PAINTING ALBANIA

In an era before photography became the principal mode of recording memorable scenes by travellers, the English poet and artist Edward Lear (1812-1888) toured Albania during 1848. His sketches and paintings combine realism with romanticism. They provide the viewer with a good sense of what he actually saw and felt. Many years ago in the 1970s, having recently seen one of Lear’s paintings of the Vale of Tempe (now in Greece), I attempted to follow in his footsteps to see where he had sketched. What I found was much as he had depicted the place many years earlier.

Conditions in Albania for a traveller in 1848 were far from comfortable as Lear described in his Journals of a landscape painter in Albania, etc, published in 1851 in London. Occasionally, he was attacked by dogs, and more often by the locals who were suspicious and also disapproving of his attempts to depict reality. For example, about Elbasan he wrote: “Dervishes — in whom, with their green turbans, Elbassan is rich — soon came up, and yelled, " Shaitan scroo ! — Shaitan !" in my ears with all his force ; seizing my book also, with an awful frown, shutting it, and pointing to the sky, as intimating that heaven would not allow  such impiety. It was in vain after this to attempt more; the " Shaitan" cry was raised in one wild chorus — and I took the consequences of having laid by my fez for comfort's sake — in the shape of a horrible shower of stones, which pursued me to the covered streets, where, finding Bekir with his whip, I went to work again more successfully about the walls of the old city.

Knots of the Elbassaniotes nevertheless gathered about Bekir, and pointed with angry gestures to me and my ' scroo.' “We will not be written down," said they. " The Frank is a Russian, and he is sent by the Sultan to write us all down before he sells us to the Russian …[1]” ( ‘Shaitan scroo’ meant, Lear explained, ‘ the Devil draws’). I do not believe that the Albanian artist Bashkim Izano who was born in Gjinokastër, had to face such difficulties whilst painting the wonderful series of pictures that were being exhibited as part of The Albanian-British Festival of Culture in London. I was privileged to be amongst those who attended the opening of the exhibition at Europe House in Smith Square on the 28^th of May 2015.

The opening began with three speeches. One was given by Head of Representation of the European Commission in the UK, Jackie Minor. This was followed by an introductory talk by the Ambassador of Albania Mal Berisha. Then, the artist addressed the gathering also in English. The paintings on display were his homage to Edward Lear, and a very fine one at that. I am no art historian or critic, but I felt that like Lear, Bashkim Izano managed to combine romantic fantasy with realism.  Several of his canvases had symbolic figures painted in sharp contrast to the evocative impressionistic Albanian land- and townscapes that formed the colourful backgrounds. One of the images that I particularly liked was an almost comical depiction of an artist running downhill with a painting under his arm whilst dogs bark at his feet. This image that reminded me of the paintings of Marc Chagall must surely be Izano’s representation of poor old Lear who faced situations such as this.

I was fortunate to have had a nice conversation with Mr Izano, whose English is superb after having lived in the USA for a good number of years. I asked him whether he knew the author Ismail Kadare, who was born in in Gjinokastër. He said that he knew him well and that like me his favourite Kadare novel is Broken April. He also told me that he had painted Kadare’s portrait a number of times. I would have loved to have seen at least one of these, but the exhibition was a homage to Lear.

The exhibition is on until 19^th June 2015

---

[1] From https://archive.org/details/journalsoflands00learuoft, accessed 28^th May 2014

Now visit Adam Yamey's website:

http://www.adamyamey.com

EINSTEIN IN ALBANIA ?

Src: http://th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/physpiceinstein.html

After watching the movie Besa, The Promise, my curiosity drove me to watch another film about the rescue of the Jews by Albanians before and during WW2. The film Rescue in Albania, may be watched at your leisure on the Internet (https://youtu.be/eZ8szhccfZM). During the first 12 minutes of this film, it is stated that the physicist Dr Albert Einstein was both issued with an Albanian visa or passport and also spent several days in Albania on his way to the USA in 1935. This aroused my curiosity.

