travel

A walking crowd appears in front of us, led by huge turbaned figures. A young woman with a tall red lampshade on her head stands out of them. “They are bringing the bride now”

The man who survived the flood did not meet his goddess mate on earth, but in heaven, where he was guided up by the wise old monkey. This is why the Mosuos venerate the monkey

The mountain peoples build towers, as if only those twenty meters were needed, added to their thousand or two-thousand-meter high surface to reach the sky at arm’s length

What is this? A reaincarnation of the destroyed Buddha? Or was it not destroyed after all, only withdrawn from the open area – where the whole city could see it – into a closed building as a compromise?

In the border regions of Tibet, predominantly inhabited by nomads, in Kham and Ando provinces, the monasteries have been the main territorial and social organizing factors

Coming from Sichuan’s Chengdu, the caravans entered Tibetan territory in Dartsedo, today’s Kangding city. This was traditionally considered the gateway of Tibet, as it is still today

Here, especially if it is said by a foreigner, from whom one would not expect it, it is no longer a greeting, but rather a magic spell that causes deep astonishment and increased euphoria. In fact, it calls to the surface, as if by magic, all the beauty, joy of life and kindness that characterize the people living here

When a big storm is nearing – she continues –, the men go out to the sacred field, where they ask the spirits to avert any calamity. But they also go out to beg for rain in times of drought. Both usually work

From the main street, you can see the river and the more modern houses built on the other bank. This is where the old town got its name: 望鱼 wàng yú means “watching the fish”. Local folklore holds the rock itself to be a curled-up cat watching the fish playing in the water before her nose

“How many Armenians are there in the city?” I ask the young doorman. “Maybe we are six or seven families”, he replies. I wish the rebirth of this church would also mean the survival of the community.

Since then, the official Turkish historiography has presented the event as an Armenian rebellion and collaboration with the Russian enemy, which had justified the “displacement” (as they call their massacre) of the Anatolian Armenians

In Diyarbakır at ten o’clock in the evening, there is still a lot of life. The teahouses, cafés, pastry shops, restaurants, and the terraces of the caravanserais are full, people are chatting over tea at small tables in the square in front of the Great Mosque, Kurdish musicians are playing, singing and dancing in the streets

Another day ended in the Janowska, the last German labor camp which still works in the same buildings and with the same function on the outskirts of Lwów.