years (1844-1848).  From Cobh, hundreds of thousands of hungry Irish men and women left to build a new life for themselves.  Many went on to do well but others died on the long and arduous journey.  today Cobh is a bright and vibrant town with much to offer the visitor.

Wrocław

I struggle to read or remember names if I can't pronounce them so I looked up Wrocław and Wikipedia tells me it's pronounced something like "vrotswaf".  Well, I never would have guessed.  I don't know any Polish whatsoever.

It's in the south west of Poland but over the years in history has been in Bohemia, Austria, Prussia and Germany.  It has suffered name changes too:  it is known, for example, as Breslau, Vratislav, and Breslavia in different countries.

This picture is of the Garrison Church, or St Elizabeth's Church, one of the oldest and tallest buildings in the Old town.