There are numerous references to Einstein’s alleged stay in Albania on the Internet. However, if this happened it is not mentioned in any of at least three well-regarded biographies of this man[i]. It is unlikely that he even needed an Albanian passport as he was a Swiss Citizen, holding a Swiss passport. It appears that he travelled on a German passport. Barbara Wolff of The Albert Einstein Archives at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in 2014: “Dear Albanians, I do not doubt that your country protected and saved a considerable number of Jews during the Nazi years. However, Albert Einstein was not among these people. Thanks to original documents in our archives we can easily refute Basho’s stories and prove that Einstein was neither in Vienna nor in Albania in April of 1931, that his German passport was not taken away from him but he travelled on this German passport to the US in 1931 and did neither need nor use an Albanian passport before or after 1931. He immigrated to the US in October 1933 and left only once, to travel to Bermuda, in May 1935, but never returned to Europe.- Regards from Jerusalem, Barbara Wolff.” [ii] This was in response to an article that claimed that Einstein was made a citizen of Pogradec in 1931( see: http://gazetadielli.com/albert-einstein-in-albania-and-the-albanian-passport/)

I searched the Einstein Archives Online[iii] for both ‘Albania’ and ‘Albanian’, and only found two references, both to letters dated April 1931. One of them was written by Pandeli Endjeli, who was Prime Minister of Albania at the time. It was addressed to an “Albanian Consulate” and its subject matter was “Professeur Einstein et Menichelis au nom”. It was written in French and sent from Tirana, and makes mention of both Menichelis and Einstein. The other letter was written in German by “The Swedish Consul” and its subject matter was “In Abwesenheit meines Freundes, des Herrn Martin Lentschner, Konsul von Albanien” [i.e. ‘In the absence of my friend Mr. Martin Lentschner, Consul of Albania’]. Its recipient was Albert Einstein. It was sent from Leipzig. There is a reference to Martin Lentschner that I found which was in Das jüdische Schulwerk in Leipzig 1912-1933, by Barbara Kowalzik, where a Martin Lentschner was referred to as a ‘merchant’. In Handbuch für das Deutsche Reich Bearbeitet im Reichsamte des Innern, published in 1924 Martin Lentschner is listed as being the Albanian Consul in Leipzig. In the Balkan-Archiv, Volumes 5-7, published in 1981, we read: “Noch weniger ist über das Albanischer Institut, das im Jahre 1925 gegründet wurde. Die Finanzierung wurde durch das albanischer Konsul in Leipzig, Martin Lentschner, sichergestellt.” [i.e: ‘Even less is known about the Albanian Institute, which was founded in 1925. The financing was assured by the Albanian Consul in Leipzig, Martin Lentschner.’]. This institute was in fact founded by Gustav Weigand (1860-1930), who also founded Rumanian and Bulgarian Institutes in Leipzig[iv].  Robert Elsie writes of Weigand: “Although Weigand specialized in Romanian, Bulgarian, and, in particular, the Aromanian dialects of the Balkan peninsula, he also made a notable contribution to research on the Albanian language. In this field he is remembered for Albanesische Grammatik im südgegischen Dialekt: Durazzo, Elbassan, Tirana … and many articles on Albanian dialects and the origins of the Albanian people.”[v]

Unfortunately, I have not been able to see the contents of the two letters described above. The letters were written in 1931, a time during which Einstein was shuttling back and forth between Europe and the USA, and before Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany. Einstein finally left Germany in 1933.

One of the items that I found whilst investigating Einstein’s visit to Albania throws some doubt on it. On the 21^st of May 2013, Ms. Edith Harxhi, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Albania, is reported[vi] to have said:“There are many newspapers that have published articles about a possibility that Albert Einstein was provided with an Albanian Passport when he left Europe for the United States. It was said that he went to Albania, got the passport and the US Visa and after 3 days he travelled to the United States. There are many Albanians who have given testimony about this fact. However, no records were found about this interesting fact. It might’ve been concealed for security reasons of that time.”

