The Writing on the Wall

By
We've noticed that the US and Prague have one thing in common - graffiti. We were disappointed to see that historical buildings, more than a 150 years old, can't even escape this blight.


We've heard that in the early 1990s, shortly after the Czech Republic gained freedom from communism, the young people expressed their freedom by leaving their mark behind as graffiti. I can understand their need to celebrate, but marking up historical buildings doesn't add much aura to the city.



Everywhere you go, someone has left a mark behind even if it's on a famous historical site. Some identify their graffiti as art - which in some cases seems to be true, but that still doesn't make it right. Some of the decorative graffiti takes much talent to produce.



The authorities in this city have tried to curb the graffiti because it's against the law, but that doesn't stop the young people from doing it. There are markings on every metro train that I've ridden on including the escalators that take people down to the train platforms.


I would guess that 75-80% of the buildings that I see on a daily basis have markings of some kind. My husband and I think that it's a big detraction to the beautiful city we live in. We don't understand why kids can't comprehend this. When we were in Salzburg last month, the contrast was noticeable. We didn't see any scrawlings  - at least in the tourist areas in that city. It was nice.

The most amazing thing about all this is a graffiti wall that is a major tourist attraction in Prague. It was originally named the John Lennon Wall because it started with a large picture of him. People then added their own paintings around it. This happened in the 80s even before freedom came to the country, so it has layers and layers of paint over the original picture. We were surprised to actually see a picture of Lennon once again painted on a part of the wall when we saw it recently.

I doubt if we'll see graffiti like this when we're in St. Petersburg. I'll keep you posted on that.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Home Sweet Home" - Not American Version

By
Image
Older apartment buildings We've lived in St. Petersburg for close to two months and have yet to see "the American dream" - a single family house. Here, everyone lives in an apartment, located either in an old building in the historic city center or in a new high-rise farther out. The high-rise buildings are everywhere you look--in the center of everything, or at the edge of one of the many rivers. We keep hearing about the communist era cement buildings, but we haven't seen many that look too old and dilapidated. They are probably replaced by the new high-rises built since freedom came in the 1990s. We live in one of these new high-rise complexes. Our third-floor apartment is in a 21 story building in a complex of five other buildings (called korpus in Russia). We live in Korpus 3. This complex includes several modern, colorful play areas for the children. It also includes an underground parking garage for the many cars that people own. In fact, the pl
Read more

The Golden Domes of Riga

By
Image
Orthodox Cathedral - Riga  The golden domes of the Nativity of Christ Cathedral stand out above the trees near Old Town Riga. We walk past this large building in the park not far from our apartment.  The domes shine out to the citizens on sunny days. Surrounded by the trees in the park, the walls of the cathedral are not easy to see in summer, but the size is undeniable. Of course, the golden domes tell everyone that this is a Russian Orthodox Church. After living in St. Petersburg, that is easy for us to define with the Russian style architecture. This cathedral was built between 1876 and 1883 when Latvia was a part of the Russian Empire under the reign of Tsar Alexander II.  Main Door This is the largest Orthodox Church in the entire Baltic area. A massive tower rises toward the sky when a visitor approaches the front door.  Entryway painting I visited several orthodox churches during my years in Europe. The thing that they have in common is that the interiors are covered with images
Read more

Why Roosters?

By
Image
Rooster on top of Dom Cathedral  Last week I wrote about cats being on the roof of a building, but today I'm going to share the reason that we have roosters sitting on the tip of churches in Riga. When we first moved to Riga, we noticed that some churches have the usual crosses on the top of them, but others have roosters sitting on top of the steeple. I couldn't recall ever seeing a rooster on top of a steeple. On doing more research, I was wrong to think that other countries don't have these on steeples. I found out that's it's common in European countries to see roosters on top of Lutheran churches. Our Lady of Sorrows Church The more common cross on the top of a steeple is found on Catholic churches in Europe. We have a couple of them in Old Town Riga as well. And, some Catholic churches in Europe have roosters sitting on top of crosses. So, the question popping into my head is why a rooster? After looking at several sources, it seems like ther
Read more