I will leave you with this, and let you decide for yourself whether Einstein ever set foot in Albania or possessed an Albanian passport. I am rather sceptical, but IF ANYONE CAN PROVIDE ME with good evidence that Dr Albert Einstein did actually visit Albania, I am willing to change my mind!

---

[i] The 3 are by Banesh Hoffman, Alberto Pais, and Walter Isaacson.

[ii] http://gazetadielli.com/albert-einstein-in-albania-and-the-albanian-passport/ , accessed 24^th May 2015

[iii] http://alberteinstein.info/

[iv] http://www.slawistik.uni-jena.de/tl_files/tl_files/Personal_Dateien/TDK%20PUB%202005%20Choregia%20-%20Die%20Reisen%20des%20Gustav%20Weigand.pdf, accessed 21^st May 2015.

[v] See Elsie’s Historical Dictionary of Albania, 2^nd. Edition.

[vi] http://www.osce.org/cio/101869, accessed 21^st May 2015

Now visit Adam Yamey's website:

Click HERE!

An Albanian Eagle in London

The double-headed eagle, national symbol of Albania[i], has an ancient ancestry. Its earliest known manifestation is amongst artefacts dating back to Ancient Babylon, 2000-3000 years BC[ii].

Recently, I was walking along London’s Fleet Street when I happened to notice a building with a double-headed eagle above its main entrance. This building houses the private bank C Hoare and Co. The bank, founded in 1672, has had premises on this site since 1690, when its founder Richard Hoare moved his business there from “The Sign of The Golden Bottle” on Cheapside[iii]. The golden bottle is the bank’s emblem; the double-headed eagle is that of the Hoare family.

---

[i] And many other places!

[ii] See for example The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient by H Frankfort, (4^th ed.) publ. by Penguin Books, Harmondsworth: 1970.

[iii] Historical information about the bank comes from Hoares Bank – A Brief History, published by the bank as a four page handout. I was given a copy of this by the doorman, who shared my interest in the double-headed eagle.

The founder of the Hoare (or Hore) family was Robertus who, in about 1330, married an heiress of the family of Fforde of Chagford in the county of Devon[i]. Earler than that, there was a Sir William le Hore, who besieged and captured the Irish town of Wexford in 1169. His standard[ii] bore a double-headed eagle[iii]. One of his descendants, went over to Devonshire in England to seek his fortune and married the heiress of Fforde. He settled at Chagford and founded the Devon family which was at first known as ‘Hore’ and later as ‘Hoar’ or ‘Hoare’. Other branchs of the family settled in the South east quarter of Devonshire. This family has its armorial insignia described in the record of the earliest visitation of Devonshire as ‘Sable an eagle displayed with two necks within a bordure engrailed argent’. The London bank, whose premises are in Fleet Street, was founded by member(s) of this Hoare family.

 I wonder why the curious heraldic device of the double-headed eagle was adopted by this family. From what I have already written, it is evident that the family was employing it in the 12^th century, certainly by 1169. This was before 1256 when Richard, Earl of Cornwall, was elected to become King of the Holy Roman Empire, one of whose most well-known emblems is the double-headed eagle. So, it is unlikely that the family picked up the double-headed eagle from that source.

            The eagle with two heads was certainly used by the Byzantine Empire and also the Seljuk Turks. It has been claimed by some that people returning from the Crusades, which began in the late 11^th century, may have brought this symbol to Western Europe. However, there is evidence that it reached this part of the world even earlier. Emile Male wrote that there is a cloth dating back to the 9^th or 10^th century AD at Sens in France[iv]. Although he believed it to have been of Byzantine origin, I suggest that the presence of it and other similarly decorated textiles in Western Europe may have helped to have brought the double-headed eagle to the attention of those living in France, many parts of which were under control of the Normans who were also ruling England.

---

[i] The history of the Hoare family, which I have consulted, is that written by Edward Hoare. It appears in http://neergaard.org/CGTGenealogy/Family%20Histories/Family%20Histories-%20Crests/History%20of%20Hoare%20Family.html, which I accessed on the 19^th May, 2015.

[ii] i.e. flag or crest.

[iii] See also: A General Armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland, by J & JB Burke, publ. by Edward Churton, London: 1842.

[iv] See: L’art Religieux du XIIe Siecle, by E Male, publ. by Librairie Armand Colin, Paris: 1922.

When I told the porter of the Hoare Bank in Fleet Street about my interest in double-headed eagles, he told me that he had often wondered about the curious eagle above the door where he stands all day. His view was that the Hoare family chose to use the double-headed eagle sometime after the bank was founded simply because nobody else was using this heraldic symbol[i]. As I hope that I have demonstrated, the use of this symbol by the Hoare family goes back much further than the founding of the bank. Lastly, I must point out that I have a tenuous connection with Hoare’s bank. Some years ago, my wife used to work for an offshoot of this venerable bank.

---

[i] The double-headed eagle is usel rarely in British heraldry. Most of the families that use it come from the West Country, which includes Devon and Cornwall.

Explore Adam Yamey's writing by visiting:

http://www.adamyamey.com

 An  Albanian in Cochin

Fort Cochin ('Kochi' in Malayalam) lies near the mouth of a saline lagoon on the Malabar Coast in Kerala on the western side of India. Every 2 years it hosts the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The brainchild of the artist Bose Krishnamachari, this exhibition of art by leading Indian and international contemporary artists makes use of the fabulous interiors of Kochi's magnificent heritage buildings to display the exhibits. The largest venue, which contains the majority of the works is Aspinwall House, the former headquarters of a British trading firm.

This year (2014) the artists include, in addition to leading Indian artists, such well-known names as: Anish Kapoor, Mona Hatoum, Yoko Ono, and William Kentridge. Amongst the  best works on show is a video by the Albanian born artist Adrian PACI.

Paci was born in the Albanian city of Shkoder (Scutari) in 1969. He studied in Tirana along with the artist Edi Rama, who is currently Albania's prime minister. In the 1990s, Paci moved to Italy. He now lives and works in Milan. He was aged 22 when Albania's hard-line, isolationist, Stalinist regime suddenly crumbled in the very early 1990s. Therefore, he lived throughout his childhood and early adulthood under the repressive conditions imposed firts by Albania's dictator Enver Hoxha, and then by his successor Ramiz Alia. I felt that the influence of his experiences of those times are to some extent expressed in his video The Column.

Paci's video lasts about 25 minutes. It begins in a marble quarry in China. A large piece of marble is being hewn carefully from the bed-rock. The ne4xt scene begins with shots of cranes at a dock side.   The rectanguloid piece of marble form the quarry is carefully lowered into the hold of a long ocean-going freighter vessel. This boat sets off for Europe from China. Throughout the voyage, a small team of Chinese sculptors meticulously transform the lump of stone into a classical column with an elaborately decorative capital. Paci's film captures  details of this process: the actual carving as well as the expressions on the sculptors' faces. The sculptors' teamwork and dedication to the task is well portrayed. In addition, Paci focusses on details of the ship, the sea, and the men's activities such as cooking, relaxing, and smoking. For example, Paci shows us a sculptor popping a piece of gum into his mouth whilst smoking a squashed cigarette. In anothe short sequence, we see a man chopping cabbage in prepariation for a meal. This is inserted between scenes showing the men cutting the marble. Features such as these in addition to shots of the battered ship's hull and water rushing past the ship's exterior heighten the excitement of this visually intriguing film. Paci captures the textures of human activity and also of inanimate objects both beautifully and most sensitively.  This film is far more than a documentary; it is a moving work of art. There is no soundtrack apart from the actual sounds of the men working and their surroundings.

Eventually, the column is finished. The hold of the freighter, which has up to now been open to the sky, is closed with slatted metal shutters.  The final scene  of the film shows lines of light that have filtered through gaps and holes in the shutters moving slowly along the the somewhat 'kitschy' but perfectly made column and its capital.

Paci's film , which I considered to be little short of perfect, made me reflect on its possible relationships with his native land Albania.

The film, The Column, is interesting as a work of art not only because it is in itself a brilliant creation but also because it follows the creation of a work of art, the column and its capital. The film portrays a heroic struggle between man (the sculptors) and nature (the stone block). Such heroic struggles bring to my mind the image that the former Stalist Communist regime of Albania used to enjoy portraying: little Albania, like David, versus the rest of the world, Goliath. 

Paci would have been a small child when Albania broke with its ally the Peoples' Republic of China in the early 1970s. While I watched his film, I was impressed by the intense concentration and single-mindedness of the Chines sculptors. I was reminded of Ismail Kadare's novel The Concert in which the story of Albania's fracture with China unfolds. I wondered whether Paci would have herad about the unusual single-mindedness of the Chines who had helped to develop his native land. Did this, by any chance, affect his portrayal of the Chines sculptors?

The project itself - the carving of a rather ridiculous column at sea - amused me. I realise that it must have been a commission and could see the practicality of carving the stone while it was in transit, but nevertheless it intrigued me. Surrounded by the empty ocean without anything but the empty horizon to be seen, the monolithic project being executed by heroic and intensely serious workers represente, for me atleast, a metaphor of the Albania of Enver Hoxha - the metaphor of a self-sufficient state attempting live and function in complete isolation from the rest of the world.

I am very pleased that I had the chance to view Paci's visually engrossing and entirely fascinating work several times over and in such a pleasant environment as is afforded by the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which will be reincarnated next in December 2016.

Now visit Adam YAMEY's

website:

http://www.adamyamey.com

The LEGACY of Rubens

I am so disappointed that I feel compelled to set pen to paper, or, should I 'say', put fingers to keyboard. I have just returned from an exhibition, called Rubens and his legacy, at London's Royal Academy. 

I am not a great fan of the Flemmish painter Peter Paul Rubens, but I enjoy his work sufficiently to have put my head into the Royal Academy, an institution that I do not particularly care for. It is, in my opinion, often filled with people, some of who feel that visiting the Royal Academy somehow adds 'respectability' to their cultural self-perception. 

The name 'Rubens' in the exhibition's title is given a far bigger font size than the words that follow it, namely, 'and his legacy'. When I entered the exhibition, one of the first pictures that I remarked on was an evening landscape. I said to my wife: "That looks Turner-esque..."; and indeed it was a painting, not by Rubens, but by Turner who is apparently to be included within Rubens's 'legacy'.  And, this helps illustrate my problem with this exhibition. The works by Rubens are, like orange squash, heavily diluted with works of art that the show's curators feel - and I emphasise 'feel' - are the great artist's 'legacy'. 

I have to admit that the title of the exhibition led me to believe that what I was going to see was a number of Ruben's excellent canvases that portray soft-porn or eroticism in such a way that even the visually-impaired can enjoy it. I would have been happy if a few of the exhibits illustrated Ruben's legacy, but I was not. Rubens's works were hard to spot in the sea of pictures by other artists including Van Dyck, Constable, Turner, and an obscure porcelain decorator from the Chinese Qing dynasty. The works of art that fill the vast areas of wall space between the works by Rubens, which I was hoping to see, were undoubtedly of exceptionally high quality. However, had I wanted to see a pot-pourri of fine art, tastefully chosen, I could have done so without becoming a Friend of the Royal Academy or queing up for an expensive ticket by visiting the National Gallery or the Wallace Collection or a private art gallery in the streets near to the Royal Academy.

On leaving the Rubens exhibition, which I feel would be better named The LEGACY of Rubens, we dropped into the White Cube Gallery in Masons Yard. The exhibition being shown there contains five wooden sculptural works, simple in construction but otherwise awe-inspiring, by Virginia Overton. Although not Rubens, her curious bits of woodwork are exciting and novel. This tiny exhibition was, I felt, somehow more honest and life-enhancing than what I had just seen at the staid Royal Academy.

To be fair to the Royal Academy, they have held some excellent shows including a brilliant one about the Bauhaus held in the late 1960s, and, more recently, a wonderful collection of artworks by Anselm Kiefer.

Read about writing by

Adam Yamey

on his web-site:

http://www.adamyamey.com

COCHIN WITHOUT THE BACKWATERS

Many of our acquaintances expressed some surprise when we told them that we were going to spend 12 days in Fort Cochin ('Cochin'). They thought that we would get bored, and suggested that we left the place for a few days to see the Backwaters or some of the Keralan nature reserves. We did spend 12 days in Cochin, but did not follow our friends' advice. We discovered, as I hope to show, that there is plenty to see in Cochin and that, maybe, 12 days is not long enough. 

The climate in Cochin is hot and extremely humid. Therefore, it is best to take things at a leisurely pace; try to 'chill-out' (if that is possible in such a hot climate) rather than rush. Try to spend a lot of time eating and drinking - Cochin is full of lovely places to refresh body and mind (see my article about eating in Cochin by clicking HERE)

The place to which we kept returning at least once every day was the stretch of beach where the Chinese Fishing Nets operate. These nets were introduced to Kerala either by the Chinese explorer Zheng He (1371-1433) or by Portuguese settlers from Macau. A net stretched between 4 connected rods forms the base of a pyramidical structure. This is attached to a long lever which carries stone counterweights at its landward end. Periodically, the net is lowered beneath the water and left there for a while. Then a number of men, assisted by the counterweights, raise the laden net fom the water.

The contents of the nets consist mainly of the weeds that float on the water, and are emptied into crates. One of the fisherman sifts through the weeds looking for seafood (see below). Small, immature fish are chucked back into the sea, and anything that can be sold is sorted into containers.

One needs to visit the nets often to be lucky enough to see a net 'in action'. A path runs alongside the nets. Fisherman offer the passersby fresh fish, which they suggest you buy to take to nearby restaurants to cook. Other people try to sell a wide variety of products, mostly of little use! If all this activity is too much for you, there are more 'Chinese' nets to be seen across the waters on nearby Vypen Island. 

The ferry stations for Vypen are close to the Fort Cochin Bus Stand. You can use the foot passenger ferry (see above), which has a special 'ladies only, section at its stern, or the vehicle carrying ferry on which men, women, autorickshaws, two-wheelers, cars, and trucks, mingle freely.  The nets at Vypen stand facing those across the waters in Cochin, but without any crowds near them.

Vypen has a beautiful church that dates back to the Portuguese invasion of Kerala (see below).

An autorickshaw or bus from the Vypen landing stage will transport the visitor over a bridge across a stretch of water to Vallarpadam Island, where the twin-towered  Basilica of Our Lady of Ransom (see next 2 pictures below) stands in splendid isolation and attracts many pilgrims.

Returning to Cochin from which we hardly ever strayed, let us now look at some of Cochin's churches. Not far from the Chinese nets and almost opposite the grounds of the Fort Cochin Club - a fine example of British colonial architecture, which can be viewed by non-members through its gates, is St Francis Church.  Now a Protestant church, it was once Roman Catholic. It was built by the Portuguese. The altar which they installed (see below) is now housed in the fascinating Indo-Portuguese Museum (very well worth a visit) in the compound of the Bishop's Palace on Elphinstone Road.

Today, that altar has been replaced by a newer one. The general appearance of the church's interior is rather dull except for the hand-operated punkahs (ie. ventilators, see below)that are suspended above the pews.

Look out for the gravestone marking the resting place of Vasco da Gama who died in Cochin. His body was later taken to Lisbon in Portugal. The walls of the church and especially the estern end of it are lined with Dutch (see below) and Portuguese gravestones. 

Near to St Francis is the marvellously stocked Idiom bookshop. This is a booklover's paradise, but do not expect any bargains! 

The Basilica of Santa Cruz (see above), now a Roman Catholic Church, stands further away from the coast than St Francis. Its interior (see below) is nothing special but worth visiting briefly. For those who like attending masses, they are available in Malayalam, English, and also Latin.

However, the church is located close to a  truly wonderful Italian restaurant called Upstairs. 

St Peter and Paul is a less visited church, but most interesting. Located in Tower Road, it serves an Orthodox Syrian  congregation. It is said that the Syrian Orthodox Christians in India began worshipping  in the Orthodox rite following their conversion by St Thomas in 52 ad. Whatever their origins, these Christians worship according to rites that resemble those practised by Orthodox Christians in the Balkans and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Over the centuries, the Syrian Christians in India have become divided into numerous different sects. Those that worship at this particular church in Tower Road look to a spritual leader not in Syria but somewhere in Kerala. 

The high altar of the church is hidden not by an iconostasis,  as in Orthodox churches in Europe, but by a curtain rather like that found in a theatre. The picture above shows this as found in St Mary's Orthodox Cathedral in Ernakulam. The church in Tower Road in Fort Cochin contains an interesting carved tablet (see below).

It is carved, so we were informed, in Syriac (a dialect of Middle Aramaic) script. The bible (see below) used in this church is bilingual - Malayalam and Syriac. I hope to write much more about this fascinating church in a future article.

Another church well worth visiting is St Lawrence at Edacochi, which can easily reached on a local bus (see below) that starts at Fort Cochin bus stand.

This attractive Roman  Catholic church was established by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Close to the weed covered waterway, this church has a lovely white-painted facade and a bell tower with 'arabesque' features.

When we visited it, a christening was in its final stages (see below). The congregation were very friendly and some of them spoke with us afterwards.

Regular buses connect Edacochi with Mattancherry, but the latter can only be reached by autorickshaw from Fort Cochin. For many centuries, Mattancherry had a thriving Jewish community. Now, only a handful of  very elderly Jews live there. We met one of them - an old lady called Sara Cohen, who supervises the running of a shop (see below) selling woven material of Jewish interest (kippot etc.) There are not enough male Jews in the Cochin area to be able to hold services in the beautiful synagogue, which has now become a protected national monument.

The synagogue is well worth a visit.It has a beautiful floor covered by hand-painted Dutch tiles, each one a different design. The central bima made with brass is spectacular as are the many lamps that hang from the ceiling.

Many tourists swarm through the ancient synagogue, but it is worth sitting down and passing a few minutes inside. In between the bursts of visitors, it is a very peaceful place to linger. The synagogue is close to Jew Street, which ought to be renamed 'Kashmiri Street' as many of the shops lining this picturesque thoroughfare are now owned and run by people from Kashmir.

The Synagogue  is right next to the Mattancherry (Dutch) Palace (see below). This contains some interesting frecoes, but these and the other exhibits are difficult to see because of the crowds of visitors streaming through the place. Give it a miss if you are pressed for time!

Halfway between Mattancherry and  Fort Cochin, there is a delightful church with a Portuguese facade to be visited.

Its peaceful interior is quite decorative (see below)

Back in Fort Cochin, there are many more attractions. A small arch on Tower Road (near to the Tourist Police office) admits one to the old prison which is now open as a visitors' attraction.

On entering the jail's compound, you get to see a row of empty cells, whose doors open out onto a covered walkway. A number of photographs (see below for an example) commemmorate heroes of India's long struggle to become independent of the British.

Some distance away from the jail, and well beyond the vast grassy Parade Ground which is surrounded by a number of grand buildings dating back to Portuguese and Dutch times, there is  the Dutch Cemetery. This was closed when we visited it, but the gates permit a good view of its well-spaced funereal monuments. 

Even further away from the centre of Fort Cochin lies the Maritime Museum. Situated on Indian Navy Land, this place is a bit disappointing at first sight. But, do not be put off by first appearances! The grounds of this museum are filled with guns, weaponry, and other military hardware (see below). This is of limited interest in my opinion.

You should give the outdoor naval 'armamentarium' a cursory glance before entering the massive 'bunker' that contains the most interesting part of the museum.  This pleasantly cool bunker cxontains a number of extremely fascinating exhibits relating to India's many century-long history of military warfare. One part of this that attracted my eye was an exhibit about the tracking of a Pakistani submarine that plied between West Pakistan and what is now Bangladesh (formerly 'East Pakistan') during the 1971 Bangladesh War. 

There is another museum that must be visited. This is the Indo-Portuguese Museum, to which I have already briefly alluded. This is housed in the grounds of the Bishop's Palace (which is not open to the public). It has been handsomely endowed by the Gulbenkian Foundation and contains a good selection of exhibits dating back to the period during which Cochin was a Portuguese 'possession'. The pair of doors illustrated above make a fine entry to the exhibition space. The door lock, illustrated below, is one of many fascinating exhibits.

It contains within its complex designs the following religious symbols: a Hindu trident, an Islamic Crescent, a Christian cross, and Jewish candles. It summarises Kerala's religious diversity. Another curious exhibit is a statuette of St George and the Dragon (see below). St George in this depiction looks remarkably like Indian representations of Lord Krishna.

While the Indo-Portuguese Museum is a contemporary structure housing 'heritage' items, David Hall, which faces the Parade Ground, is a 'heritage' structure that houses contemporary objects.

Its external appearance (see above) reminded me of Dutch constructions that I saw when visiting the Cape Province in South Africa (see an example below).

David Hall is a Dutch construction. It contains a number of room used to house contemporary artworks: paintings and sculptures. The largest of these is used occasionally as a performance space. We were fortunate to have been able to attend a concert given by a jazz ensemble visiting from the Netherlands. The concert was so popular that some of the audience were forced to stand outside and peer through the windows (see below).

Fort Cochin is full of 'heritage' buildings, some of which date back several centuries to the times when the Portuguese and Dutch ran the area. By wandering slowly through the streets of Port Cochin, the visitor will gain plenty of views of these, some of which contain rooms that serve as accommodation for tourists and other visitors. One one of these buildings I spotted the sign of the Dutch East India Company (see below).

The road that connects the Fort Cochin Bus Stand with the Ernakulam ferry station, Calvathy Road, contains a number of  so-called 'heritage' buildings of varying degrees of interest. The slightly dilapidated Aspinwall's  building (see below) is used as one of the exhibition places during the Kochi-Muzhiri Biennale, which is next to be held from December 2014 until March 2015.

Aspinwall and Company Ltd has been involved with commercial activity along the Malabar Coast since 1867 when it was founded by an Englishman John Aspinwall. Almost opposite this building, there is a small shack in which I spotted a large  portrait of Che Guevara (see below), This and the many hammer and sickle signs that can be seen all over Cochin remind us that many people in Kerala have socialist leanings.

Greenix, further along the road, was described to us as being 'unmissable'. It describes itself as a 'cultural art centre promoting Kerala's varied art forms under a single roof '. It might well live up to its claim but the unfriendly and unhelpful behaviour of the staff on duty when we visited it put us off exploring it. The Pepper House, which is across the road from Greenix makes a pleasant contrast.  This old building contains a large, peaceful inner courtyard (see below), at one end of which there is a pleasant café.

The building, which is also used during the biennale, houses a privately owned magnificent library of art books and DVDs. The collection that is open daily for members of the public to use rivals many universitys' collections of books on contemporary (and older) art. 

Back in town, not far from the Fort Cochin Bus Station, stands the luxurious Brunton Boatyard Hotel. Its website describes the building that houses as being a  'recreated period building ' , the period being the 19th century. It is worth wandering around its extensive lobby in order to view the fine coollection of portraits (see above) and old maps (see below) that line its walls.

I hope that by now you are, dear reader, beginning to understand how we were able to spend so long in Fort Cochin without having to make excursions to undoubtedly fascinating stretches of the Backwaters or to nature reserves. Spend lots of time in Cochin, relax and make your own discoveries!

Now enjoy more writing by

Adam Yamey

by clicking

H E R E